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Trump Leaves North Korea with No Deal; Michael Cohen Alleges Trump Committed Crime While in Office. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired February 28, 2019 - 06:00   ET

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

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

[05:55:59] JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome to our viewers in the United States and all around the world. This is NEW DAY. It's Thursday, February 28, 6 a.m. here in New York. And what a night.

The breaking news, no deal. The second summit between President Trump and North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un abruptly ended without an agreement. The president has already left Hanoi, empty-handed.

President Trump says talks fell apart after North Korea insisted the U.S. lift all sanctions. The president also noted that he and Kim don't see eye-to-eye on what denuclearization actually details. President Trump said sometimes you just have to walk away from the negotiating table.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: The president was half a world away, but he was also tuned in to Michael Cohen's blistering testimony on Capitol Hill. President Trump is now calling his former lawyer and fixer a liar.

As for Cohen, in a dramatic flip on his former friend, he accuses President Trump of committing crimes while in office. And before. Cohen also revealed President Trump has reason to worry about a wide- ranging probe in New York.

And there's even more. Cohen is back on Capitol Hill in just a few hours for a third day of testimony, this time behind closed doors with the House Intelligence Committee.

So let's bring in CNN's Michelle Kosinski. She is live in Hanoi, Vietnam, for us with all of the breaking news.

What happened, Michelle?

MICHELLE KOSINSKI, CNN DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Alisyn.

Yes, less than 24 hours ago, we were thinking, "Well, this time something has to come out of this. How exciting. What will it be? What has each side finally agreed to give up, to come to some understanding?"

Well, now it turns out the surprise ending to this very Trumpian cliff hanger is nothing. These two could not even agree on a basic definition of what denuclearization even means. Could not even finish the summit and have lunch together. No signing ceremony, because there is nothing to sign.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KOSINSKI (voice-over): The president traveled 8,000 miles and comes away empty-handed. A Vietnam summit with Kim Jong-un quickly turned south, leaving the president with no distraction from Michael Cohen's damaging testimony.

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: They wanted the sanctions lifted in their entirety, and we couldn't do that.

It was a very productive two days, but sometimes you have to walk.

MIKE POMPEO, U.S. SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: I wish we could have gotten a little bit further, but I'm very optimistic.

KOSINSKI: There were good signs early. Kim Jong-un keeping denuclearization on the table.

KIM JONG-UN, LEADER OF NORTH KOREA (through translator): If I'm not willing to do that, I won't be here right now.

KOSINSKI: But after many pleasantries on camera, talks in private did not lead to any breakthrough. A working lunch and signing ceremony that had been on the schedule never happened.

An abrupt end to talk overnight, with the White House saying, "No agreement was reached at this time, but their respective teams look forward to meeting in the future."

The president did make one stunning headline, letting Kim off the hook for the death of American hostage Otto Warmbier.

TRUMP: Those prisons are rough. They're rough places. He tells me that he didn't know about it, and I will take him at his word.

KOSINSKI: The summit itself largely overshadowed by testimony back home.

MICHAEL COHEN, FORMER LAWYER FOR DONALD TRUMP: I know what Mr. Trump is. He is a racist. He is a con man, and he is a cheat.

KOSINSKI: Explosive allegations by Trump's long-time lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen. The president responding this morning, slamming the Democrats for holding the hearing while he was here at the summit.

TRUMP: And it was pretty shameful. He lied a lot, but it was very interesting, because he didn't lie about one thing. He said no collusion with the Russian hoax.

KOSINSKI: Cohen's testimony upstaged any kind of progress the self- described deal maker hoped to gain in his second summit with the North Korean leader. The U.S. was hoping for more concrete steps from Pyongyang towards a

deal that is verifiable and enforceable. Only time will tell now whether the future holds more of this --

TRUMP: Rocket Man is on a suicide mission for himself.

KOSINSKI: -- or this.

TRUMP: I'd much rather do it right than do it fast.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KOSINSKI: Trump's line walking away from this is that sometimes that's what you have to do. So the good things here, yes, he didn't give anything away, as many felt he did last time when he suddenly ended joint military exercises with South Korea.

Also that the two sides, according to Trump, are going to continue talking. That North Korea won't do any more missile or nuclear testing.

But as for the next summit, asked when the two leaders are going to meet again, Trump said, and I quote, "It might be soon. It might not be for a long time. I can't tell you. I would hope it would be soon, but it may not be for a long time" -- John and Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: Well, that answers that. Michelle, thank you very much for setting all of that up for us.

