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Six Days After Mosque Attacks, New Zealand Bans Assault Weapons; Trump: 'I Didn't Get a Thank You for McCain's Funeral'; Subpoenas Issued in Boeing Criminal Probe of 737 Max Planes; Former White House Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci Interviewed about Trump's Attacks on McCain. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired March 21, 2019 - 07:00   ET

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

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I gave him the kind of funeral he wanted. I didn't get thank yous.

[07:00:07] UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's disgusting behavior. He is intimidated by people whose stature he can never achieve.

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R), SOUTH CAROLINA: I think the president's comments hurt him more than they president's comments hurt him more than they hurt the legacy of Senator McCain. I'm going to continue to he help the president.

ERICA HILL, CNN ANCHOR: The Justice Department issuing subpoenas as part of a criminal probe into Boeing's 737 Max planes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Members of Congress are asking questions. They're going to see a broadening investigation.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The American people deserve answers.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning and welcome to your NEW DAY. Alisyn is off. Erica Hill joins me this morning. We do have breaking news.

The government of New Zealand announced sweeping changes to that country's gun laws just six days after the terror attack at two mosques.

They banned all military-style semiautomatic weapons -- and these are their words -- assault rifles and high-capacity magazines. That's the kind of weaponry used to kill the 50 people inside the two mosques.

Now, compare that immediate reform with the stalemate and inaction that has followed the many mass shootings in the United States. The Aurora, Colorado, movie theater, July 2012; Sandy Hook in December of 2012; San Bernardino in 2015; The Pulse nightclub, June 2016; Las Vegas, October 2017; Sutherland Springs, November 2017; Parkland and Pittsburgh last year. First of all, it's sad that that list is so long. A common element in

all of it is the weaponry used, AR-15-style weapons. And since then, relative inaction.

HILL: Meantime, those gun reforms, though, in New Zealand, we're learning, could actually be in place in a matter of weeks. The prime minister today announcing, in addition to plans to really push this through, a buyback program, which would take existing weapons out of circulation; and also noting those who don't comply will face hefty fines or even imprisonment.

CNN's Ivan Watson is live in Christchurch, New Zealand, with more on these breaking details -- Ivan.

IVAN WATSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Erica.

You know, they still haven't been able to bury all of the dead from last Friday's terrorist attacks, and yet, the New Zealand prime minister has moved forward with a plan and a ban on what she says are the weapons that were used to kill the victims in the deadliest terrorist attack in New Zealand's modern history.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JACINDA ARDERN, NEW ZEALAND PRIME MINISTER: Every semiautomatic weapon used in the terrorist attack on Friday will be banned in this country.

We do have guns in New Zealand that are used for legitimate purposes by responsible owners. I've been steadfast in my belief that the vast majority of these owners will support what we are doing here today. Because it's about all of us. It's in the national interest, and it's about safety.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WATSON: So as of 3 p.m. in the afternoon, people who had licenses, who owned semiautomatic weapons and assault rifles, all of the sudden, those become illegal objects.

How does the government plan to get these guns back out of circulation? Well, they've already been urging people to voluntarily surrender them. They say there will be a buyback program and that they're anticipating it could cost between the equivalent of 70 and $140 million.

They say there will be a website that the police will run online as early as this weekend for people to register those weapons to start handing them over. And they say they will crack down and strengthen the penalties if you're caught with these weapons or with the extended magazines or the parts that can modify a gun and make it more lethal.

Already the leader of the opposition here has voiced his support for this plan; and everybody I've talked to in this traumatized city of Christchurch has also expressed support for these dramatic new measures -- Erica, John. BERMAN: All right. Ivan Watson for us in New Zealand.

Again, there is wide, broad-based support for this action there, which is different than the United States.

I want to bring in A.B. Stoddard, associate editor and columnist for RealClearPolitics; CNN political analyst David Gregory; and Jennifer Rodgers, a former federal prosecutor and a CNN legal analyst.

