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House Panel to Vote Today on Mueller Report Subpoena; Chinese Woman Charged for Entering Mar-a-Lago Illegally; Fact Check: Trump's Speech at GOP Dinner. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired April 03, 2019 - 07:00   ET

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

(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)

MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Authorize subpoenas for the full Mueller report.

[07:00:04] DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We could give them 800 pages. They'll always come back and say, "It's not enough."

REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D-CA), CHAIRMAN, INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE: The public has a right to see. The president shouldn't try to hide it.

TRUMP: We have to protect pre-existing conditions. If you don't, you have no chance of winning.

SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY), MINORITY LEADER: They have no plan. They are for repeal. They have no replace.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If he has a plan, it's his duty to advance it right now, not after an election.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: How did a woman with two Chinese passports, four cell phones and a thumb drive with malware get inside Mar-a-Lago?

RAJU: Authorities want to know was this designed in a way to deliver malicious software?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This looked sloppy. If you were trained, you never would have deviated from what your story was.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: There are a lot of questions about that that we're about to get into.

Good morning, everyone. Welcome to your NEW DAY. In just hours, the House Judiciary Committee will vote to authorize a subpoena to see Robert Mueller's full, unredacted 400-page report. President Trump, who once said let Americans see the report now appears to be having second thoughts.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I think it's ridiculous. We went through two years of the Mueller investigation. The attorney general now and the deputy attorney general ruled no obstruction. They said no obstruction. And so there's no collusion, there's no obstruction and now we're going to start this process all over again? I think it's a disgrace.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Untrue. The attorney general's summary directly quoted Special Counsel Robert Mueller that he did not exonerate the president of obstruction of justice.

BERMAN: Also this morning, there are just crazy questions about this bizarre security breach at the president's Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.

This morning, we are learning details about this case. Federal investigators have charged a Chinese woman who was carrying a thumb drive with malware with illegally getting in, accessing the president's club while he was in town. Authorities say she was also carrying two Chinese passports and four cell phones.

But how did she get through security? How did she get inside? What are the security procedures at these private residences where the president spends so much of his time? And are they sufficient?

We've got a lot to discuss this morning. Let's bring in Jeffrey Toobin, CNN chief analyst and former federal prosecutor; David Gregory, CNN political analyst; and Phil Mudd, CNN counterterrorism analyst; former FBI senior intelligence adviser.

Jeffrey Toobin, I want to start with you. The House Judiciary Committee will authorize a subpoena to get the full Mueller report. Jerry Nadler, who's the chair, he's not going to deliver the subpoena yet. But he's going to hold it in reserve for when and for what?

JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN CHIEF LEGAL ANALYST: You know, the tanks are massing for the battle over the -- over the Mueller report.

I think it is worth pointing out that Barr has not announced yet how many redactions there will be. So perhaps they will be small, or modest, or nonexistent redactions. But the Democrats are making clear that they want every word.

And in fairness to the Democrats, if you look at the four categories that Barr, on his own initiative, said he will be censoring from the Mueller report -- grand jury information, classified information, other investigations, information about third parties -- it's very broad. All four of those categories have the potential to swallow up almost the whole Mueller report.

So it does look like a conflict is coming. But I think it's worth pointing out that there is no conflict yet. We don't know how many redactions there will be. CAMEROTA: But David Gregory, Democrats say that it is their duty to

oversee this. It is their duty to see the whole thing in its entirety. And there is precedent. Republicans, when they were in charge of these committees, got -- asked for and got sensitive documents and were able to see the totality of things for Fast and Furious, for Benghazi, et cetera.

DAVID GREGORY, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Right. And when it comes to the potential for obstruction of justice, what Mueller concluded was so interesting. Which is not to exonerate the president but to make the -- to make it very clear there was information on both sides that he couldn't reach a conclusion.

And here you have not just the attorney general but also Rod Rosenstein, who was the one who decided to put Robert Mueller in place, concluding that you wouldn't bring an obstruction case.

So you know, politically, Democrats have to be careful here. Because there is the specter of them taking this report and then running with it in lots of different directions, trying to reach conclusions that Mueller did not reach.

But they will still make the argument that it is within their purview. It is their responsibility to decide whether there was obstruction while the president was in office. A determination about an abuse of power that they are in a position to make.

