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Trump Lashes Out at Rep. Ilhan Omar over Anti-Semitic Comments; White House Rejects Demands for Security Clearance Documents Noticeable Absence of Women Championship Teams at White House. Aired 2:30-3p ET

Aired March 05, 2019 - 14:30   ET

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

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[14:30:55] ERICA HILL, CNN ANCHOR: President Trump lashing out at Congresswoman Ilhan Omar. She's taking heat again for insinuating pro-Israel groups are pushing allegiances to a foreign country, which is why it's perceived as an anti-Semitic trope. Tomorrow, the White House is expected to vote on a resolution condemning anti-Semitism. It's a rebuke to Omar, even though it does not single her out. The president is condemning the Democratic Congresswoman on Twitter.

I want to bring in "Washington Post" columnist, Dana Milbank.

Dana, you have a column out titled, "Ilhan Omar is Using President Trump's Playbook." What do you mean by that?

DANA MILBANK, COLUMNIST, WASHINGTON POST: For -- American Muslims, above all, have been the victims of this questioning of their loyalty to the country. You've seen it when the president talked of having as a candidate the Muslim ban. You see people on the far right saying, well, they believe in Sharia Law and therefore can't serve in government. You see these anti-Sharia Laws popping up in most states and it's all about suggesting that there's divided loyalty there. I think the irony now is we have Congresswoman Omar doing the same thing in a sense to Jewish American by saying that, you know, if you are pro-Israel, you are -- you have allegiance to a foreign country. Now there's certainly nothing wrong with criticizing Israel, get behind blocking foreign aid to Israel, those sorts of things aren't perceived as anti-Semitic, it's the questioning of a motive just as she did earlier when she said support for Israel's all about the Benjamin's. It suggests there's something nefarious going on and that people who are supportive of Israel, that is, largely American Jews have divided loyalties and are not loyal to America.

HILL: It's interesting, though, the way you point it out, how both she and the president are using similar tactics, right? As we look at this on both sides of the aisle, there's a lot of finger pointing, there's a lot about what aboutism. You have the president calling out Congresswoman Omar but ignoring Senator King.

There's this tweet from Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, "If House leadership is creating a standard and committing to calling a resolution for every incident, whether it's the Congressional Black Caucus, then that's a clear way to address the issue we can all understand."

It's valid to ask why not if they're not. Is it going to be a resolution for every single comment that's made, and if so, will that be the standard? If not, can Congress actually come up with some sort of a uniform standard? What's your thinking on that?

MILBANK: First of all, the most important thing would be for the Congresswoman to see what people want her to see. It is true that there are different standards for the two parties. The same -- this weekend as this was going on, you had the president of the United States saying, certain foreign borne members of Congress, talking about Omar, hate America. So that's virtually identical. The things the president has done, even some anti-Semitic things talking about globalists, showing images of prominent American Jews as he does this, as he's gone after Muslims and others, this has largely been embraced or at least accepted by the Republican Party. I do think the Democrats are holding her to a higher standard than Republicans have been holding themselves. I think that's probably also true on me too and other things. The question is, should Democrats do the same thing Republicans have been doing, sort of circle the wagons and basically look the other way because they're a member of the tribe. I think that it's probably worthwhile to hold yourself to a higher standard.

[14:35:02] HILL: Dana Milbank, always good to talk to you. Thank you.

MILBANK: Thanks, Erica.

HILL: We are just getting word that House Democrats say the White House has rejected their demands for documents related to security clearances in the administration. Stand by, we'll have more on that.

More news on these investigations. The top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee hiring a former prosecutor who fought Russian organized crime.

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HILL: Breaking news. The Democrats' investigations into President Trump expanding. And we're learning now the White House has apparently rejected some demands from lawmakers.

Manu Raju is live on the Hill with the latest details on that for us -- Manu?

MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right. This is Elijah Cummings, the chairman of the House Oversight Committee, for the last two years as the ranking Democrat. He has been asking for information about the security clearance process at the White House raising concerns about what has happened for a number of White House officials, including Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law and senior adviser. When he became chairman of this committee in January, he demanded those answers by February 6th. He has not gotten any answers. In the aftermath of a "New York Times" report last week saying the president overruled concerns by intelligence officials and allowed Jared Kushner a security clearance to go forward, well, Cummings renewed his demand and saying he want answers by Monday.