David Gregory, there are many differences between New Zealand and the United States: 4.5 million people versus 350 million people. The United States has a Second Amendment, where gun rights and ownership is enshrined in the writing of the founding papers of this country.

Yet the contrast there is also extraordinary. Six days to take some broad-based action that receives wide support. Where in the United States, despite the fact that we have a plague of mass shootings and the commonality of the weapons that are used, there has been very little action.

DAVID GREGORY, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes. And it's -- it's striking, because the polarization in our country politically, particularly around the gun issue, where we have public polling indicate -- indicating so much more support for restrictions, for safety measures than Congress has ever been able to pull off, has ever been able to get past, or a president has been able to get past makes it so difficult.

[07:05:20] But there are big differences. We have more guns in this country than we have citizens of the country. So it's a huge undertaking.

And part of that political divide has been several-fold. One that you did have liberals for a long time who talked about gun control, about getting rid of weapons in such a way that there were gun owners who thought, "This is crazy. We have to go into the arms of the National Rifle Association to protect our fundamental rights, because liberals will start there and keep going to someplace that's more extreme."

Where we've really broken down is where we've seen success at the state level, where you can take more safety measures. Measures, as the prime minister of New Zealand talked about, to reduce the capacity, the deadliness of a crime such as this. To do something to make it less lethal. That should be an area where we can find some consensus.

HILL: And to your point, there has been some consensus in certain states where certain laws have been passed.

A.B., on the federal level, though, because this remains so divisive, how much do you see this coming into play, the action that we saw in New Zealand? How much could that come into the conversation in Washington at this point, if at all?

A.B. STODDARD, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, I certainly think it will. It will, you know, uplift the advocates for some kind of controls on these high-capacity weapons.

As David was saying, there is broad public consensus on more background checks to keep these deadly weapons out of the hands of the mentally ill and on these high-capacity weapons of war, that the founders did not obviously intend to wipe out 30 people in a mosque or a movie theater or in a Safeway parking lot or in a church or a hospital and all these places that we've seen mass shootings take place. So that's a starting point.

And it obviously would take, likely at this point, Democratic control of the Congress or part of it and the White House. Because the stranglehold the NRA has over -- over the Congress at this point is still very potent and you see, like, a background check bill that just passed the House that doesn't look like it will go to the Senate. It's already under veto threat from the White House.

So it would have to be a change in power, for sure. And then it would still be an uphill climb.

BERMAN: Democrats had the Senate after Sandy Hook, and even with the Senate they couldn't get new legislation passed --

GREGORY: Right.

BERMAN: -- and that's because of the 60-vote threshold.

The polls are interesting when it comes to new gun measures. And I think we do need to point this out. There was a CNN poll after Parkland where 70 percent of Americans said they backed stricter gun laws. So 70 percent, generally, after Parkland support stricter gun laws.

Gallup, though, and this was in October of 2018, on banning assault weapons, 57 percent were against banning assault weapons in October of 2018. So, again, it's complicated.

Americans seem to want some things but not necessarily the action being taken in New Zealand. And in New Zealand, they're talking about -- I don't know if they're talking about confiscation. They're talking a fine for people who do own it, which is something that I would never imagine possible in the United States.

And Jennifer Rodgers, since we have a lawyer here on set with us, in terms of what the law is, what states or the government can do and should do are two complete are two completely different things. There are people saying, "Oh, no, no, you can't ban any weapons because of the Second Amendment." That's not true. And Antonin Scalia, of all people, is the one who says that's not true.

Antonin Scalia in the famous Heller decision said, "The Second Amendment does not protect those weapons not typically possessed by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes," and he singles out short- barreled shotguns.

Now, it is up to legislators and politicians to decide what those weapons would be. But if they wanted to -- I'm not saying they should, but if there was a will, they could constitutionally limit some of these weapons?

JENNIFER RODGERS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Absolutely, John. The Second Amendment does not impede Congress from acting to impose common-sense restrictions on guns here at all.