And Republicans will repeat, as the president would say, there's no crime. Obstructing what? And -- and that's the difficulty for Democrats.

But as I said last hour, I think what's still so important in the public interest is all that Mueller outlined about what the Russians tried to do, and the lingering question is what, as a country, as a government, are we going to do to prevent it from happening again?

[07:05:22] BERMAN: Well, just on the issue of obstruction, just so people know here, you can obstruct justice even if there is no crime. And in this case, there might be an issue of just embarrassment. Maybe he didn't want it out there, because it was embarrassing. And that could be of interest to the American people also.

Phil Mudd, David Gregory said the Democrats need to be careful here. It also seems the president all of a sudden is being careful here in a new way. Because he went from saying, "Sure, release the full report. Congress, just get it out there. I don't care; I'm fully exonerated" to now he's saying, "Why do the Democrats want this? It's ridiculous." And then the other night saying, "Maybe, we should just say no to releasing this."

PHIL MUDD, CNN COUNTERTERRORISM ANALYST: Yes, I think -- I think there are a couple of explanations that are pretty simple here. First the president read the headline, which says, "I get off the hook." Whether or not the report actually says that, the president has, I think, successfully persuaded a lot of Americans that this was what he said all along, a hoax. Then you get to the thousand paragraphs below and you realize a bunch

of people in the White House and elsewhere, I'm guessing, in that report, said things that were embarrassing. They didn't reach the level of having Robert Mueller say, "We should prosecute people under the law." But I guarantee you, in 400 pages, there's a lot of embarrassment.

So if this stuff gets out, it's not whether the president is going to be proven wrong about the headline. It's about whether a lot of White House people and others say, "Man, there is some stuff I saw that was really dirty." I think that's the issue, John.

CAMEROTA: Jeffrey, let's move on to this nutty story about this woman who showed up at Mar-a-Lago and breached security there. She had two Chinese passports. She had four cell phones. She had a laptop computer on her. She had an external hard drive-type device, a thumb drive with malicious malware.

JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN CHIEF LEGAL ANALYST: This is how I travel. What's the big deal?

CAMEROTA: You would be blocked getting into Mar-a-Lago.

BERMAN: And the martini glass. That would be the only difference, is that Jeffrey has got the --

(CROSSTALK)

CAMEROTA: This is all sort of odd, and peculiar and ready for a Hollywood script, except that the president spent something like 231 days outside of the White House at his properties since becoming president. A lot of time he spends outside of the White House in unsecured properties of his.

And so maybe this is a dry run, or should be, for somebody who's trying to breach the system, because it's not that hard.

TOOBIN: Well, and you know, there is a tension here. Because the president, you know, is allowed to live his life. He's not a prisoner. He apparently just doesn't like Camp David, which was set up as a secure recreation place for the president.

But if he's going to be there, if he's going to be at Mar-a-Lago, they have to have a system in place that not only protects from espionage efforts, as this certainly appears to be, but -- and this is a separate story. You know, all the influence peddling that appears to go on there. You know how they have raised the -- they have raised the initiation fee at Mar-a-Lago since he got there, because so many people want to get his ear. And it's not ordinary people who are getting his ear there. It's people who can afford the 200,000 initiation fee.

BERMAN: It's not at all clear to me that he wants those people separate. It may very well be that he wants them there.

David Gregory, you know, you covered the Bush administration, George W. Bush. He had Crawford, Texas. But you couldn't go get a drink at the bar at his house in Crawford. You wouldn't want to. Crawford is a different type of place.

GREGORY: Crawford was very nice. But it was like being in the witness protection program for the president.

BERMAN: Leave that aside. But the Secret Service put out a remarkable statement about this yesterday, which is we don't get to decide -- the Secret Service doesn't determine who gets in and out of Mar-a-Lago. In other words, it's Mar-a-Lago. It's this Trump-owned property. It's this Trump Organization that's deciding who gets in here. And if there's a problem, it's on them.

GREGORY: So, and what I think is remarkable about this is, if you understand a private club like Mar-a-Lago and, you know, where the public has some access. And then somebody comes like this, in an espionage effort, with malware, with a thumb drive with malware, that's like getting access to the president's house.

I mean, the ability to penetrate secure communications, and perhaps Secret Service would have something to say about that. They may not say it publicly, about how they can wall that off. It's still very dangerous.

