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Trump Celebrates End of Mueller Probe at Rally; Trump Backtracks on Special Olympics Funding Cuts; WSJ: Anti-Stall Feature Was Activated in Ethiopian Airlines Crash; Rep. Jim Himes (D), Connecticut is Interviewed about Contentious Intelligence Committee Session. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired March 29, 2019 - 07:00   ET

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


JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: He also said he knows a lot about wind and bragged about how smart he is. Which is exactly what smart people generally do. Right?

[07:00:12] ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: The Trump administration has moved to eliminate all of Obamacare, invalidate it, really. And that would impact millions of Americans with insurance as well as with preexisting conditions.

The president has claimed that he will protect people who have preexisting conditions. But now he has actually not said ever how he plans do that.

He also -- he plans -- his plans has endorsed -- the plans he's endorsed in the past -- wow, somebody very elite wrote this. Would allow potentially huge increases in premiums for those with preexisting conditions.

Overnight, a federal court blocked a different move by the administration to get around the standards put in place by Obamacare.

So we have a lot to talk about with healthcare and beyond. Joining us is Michael Smerconish, CNN political commentator and host of CNN's "SMERCONISH," as well as David Chalian, CNN's political director.

OK, guys. Great to see you. We will add Susan Glasser as soon as we can, technologically.

Michael Smerconish, let me start with you. In terms of the president, I guess shifting the conversation from the still yet to be seen Mueller report to healthcare, how do you think that's going over?

MICHAEL SMERCONISH, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I think he's involved in a very aggressive attempt at inoculation. And the attempt, Alisyn, is one of convincing his base that they know everything they need to know about those 300 pages based on the four pages that they saw from Bill Barr.

And it's actually twofold. It's not only that he's conflating "no collusion" with "no conclusion about obstruction." I think I said that right. But also, it's a dual approach where he, with Sean Hannity's assistance and facilitation in that lengthy interview on Wednesday night, they're seeking to rewrite the origin of the entire probe.

They're seeking to convince people that it's all about the so-called dodgy dossier. It's all about this illicit relationship between agents Strzok and Page. And you never hear any reference made to Papadopoulos, whose tip really was the beginning in July of 2016.

But you know what? The reason I say I think it's effective is it really requires serious attention and read-in to ferret out all the mistruths that are being offered. And they're offered in such rapid fire, and they sound so convincing. And then we look like a bunch of nerds sitting around, you know, picking through slowly, one by one, and saying, "Well, that's not true. But that's not true." But frankly, the facts are not on their side.

BERMAN: No. It's a shrewd political play by the attorney general, among others, to put those four pages out. And in this vacuum, the president is filling it and filling it with things that are flat-out misleading, in some cases. He claims total exoneration. He specifically was not exonerated on obstruction, not at all.

And on the idea of collusion, yes, the evidence was not enough to prosecute on either conspiracy or cooperation, but we don't know what the level of communication there was.

So it is clear what he's trying to do there. Less clear to me, David Chalian, is what the president is trying to do with healthcare, because while I think he's trying to inoculate himself with the Mueller report, to an extent he's also trying to inoculate himself on healthcare. Let's listen to what he said at the rally last night.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Remember this, because it's very important. And I'm speaking now for the Republican Party. We will always protect patients with preexisting conditions. Always. Always.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: David, he likes to say the words "preexisting conditions," but as far as I can tell, he has never, not once, in his own words explained how. How will he keep the rates for people with preexisting conditions equal to the rates of other people, when the Republican plans he's endorsed in the past specifically allow those rates to be increased?

DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Right. You're totally right on the policy.

Also, as the president knows, it is currently law of the land to protect people with preexisting conditions. And his administration, through the Department of Justice filing earlier this week wanted to uphold a court ruling that would completely gut the entire law.

So his administration's stance at the moment is to get rid of the law of the land right now that does, indeed, protect preexisting conditions, as you know, not have a replacement.