The issue here is that the NRA has so many Republicans in their pocket, and it's perfectly legal. You know after the Citizens United case, campaign finance case, they can essentially give so much money, especially through super PACs to these politicians. And they're one issue politicians on this, right? This is all they want, is to impede reasonable gun control.

And so the reason problem here is that. It's a political problem, and it's borne out of the Citizens United type of cases that fail to limit giving in such a way that just require these politicians to do what the NRA wants.

GREGORY: It's just also worth noting, what an intensity issue this is. We still see in the Republican Party that voters who really care about protecting gun rights and who fear that any attempt to restrict will just be a start, not an end, they'll vote on this issue, as many Republicans will vote on the Supreme Court.

[07:10:15] You have not seen that mirrored in the Democratic party among Democratic voters. That issue of intensity is what makes the NRA so powerful on Capitol Hill.

BERMAN: A.B., I want to go to you now, because you have been in the middle of what has been a national discussion over the last 48 hours or so over what the president has said about John McCain -- and John McCain is just one person the president has targeted the last few days -- and how Republicans and those surrounding the president should react.

Now, let me just play for people, because we haven't played it yet this hour, the president's new attacks on John McCain and John McCain's family and the events surrounding John McCain's death. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I've never liked him much; hasn't been for me. McCain didn't get the job done. It went thumbs down. Badly hurting the Republican Party, badly hurting our nation.

I gave him the kind of funeral that he wanted, which as president I had to approve. I don't care about this. I didn't get thank you. That's OK. We sent him on the way. But I wasn't a fan of John McCain.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Just a fact-check here. The president did have to approve the military jet and the military transport, but the funeral and lying in state at the Capitol, that was Congress. The funeral at the National Cathedral, that wasn't the president. At Annapolis, you know, his laying to rest there, the president didn't approve that either.

A.B., you interviewed Johnny Isakson, senior senator from Georgia, who is one of the few, really, the few Republicans with any national stature to stand up and say, "Enough, Mr. President. This is deplorable," he said on the radio.

Why is there a Johnny Isakson island when it comes to this?

STODDARD: John, I mean, it's stunning that, even after Senator Isakson spoke with me on Tuesday night and then went on the radio yesterday to say these things, he was the only one asking the president to stop and saying what the president was doing was deplorable.

Mitt Romney's tweet gave a strong defense of the honor and the service and the sacrifice of John McCain without asking the president to stand down. He said, "I wonder why the president does this."

Mitch McConnell, Senate majority leader; Martha McSally, the senator now serving in McCain's seat in Arizona, praised John McCain in tweets that intentionally avoided taking on what the president's doing and how damaging Senator Isakson, as chairman of the Veterans Affairs Committee on the Senate, believes that these comments are to the fabric of this country, our identity, the sacrifice that these people through generations have made to keep us free and make us who we are.

And it is still, after last night when he escalated these comments in Ohio to a crowd that didn't seem to approve of it with many veterans there in house, that overnight we still haven't seen, you know, the kind of reaction that we saw from Senator Isakson. I find it absolutely staggering.

HILL: David, Scott Jennings made the case earlier for us that part of the reason we're not hearing from more Republicans is that, while they may disagree, in large part they've realized that if they say something, it may just embolden the president more; and he might do more of it. Do you buy that?

GREGORY: Yes, I buy that's the calculation. I think there's the "ignore him" caucus of folks who just say, "Let's just not engage." It's just, you know, it will give him even more attention.

But the president knows how to command the attention, and it is confounding. It goes into this file we have that's bulging and overflowing of those things we simply cannot understand about Donald Trump. He will never back down from a fight, and he'll never ignore a slight. And that's what you see play out every day.

And the ramifications for that, as our commander in chief, as the president of the country, should give people real pause. And that's what critics are saying. You know, those close to Senator McCain who say, "Look, this is such clear evidence that he's unfit for office. Why does he take on Senator McCain, who's passed away? Why does he take on George Conway, who's married to Kellyanne Conway, senior advisor?" It doesn't make any sense. It makes the president look so incredibly small. But I think what the president figures is, "Look, I've got supporters

out there who will give me a pass on this, and maybe some who even like it that I -- that I behave this way and that I'll take on anybody at any time." There's nothing to stop him, apparently.

