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New Day

Beto O'Rourke Raises Record-Breaking $6.1 Million in First Day of Campaign; Trump Expresses Ire Over Multiple Topics Via Tweet, Ignores Massacre of Muslims; Trump Again Attacks Late Sen. McCain Over Russia Probe. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired March 18, 2019 - 07:00   ET

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

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you see today white nationalism as a rising threat around the world?

[07:00:11] DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I don't really.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He goes out of his way to avoid condemning violence that is ascending in white nationalism.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm the president's representative. We're doing everything we can.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The leader of the free world is choosing to focus not on tragedies but instead, what a late senator may or may not have done.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: New Zealand gun laws have some big loopholes. Those gaps have enabled the gunman to do what he did.

JACINTA ARDERN, NEW ZEALAND PRIME MINISTER: We have taken 72 hours. I want to move as quickly as we can.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We believe that there was only one attacker responsible.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: For such a small community, I just don't understand why someone would hurt us like this.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY with Alisyn Camerota and John Berman.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Good morning and welcome to your NEW DAY. Alisyn is off. Erica Hill joins me. And we have breaking political news, breaking Beto O'Rourke news.

The former Texas congressman jumped into the presidential race last week. One of the big questions was would he generate the kind of grassroots national support that he did for his Senate race? Could he raise the kind of money he did then?

Well, we have an answer. In the first 24 hours, the O'Rourke campaign says it raised just over $6.1 million in online contributions. That is more than any other candidate did their first day this year, slightly edging Senator Bernie Sanders.

HILL: The contributions, we're told, coming from every state and U.S. territory. News of the historic windfall comes after O'Rourke's weekend kickoff that had him barnstorming across Iowa. He now has plans to travel to other key primary states, as one does.

CNN's M.J. Lee is live in Jackson, Mississippi, with more on these breaking details for us.

M.J., good morning.

M.J. LEE, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, guys.

Beto O'Rourke announcing his first fundraising numbers. These numbers were so highly anticipated and just bears repeating: $6.1 million in just the first 24 hours since he announced his presidential campaign.

His campaign says that these are online contributions that came in from every state across the country. And in a statement, Beto O'Rourke says this morning that this is proof that a grassroots presidential campaign is possible. He says that he is not going to take money from a political PAC, from corporations, and from lobbyists.

And just to give you a sense of how this number actually compares to some of the other numbers that we have seen from the other announced Democratic candidates, remember, it was Bernie Sanders when he shocked a lot of people by announcing that, in his first 24 hours, his campaign had raised 5.9 million. So now Beto O'Rourke topping that number, again, with his $6.1 million haul.

And then Kamala Harris, we have a number from her when back, when she announced her presidential campaign. That number was 1.5 million.

So now we have Beto O'Rourke beating both of these candidates. And keep in mind, of course, that for a lot of the other Democratic candidates, we actually don't have their fundraising numbers.

But, again, just goes to show Beto O'Rourke was somebody who broke fundraising numbers in his Texas Senate run. It appears that he might be doing the same as a presidential candidate now, as well.

BERMAN: All right. M.J. Lee, stick around with us.

We want to bring in CNN political correspondent Arlette Saenz.

Arlette, I know the Beto O'Rourke people wanted to hit 6 million, why? Because that's what Bernie Sanders got. The fact that they got 6 point one, to me, is sort of beyond coincidental. You know, I think we will see these final numbers when all the campaigns release them in April. But it was an important target for them, wasn't it? ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, John, it definitely

was. And part of the reason is there's been a lot of questions about whether Beto O'Rourke could recreate the recipe that he had down in Texas, where he drew in a lot of money, surprisingly, for his Texas Senate race.

But I have to tell you one person who is likely watching these numbers very, very closely is former vice president, Joe Biden. You know, he's thinking about entering this 2020 race, potentially, in the coming few weeks. And both Beto O'Rourke and Bernie Sanders have these massive grassroots fundraising lists that Joe Biden just doesn't necessarily have himself.

So this is something that him and his team are probably watching pretty closely this morning as they kind of map out how the former vice president is going to fit into all of this, including when it comes to fundraising.

HILL: He did give us perhaps, maybe it was a little slip by accident, but just take a listen to what Joe Biden had to say over the weekend about his record.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN (D), FORMER VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I have the most progressive record of anybody running for the -- if anybody who would run.

I didn't mean --

Of anybody who would run.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[07:05:04] HILL: I mean, who knows how intentional that was. Was it really just a --

BERMAN: Way.

HILL: Oops.

BERMAN: Way intentional.

HILL: "Guys, I didn't mean to say it that way. Did I say it that way?"

