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President Trump Again Attacks Late Sen. John McCain Over Russia Probe; President Trump's Double Standard On Terror; Facebook Under Scrutiny For Livestream Of New Zealand Terror Attack; President Trump Defends Fox Host Suspended For Islamophobic Remarks. Aired 7:30-8a ET
Aired March 18, 2019 - 07:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[07:30:00] AMANDA CARPENTER, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR, FORMER COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR FOR SEN. TED CRUZ: 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.
We saw in 2016 there weren't a lot of Democrats who were fully enthusiastic about Hillary Clinton's candidacy so they stayed home. She lost.
There may be Republicans who stay home because they're fed up with Donald Trump's never-ending stream of tweets.
And so what he is trying to do by attacking John McCain is go after anyone who criticizes him. And isn't it just so weak for him to attack someone who has passed away and can't defend himself, and will force his grieving daughter to do it for him?
JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Marc, your response?
MARC LOTTER, DIRECTOR OF STRATEGIC COMMUNICATIONS, DONALD TRUMP 2020 CAMPAIGN, FORMER SPECIAL ASSISTANT TO PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESS SECRETARY TO VICE PRESIDENT MIKE PENCE: Well, I disagree.
The president has record high approval with Republicans. They are not going to stay home because they see the results that this president is getting. Whether it's bigger paychecks, record number of jobs, taking on some of the challenges that presidents of both parties had kicked the can down the road for decades when it came to trade, when it came to dealing with North Korea, they see the results that this president is providing.
And I can tell you that this campaign will be talking about those results and comparing it to the message that the Democrats are having with the radical run towards socialism --
CARPENTER: I would say --
LOTTER: -- in 2020.
CARPENTER: -- Mark is right. Donald Trump does have high approval ratings among Republicans, but it's a shrinking party.
Look at the 2018 midterms, particularly with the suburban, Republican women who are fleeing the party because Donald Trump is not someone that they can be proud of. And you can see that just by looking at his Twitter account on a day-to-day basis.
BERMAN: Marc, you know, the president attacked John McCain's GPA and class standing at Annapolis, incorrectly saying he was last in his class. He was fifth from the bottom there.
We've seen a letter from Michael Cohen threatening Fordham from releasing Donald Trump's grades from his years at that school.
Will the president release his grades from college to prove he wasn't last in his class?
LOTTER: I can't speak to that. Obviously, that would be something that would need to go to the White House on whether that would go through as it relates to the -- as it relates to the -- as it relates to the campaign --
BERMAN: Well, but you're with the campaign and that's a campaign issue. You speak for the campaign.
LOTTER: I speak for the campaign. But as it relates to the campaign, we're not focused on transcripts. We're going to be focused on results.
BERMAN: Well, the president's focus on John McCain's grades -- John McCain passed away in August. So you can't really say the president's not focused on grades, can you?
LOTTER: I'm focused on the president's results. His discussions about Sen. McCain, whether he was last in his class or fifth from last in this class are really not material to where we are looking forward to going through in this campaign.
BERMAN: All right. It's material to the president, though. You will note that if he put out on Twitter -- and Sarah Sanders, the White House press secretary, said the words speak for themselves, you note -- you will attest to the fact that it is pertinent to the president.
LOTTER: I'll let the president's tweets speak for themselves --
BERMAN: OK.
LOTTER: -- and tell you that we're focused on other areas.
BERMAN: Amanda Carpenter, Lindsey Graham put out a reaction to this over the weekend. We read it last segment -- I won't do it again. But there are many people surprised that Sen. Graham wasn't sticking up more strongly for his late friend.
We're you surprised?
CARPENTER: You know, it's hard to be surprised when judging Republican reaction to anything Donald Trump says or does. There's a real conflict for people not only like Lindsey Graham but across the party.
Certainly, of course, they're privately horrified by the things that Donald Trump says. But at the same time, they're trying to have influence in some small way over the things they can control.
I think Lindsey Graham has made the calculation that he is going to do his darndest to influence Donald Trump in good ways, and the only way that you can have access to this president is if you stay on good terms with him. And so, Lindsey Graham is quiet on things you wouldn't expect him to be because I do think he's trying to maintain that degree of influence.
BERMAN: Marc, I am curious if you think that the success that you see with Donald Trump is because of attacks like this on John McCain or in spite of. Does this help your reelection effort?
LOTTER: I think the president is using social media, and not just in this respect but in all respects, to give an insight into what he's thinking at any given moment like we've never seen before from any president. So, when he's tweeting and talking directly to the American people, he's telling them what's on his mind.