BERMAN: Jennifer Rodgers, I'm going to get you one quick question on what the president said about Robert Mueller yesterday. He claimed in public -- he's like, "Yes, I want America to see the whole report."

Well, that doesn't really seem to be the case; if the White House is going to exert all kinds of executive privilege; if Bill Barr is going to water down what America sees. I mean, if the president really wanted America to see the report, he could make it happen.

[07:15:07] RODGERS: Of course. I mean, it's just like when he said he wanted to sit down with Mueller. It's just like when he said he wanted to release his tax returns, but he couldn't. You know, he wants to have it both ways. He wants to say, "I have nothing to hide. Come and see it, you know. I don't have anything to hide here, and yet my lawyers are going to make me."

So, yes, he's trying to have it both ways, for sure.

BERMAN: All right, friends, thank you very much.

HILL: Justice Department prosecutors have issued multiple subpoenas in a criminal investigation of Boeing's FAA certification and the company's marketing of its 737 Max jets. The investigation was launched after a Lion Air plane crashed last October.

CNN's Jessica Schneider joining us live from Washington with more this morning -- Jessica.

JESSICA SCHNEIDER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Erica.

Criminal investigators, they want information from Boeing on its safety and certification procedures for the 737 Max, including details on its training manuals for pilots, plus how the company marketed the aircraft.

So the Justice Department's criminal division, they are leading this probe, along with the FBI field office in Seattle. This, as questions continue to compound and new details emerge about those two doomed flights.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SCHNEIDER (voice-over): The criminal investigation into Boeing's 737 Max jets ramping up after a second deadly crash in five months, with sources briefed on the matter telling CNN that the Justice Department has issued multiple subpoenas related to the certification and marketing of Boeing's best-selling plane.

The criminal probe initially began last October after a Lion Air flight crashed in Indonesia. A Boeing spokesperson telling CNN earlier this week that the company does not comment on ongoing legal matters.

The FAA announcing that Boeing will roll out a software patch and pilot training program to address issues with the jet. Earlier, it said it expected a fix by April.

DENNIS MUILENBURG, BOEING CEO: We're taking action to fully reassure airlines and their passengers of the safety of the 737 Max.

SCHNEIDER: The Defense Department's inspector general also launching an investigation related to the U.S. manufacturer probing whether acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan, who was an executive at Boeing and worked there for more than 30 years, violated ethics rules by promoting Boeing over other military contractors.

RICHARD PAINTER, CITIZENS FOR RESPONSIBILITY AND ETHICS IN WASHINGTON: He clearly should not be shilling for Boeing products or saying bad things about the competitors of Boeing at the Defense Department.

SCHNEIDER: A spokesman telling CNN Shanahan welcomes the probe and "has at all times remained committed to upholding his ethics agreement filed with the DOD."

SEN. RICHARD BLUMENTHAL (D), CONNECTICUT: Do you support section investigation?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, I do.

SCHNEIDER: Meanwhile, new details are emerging about the final moments of the doomed Lion Air flight. Reuters reports that the plane's crew can be heard on the cockpit voice recorder, desperately fighting for nine minutes to pull up the nose of the jet, which kept diving toward the sea, possibly due to a faulty sensor that triggered an automatic system on board.

Seemingly unaware that the plane's computer was causing the dives, Reuters reports that the pilots frantically scoured the operations manual, then said a short prayer before plunging into the sea.

The day before the crash the same plane had the same problem. Indonesian authorities confirmed that an off-duty pilot who was riding in the cockpit was able to step in, instructing crew to shut off the malfunctioning flight control system.

After being sent to maintenance, the jet was cleared to fly the next day.