Joining us now from Vietnam we have Jim Sciutto, CNN's chief national security correspondent; Christiane Amanpour, CNN chief international anchor; and David Sanger, national security correspondent for "The New York Times."

Christiane, explain how we got here, because given the way that table was set for lunch, given the way the signing ceremony was already scheduled, it seems as though the U.S. side approached this with a lot more optimism than they should have.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Yes, and probably each side, I mean, as others have said and those who are much better at the negotiating and being in the room, it wouldn't have been the North Korean side that pulled the plug on this. They would have stayed for the lunch.

It was clearly the American side, President Trump made that clear in his press conference. And basically said that they were willing to give some things up, like perhaps mothballing again -- they did it once before in 2007 or 2008 -- the Yongbyon plutonium processing nuclear plant, but they weren't willing to give the other things that the U.S. was demanding, according to the president.

And moreover, for that -- for that give that they were willing, they wanted the entirety, again in the president's language, the entirety of the sanctions lifted. And that was something the U.S. was unwilling to do. So it's probably a good thing that the president hasn't said we're

going to meet again, we're going to do this and we're going to do that, because now the question will very, very heavily revolve around is it right for the leaders to continue meeting? And shouldn't this be where it should be?

And that is with the working groups, with the negotiators, with the experts to see what actually is possible and then see whether the two leaders can -- can actually come and sign something.

But for now, nothing. And as Michelle said, they came away with nothing except for a pledge to keep, as North Korea has said, to keep their moratorium or testing ballistic and nuclear devices. But they didn't even agree to freeze that, just that they wouldn't keep testing.

BERMAN: David Sanger, your reporting leading up to this meeting was that there were people close to the administration that were worried the president would give away too much. Democrats also worried the president would give away too much. That didn't happen. He didn't give away anything. This all fell apart. He walked away.

But does this show, David, the limits of personal diplomacy? He staked so much on his personal relationship with Kim.

DAVID SANGER, CNN POLITICAL AND NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: I certainly think it does, John. This was an unusual negotiation, because you were having the president basically reserve the toughest issues for him to sort out directly with Kim Jong-un. And that's risky.

And most presidents go into negotiations like this with everything but the last part sort of all wrapped up so that you don't have the embarrassment of going 8,000 miles and coming home empty-handed.

And in this case, I think the administration did something smart, which was that they said, "We're not simply going to ask the North Koreans to give up all of these declared facilities that we've been talking about for years inside the Yongbyon nuclear plant, the one major plant that's been a big issue since, really, the early to mid- 1980s.

Instead, they were also raising, as the president conceded in the news conference that he had, that they were talking about facilities that have never been declared that the United States has found outside of Yongbyon.

And I think over time, Secretary of State Pompeo and probably John Bolton, the national security adviser, persuaded the president that he'd be taking a huge risk of appearing naive if he simply walked away with a -- with a deal to close the one big known facility and allow the North Koreans to keep producing elsewhere.

CAMEROTA: Kim, we're just getting a bulletin that Japan's president, Shinzo Abe, supports President Trump's walking away from this deal. And, you know, you heard it. You, I'm sure, were there for this press

conference that was surprising, because obviously, the press corps was expecting to stay longer. And Sean Hannity, one of the president's biggest supporters and friends, was in the audience. And you could hear Sean Hannity beginning to spin this as how it would be a huge win for the president.

I don't know if we have time to play it, but basically, he suggested it was -- it was Reaganesque. So listen to this moment.

SANGER: Yes.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Look, we have a gentleman nobody's ever heard of. That was Sean Hannity at this time. What are you doing here, Sean Hannity? Should we let him to do a question? I don't know.

Yes, Sean, please?

SEAN HANNITY, FOX NEWS HOST: I work in radio and TV. The mike's on. Mr. President, thank you.

Mr. Secretary, good to see you.

Mr. President, if you could elaborate a little bit more. We have some history. President Reagan walked away in Reykjavik. A lot of condemnation at the time, and it ended up working out very well in the end for the United States.

Was this mostly your decision or -- and what message would you want to send Chairman Kim as he's listening to this press conference about the future and your relationship?

TRUMP: Well, Sean, I don't want to say it was my decision, because what purpose is that? I want to keep the relationship.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Jim, is that a good analogy?