[14:40:29] We have just gotten a response from the White House. The White House counsel sent a letter to Cummings rejecting the Democratic demands and not answering the rank of questions they have. They basically arguing that the committee is not pursuing this under legal grounds. They're not legally obligated to receive this information. They're also saying it's a violation of rules of the House to ask for such an expansive document request. One section here says, "We will not concede the executive's constitutional prerogatives or allow the committee to jeopardize the individual privacy rights of current and former executive branch employees." And it also refers to this as radically intrusive demand.

This puts the ball back in Cummings' court. Cummings put out a statement criticizing this move by the White House to essentially reject his line of questioning, not providing these documents. He says in this statement, "There's a key difference between a president who exercises his authority under the Constitution and a president who overrules career experts and his top advisers to benefit his family members and then conceals his actions from the American people."

So this fight intensifying. Expect Elijah Cummings to move forward potentially with subpoenas. And we'll see how the White House ultimately responds as this fight gets ratcheted up on Capitol Hill -- Erica?

HILL: Manu Raju, with the latest for us. Manu, thank you.

I want to bring back in Jennifer Rodgers.

Jennifer, as you look at all of this, maybe the next step is subpoenas. That would be a big step.

JENNIFER RODGERS, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: It is, and I don't think we're quite there yet. As the two sides say in their back and forth here, what usually happens is you reach what they call accommodations on these things. You negotiate. We'll give you this. OK, thank you. Now we want that and you go back and forth and eventually reach agreements and maybe neither side is completely happy, but honestly, if they issue a subpoena, it'll go to the courts and then, as we were discussing earlier, you're tied up for a long time.

HILL: I'm sensing a trend here. I mean that very seriously. This is what we seem to be moving towards in almost every circumstance, we'll just move into the courts where it's going to be tied up for months, years, who knows.

RODGERS: That's right. Ultimately, the Democrats just have to decide. And they can do this on each topic that comes before them, what are they willing to accept to be able to move along with things? If you do get bogged down in the courts, it's only less than two years until the next election, they don't have endless amounts of time to get through some of these things. We'll see some back and forth. They'll get some of what they want, not all of what they want and they'll have to make that decision whether to issue the subpoena. HILL: We can't forget, too, that representatives are launching a

criminal investigation into Jared Kushner's security clearance, so buckle up.

Thank you.

Up next, why don't we see women's championship teams being welcomed at the White House? We'll ask WNBA Coach Cheryl Reeve, who has paid a visit in the past.

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[14:48:10] HILL: It's become an American tradition, women, a major championship, go visit the president at the White House. It all began in the '80s. Presidents Obama, Bush and Clinton have all invited teams. President Trump also hosting a few celebrations, although there's one glaring difference for this administration. No WNBA sports teams.

Jeremy Diamond is at the White House. CNN White House reporter with more.

I know CNN has reached out to the White House for a little clarification here. What are they saying?

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: We have reached out to the White House to ask them why the president has not hosted a single women's championship team at the White House and so far they have not responded to our requests for comment. No comment, no explanation for why the president hasn't hosts these teams for a solo visit at the White House. That is what is in question here. The president has hosted some women's team in November of 2017, several women's college championship teams attended a broader gathering of college championship teams, men's and women's teams but not a single one of those championship teams has attended a White House event in solo fashion to be honored by the president which has been such a common occurrence. Since 1983, every women college championship basketball team has been invited to attend an event honoring them at the White House, except in this administration, the president has not done so-so far and same goes for the WNBA. You have seen championship teams attend events at the White House honoring them but the president so far has not invited the last two WNBA championship teams to attend any event at the White House.

Now why is this hitting such a nerve, Erica? One of the reasons, of course, is because of the president's history of comments about women. During the campaign and before then, we know the president has made several derogatory comments about women. There's the "Access Hollywood" remarks, of course, that everybody remembers and so obviously all of that is really bringing to the surface the question of why the president, despite hosting these men's basketball teams and NFL teams, NHL teams. All of these men's championship teams have attended the White House, have been honored and the president seems to enjoy the celebration, but so far as we're pointing out here, no women championship teams have attended the White House for solo visit to be honored by the president. [14:50:34] HILL: Jeremy Diamond, with the latest on that for us.

