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Trump Meeting with Kim Jong-un as Cohen Prepares to Give Explosive Testimony in Washington. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired February 27, 2019 - 07:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: To deliver before Congress in public, under oath today. Michael Cohen is expected to say the president is a racist and a con man and a cheat. But he goes on, that Cohen's statement contains at least a half dozen new allegations, and each one of them could jeopardize the presidency.

[07:00:19] Perhaps the most damaging, Cohen claimed, was that Mr. Trump was told in advance that WikiLeaks was planning a massive dump of these e-mails that would be damaging to Hillary Clinton's campaign.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Cohen knows his credibility is in question, so he plans to bring documents to back up some of his claims, including a check he says that the president wrote him to reimburse him for hush-money payments to silence porn star Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal.

Cohen says that check was written while Donald Trump was president. This puts allegations of criminal activity directly in the Oval Office.

As Capitol Hill braces for this testimony today, President Trump is in Vietnam. Moments ago we saw this handshake with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un, but we know that Michael Cohen is on the president's mind.

The president tweeted about this this morning. He tweeted about the Cohen statement and faced questions about Michael Cohen, though he did not answer them as he was standing beside Kim Jong-un.

Want to bring in Abby Phillips, CNN White House correspondent; Joe Lockhart, White House press secretary for President Clinton; Jim Sciutto, CNN's chief national security correspondent, who's traveling with the president in Hanoi.

And guys, I want to break this down piece by piece. So let's try to have conversations we can about the discrete moments we're talking about, the bombshell, the biggest, I think, revelation in this, which we did not know before, is that Michael Cohen will testify before Congress today that he heard a conversation where President Trump and Roger Stone were talking about the massive WikiLeaks e-mail dump before it happened.

Let me just read you some of those statements right there: "A lot of people have asked me about whether Mr. Trump knew about the release of the hacked Democratic National Committee e-mails ahead of time. The answer is yes. In July of 2016, days before the Democratic convention, I was in Mr. Trump's office when his secretary announced that Roger Stone was on the phone. Mr. Trump -- Mr. Stone on the speaker phone, Mr. Stone told Mr. Trump that he had just gotten off the phone with Julian Assange and that Mr. Assange told Mr. Stone that within a couple of days, there would be a massive dump of e-mails that would damage Hillary Clinton's campaign. Mr. Trump responded by stating to the effect of 'wouldn't that be great'."

This is the first time, again, that someone out loud, under oath, will say that Donald Trump, when he was a candidate, knew the WikiLeaks dump was coming before it happened.

JOE LOCKHART, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: You know, listen, we've been smelling a lot of smoke over the last two years. I think we may have found the fire.

This is the first concrete evidence of someone standing up in public, not in a private grand jury, saying that Trump was aware of the efforts to coordinate activities between his campaign and the Russians in order to help turn the election in his favor. And that is stunning.

I mean, most of the times when we have these hearings, they get so overhyped that they don't deliver. This hearing, we were told for weeks, was not going to be about Russia. This hearing's going to be about Russia.

Finally, I think that probably the most serious question, if you're a Trump supporter is how do all these revelations match up with the written answers he gave Mueller? That because that's where the president has a credible peril.

Because we know from -- from Cohen in another section that the president and his lawyers were looking at his testimony. And so, if the president's lawyers didn't know they were either encouraging him to lie and suborning perjury or they don't know what the truth was. So we're going to have to see those answers.

CAMEROTA: Yes. I mean, obviously, it will be up to the American public what they want to believe and what they want to process today.

But I can tell you that there's one part of this that rings quite true to me. I've been in the president's office where somebody calls and he puts them on speaker phone so that I can hear. This is one of his go-to moves. And so the idea that Michael Cohen would be in there when Roger Stone calls and makes this announcement is quite plausible, as to my ear.

Jeffrey Toobin, you've looked through these 20 pages of blockbuster testimony that we are previewing this morning. What jumps out at you?

JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN CHIEF LEGAL ANALYST: Well, as I was reading it, I was trying to divide it into allegations that are sort of morally reprehensible, the racist comments about African-Americans, things like that. And the legally imperiling parts of it. And there are plenty of both.

I mean, there are any number of crimes, actual crimes, which he implicates the president in.