So this goes to the point. This is not a private residence like President Bush had that was, you know, in a rural area like Crawford, Texas, that could really be secured and people could be kept from it except invited guests. And that's an enormous challenge, particularly for a president who likes to break down all those barriers, between tweeting, using various devices. It -- it doesn't -- it's way beyond President Trump. It' s about the presidency at this point and how you secure someone in this kind of media environment.

[07:10:03] CAMEROTA: Phil, does it make you nervous that Mar-a-Lago is this insecure?

MUDD: Not as nervous as I think I should be. I mean, I look at this and say, "Look, this is the presidency meets Trump Inc." What the president is doing, as Jeffrey was saying, is charging 200,000 bucks to get in there.

How is it in his interest to have people says, "You've got to go through a bunch of metal detectors and questions" when you drop that kind of money? I don't think the president would want the Secret Service securing access.

I think the interesting issue here is not the espionage issue. I don't think that's a story. I mean, the lady can't even figure out what her story is, and it looks like she just ripped off Best Buy, and that's espionage?

I think the story is the Secret Service saying, "The president of the United States is going into a place, and we can't even control the rules and regulations of who gets to have a drink at the bar." That's a little weird. BERMAN: Yes, and again, I think the issue is because the president

doesn't want to. He wants the people there. He wants the pictures with the people, the hoity-toity people mingling behind him when he's meeting with the Japanese prime minister, Abe. He wants to talk to them and grant access to them, Jeffrey, when he's there, you know, over spring break.

TOOBIN: And frankly, I think it's complicated. Because I think the idea of the president not wanting to be in an isolated bubble, completely cut off from people, is not a bad thing.

The issue here is that this is not like going to Wal-Mart. This is a very rarified crew, people who are paying enormous amounts of money for that sort of proximity. That's not being available to the public or to ordinary people. That's being available to people --

CAMEROTA: Right, but Jeffrey --

TOOBIN: -- who will pay you, because he owns Mar-a-Lago, after all.

CAMEROTA: Isn't the issue that he's the president of the United States? That he's supposed to be doing the people's work. And that if he's exposing the United States to vulnerability, that's a problem. And it's not a secure location.

TOOBIN: This is part of how Trump has defined -- defied the norms of the presidency. You know, he didn't release his tax returns. He didn't give up his business. He's still in, making money off of businesses that --

CAMEROTA: Like Mar-a-Lago, for instance.

TOOBIN: -- companies and private -- and private -- and other countries are paying, you know, to stay in his hotels.

CAMEROTA: Understood. And in these situations, it seems as though that takes precedence. That the entrance fee at Mar-a-Lago takes precedence over the security of Mar-a-Lago.

TOOBIN: That's right. That's right.

CAMEROTA: And that's not --

TOOBIN: There's no law against it. And if there's no law against it, Trump's going to do it.

BERMAN: You get cases like this, where someone ends up with four cell phones, a thumb drive with malware, and two passports, which Phil Mudd doesn't think is odd at all. He's like, yes, all right.

CAMEROTA: Well, that says where we are.

BERMAN: All right. We've got much more to discuss with you guys. Don't go far.

President Trump going back to the well with a familiar but totally baseless claim. A CNN reality check is next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:16:47] CAMEROTA: President Trump, the so-called TV president, apparently did not realize his speech last night was televised. President Trump played fast and loose with the facts in his remarks at a Republican dinner; and John Avlon is here with our reality check.

Yes, there is such a thing called videotape.

JOHN AVLON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Just a little bit. Here's the tale of the tape.

Last night things got really weird when President Trump spoke at the National Republican Congressional Committee dinner. And he apparently didn't know the whole thing was being broadcast live.

So he began by making yet another completely unfounded accusation about voter fraud. But this one flipped the conspiracy to the counting.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: There were a lot of close elections that were -- they seemed to -- every single one of them went Democrat. Hey, you've got to be a little bit more paranoid than you are, OK? Because I don't like the way the votes are being tallied.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AVLON: Yes, in a world where our election system is still very much vulnerable to foreign influence and a poll just ahead of the midterms found that almost 50 percent of Americans thought their votes wouldn't be counted accurately, President Trump just instructed his fellow Republicans to be, quote, "more paranoid" when they lose.

This is the opposite of "We have nothing to fear but fear itself."