DAVID SOUCIE, FORMER FAA INSPECTOR: I can't understand why, at least, it wasn't test flown or brought up on the ramp and tested again.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SCHNEIDER: Now, the chairman of Indonesia's safety agency held a press conference today, and he confirmed some details about that doomed Lion Air flight back in October. But he also disputed reports about the conversations that were captured on the cockpit voice recorder. That includes the Reuters report that the plane's crew scoured the flight manual and then prayed in the minutes before that crash.

In the meantime, the Senate is set to hold a hearing next week into aviation safety overall, and of course, the current grounding of those 737 Max jets -- John.

BERMAN: All right. Jessica Schneider for us. Jessica, thank you very much for that report.

Johnny Isakson, one of the few Republicans who have stood up and told the president to stop bashing John McCain. Will there be more? Will, for instance, former White House communications director, Anthony Scaramucci, join that list? We'll ask him next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:23:26] BERMAN: So question, what did John McCain, George Conway and Robert Mueller have in common? Answer, they're not the U.S. economy. They're also the targets that the president of the United States has chosen often to focus on over the last few days. The question is, why?

Joining me now is a man who might have an answer: Anthony Scaramucci, former White House communications officer and author of "Trump: The Blue-Collar President."

Thank you so much for joining us.

ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI, FORMER WHITE HOUSE COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR: Hey, good to be here, John.

BERMAN: Can I just ask you, when you hear the president going after John McCain yesterday at an official White House event, are you proud of the president?

SCARAMUCCI: Look, I -- I don't like it at all. I'm surprised that he's doing it.

And so what I would say to him -- I'm not there of course -- but what I would say to him is, like, my grandfather used to say when you hit a rock, you hit it ten, 20 times the rock doesn't move. But then on maybe the 50th time, the rock blows up, but you don't know which one of those hits actually blew up the rock.

And so he's hitting something that is socially unnatural. And so what is that? You're attacking somebody that died seven months ago.

Now, I understand the point. I understand the grievance that the president's bringing up. But you're not scoring any points with anybody. There's nobody looking at that situation and saying, "OK, we understand why you're so upset about John McCain seven months after he passed away."

So -- so, look, I always got along with Senator McCain. He is a decorated veteran. The president has the support of millions of veterans in the United States. I don't believe those veterans are in love with the fact that he's attacking John McCain.

So he could sit there and try to justify it. He may have staff around him that tells him, "Hey, that's great that you're attacking a dead senator," but I don't think it's great. And I would tell him that straight up.

[07:25:09] And, again, when you hit the rock, John, you don't know which one of those blows is going to blow the rock to pieces. And at some point, people are going to say, "Hey, what are you doing? You've got an unbelievable economy. You're going to have peace on the North Korean Peninsula because of your actions."

BERMAN: Well.

SCARAMUCCI: You're going to -- well, I think he will. And you're going to have a trade deal, likely, with China. I was at the Yale C.O. Forum in D.C. yesterday.

BERMAN: Can I -- can I just ask --

SCARAMUCCI: The economy is booming. What are you doing?

BERMAN: You say -- you say it's not great that he's doing that. Isn't it more than it's not great? I don't understand why so many of the president's supporters and Republicans are dancing around. It's not great. There are a lot of things that are not great. Isn't it just wrong?

SCARAMUCCI: I think it's stupid. I think it's stupid. I'm being very declarative here. I think it's stupid. There's no strategy that you could tell -- other than the fact that you're frustrated and you want to ventilate your frustration into the international airways, OK. But I think it's stupid. I don't think there there's any positive outcome on a Venn diagram. It just is stupid.

And by the way, when you are attacking dead people, it's not good. It's one of the main reasons why you have graveyards and people don't touch the graveyards. You know, they drive by them on the highway and say, "Well, that's a valuable piece of land," but they leave all the caskets inside the graves. You leave people alone that are dead. I just think it's stupid.

So he wants to continue to do that, I'm saying very publicly that is an unnatural social act, and it will turn people off eventually. And so I would wish he wouldn't do that --

BERMAN: Right.