Here, Michael was spot on when he was talking a moment ago about the president playing to his base here. I have spent the last two years plus of this administration every day, looking for where is the president trying to expand beyond his base? What is he doing today that I see that he's making a move to actually broaden his appeal? And the story of this presidency is that there isn't much of that.

[07:05:10] And so this weekend, when he did get good political news from his attorney general in that four-page summary, there was a moment of "What is Donald Trump going to do with this moment?" And I think we got our answer. I think we had clues all week long, guys. But I think we got our answer loud and clear last night in Grand Rapids, Michigan, at his rally. And that is, he intends to do precisely what he's been doing. And that is to quadruple down on fortifying that base.

CAMEROTA: Susan, how do you see it?

SUSAN GLASSER, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: You know, that's exactly what I wrote in my piece coming out this morning, is that, you know, forget about the reset. I think most other politicians would have used this moment in some way, at least to say they're bringing the country together after that very long and divisive investigation.

Remember when Bill Clinton was acquitted in the Senate trial after this very divisive impeachment fight? His White House aides had a no- gloat rule for the White House. Of course, he was privately still furious about the whole thing. But he more or less hewed to it in public.

Donald Trump, I think, has gone the opposite route. It's not a surprise to anyone who's been watching him, but I agree that that rally last night was really a demonstration that Trump, even more than feeling vindicated, I thought he seemed in a very vengeful mood still.

And, again, remember the scene of that rally is in Grand Rapids, Michigan, crucial to his re-election chances would be, could he repeat the unlikely feat of winning Michigan, which he won by only 10,000 votes. He's underwater, according to the polls in mid-March, by something like 15 points in Michigan. And I don't think there were a lot of swing voters who would have heard anything that would have caused them to take another look at President Trump last night.

So I was just very struck by what did he do with this week that, arguably, should have been or was one of the best weeks from a political standpoint of his presidency. I didn't really see any difference between Donald Trump post-Mueller and Donald Trump pre- Mueller.

BERMAN: One of the other fascinating things that's happened in the last 24 hours is this discussion over funding for the Special Olympics, government funding for the Special Olympics.

In the Trump administration budget, the Trump administration budget, which by name and definition, the president signs off on, had included $17 million in government cuts, government funding cuts for the Special Olympics. The president comes out yesterday and says this, Michael.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I've been to the Special Olympics. I think it's incredible, and I just authorized a funding. I heard about it this morning. I have overridden my people. We're funding the Special Olympics.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: It was astounding, Michael, what he tried to just do there. He said, "I authorized the funding." He doesn't get to authorize funding. Congress authorizes and appropriates funding, No. 1.

He says he overrode his people. No. His people put out his budget, which called for $17 million in cuts. And now, at the end of a week, when he's been criticized for taking government money away from the Special Olympics, he backtracks, but he tries to put it off on other people and cuts the legs out under from the secretary of education, Betsy DeVos, who was trying to defend this all week.

SMERCONISH: We all know the good work of the Special Olympics. It's a very high-profile program. Therefore, I don't believe that Secretary DeVos would have made a move against the funding of the Special Olympics without some form of acknowledgement and clearance from the White House.

So my suspicion -- and it's a hunch -- is that she probably made this decision in consultation. And then once the president saw which way the wind was blowing on this, sought to, you know, ride to the rescue of the program that perhaps his White House approved the cutting of the funding to begin with.

CAMEROTA: David Chalian, nobody's taking responsibility, so now Betsy DeVos says, "I didn't want it," though she didn't say that in the hearing. Now she says, "I'm so glad the president got on board, and we're, you know, completely like-minded on this. I didn't want it."

The president says, "I did not want this. I overrode myself."

Who -- who's responsible for having cut this?

CHALIAN: Yes. She said she had been fighting behind the scenes for this funding, and she said flat-out that she was not the person that was responsible or actually made this cut.