Jeremy, thank you.

So this, of course, raises the question, is gender playing a role here?

Let's ask our next guest, Cheryl Reeve, the coach of the four-time WNBA championships, the Minnesota Lynx.

Great to have you here.

So first of all, when your team won, did you receive an invitation from the White House?

CHERYL REEVE, COACH, MINNESOTA LYNX: Well, when we won our latest championship in 2017, the answer is no. We have grown accustomed to winning championships in 2011, '13 and '15. And following each of those championships the president phoned us. We would set up a phone call. Our players would gather around and accept the president's call. It was President Obama in each of those cases. He shared with us how he felt about our championship run and he invited us to come visit him at our next best chance and we did so in all three of those cases. And unfortunately, the fourth one in 2017, there was no such phone call or an invite to visit the White House.

HILL: Any congratulations whatsoever from the president on that championship?

REEVE: Unfortunately, no. As I said, it was -- we were accustomed to that and we were anxious for that call which didn't come and since the inception of our league in 1997, each championship has gotten an invite but it just hasn't happened for us or Seattle Storm.

HILL: Why do you think there was no invitation for you in 2017?

REEVE: Well, you know, unfortunately, I think it's hard not to believe that it has something to do with gender in that it seems that all the other invites have been male sports and obviously it's become, you know, a political lightning bolt that, you know, unfortunately athletes are being faced with this idea of, would we go to visit and the president in turns has this mindset that he just doesn't want to look bad by folks not going to visit him and that's unfair for our group. We would have been very thoughtful in our response to being able to go visit the White House and we would have enjoyed that for sure.

HILL: You say you would have been thoughtful in your response, you would have enjoyed it. If the president extended an invitation then or today, would you accept it?

REEVE: I think it's important in any case, even when President Obama made the invite, we gather our team and we talk about how it fit in our season. There's many factors of whether you would go make that visit because it happens during our season. In this case, certainly there would be more conversation that would have had to happen because there are some players that would have felt like they would not have wanted to align themselves with this president but I would have asked all of them to consider that this isn't just about this sitting president, this is about -- this is what championships do. They visit the White House. It would have been important for us to -- put that political part aside and make a bigger statement for girls and women around the country.

HILL: I would have to imagine even just based on what you said here that this did come up, because you're used to getting the phone call, there's no phone call, you're used to getting the invitation, there's no invitation. I imagine there was a discussion with your players even before you got to that point that if we get the invitation, what are we going to do? What were those discussions?

REEVE: If we had gotten the invitation, we would have huddled. When we won the championship, media wants to know, were we going to go to the White House, and our response was, were we going to be invited? There's no sense in answering a question until you have the invite. Many thought we would use it against the president. We would be invited then tell him no. That's not how this group would have handled that. It's much bigger than this president. I just felt like, you know, this group would have been very thoughtful as we had gotten together. It would have been their first time visiting the White House as a champion. I would have made sure that all the participants had a say in this and if somebody didn't want to go, they didn't have to go. As a group, we would have gone.

HILL: Cheryl, we appreciate your joining us today. Congratulations. If you do hear more from the White House, just on the heels of this, let us know. We would love to follow up with you. Thanks again.

REEVE: We will, thank you.

[14:55:00] HILL: I want to get to our breaking news. The White House, as we continue to follow this, rejecting one of the first requests from Democrats to provide documents in their investigations. Why subpoenas are next in this escalating standoff.

One of the names being targeted by Democrats, the president's long- time assistant, Rhona Graff, the woman known as the gatekeeper as Trump Tower. What could she bring investigators?

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[14:59:50] HILL: Hello. Thanks for joining me. I'm Erica Hill, in today for Brooke Baldwin.

We begin with new signs of defiance and pushback this hour from the Trump administration, those in response to growing congressional investigations into the president. First, Democrats getting their first outright rejection from the White House. They're asking for more information about security clearances, like that of Jared Kushner.