In many cases -- I'm not saying in every case but in many cases, he's saying a lot of the same things that people are talking about around their neighborhoods, around their dining room tables, or at their local watering holes, and that's one of the reasons why he connects with people.
Take a look at his fight for auto jobs and taking on General Motors and the UAW. He said he was going to fight for American workers. He's tweeting on a Sunday afternoon that he's having those conversations and he's still focused on it.
CARPENTER: I would say to some degree, though, Donald Trump's tweets in 2020 just aren't going to have the same shock value and command for the public's attention as they did in 2016. That's part of what was going on here this weekend.
[07:35:01] Donald Trump now has to compete with a very vibrant Democratic primary where he is not the center of that show. He has to navigate the Mueller investigation where we all remain in suspense of when that report is ever going to come out. And so I think he's trying to find something that will command the public attention so that he can gain control and it just isn't happening.
People look at these tweets over the weekend. There was even a former White House official who told the "Daily Beast" this weekend they had to turn the push notifications off. I mean, if your former staffers who worked for you are getting sick of your tweets, imagine how much the rest of the country is tuning out.
BERMAN: Amanda Carpenter, Marc Lotter, thanks for coming on -- both of you, this morning.
LOTTER: Thank you.
BERMAN: I appreciate it.
CARPENTER: Thanks.
BERMAN: Erica --
ERICA HILL, CNN ANCHOR: John, we want to turn to some breaking news right now.
Look at these aerials -- these coming just from our affiliate KTRK in Houston. This massive fire in engulfing, as you can see there, a petrochemical terminal. The fire there has been raging for nearly 24 hours. Again, this is in southeast Texas.
Officials at Intercontinental Terminals company releasing a statement. They say the fire has now spread to five additional tanks but note all company personnel are accounted for. No injuries have been reported because of the fire.
A shelter-in-place order for folks near that fire has now been lifted. A nearby highway has also reopened. Schools, though, nearby, have been closed as a precaution. It is massive.
Why is there such a big difference between the way President Trump responds to Islamic extremist violence and white supremacist violence? An eye-opening reality check is next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[07:40:31] HILL: There is a rather large double standard with how President Trump responds to acts of terrorism.
John Avlon has today's reality check -- Mr. Avlon.
JOHN AVLON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: That's right, guys.
Look, hours after the white supremacist terror attacks on two mosques in New Zealand, President Trump was asked if he thought white nationalism was a rising problem around the world today.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I don't, really. I think it's a small group of people that have very, very serious problems, I guess.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AVLON: Not exactly a full-throated denunciation from the bully pulpit and it doesn't track with the facts.
We all remember the Charlottesville white nationalist marches and we all remember President Trump's response.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) TRUMP: Very fine people on both sides.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AVLON: But what you might not remember is that white nationalists, most notably David Duke, praised the president's response. That's the same David Duke who Trump wouldn't condemn during the campaign.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I don't know anything about David Duke, OK? I don't know anything about what you're even talking about with white supremacy or white supremacists. So, I don't know.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AVLON: You know what shouldn't be hard? Condemning the KKK and neo- Nazis.
But then, of course, this past October, there was the Tree of Life synagogue massacre by a white nationalist who accused a Jewish refugee resettlement group of bringing in invaders that kill our people. Now, President Trump quickly condemned the massacre and visited the synagogue, but he didn't stop using that language of invasion to describe undocumented immigrants.
The maniac who killed 50 Muslims on Friday tapped into a similar strain of anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim conspiracy theories about replacement and invasion. And in an unsigned rambling manifesto praised President Trump as a symbol of white identity.
Now, does this imply incitement by Trump or anything resembling responsibility? No, but it's the latest sign of white supremacists taking note of the president's rhetoric. And these kinds of attacks are not as isolated as the president seems to think.
According to the ADL, over the past decade in the USA, right-wing extremists have accounted for 73 percent of extremist-related murders compared with three percent from left-wing extremists and 23 percent associated with Islamic extremists.
Not only that, white supremacists and far-right extremist groups were responsible for 98 percent of all extremist-related fatalities in the U.S. in 2018.
Now, the CEO of the ADL, Jonathan Greenblatt, was quick to connect the dots after New Zealand, stating, quote, "The hatred that led to the violence in Pittsburgh and Charlottesville is finding new adherence around the world."
So, yes, Mr. President, the statistics would suggest that white nationalist terror is a real and growing problem, but it's not the only problem.
As we all know, over the course of this century, beginning with 9/11, we've seen repeated attacks from what the president likes to call radical Islamic terrorists. Both things can be true and there seems to be an interplay between these extremes.
But here's the thing. President Trump has no problem denouncing Islamist terrorists but he's muted, at best, about white nationalist terrorism.