Among them are bank fraud. I mean, he talks about false financial statements that were submitted to Deutsche Bank to get loans. That is classic bank fraud. Again, if it's true.

[07:05:07] There's an extraordinary story in here -- I haven't heard whether you've talked about it yet -- involving a fraud involving his foundation, where he uses a straw donor to buy a portrait of him and then reimburses the donor. Another, you know, if true, an outright fraud.

And, of course, perhaps the most important part of it, which is the Roger Stone conversation about WikiLeaks, which implicates him in the entire collusion issue. Now, I --

CAMEROTA: Hold on, Jeffrey.

BERMAN: Stand by one moment here, because first to CNN, we have a new piece of evidence that Michael Cohen promised in this statement he would deliver. This is the check that Michael Cohen will provide to Congress today, again, under oath, that he says and shows on this check is from Donald J. Trump, 725 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York.

It is dated August 1, 2017. He was president of the United States when he wrote this, and it is signed with the president's signature on the bottom for $35,000. Cohen says this was the reimbursement, part of the reimbursement for the payments to Stormy Daniels. This is evidence that Michael Cohen is providing, Jeffrey. What does it mean?

TOOBIN: Well, this -- I mean, just to put it in context for people, Michael Cohen has pleaded guilty to facilitating an unlawful campaign contribution by giving money to Stormy Daniels for her silence.

That is one of -- one of the crimes to which he pleaded guilty for. This is money that went from this straw company to Stormy Daniels. This check, according to -- according to Cohen, is a reimbursement for the money that he went to -- that went to Stormy Daniels.

So if it is what Cohen says it is, if that check is the reimbursement, obviously, we don't see it on the face of the check. It is a participation in a criminal conspiracy.

BERMAN: While he's president, Jeffrey.

TOOBIN: While he's president, August --

BERMAN: August 1, 2017.

CAMEROTA: Yes.

TOOBIN: Yes, I mean, that's -- I mean, it's just -- and, again, I think we always need to put in this important caveat, is that if the surrounding circumstances are as Cohen describes them. This is a part of a criminal conspiracy to violate the campaign finance law.

BERMAN: Can I just say one more thing? It's not just Michael Cohen who says this, because the payments are part of the Southern District of New York, the case that Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to.

The Southern District of New York has convicted Michael Cohen for making these payments. And part of that conviction was the scheme to reimburse Michael Cohen after the fact.

So it's not just Cohen who says this is a crime. It's the Southern District that says it's a crime, and this evidence in that crime.

TOOBIN: Correct. But, again, I mean, I think we need to be cautious here. The check itself doesn't say anything.

Now, there could be that the president's lawyers will come forward and say, "No, no, no, this check has nothing to do with the payments to Stormy Daniels. This was a separate check, you know, involving a separate payment to Michael Cohen for something --"

CAMEROTA: Right.

TOOBIN: "-- entirely unrelated." I mean, that -- we need to be --

CAMEROTA: Yes.

TOOBIN: -- aware that that explanation may exist.

CAMEROTA: That's a great point.

TOOBIN: And see what else -- and see what other surrounding circumstances come to refute that or support that theory.

CAMEROTA: Yes.

TOOBIN: But it is, on the surface, important corroboration of what Michael Cohen says about the whole Stormy Daniels situation.

CAMEROTA: I hear you, Jeffrey. It would be really helpful if the memo said, "Hush-money payment for stripper." I'm sorry, porn star.

Here's the dinner right now that the president and Kim Jong-un of North Korea are having. Let's listen.

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Everybody having a good time?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, sir.

TRUMP: You are?

CAMEROTA: Yes, sir.

TRUMP: One of the great -- in the world. They make us look very good, obviously.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'll work on that.

TRUMP: One of the great photographers there.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You had an exchange. Very interesting dialogue.

KIM JONG-UN, LEADER OF NORTH KOREA (through translator): We had a very interesting dialogue.

TRUMP: You could have heard that dialogue, what he would pay for that dialogue. It was good.

So we're going to have a very busy day tomorrow, and we'll probably have a pretty quick dinner. And a lot of things are going to be solved, I hope. And I think it will lead to wonderful -- it will lead to, really, a wonderful situation, long-term. And our relationship is a very special relationship.

Thank you very much, everybody. Thank you. We'll see you tomorrow.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you, sir.