But she was defending the indefensible. We're talking about such a minuscule amount of money when you are looking at the government budget overall. The fact that they allowed this controversy to exist at all is befuddling.

But she then -- she's defending the indefensible, and the president, you know, just completely undercuts her, and she says, "I'm so happy we're on the same page." They were not on the same page because of the president's own doing.

BERMAN: So Susan, you talked about what the president was trying to do at the rally last night. And I do think there's some sound, which some people find laughable, but you can also look at it as the way he talks and the way he is trying to define himself against other people. The people he calls the elites.

I want to play the sound when he brags about how smart he is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: They say the elite. They're the elite; I'm not. Well, I have a better education than them. I'm smarter than them. I went to the best schools they didn't. Much more beautiful house. Much more beautiful apartment. Much more beautiful everything. And I'm president, and they're not, right?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: I do not give that an "A" for grammar.

BERMAN: Well, no. It's --

CAMEROTA: If that's the best the best schools can do, I'm not giving that an "A" for grammar.

GLASSER: You know, University of Pennsylvania has always been a little bit chagrinned that Donald Trump is their -- such a prominent alumnus. You don't see them featuring him often. Perhaps last night's speech is one of the reasons why.

The president actually often uses a version of this riff in his rallies. At one point last year -- I don't necessarily recommend this -- but I actually sat and listened to probably a dozen of these speeches that he had given in the lead-up to the 2018 midterm campaign.

You would see this as a fairly regular feature of his rallies going back, I think, all the way to 2016. He thinks it resonates. It's obviously one of the most unlikely aspects of Donald Trump, the rich man populist. You saw the people in the background clapping and laughing. The showman here feels that this is a good line and that it's a key part of his appeal.

But, you know, I'm remembering Michael Cohen's testimony up on Capitol Hill, where he talked about the great lengths to which Donald Trump ordered him to go in order to cover up his grades and his academic record. You know, he does seem like someone who's a little bit insecure.

CAMEROTA: Michael, we're out of time, but he also -- the president also said last night, "I know a lot about wind." Do you have anything you'd like to say on that front?

SMERCONISH: Only that an hour and 20 minutes into that speech last night that I sat through, I would agree with him. CAMEROTA: All right, guys, happy Friday. Thank you.

BERMAN: And be sure to watch "SMERCONISH" tomorrow morning, 9 a.m. Eastern Time only on CNN.

CAMEROTA: We do have some breaking news. "The Wall Street Journal" reports that officials investigating the plane crash in Ethiopia have reached a preliminary conclusion that a stall prevention feature was automatically activated before the Boeing 737 max jet went down minutes after takeoff.

CNN's Robyn Kriel is live in Ethiopia for us with the breaking details. Tell us more, Robyn.

ROBYN KRIEL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Alisyn, while this looks really bad for Boeing, it could also be looked at as a double-edged sword. Because while many questions will be asked as to why, after the Lion Air crash, which was also -- which the findings also found to be an MCAS failure, why it occurred again, it was allowed to occur again within Ethiopian Airlines, if this preliminary report turns out to be true.

But the double-edge sword comes in as at least they do know now exactly what the problem is, and it was not another problem with the Boeing 737 Max, which, as we know, airlines across the world have grounded.

A hundred and 57 people killed in that plane crash on March 10. People here in Ethiopia still reeling from that news.

Ethiopian Airlines took us on a tour of the simulator of their 737 Max and told us numerous things about the simulator. And one person with knowledge of the investigation said that there was nothing written in the quick reference handbook, which is basically the pilot's Bible for that aircraft, about the MCAS; which means if that system fails, if the MCAS system goes down in some way and gives the plane faulty information, that the pilots have no quick reference way of fixing it. That the plane's nose would have been pulled down, and that the pilots basically would have been fighting it until they hit the ground. Six minutes, we understand it took six minutes for that plane to crash.