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well, no. Listen, we're firmly in a spin zone. He was trying to relate it back to Reagan with Gorbachev, which if you look at the history, folks -- and Christiane -- Christiane and I were talking about this earlier, looked at that as a miscalculation by Reagan at the time.

But we were in a spin zone from the administration, Sean Hannity participating in that, from other allies, trying to put the best shine on this in what was a failure of both sides to come to an agreement, really, to make any progress from not just one, but two face-to-face, two remarkable face-to-face summits between the U.S. president and the North Korean leader.

[06:10:10] But the talks ended early. That's a fact. And they didn't come to a signing ceremony, and they didn't even reach any of the low- hanging fruit for agreement here, such as the exchange of liaison offices, which would be a pretty easy thing to do.

It happened in the mid-'90s. They didn't -- they didn't actually get there in the end, but that was an agreement that the U.S. and North Korea made before, but they couldn't get there.

And that, as far as the president is concerned, as you were saying, John and Alisyn, earlier, this raises a test about the president's personal diplomacy, about the art of the deal. You know, this imagination that the president can walk in the room and, based on that warm, loving relationship with Kim, just move the two sides closer together. It didn't work here.

Now, on the good side, as David was saying and we had similar reporting in recent days, the concern was would Trump, in seeking a headline, particularly in light of the Cohen testimony happening yesterday, give up too much? There were concerns from within his own administration. And that did not happen either.

But it does raise the question where do you go from here? Because if North Korea is taking a maximalist position here, they want all the sanctions raised for a small concession. And the U.S. wants something bigger are, and those two leaders couldn't bring them closer at this summit. What brings them closer to that agreement? It's not clear at this point.

BERMAN: I'd say another difference between Reykjavik is that that summit was with a nuclear power, the other super power in the world. This is with North Korea, which if anything, the president has elevated now its status by holding these talks.

And Christiane, the president also repeatedly tries to elevate Kim Jong-un or excuse him in some cases. One of the really baffling moments in this news conference was when he justified, somehow, North Korea's treatment of Kim -- of Otto Warmbier. He didn't justify North Korea's treatment of him, but he excused Kim Jong-un's role in it.

Christiane, he said, "I don't believe that Kim Jong-un knew anything about it. I believe him when he tells me he must not have known that Warmbier was being mistreated." That's really shocking to hear from a U.S. president -- Christiane.

AMANPOUR: It is, because you never say that about a dead American, a dead member of your own nation. You just don't. I mean, you have to stand on the side of that victim and that hostage and of what happened to him and on the side of the family. And you cannot put the burden of proof anywhere except where it belongs. And that is on the head of the leader of this country that wrongly imprisoned Warmbier, that gave him a kangaroo, you know, court trial, and then shoved him into prison. It was between that trial and -- and when he was brought out that something bad happened to him.

And officials, U.S. officials who were tasked with bringing him out say that there's no way that a leader, dictator like Kim Jong-un would not have known what was going on to an American national in his own prison system at that time. So it's very, very important how you actually talk about that. I can

see what the president is trying to do. He did it, as we've talked before, you know, with Putin in Helsinki. He's done it with MBS, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia regarding Khashoggi.

In this case, he's trying to preserve the personal relationship with Kim Jong-un, because he still believes that that is the key to unlocking this nuclear dilemma.

And most people now think the key is for them to keep a decent relationship, but to hand it to the experts and do the really hard slog of meticulous negotiations. It's happened before. The United States has reached a deal with North Korea before under the Clinton administration and to a lesser extent. but nonetheless importantly, under the George W. Bush administration. It is possible, but it takes time, and it does not start with the leaders.

SANGER: And neither one of those deals held.

BERMAN: Yes.

SANGER: And the 1994 agreement with President Clinton was probably the most instructive one for the Trump administration here, because in that case, the North Koreans agreed to stop producing nuclear material and then secretly went off on another pathway to go do it and got caught doing it.

And I think that President Trump recognized that he didn't want to be the president who got caught a second time with that, with a growing arsenal.

BERMAN: David Sanger, Christiane Amanpour, Jim Sciutto, thank you very, very much.

Other dramatic developments overnight in the aftermath of Michael Cohen's testimony on Capitol Hill, Cohen basically accusing the president being involved in crimes while he was in office and dangling the notion that there are other investigations of criminal activity the president might have been involved in that we don't even know about. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: All right. It truly was an historic day on Capitol Hill yesterday. What was it, seven hours?

CAMEROTA: 7:21.