SCARAMUCCI: -- because he's got so many great things going on and so many great things about the country and the world that are taking place. Why do that? I just think it's wrong.

BERMAN: Do you connect --

SCARAMUCCI: You know it's wrong. I know it's wrong. It's wrong. And if there are people around him that tell him -- BERMAN: But what I don't get --

SCARAMUCCI: There are people around him telling him it's right, then I've got -- what do you got? You've got a screw loose.

BERMAN: You just said, "You know it's wrong. I know it's wrong." How come there are, like, three senators who have had the guts to say anything at all, and two of them have been --

SCARAMUCCI: Because they don't want to get -- they don't want to get in the Twitter crosshair.

BERMAN: Right.

SCARAMUCCI: You know, if you're a CEO, you don't want your company in the Twitter crosshair. If you're a human being, you don't want yourself in the Twitter crosshairs.

So, you know, he's got a hundred million people on social media. Somebody pointed out the other night that that's like the Super Bowl audience. You don't feel like, if you're a senator -- and the other thing is --

BERMAN: Is that brave? Is that courageous?

SCARAMUCCI: I don't think that -- I don't think that's courageous. He has a 93 percent approval rating among Republicans. The guy is actually doing a very good job, I think.

BERMAN: Can I say -- what do you think's going on -- do you think there is a connection between lashing out at John McCain, the George Conway thing, the "Saturday Night Live" thing?

SCARAMUCCI: The George Conway thing is a different thing. OK? I -- you know, look, I almost got divorced through this whole fiasco. Thank God my wife and I were able to put the marriage back together.

I don't know why George is hitting him that hard. The president waited four months before he responded. And, you know, Kellyanne seems to be defending the president. So I want to stay out of that one, because I don't like getting involved in people's relationships, you know, particularly after the fiasco that I went through. That's a different one.

But the president's doing this, because he's ventilating. He's upset. He feels there's a grievance against him. He feels that this -- this dossier was totally unfair. And he feels that there's been an unbalance in terms of what goes on in Washington, vis-a-vis him. I get all that. But don't attack dead people. It's just -- it's just stupid, you know. It's like there's no benefit to that.

BERMAN: The president yesterday said he wants the American people to see the Mueller report. Do you really believe that?

SCARAMUCCI: I do, because I don't think he has a choice in it. And I think his attitude is, oh, no, that would be very politically damaging to him if he moved with Attorney General Barr to not disclose the report.

BERMAN: Well, we do know -- we do know that Barr doesn't necessarily feel the need to turn the full report over to Congress. He thinks it is his job to weigh in and maybe remove some parts. And we also know from CNN's reporting --

SCARAMUCCI: That would be national security.

BERMAN: I understand, I understand. But we also know from our reporting that the White House intends to declare executive privilege, exert executive privilege over much of it, as well.

SCARAMUCCI: OK. Well, so I understand that, too. Listen, I mean, there's a lot of sensitive information when you get that close to the situation.

But listen, your reporting also said that the president has a 71 percent approval rating --

BERMAN: Yes.

SCARAMUCCI: -- on the economy. So why can't we focus on the economy? We have such an amazing story related to the economy.

BERMAN: And I'll let you close on that. Because you've been going around telling people that you think there are things the president needs to avoid if he wants to be reelected.

SCARAMUCCI: I -- I --

BERMAN: And things he should focus on.

SCARAMUCCI: I think he's creating a 6 to 8 percent head wind as a result of this rhetoric. The bellicosity of the rhetoric is totally unnecessary. His supporters are with him; they love him. He's got to go after moderates and independents.

The State of the Union address is the president. OK, that was a great presidential address. His approval ratings, according to Rasmussen, one poll, but granted, it went to 52 percent. The guy will win re- election on a rising economy, peace and prosperity, and security.

Why take the millstone of all this negative nonsense and put it on your neck and create a 7 to 8 percent headwind in your face?