Now, Ethiopian officials, airline officials are in a meeting today with cabinet. And we're told that they will, at some point, be giving a statement. As I said, a lot of people, families, still here grieving, still waiting for their loved ones' remains in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia -- John.

BERMAN: All right. Robyn Kriel for us, obviously following that investigation very closely.

Cringe-worthy tension inside a House hearing. Calls for resignation face calls of a cover-up. We will talk to a member who was inside that room to get a sense of what it was like, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:18:55] [07:19:02] BERMAN: So what a moment on Capitol Hill. More tension than you almost ever see.

Republicans in the House Intelligence Committee, to his face, called on the Democratic chair, Adam Schiff, to step down from his post. Then, in equally strong terms, the chairman responded.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D-CA), CHAIRMAN, INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE: My colleagues may think it's OK that the Russians offered dirt on a Democratic candidate for president as part of what was described as the Russian government's effort to help the Trump campaign.

But I don't think it's OK. I think it's immoral. I think it's unethical. I think it's unpatriotic. And, yes, I think it's corrupt. And evidence of collusion.

But I do not think that conduct, criminal or not, is OK. And the day we do think that's OK is the day we will look back and say that is the day America lost its way.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: All right. Joining us now is Democratic Congressman Jim Himes from Connecticut. He is on the Intelligence Committee. He was in that room while this was all going on.

Congressman, what was it like?

REP. JIM HIMES (D), CONNECTICUT: John, you could cut the tension and the emotion with a knife in that room. It was just remarkable.

You know, the Republicans very publicly criticized and called for the resignation of Chairman Schiff, of course in an echo of something that the Democratic leader had done. But after almost two years of shenanigans by then-Chairman Devin Nunes, you know, out of the box, in their sort of moment of so-called victory, called for Adam's resignation.

Now of course, what Adam did was, in unbelievably articulate terms, he reminded the Republicans of something that they forget about an hour after the Barr letter came out, which was, yes, maybe the president's actions didn't rise to the level of a criminal conspiracy -- and I don't need to go into the laundry list that Adam gave them -- but it was a long list of inappropriate, unpatriotic activity that was evidence, real evident of something possibly going wrong.

We're obviously willing to concede today that it wasn't a criminal conspiracy, but remember that none of these activities were appropriate.

BERMAN: Well, you danced around using the word "collusion." The chairman didn't. The chairman still says he still sees evidence of collusion.

Let me read you the language that William Barr quoted, and we believe this is a direct quote from somewhere in the 300 pages of the Mueller report. It says, "The investigation did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities."

So that's conspired or coordinated. They don't have enough evidence to establish there was criminal activity on those fronts. Yet, your chairman and you also say you continue to see evidence of collusion. So what's the difference? What is collusion that you see?

HIMES: Well, collusion is working together. Collusion is inviting the Russians to come to your office, as the president's son did, in expectation that they would give you dirt, and saying that that would be a great thing, rather than calling the FBI when the Russians offer you that.

Now maybe Don Jr. was super naive and thought that there wouldn't be a quid pro quo. But the point here, John, is that conspiracy is the crime. Collusion is not a legal term; it is not a crime.

We concede, because we respect Bob Mueller in the face of all of the damage and invective that the president threw at Bob Mueller, we respect his decision.

But remember, the attack on Adam Schiff, if you read the letter asking for his resignation, it said that "You have said that there is evidence, and you have not provided it." Now, the quote you just read me does not say that there was no evidence.

BERMAN: No, it doesn't.

HIMES: It said that they did not establish that there was a criminal conspiracy. Those are two very different things.

BERMAN: We have -- we haven't seen what they have in terms of evidence.

There is a later quote in there. I should say that a definition of cooperation, which isn't collusion here, I do want to read to you, it's that coordination, they define as "an agreement, tacit or expressed, between the Trump campaign and the Russian government on election interference.

So when they say no coordination, they say there wasn't even a tacit agreement to interfere in the election. Do you concede that point?