TRUMP: Send me some of them, and I'll send them to the chairman.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hey, press, let's go ahead and --

TRUMP: Bye, everyone.

CAMEROTA: OK, let's talk about what we just saw there. That was the president and Kim Jong-un having their dinner. The president seemed to be in very good spirits. He was experiencing lots of jocularity there.

Joe, he was saying, "Is everybody having a good time? I certainly hope so. There's a great photographer here." He said, "I think that" -- he was touching Kim Jong-un. He said, "I think this is going to lead to wonderful things. We have a great relationship."

LOCKHART: Yes, I mean, this is stunning. And, you know, and everything else that's going on, we shouldn't lose this.

He used the word "special relationship." Remember, our oldest ally in the world, the U.K., talks about a special relationship. He is sitting next to a murderous thug, a guy could who killed his half- brother, a guy who starves had country, a guy who threatens to kill millions of South Koreans and points nuclear weapons at them.

And he is treating him like he's a personal friend. It's -- again, we'll lose this, because Michael Cohen will sort of pave the news cycle. But it is absolutely stunning that he would sit there and give this credibility to that man.

BERMAN: And Jeffrey Toobin, I have to say it's a remarkable split screen. A stunning split screen. He asks, "Is everyone having having fun" to that table, including Kim Jong-un, when Michael Cohen is about to testify in the United States. TOOBIN: No, I mean, my reaction was very similar to Joe's, that --

that, you know, when you talk about people who have killed more people than, you know, who are responsible for the deaths of more people than -- there are very few competitors on the face of the earth.

Now, we all recognize presidents have to deal with difficult foreign leaders, but the embrace of Kim Jong-un, something who -- you know, someone who is such a morally reprehensible human being, the joyful embrace of him is something that, you know, I think all Americans and all people around the world are going to have to evaluate on its own -- you know, for themselves.

CAMEROTA: Abby, the president just said, "Good night, everybody." After that was the end of, I think, the photo op. So he said, "See you tomorrow."

But obviously, we will bring everybody breaking news from Vietnam as it happens. But back to this check that we are first on CNN to have in our hands. And this is what the president gave to Michael Cohen. As we pointed out, it does not, sadly, have a memo that says, "Hush- money payment to porn star." That would be helpful. So we're going to -- Michael Cohen says that this is reimbursement for the hush-money payment. This is dated August 1, 2017.

You'll remember, of course, the Air Force One moment where the president was asked by reporters about if he knew anything about this, and I think the date of that was April 5, 2018.

So, let's just remind people what the president said at that moment, and then you can respond.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: President, do you know about the $130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels?

TRUMP: No. No.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Then why did Michael -- why did Michael Cohen make this, if there was no truth to her allegations?

TRUMP: Well, you'll have to ask Michael Cohen. Michael's my -- an attorney, and you'll have to ask Michael Cohen.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you know where he got the money to make that payment?

TRUMP: I don't know, no.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: OK. So they asked, "Do you know where he got the money to make that payment?"

Here is what Michael Cohen, on your screen, says is the reimbursement that he says he got in increments. So you're seeing a portion of that 35,000, and obviously, people are going to have to decide if they believed the president then or Michael Cohen today under oath. - Abby.

PHILLIP: Absolutely. It seems clear, though, Alisyn, that the president's answer to that first question, which was "Did you know that Michael Cohen was making those payments to Stormy Daniels," all the evidence suggests that the president did know.

Michael Cohen's alleging this $35,000 check is just one of several payments that the president gave him in order to reimburse him for that amount. But it seems clear that the basic question here: did the president know? Yes, did he know.

And beyond that, you know, Michael Cohen was the president's personal attorney. We used a shorthand to talk to him about that, talk about him in that way.

But one of the things that the prosecutors have been making clear in this case is that Michael Cohen did not to do that much legal work for President Trump. He was not really sort of doing lawyerly stuff for the president. He was the president's fixer. He was resolving sort of personal problems for the president.

According to Michael Cohen, he was sending threatening letters to the college board and to his high school and his college talking about not releasing the president's transcripts.

[07:15:18] So it's not like the president was paying him $35,000 to do actual legal work. The president was paying him to fix problems for him. This was obviously a major problem for him.