And there's a particular irony here because candidate Trump constantly hit President Obama and Hillary Clinton for what he called their failure to use the words "radical Islamic terrorism." To put it in perspective, Trump has used the phrase "radical Islamic terrorism" nearly 200 times but has referred to white supremacists or white nationalists fewer than 10 times.
Evil ideologies exist and they need to be named and confronted, and that can be done without engaging in group blame against all white people or all Muslims.
But especially for a president who found time this Sunday to criticize "SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE", General Motors, "FOX NEWS WEEKEND" anchors, and the late John McCain, it really shouldn't be that hard to find time to clearly condemn the rising tide of white nationalist violence.
And that's your reality check.
BERMAN: Is there a lower bar, John, on earth than condemning anti- Muslim, white supremacist attacks?
AVLON: If there's a lower bar, I don't know where that it. This isn't limbo. Condemning the KKK, condemning neo-Nazis, not hard, people.
HILL: Not that hard, nope.
BERMAN: All right.
New York City Police say the killing of a reputed Gambino crime boss does not appear to be mob-related. Twenty-four-year-old Anthony Camello is charged with the murder of Frank Cali.
As a source tells CNN, Camello had a relationship with one of Cali's family members. The mob boss disapproved of their relationship and Camello took offense, which led to the shooting.
HILL: New guidelines recommend healthy older adults not taking a daily low aspirin to prevent strokes and heart attacks. The American College of Cardiology and American Heart Association said it puts people ages 70 and older at risk for internal bleeding.
The guidelines say doctors may still consider aspirin for older high- risk patients, including those having trouble lowering their cholesterol or managing blood sugar.
[07:45:01] BERMAN: All right.
Facebook is facing scrutiny for failing to stop people from sharing video of the New Zealand terror attack millions of times. "CNN Business" is next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BERMAN: It is time for "CNN Business Now."
Facebook is under scrutiny this morning over the live stream of the New Zealand terror attack. It was shared more than a million times. Are they doing enough to police this type of content?
Our chief business correspondent and star of "EARLY START" Christine Romans joins us now with more -- Romans.
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT, ANCHOR, "EARLY START": Hi there, John.
Seventeen terrible minutes of live streaming and it took law enforcement to alert Facebook. It wasn't Facebook's own monitors and A.I. -- artificial intelligence.
New Zealand's prime minister says social media sites must do more to stop content that spreads hate and violence. And what spreads it more than actual live video of the killing of people while they are worshipping?
[07:50:10] Now, my colleague Donie O'Sullivan said it best. "If the artificial intelligence systems built by one of the richest companies in the world can't identify and take action a video containing weaponry, repeated gunfire, and murder, what can they identify?"
Now, Facebook said it removed one and a half million videos of the attack in the first 24 hours. It blocked 1.2 million of them at upload, meaning they wouldn't have been seen -- they were not seen by users -- those 1.2 million. But, Facebook did say that 300,000 remaining videos were out there and no way to know how many people viewed those.
There's a growing question whether on balance, social media -- and Facebook, in particular -- is good for society.
The AirAsia CEO quit Facebook, sick of all these conspiracy theories he said he always sees. Quote, "It's a great platform to communicate. Strong engagement and very useful, but New Zealand was too much for me to take."
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg yet to make a public statement, you guys, about the Christchurch attack, Erica.
HILL: All right, Christine. Thank you.
We've learned that Fox News host Jeanine Pirro has been quietly suspended after Islamophobic comments doubting Congresswoman Ilhan Omar's patriotism. President Trump, perhaps not surprisingly though, wants the network to bring her back.
CNN's Brian Stelter is here with more. What's almost -- what's most remarkable to me in all of this -- BRIAN STELTER, CNN CHIEF MEDIA CORRESPONDENT, ANCHOR, "RELIABLE SOURCES: Yes.
HILL: -- is how quiet Fox has been about Jeanine Pirro apparently being suspended.
STELTER: Right. They condemned her comments but didn't say anything about the suspension.
The only way I learned about it was when I noticed her show as not on this weekend. I started speaking with sources and the source confirmed yes, she's been suspended. We don't know for how long. She's not been fired -- she will be back.
Let's remember how all of this started. Here's what she said on the air nine days ago.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JEANINE PIRRO, HOST, FOX NEWS "JUSTICE WITH JUDGE JEANINE": Think about it. Omar wears a hijab, which according to the Quran 33:59, tells women to cover so they won't get molested. Is her adherence to this Islamic doctrine indicative of her adherence to Sharia law which, in itself, is antithetical to the United States Constitution?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
STELTER: Remember, a producer at Fox who is Muslim said to Jeanine Pirro directly, stop spreading the narrative that Muslims hate America.