HIMES: You know, I have been saying for years right now that there was -- that it was going to be very unlikely that there was any sort of formal quid pro quo.

Did Don Jr. go into that meeting in his office thinking that the Russians were going to hand him something with no expectation for anything in return? That is something, apparently, that Bob Mueller did not think could be proven in court.

Now remember, there's a reason why we haven't seen this report yet.

BERMAN: Yes. HIMES: When the evidence -- because there will be a lot of evidence

-- comes out, it will not look good for the president. And, of course, this is something that they're trying to distract away from, the letter that you're reading from also said that it was -- it was basically ambiguous on whether there had been obstruction of justice, a very serious crime.

BERMAN: Right.

HIMES: So, you know, the Republicans kind of hit their high water mark of political victory on this, because what comes next is not a good thing for the president.

BERMAN: It specifically says -- it specifically says that the report does not exonerate him on obstruction.

As to what the evidence will show, we don't know, because we haven't seen the report yet. There are 300 pages of it. Who knows what's in those 300 pages?

You point to three broad issues where you have serious questions and you still want to learn more.

No. 1, you're on the Intelligence Committee. There was a counterintelligence investigation. Nowhere in this four page of the Barr summary do we get any sense of what that counterintelligence investigation found, which would presumably entail what the Russians talked to the Trump campaign about and what that communication involved, correct?

[07:25:10] HIMES: That's exactly right. And some of that may never -- well, we'll certainly no time soon be made public. Because of course remember, Mueller was also investigating the full nature of the Russian attack. That could involve information which is classified and sensitive.

And so we may -- well, I should say the public may never see the full extent of that -- of that counterintelligence conclusion. But it is obviously important for us to know, so that we can defend against it in future.

BERMAN: And then, again, you brought up a second area is evidence of collusion. What evidence do you expect to see?

HIMES: Well, John, a lot of it is in plain sight, and a lot of it is what Adam ran through in his speech yesterday. It's the meeting in Trump Tower. It's the fact that George Papadopoulos took a meeting with a Russian in Europe, which of course, is why this investigation all got started. It has nothing to do with the Steele dossier. It has to do with one of the president's national security advisers, or I should say candidate's national security advisers taking a meeting with the Russians.

Michael Steele [SIC] having conversation that he lies about. Michael Cohen lying about Russia. Again, let's be very clear, this is evidence. It is not conclusive

evidence, and we accept what Bob Mueller's conclusion is that it's not evidence that rises to the standard of a criminally chargeable conspiracy.

BERMAN: Will you call on Congress to take action, to ask a judge to make the grand jury evidence and testimony public?

HIMES: Yes. I -- I think, John, we've got a couple of routes here. One, of course, is to subpoena the entire report; to subpoena Bob Mueller to come talk about the report. What you talk about there, asking a judge to make a judgment on the grand jury information, is an option, as well.

What I worry about here, John, is that you can bet that the fact that we haven't seen this report, you know, two milliseconds after it hit the White House, that tells us one thing, which is that it is not exonerating the president and that it contains information that he doesn't like.

So what I worry about, John, is that they -- the White House is going to assert executive privilege, not to protect conversations that were designed to advise the president, but to avoid the release of information that will be inconvenient or embarrassing for this president. I think that's the fight we're going to have.

BERMAN: We will see if that happens. What we know so far is we are told the White House has not seen the report yet. That is what we are told by the White House.

We are also told it's possible that Barr will not show the report to the White House before submitting it to Congress. Instead, what he would do is maybe identify areas where he believes executive privilege could come into play without the White House actually having to exert it. So we'll have to see what path they take.

But I agree: these could be real issues to discuss coming up.

Congressman Himes, thanks so much for being with us.

HIMES: Thanks, John.

CAMEROTA: All right, John. The mayor of Chicago has a message for Jussie Smollett: pay up. Can the "Empire" actor be forced to pay for the investigation into this alleged hoax? That's next.

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