M.J., it's also -- it's also interesting, too. He points to what he considers the most progressive record of -- of any potential Democratic candidate in 2020. That's interesting, too, M.J.

LEE: Absolutely. And just so interesting that, obviously, running is what is at the forefront of former Vice President Joe Biden's mind so much that he allowed this to sort of slip in, whether it was intentional or not.

But the -- the reality is that the field is getting very, very big. And if you look at the polling that we have had over the last couple of months, Joe Biden has consistently been the front runner. He has polled in the 30s. That number has not gone up -- up or down very much. But unless he gets in, we don't expect that number to suddenly go up, because you actually have to campaign to bring those numbers up.

And I think the big question has always been, when Joe Biden enters the race, if he does, is the 30 percent mark going to be the beginning point for him, or is that going to be sort of the roof, right?

And when he is looking at the field, as Arlette was saying, there are these other candidates who are getting a strong start, whether it is through the fundraising, like Beto O'Rourke, like Bernie Sanders; whether it is like releasing very comprehensive policy platforms, Biden is sitting this one out for now.

BERMAN: Yes.

LEE: And I think he has to be watching the rest of the field very, very closely.

SAENZ: Arlette, you know the answer to this better than I do. Does Joe Biden even have a national fundraising list, or that was an Obama list mostly, when he was No. 2 on that ticket.

Does he have a grassroots organization beyond Delaware? Because when he ran for president himself in '88 and 2008, whatever organization he had didn't go too far.

SAENZ: That's something that they're definitely working on right now. He doesn't have the list to the extent that Beto O'Rourke or Bernie Sanders does.

But they are keenly aware that he is going to have to build some type of list as he tries to bring in the small-dollar grassroots donation level.

But also, he's going to have to do a lot of that old-school-style fundraising and holding fundraisers and talking with donors. That's going to be something that they're going to have to craft a strategy as they try to counterbalance -- as one person told me, he may be 75 percent regular normal fundraising versus 25 percent grassroots. So they're going to have to balance that as you see other people post these high numbers.

HILL: And M.J., we should point out, you of course, are there in Mississippi with Elizabeth Warren. We will be hearing more from her tonight.

But as we watch all these other candidates try to grab a little bit more of the attention, what are we hearing from her most recently?

LEE: Well, Warren has been one of the candidates, as I mentioned before, who has really been putting out a robust policy platform, whether it is taxing the rich. We saw her proposal on breaking up the big tech companies. And I think this town hall is going to play to those strengths in some ways.

When you have seen her campaigning in places like Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina, at every single event, she will take questions from voters. And that is what we expect to see here tonight at CNN's town hall.

And she really sort of thrives on that. And clearly, personally enjoys getting these very wonky policy-driven questions.

But I should note, Warren is one of the candidates who has not actually announced her fundraising numbers. And that has raised some questions about how robust her fundraising has been.

If you look at the Act Blue numbers that have come out, just based on that, we can guess that she raised around $300,000 on the first day that she announced her exploratory campaign on New Year's Eve. She's going for the small-dollar supporters. She's doing it the grassroots way.

But these other guys now -- Beto O'Rourke, Bernie Sanders -- they're doing the same strategy, and they are raising a ton of money. So can she compete with some of these other candidates in the field, even as she is saying what she is most focused on are the policy ideas?

BERMAN: Right. M.J. Lee for us in Jackson, Mississippi. Arlette Saenz for us in Washington.

Again, breaking news. Beto O'Rourke announces a huge $6.1 million fundraising haul in one day after he entered the campaign. That is the highest amount to date.

The other news: you just saw M.J. down in Jackson, Mississippi. A programming note. The CNN presidential town hall with Elizabeth Warren, airs tonight at 9 p.m. Eastern. Jake Tapper hosts that live from Jackson.

HILL: President Trump was outraged about a lot. How do we know? There was a whole lot of tweeting going on all weekend long.

The president attacking, again, the late Senator John McCain, lashing out at "SNL." We should point out it was a rerun of "SNL." Defending a FOX News host who has been suspended for anti-Muslim comments. Nothing, though, about the massacre of 50 Muslims in New Zealand.

[07:10:05] BERMAN: All right. Joining us now is Jeffrey Toobin, CNN chief legal analyst; David Gregory, CNN political analyst; and Margaret Talev, CNN political analyst and senior White House correspondent for Bloomberg News.

Can we throw up that full screen again? Can we -- so we can see the volume that the president spewed out over the weekend?

And David Gregory, I've been reading all the analysis from critics and also just political watchers over the weekend. There seem to be three strains of analysis here.