Fox did condemn her comments. Again, they've privately suspended her but they're not confirming that.
HILL: Well, it's interesting to the president. As we mentioned, the president wants her back. But he was also tweeting out --
STELTER: Yes.
HILL: -- specific guidance, telling the network to stay strong over the weekend. I mean, it's remarkable. He's the programmer in chief.
STELTER: Yes, he is trying to say to the Murdochs -- the men who run Fox News -- that they should not give in to what the president sees as pressure campaigns from the left.
We can show some of the tweets onscreen. It stands out that he says, "Bring back Jeanine Pirro." He noticed her show was absent. That's one of his favorite shows on television. He wants here on the air just like he wants Tucker Carlson and others on the air.
So he's giving business advice to the -- to the head of Fox News and the network has not commented.
But I think what the president's doing is pretty clear. He's trying to firm up his defenses. The same thing you do when you know a storm's coming. You try to make sure everything is safe and secure. I think that's what he's doing.
He's trying to signal to Fox if you keep having my back, I'll keep having your back. I'll keep promoting your network. He knows he needs Fox as a shelter in all of the storms that are raging around him.
And I think he gets worried when he sees Fox, for example, taking Jeanine Pirro off the air. He wants and he needs surrogates like Pirro on the air repeating his talking points as often as possible.
HILL: Interesting to see if we hear any more from the network --
STELTER: Yes.
HILL: -- about here suspension in the near future.
Brian, appreciate it. Thank you.
STELTER: Yes, thanks.
BERMAN: It was really interesting. The president missing one of his favorite shows -- more important to him over the weekend than condemning an anti-Muslim terror attack. We'll discuss, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[07:57:25] (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MICK MULVANEY, ACTING WHITE HOUSE CHIEF OF STAFF: The president is not a white supremacist. I'm not sure how many times we have to say that.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The only thing that he can do is send out his surrogates while he stays home and tweets.
REP. RASHIDA TLAIB (D), MICHIGAN: He needs to do better. He needs to speak up and condemn this very loud and very clearly.
JACINDA ARDERN, PRIME MINISTER OF NEW ZEALAND: We cannot be deterred and our gun rules need to change.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They want to bring division into our communities and they have failed woefully.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Every victim has a story. That could have been me. That could have been you.
BERMAN: Historic flooding in Nebraska turning deadly.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Where these people are being rescued, people are already on their second floors.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You see it on the news for other people and you couldn't imagine it until it happens to you.
(END VIDEO CLIP) ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY with Alisyn Camerota and John Berman.
BERMAN: All right, good morning, and welcome to your NEW DAY. It is Monday, March 18th, 8:00 in the East.
Alisyn is off. Erica Hill is with me. Great to have you here.
HILL: Nice to be with you.
BERMAN: All right. There was a horrific anti-Muslim terror attack on Friday. So how did the president spend his weekend? Attacking John McCain and a rerun of "SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE."
John McCain passed away in August but for some reason the president thought it was more important to go after him than acknowledge a rise in white supremacy or white nationalist attacks. More important to spew venom on the Russia investigation, auto unions, and the Fox afternoon lineup. The president even retweeted a well-known conspiracy theorist.
The president did not say a word over the weekend about the terror attacks in New Zealand. And on Friday, he downplayed that white supremacy is a rising global threat in the world. That left his chief of staff feeling the need to go on T.V. and pronounce that the president is not a white supremacist.
HILL: Also this morning, former Texas congressman Beto O'Rourke's campaign says it raised a record-breaking $6.1 million in online contributions in the first 24 hours of his 2020 campaign. That surpasses Sen. Bernie Sanders' fundraising haul on his first day. And we are expecting to hear from O'Rourke this hour at a campaign event in Michigan.
BERMAN: All right. Joining us now to discuss, Jeffrey Toobin, CNN chief legal analyst and former federal prosecutor; Kirsten Powers, CNN political analyst and "USA Today" columnist; and, David Gregory, CNN political analyst.
Kirsten, we're going to start with you because we have yet to hear from you on this remarkable weekend. The president went to church and as "The Washington Post" noted, that was one island of calm in a sea of vile, really --
KIRSTEN POWERS, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST, COLUMNIST, USA TODAY: Yes.
BERMAN: -- lashing out at John McCain, lashing out at the Russia investigation, lashing out at "SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE." This is on your screen here, just some of the attacks that he levied over the weekend.
How should we read this, in your mind?
POWERS: Well, I think people should just stop and think.
END