BERMAN: Seven hours and 21 minutes.

CAMEROTA: Twenty-one minutes. I listened to most of it while driving around, and it was riveting.

BERMAN: Michael Cohen, before the House Oversight Committee, saying that President Trump, among other things, was involved with crimes while he was president of the United States. And during this seven hours, withstanding to some extent, withering

critiques from the Republicans on that committee. Want to bring in Jeff Zeleny, senior White House correspondent; Nia-Malika Henderson, CNN senior political reporter; Laura Coates, a former federal prosecutor; and Joe Lockhart, former Clinton White House press secretary.

[06:20:00] I don't think there's any question, Joe, that this was a moment. My question is, what happened in terms of who comes out looking better? Who comes out feeling good this morning?

JOE LOCKHART, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, I think that where it goes, and I think that's where Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez did such a nice job, is laying out an agenda for the House Oversight and Government Committee.

Now we'll have to bring in people from the Trump Organization, bring in people with the Foundation. You know, so what I think the Democrats are trying to do is stop short of saying, "We're going to impeach this president, but we're sure going to drag out every piece of information we can before we make that decision."

They don't have control of the Mueller report. That will come when it comes. And that will have a big impact.

But I think they want to spend time on lots of issues that are important to them, but this is -- this is a big one. So, you know, on who wins, who loses, you know, I think -- I think Michael Cohen did a good job of getting some things off his chest, raising issues about Trump. I think he did poorly when he tried to attack Trump on politics, because I don't think he has the standing or credibility to do that.

But I think, particularly among the freshmen Democrats, we saw some really good questioning and kind of laid out what the next four or five months will look like.

CAMEROTA: Laura, legal jeopardy. What changed yesterday?

LAURA COATES, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, what changed is that they don't have to wait for Mueller any longer to actually have some in roads into who they need to question next, about the scope of the investigations that are happening.

I mean, Michael Cohen alluded to the fact that, in the Southern District of New York, there's another investigation we may not know about. He's talked about Donald Trump Jr. as part of the investigation, I think, as well.

This is one of the inroads into figuring out what is the other hard place to Mueller's rock? And that is the other U.S. attorney's office; those are happening.

But one of the big headlines here, Alisyn, is the fact that for the first time, although everyone knew to read between the lines. Michael Cohen told us that Individual One, the person who directed him and coordinated with him to commit a felony offense and circumvent campaign finance laws or attempt to do so by these hush-money payments to Stormy Daniels, to Karen McDougal, he named the president of the United States.

And he said there was a check that was issued while he was the president, meaning there was an ongoing felony going on. So the idea of this happening is really, really big news.

BERMAN: Yes, I have a copy of that check with me in my hands right now.

CAMEROTA: You've been carrying it around.

BERMAN: I think it's fascinating. I really do.

CAMEROTA: Are you trying to cash that?

BERMAN: Look, Michael Cohen ran into problems with that. 'It's a $35,000 check. The date is August 1, 2017, written while Donald Trump was president of the United States.

This directly puts the president of the United States as a person involved with a crime. And, Nia, Chairman Cummings of the Oversight Committee was asked directly if he feels there are -- there is proof now of crimes. Listen to what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you believe that the president committed a crime while in office?

REP. ELIJAH CUMMINGS (D-MD), CHAIRMAN, OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE: Based on what -- looking at the checks and listening to Mr. Cohen, it appears that he did.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: A president committing a crime while in office seems like a big deal, Nia.

NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Being very careful with his words, right, weighing almost everything he was saying there, not rushing to have sort of a full-throated partisan attack on the president.

And so I think that coming from him certainly means something. You have in Michael Cohen somebody who was a pretty credible witness. You had Cummings saying, basically, that he threatened Cohen that, if he'd lie to Congress this go round, he'd nail him to the wall.

So there he was, offering sort of a potpourri of sort of eyewitness accounts of the president's behavior: him in the Oval Office or in the White House, essentially, talking about the Stormy Daniels, the president essentially saying, "Don't worry. Your money's coming," and laying out the sort of reason why they did it in the way they did, to make it, essentially, look like it was a retainer, agreement. That's why it was in $35,000 increments. Why was it 260,000 rather than 130,000? Because of the tax laws in New York.

So we'll see what happens going forward. I think there are obviously a lot of groundwork that was laid in this pretty extraordinary hearing. We'll see where it goes.