You know, No. 1, he's trying to distract from the Mueller report, which could be coming out this week.

No. 2, Maggie Haberman noted this, that maybe he's just trying to startle us and continue to shatter the political norms that we've seen.

No. 3, George Conway and others, Bill Kristol, say this is an example of the president's mental capacity, and he's losing control.

And I suppose there's a fourth which is that, "Oh, this is just the way he is." I'm not sure of those four what might be the most disturbing. And the last might be.

DAVID GREGORY, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Right. Because there's -- there should be no willingness to accept a president who behaves this way as just kind of his normal behavior.

And I think it's far more intentional than that. I think that we what we see, just that -- what we put on the screen is indicative of something the president willfully has done since he became president to overwhelm the system, to overwhelm the news media, to start so many different discussions in different directions that there is this kind of overcapacity in the system.

He's also not interested, really, in being a president of the entire country. He's interested in a very narrow argument about trashing liberals and political correctness. Not in lifting up the values of the country and, really, the values of the presidency. That's something you see time and time again.

So he just likes to position himself as a street fighter, kind of a Twitter warrior, frankly. And that's how he plays it, day after day after day, for distraction and for starting different kinds of discussions that he thinks will appeal to his supporters.

HILL: The remarkable part about that, you know, this sort of being the street fight that the president wants to be, is as John has pointed out multiple times this morning, is he's picking fights with the late senator. He's picking fights with a rerun of "SNL."

I mean, he's picking these battles that, you know, to your point, David, there's -- there's no rhyme or reason, and they clearly don't make sense. And so I guess it's sending us in all these directions.

The other thing that was remarkable is hearing from those who speak for him, since we're only getting the president, really, in tweets. Here is what Mick Mulvaney had to say over the weekend. Felt compelled to say. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICK MULVANEY, WHITE HOUSE CHIEF OF STAFF: You've seen the president stand up for religious liberties, individual liberties. The president is not a white supremacist. I'm not sure how many times we have to say that.

(END VIDEO CLIP) HILL: Margaret, do you know, is that a discussion at all in the White House, how many times do they have to say it? And if at some point, if it's said enough, is there a sense that that's what they hope the reality will be, that it will change the conversation and the viewpoint?

MARGARET TALEV, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes, I do think, Erica, from a messaging perspective, when the chief of staff has to go out and do that, that's not the place where you want to be.

But there's a recognition at the staff level that the president's tweets and messaging are going to drive a certain amount of criticism. And by contrast, we'll see today former President George W. Bush in Dallas, hosting a naturalization ceremony for, I think, about 51 newly-minted U.S. citizens. He's going to talk about the importance of immigration in U.S. culture.

So for President Trump, he doesn't -- part of this, I think, is also him not -- not wanting to be -- not thinking that it is his role to be either policeman for the world or spokesman for the world on these kind of unifying messages. I think if this were happening, God forbid, in the United States, that we might see a lot more vocal pushback from Republicans.

But I think it's something that Republicans, as well as Democrats, are uncomfortable with, which is part of why you see the messaging from the White House trying to say that the criticism's undue, that's not what he's really doing.

JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN CHIEF LEGAL ANALYST: Reading the tweets this weekend, I thought of George W. Bush after 9/11 going to a mosque and saying, "We are not at war with Islam." Just, you know, reaching out and trying to, you know, define both himself and the United States as a country that welcomes people of all religions. That is completely foreign to Donald Trump.

It really is worth reading all of these tweets together. You know, we should give our audience a reading assignment of reading these tweets, just to see the insight into who Donald Trump is. Because these are unmediated, no, you know, staffers involved versions of what Donald Trump is thinking. And it is a remarkable tableau.

BERMAN: It isn't expressing concern about the rise of white nationalism. It's personal grievance. I mean, that is what he is fixated on.

[07:15:06] TOOBIN: But it's personal grievance that is precisely consistent with the white nationalist agenda. I mean, it's not white nationalism, but, you know, everything he says about immigrants, about immigration, about the wall, about, you know, the fact that there is no white nationalist problem is consistent with that view.

BERMAN: And he stuck up for Jeanine Pirro.

TOOBIN: Jeanine Pirro, right. BERMAN: FOX News host, suspended. She got from FOX News, which is an

achievement, OK? Jeanine Pirro suspended. The president went out of her way to praise her and say we've got fight against political correctness. She got suspended for an anti-Muslim comment.

TOOBIN: Correct. And it's just -- it is not -- everything is consistent. Everything that Donald Trump does is consistent with who he is.