And what's extraordinary about all of this is also that President Trump is in a position where, even if they're arguing that he didn't commit any crimes here, and I think that they're going to rightfully make that argument, there is an element of this in which the president is constantly faced with some serious moral dilemmas and does not ever seem to ever put the brakes on it.

I think that's the other big problem for him from a communications perspective, from a public relations perspective, from the perspective of the American people looking at this situation.

This is the president of the United States time and time again never saying, "No, don't do that. That's wrong. That may be illegal."

In fact, you see the president skirting the line in a lot of cases of serious, according -- you know, based on what Jeffrey is saying here, he's the lawyer, but potentially serious crimes here. It's -- it's an ethical problem that the president has faced repeatedly.

BERMAN: When Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to campaign finance crimes, the Southern District says he was directed to commit those crimes by Individual One, who we now know is the president of the United States. We have this check that was written to Michael Cohen while he was president of the United States, August 1, 2017. We have the president denying that he knew anything about it.

And Michael Cohen puts more meat on this, Jeffrey Toobin. It's not just the check. Michael Cohen will testify today that "Mr. Trump directed me to use my own personal funds from a home equity line of credit to avoid any money being traced back to him that could negatively impact his campaign."

That indicates, Michael Cohen says, the president had knowledge that this was a campaign-related issue.

Michael Cohen also testifies that he had a conversation in the Oval Office in February of 2017 about these payments that were then FedExed to Michael Cohen -- Jeffrey.

TOOBIN: I mean, also it's just worth stepping back and thinking about the whole issue of the payments to Stormy Daniels. Who benefited from the payments to Stormy Daniels? It wasn't Michael Cohen. Michael Cohen wasn't running for president. Michael Cohen didn't have a relationship with Stormy Daniels.

Michael Cohen was a facilitator. He was the one who got the money to Stormy Daniels. That, you know, as -- as, you know, the four words that seem to define the Trump presidency for me are, you know, shocking but not surprising.

All of this makes perfect sense. The story has an internal logic that this was the eve of the election. This was a very close election. This would have been deeply embarrassing to candidate Donald Trump, had it come out. So he paid the money to make the problem go away, to bury the problem for the current -- for the period leading up to the election.

How did he do it? He used Michael Cohen. And he did it through the subterfuge of Cohen laying out the money in the first place. But why would Michael Cohen do that unless Trump told him to do it? It just doesn't make any sense otherwise.

CAMEROTA: So Jeffrey, do you see new legal jeopardy for President Trump in these 20 pages of what Michael Cohen is going to testify to in a couple of hours?

TOOBIN: Absolutely. There are a panoply of legal problems that arise from -- from this opening statement. And we should just say this is just the opening statement. Presumably, he will have other things to say.

But there are a panoply of legal problems. They are not proof of crimes. I want to -- you know, I want to be sure to say that. This doesn't prove that Donald Trump is a criminal.

However, issues of campaign finance law, bank fraud, crimes involving the use of his foundation. He is implicated in all of that here.

Now, it is not proof in and of itself, but there are a wide variety of legal problems raised here.

And also, the other issue that we don't know about is what did the president say in his sworn statements to Mueller about these issues? Because undoubtedly, many of these issues are relevant to the questions that Mueller asked. And does Cohen contradict those sworn statements, which would raise the issue of perjury?

So there are a lot of issues raised, but I don't want to give the impression that somehow Donald Trump is now guilty of crimes simply because of what Michael Cohen says.

BERMAN: And Jim Sciutto, one point here to what Jeffrey is saying, the panoply of legal issues that are raised here, some of them have to do with the special counsel investigation. But many of them don't. Many of them are outside the purview of the special counsel's investigating.

[07:20:12] So whether or not the special counsel and the report that comes out in the next few weeks names the president or implicates the president in that.

That doesn't disprove the allegations being made by Michael Cohen when it gets to the charity, when it gets to necessarily, hush-money payments, when it gets to other potential illegalities.

SCIUTTO: And to be clear, the testimony that Cohen's going to make today relates to the central question of the special counsel's investigation. Relates right to the question: Did the Trump campaign cooperate with, have communication with collusion, the word thrown around but really have a conspiracy with Russia as it was interfering in the election?

As Jeffrey said on the hush-money payments, et cetera, you don't have proof of that. But he is providing testimony to that question and on two central issues.