We'll see also. There's always been a really small group of folks in the House Democrats who, you know, use the "I" word, who talk about impeachment.

But from the leadership, you have typically heard sort of slow walking this, basically saying more information needs to be had. And so we'll see where that goes.

And you had, I think, Cohen really volunteering names. Right? That AOC exchange.

CAMEROTA: Yes.

[07:25:08] HENDERSON: He's rattling off all sorts of names of people that they should -- they should try to talk to and likely bring before Congress. So I think much more to come from this Congress in scrutinizing the president's behavior.

CAMEROTA: Jeff, why did the Republicans seem so uninterested in scrutinizing the president of the United States' behavior? I mean, do they -- I mean, they just didn't want to dive into whether there were hush-money payments made, whether there was a cover-up?

JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: I think it's what we've seen for the last couple of years. I mean, it's something that these really new friends of the president, Mark Meadows and others, say, "Look, I've talked to the president some 300 times."

Michael Cohen knows the president. He knew Donald J. Trump before he became president, all the other members of Congress have known him since.

So I think the most extraordinary thing -- and we cannot lose sight of this, and all the twists and turns of this -- is how extraordinary it was for Michael Cohen to be saying all of this.

He has adored President Trump. He has wanted his approval for all these years. And it was sad, in a way, and pathetic in another way, I think. But he was -- he was, in many respects, responsible for him running for president the first time back in 2011.

CAMEROTA: And he was sticking to that. When they were trying to scoff at him, "Oh, you're responsible."

ZELENY; But actually, Michael Cohen knew what he was talking about. He did put those polls in front of him. So these guys are new friends of the president.

But I think, overall, what I was struck by in this was the Republicans were not interested in anything other than discrediting him, which Michael Cohen, he is a liar. He said, "I have lied." But yesterday, I thought he was pretty credible, except the point

where he said he did not want to work in the White House. It was common knowledge among intimates of the president and others that he did want to work in the White House.

So I guess he said he said, but I'm thot sure why he didn't sort of say, "I wanted to, and the president didn't hire me." But he maintains he didn't want to.

BERMAN: You know, that subject, Alisyn and I were talking about, is the Republicans didn't scrutinize the claims against the president.

The flip side of that, which to me is equally, if not more, astounding, they didn't defend the president.

HENDERSON: Right.

BERMAN: They didn't say he didn't do this. They didn't say, "No, no, no. He didn't pay off the porn star. That never happened at all."

LOCKHART: It's funny. I was --

BERMAN: Go ahead.

HENDERSON: I was going to say, the one time they tried to over the racism issue, it completely backfired and was just kind of laughable moment where Mark Meadows brought up Lynn Patton and essentially to say how could the president be racist, because he hired this woman as a party planner. And she obviously works at HUD now.

So that was the one awkward instance. But you're right. There was never a point to sort of rehabilitate the president's image to say, you know, he would never do anything like this.

And I think part of the problem also, I mean, Michael Cohen was there, as Jeff said, basically saying, "I know Donald Trump. You don't know him like I know him. I have been in -- you know, traveled with him. I've sat in meetings with him. I know how he operates his office."

But a real missed opportunity for Democrats there who didn't really try to either pinpoint specific ways that they felt like that Cohen was lying about the president, nor did they really, I think, try to defend the president very well.

BERMAN: Joe.

LOCKHART: I was having some fun on Twitter yesterday by doing an hourly update, saying, "It's been an hour. No one's defended the president. It's been two hours." And I got bored, because it just never happened.

They -- and, you know, one of the things that struck me from the hearing was this is the same committee that, when it was run by Republicans, they brought in Diamond and Silk as witnesses.

CAMEROTA: Say no more. LOCKHART: Say no more. They ran this committee, you know, as a

political weapon to attack Democrats and protect the president. So the idea that somehow that this was a fake hearing yesterday and this was outrageous stretches --

ZELENY: Which the president called it this morning.

LOCKHART: Exactly, exactly.

ZELENY: He said it was a fake hearing. But he did like the fact that he did not say that there was Russian collusion.

CAMEROTA: You don't get it both ways.

ZELENY: He was impressed by that.

CAMEROTA: You can't be excited about something in your fake hearing.

ZELENY: The president in Vietnam was watching and tried to have it both ways.

CAMEROTA: Yes, sorry. Thank you all very much. Great to talk to you.

All right. So there were heated moments during the hearing and some that involved race, as we've just discussed a little bit. But we're going to play that for you and debate it, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)