And I think, you know, you gave your reasons at the beginning of why, you know. I don't think it's a distraction from the Mueller report. This is who Donald Trump is. This is the kind of presidency he's conducting. And he does it, you know, every day.

GREGORY: Right.

TOOBIN: It's not like this was some sort of aberration. I'm sorry, David.

GREGORY: That -- and that's really the point. I mean, I think, you know, John, you said earlier this morning. I mean, this is a president who back in 2016, I remember, said that, you know, Islam is at war with the United States. He at various times talked about banning all Muslims. And then, of course, you know, moved forward with a Muslim ban once he became president.

And so this idea, I think Jeffrey's exactly right, it's just personal grievance. He doesn't think big. He doesn't think big the way President Bush did after the attack of 9/11 and say, "Let me go to the Islamic Center of Washington and make clear that this is not a fight with Islam. This is a fight against terrorists."

This is a president who wants to stick up for Jeanine Pirro more than talk about -- talk against white nationalism and using the opportunity to say, "Anybody who might take some comfort from what you think I am, do not do so. This is 100 percent wrong."

He doesn't do that, because he thinks it's much better to play cute with those people, at the very least. You know, to play into this idea that liberals are too politically correct, and we shouldn't overreact to these things. He keeps -- he keeps working that angle to keep his supporters on board.

And that's where I say he's not really interested in being president in that sense. He's interested in leading a very narrow band of the country.

TOOBIN: Now -- but also the personal grievance nature of it. Why is he still attacking John McCain --

GREGORY: Right.

TOOBIN: -- who's been dead for a year? Who, you know, there was no new news that required him to go after John McCain again.

GREGORY: Right. TOOBIN: It's just -- it's just amazing.

GREGORY: But we all know people like this. Because he's got such a chip on his shoulder, he's so insecure, that he cannot elevate to -- to the position he has. He cannot do it. All he sees is grievance. All he sees is being slighted, and he won't let it go.

TALEV: But I do think the McCain question is one of these kind of loyalty flash points for President Trump inside the Republican Party, kind of like "You're either with McCain or you're with me." And a return to that is a way of solidifying your kind of -- your base inside the base inside the base. And it's a litmus test for lawmakers who might decide on whether they're going to speak out for or against you.

HILL: And if that is some sort of a test, perhaps Lindsey Graham is passing the loyalty test with President Trump. Of course, Senator McCain's best friend. This is the tweet -- I think we have it -- the tweet that he put out in response to the president, disparaging once again the late senator, noting, "As to Senator McCain and the devotion to the country, he stepped forward to risk his life for his country, served honorably under difficult circumstances and as one of the most consequential senators in the history of the body. Nothing about his service will ever be changed or diminished."

True. But there was no pushing back at all on what the president had to say there. There was really not, David -- he wasn't standing up for his friend.

GREGORY: No. Look, I think a lot of people look at Lindsey Graham and say, "What has happened to him?" Why -- you know, first of all, why isn't he defending his friend, but why isn't he taking on President Trump more directly?

I think he's made a calculation that the way to deal with Trump, the way to be relevant, the way to have influence, is not to go after him in response to something like this and tag him on Twitter. It's to do what he does, you know, on the golf course and in private meetings with him, to try to have the most influence. And think that's where he's tried to position himself, whether people like it or not.

BERMAN: The way not to get primaried in your next election in South Carolina, I think, is to also do that.

TALEV: It also -- it was announced -- it was announced just this morning, the local press in South Carolina reporting that Vice President Pence is going to come down at the end of this month and headline a couple of big events, rolling out Senator Graham's re- election campaign.

But I do think David's right. I guess, maybe for all of those reasons. It is almost sort of a page out of the Pence playbook, too. Graham's approach, in terms of embracing his friend, the late Senator McCain, reinforcing the positive qualities, without dealing with the attacks on him or the attacker on him.

[07:20:18] BERMAN: It's his best friend.

HILL: Yes.

BERMAN: It's his best friend.

All right. David, Margaret, Jeffrey, thank you very much.

HILL: We are following breaking news out of Holland at this hour. Several people, we're learning, are hurt after a gunman opened fire in a tram. This happened in the Dutch town of Utrecht.

The shooting happened at the 24th of October Square. That area has been cordoned off at this point. Police and rescue officials are on the scene.

At this hour, a manhunt is under way for the gunman. That person remains at large. Authorities saying they cannot, at this point, rule out terrorism as a possible motive. We will stay on top of that and bring you the latest developments.