One, were they in contact with WikiLeaks, members of the Trump campaign, his advisers? Did they get forewarning of WikiLeaks releases?

On that issue, Stone -- Cohen, rather, says he's going to testify that Stone did have direct contact with Julian Assange of WikiLeaks in the midst of this and got forewarning of releases and communicated those to the president.

That does make a liar of the president, because it's our understanding that he testified to the special counsel that Stone did not give him any forewarning.

But then also on the issue of the Trump Tower meeting in June 2016, Cohen at least saying that Donald Trump Jr. seemed, in Cohen's telling of it as he was in the room, seemed to give his president foreknowledge of that meeting, as well. That the president's reaction was "great."

So there's a lot in this testimony today, and as Joe noted earlier, our understand thing was that he was not going to be able to do go able to go there to the Russia strands of this investigation in this testimony, but apparently, he is, and to two key elements of that investigation. And that's significant.

Yes, the president will attack his credibility, but Roger [SIC] -- but Robert Mueller has enormous resources to test those accounts. It occurred to me, as he was describing this phone call on speaker phone, where Roger Stone tells him that these WikiLeaks releases are coming, his secretary, Donald Trump's secretary, was there, put the call through. She's been interviewed by the special counsel.

There are other witness who's would have been asked questions about this and could have corroborated or knocked it down, could have corroborated this. But keep that in mind.

And Robert Mueller has tremendous resources to get electronic records of any communications between Stone and Assange.

So you have the hush money side of this, but you have central questions of the special counsel's investigation as it relates to Russia that Michael Cohen is going to be providing information under oath on today.

CAMEROTA: I mean, I think Allen Weisselberg, the CFO of the Trump Organization has been cooperating, we've been told, and has immunity.

Joe, go.

LOCKHART: Yes. I think there's one other point. Most of the testimony this morning, at least the prepared testimony, is about things that the Southern District is looking into.

The Southern District is not stopping him from testifying today. Which must mean -- and Jeffrey will have a better perspective on this than me -- that they're pretty confident that they've gathered what they need to gather on these issues. Because otherwise, they would step in and say, not yet. So I think that's a pretty significant point.

BERMAN: Jeffrey, is Joe right?

TOOBIN: I think that's -- that's probably true that, I mean, look, he has been deep, you know, extensively debriefed by both the Southern District and the Mueller investigation. And prosecutors are always sensitive to the issue of repeating a story over and over again, because you just open yourself up to the possibility, if you testify down the line that you will have contradicted yourself.

But I think prosecutors also understand there is a public interest here that is separate from their criminal prosecution. The case against Cohen is over. So it's not like there's any jeopardy to the case against him. And there is a public interest, I think prosecutors recognize, in the public hearing this story.

I mean, it is not just about the criminal investigation. This is about a serious matter involving the fitness of the president of the United States, and the public has an interest in hearing that, too.

If I can just add one point to something.

CAMEROTA: Quick. TOOBIN: Jim was saying about corroboration. Every time you hear

about any sort of third party, that can be used to to corroborate or what Cohen -- refute what Cohen said.

FederalExpress, for example, he said the checks were FederalExpressed to him. FederalExpress has records of all of its deliveries. You want to see if there were deliveries from Trump to Cohen. All of that can be sought if you want to try to build a case here.

[07:15:08] BERMAN: All right. As Jeffrey Toobin said, a panoply of new legal issues. And Jeffrey, for the president in this 20-page document we have our hands on this morning.

Much more of CNN's special live breaking coverage. Michael Cohen testifying before Congress very shortly. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: Breaking news from Hanoi on White House efforts to try to limit the media's availability to cover the North Korean summit.

Jim Sciutto, I want to bring you back to the discussion. You're in Hanoi right now. My understanding is after reporters shouted questions at the initial handshake between President Trump and Kim Jong-un, the White House tried to pull reporters out of the dinner to keep fewer people from being able to ask these questions. What's going on here?

SCIUTTO: That's exactly right and in fact, John, tried to pull all reporters, print reporters other than cameramen, radio, tried to pull all of them to after those shouted questions. A significant standup here -- standoff, rather, here about access to the significant summit.

Print reporters were told summarily right before the dinner that there would be no reporters allowed inside and that following questions --

[07:30:00]