BERMAN: All right. We've been discussion the president's statements from over the weekend. What will the impact be? Will Republicans stand up to the president on policy matters? Will Republicans stand up for their late friend, Senator John McCain? That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:25:07] BERMAN: President Trump launched new attacks against Senator John McCain months after the senator passed away. The president criticized McCain's role in the beginnings of the Russia investigation, which we should say McCain had no real role at the beginning of the Russia investigation.

The president also attacked him over the repeal of Obamacare and took personal shots at the late senator's grades at the Naval Academy.

John Weaver, who had been an adviser of Senator McCain, said of the president, "There's no low with him. There's no bottom."

Joining me now to discuss, Marc Lotter, director of strategic communications for the president's reelection campaign; and Amanda Carpenter, former communications director for Senator Ted Cruz. She is the author of the book "Gaslighting America: Why We Love It When Trump Lies to Us."

Mark, I want to start with you. And I should note, based on my very close reading of your biography, I think you worked for McCain/Palin in Indiana during that campaign in 2008. So you have connections to both folks here. So Mark, I ask you bluntly, why is the president so afraid of John McCain?

MARC LOTTER, DIRECTOR OF STRATEGIC COMMUNICATIONS, TRUMP REELECTION CAMPAIGN: I don't think it's a question of the president being afraid of John McCain. I think it's a question of multiple things being true at once. John McCain was a decorated veteran of our military and deserved all

the honors he received. He also was a longtime senator and longtime maverick.

But it's also true that he played a role and, with his associates, in distributing the fake dossier to the media, to the FBI --

BERMAN: Not to the media. Not to the media.

LOTTER: Through his associates. Through his associates.

BERMAN: McCain gave it to Comey after Comey already had it, and it after the election.

LOTTER: And one of his top associates gave it to the media, told -- and actually testified that one of his associates gave it to the media.

BERMAN: Someone in the State Department that McCain knew gave it to BuzzFeed. It was after the election. And it seems to me that that's irrelevant, given that the Russia investigation had begun so far before that, correct?

LOTTER: But it's also true that this was not done -- this was not given to the media as a Russia investigation. It was to disparage the incoming president of the United States at the time. And if the late senator had a role in that --

BERMAN: He didn't.

LOTTER: -- through associates, then that is something that can be rightly called out, while at the same time honoring his service to our country.

BERMAN: All right. He didn't have a role in distributing it to the media.

Amanda, I'm going to ask you the same question I asked Marc. Why is the president so afraid of John McCain?

AMANDA CARPENTER, CNN ANALYST: The president is afraid of John McCain, because John McCain is symbolic of the Republicans who have been critical to Trump and seek to hold him accountable on various issues, namely the Russia investigation.

John McCain, when he received the dossier, which is, you know, unverified Russian intelligence, he took it to the FBI, which is in stark contrast to what Donald Trump did.

Donald Trump, during the campaign, was warned by the FBI that Russians would try to infiltrate and influence his campaign. Did he ever go to the FBI when that information, when that happened? When the Trump Tower meeting happened? When Paul Manafort met with the Russian officials to share polling data in August 2016? He did not.

Hope Hicks, his spokesperson at the time, said that there was no contacts with foreign nationals. And we know now that was a lie. She called it a little white lie to congressional investigators, but that is the stark contrast.

There is a clear difference between what patriots like John McCain have done to protect national security interests, and what Donald Trump has done, particularly when it comes to Russia.

BERMAN: Marc, does any part of you, maybe the part that worked for Senator McCain in 2008, find it unseemly when President Trump attacks him?

LOTTER: No. And I honor -- and I honor the senator for his service to our country, both in uniform and as the United States -- in the United States Congress.

But, again, all of that service does not -- does not protect you from criticism from other areas on things that you did.

I would also take issue with the fact that he voted against the repeal and replace of Obamacare. Doesn't mean that I don't respect his service to our country. I disagree with that decision that was made, and I think that you can be criticized for that decision.

BERMAN: Amanda, Meghan McCain tweeted a response. She actually a couple of responses. One of them was taken down. In one of them, she said that "My father, John McCain, is living rent-free in Donald Trump's head." She also put out "No one will ever love you the way they love my father. I wish I had been given more Saturdays with him. Maybe spend yours with your family instead of on Twitter obsessing over mine?"

What do you make of that, Amanda?

CARPENTER: It's really sad that the president of the United States would put the daughter, someone who lost her father, in the position of having to defend his grave.

But this isn't really about John McCain. President Trump wants to distract from the real questions about the Russia investigation and shut down internal Republican criticism. A few weeks ago, he said that never-Trump Republicans were, quote, "slightly dangerous."

Yes, they are to his campaign because, if enough Republicans say they've had enough of this nonsense, they're fatigued, they're fed up and stay home, he will lose in 2020.