And speaking of paranoid, it's not entirely clear the president knew he was on the record at the time.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: There's always somebody's going to leak this whole damn speech to the media, to the fake news.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AVLON: That's despite the fact there were TV cameras in the back of the room, and the whole event was being broadcast live on C-SPAN.

Now make no mistake. The idea the Republicans lost close midterm races due to fraud, not reality-based. The president wasn't big on specifics last night, but in the past, he suggested there was fraud in close mid-term Senate races like Florida and Arizona. Despite the fact that Florida ultimately went Republican. The only election fraud we've seen is in North Carolina, where an

entire congressional race is being redone; but Donald Trump has been silent on that one.

Also North Carolina, where separately, the GOP state chair was just indicted, though he denies any wrongdoing.

Now all of this, of course, from a president who claims that millions voted illegally, costing the popular vote. He even started a commission to find the fraud, only to quickly dissolve it in a cloud of controversy.

But if this "be paranoid about voting" thing is dangerous, the next one is just bonkers.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: If you -- if you have a windmill anywhere near your house, congratulations. Your house just went down 75 percent in value. And they say the noise causes cancer. You told me that one, OK.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AVLON: To be clear, there is no "they" that says the sound from windmills cause cancer. But as Jon Chait at "New York" magazine points out, one form of energy that does cause cancer is Trump's beloved coal.

But even with all this, perhaps the weirdest part of Trump's day is when he insisted, yet again, that his dad wasn't born in America.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: My father is German, right? Was German.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AVLON: Look, one can only assume Donald Trump knows where his father was born. That would be the Bronx, New York, 1905. And yet, this is at least the fourth time in the past year the president's made this claim.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: My father is from Germany. Both of my parents are from the E.U.

Both my parents were born in E.U. sectors, OK? I mean, my mother was Scotland. My father was Germany.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AVLON: But maybe this is a form of progress. Because for years Donald Trump falsely insisted his father was Swedish.

And that's your reality check. [07:25:05] BERMAN: All right, John. Thank you.

CAMEROTA: How dare you end on that?

BERMAN: Thank you, I think.

CAMEROTA: Toss it back to us in our laughs.

BERMAN: All right. The red light means the camera is on, first of all --

CAMEROTA: All right.

BERMAN: -- for the president there.

We want to bring in David Gregory, CNN political analyst; Sam Vinograd, former senior advisor to the national security advisor; also with us is Jeffrey Toobin, our chief legal analyst.

TOOBIN: Also Swedish.

BERMAN: Also Swedish. David, let's start with that. I mean, because there's something absurd but maybe also deeply concerning. Because I don't know if the president doesn't know his father wasn't born in Germany, doesn't care whether his father was or wasn't born in Germany.

CAMEROTA: Or if he started to believe his own words.

GREGORY: Right. I mean, the only striking thing about this is that it all happened in one day. You know, I mean, and we've become way too numb to the idea that, when the president speaks, when this president speaks, it may not mean anything. It just -- it may not be the truth. It may be pure exaggeration. So we should discount what the president of the United States says. That's the part that is both absurd and deeply concerning, because the president's words should matter.

I mean, I think in this instance about the heritage, you can also just see the president at work. You can see his mind at work. He's trying to somehow soften the relationship that he's made very difficult between the United States and the European Union by looking for some shred of shared heritage, even when it's inaccurate, to try to bond with the person he's sitting with.

So, you know, he clearly -- he just doesn't care. He's just after making a bigger point. And it's just become all too familiar.

CAMEROTA: I love when he says that his parents are from E.U. sectors -- of the Bronx. I guess.

BERMAN: His mother is from Scotland. His mother -- his mother was born in Scotland. His father was born in the Bronx.

CAMEROTA: Are you sure? BERMAN: I'm sure of nothing anymore, absolutely nothing anymore. The

president even went on to say his father was born in this -- "My father was born in a really great place in Germany, a very special place. A wonderful place."

CAMEROTA: A wonderful village called the Bronx, New York.

BERMAN: A wonderful place in Germany.

CAMEROTA: I don't know, Jeffrey.

TOOBIN: You know, it's -- Berman and I were talking about Rick Reilly's book about golf. And -- you know, "Commander in Cheat." The -- Rick was on the show yesterday. And, you know, the incredibly pervasive cheating that Trump does with golf. And you know, of course he plays constantly.

This is his personality. And I think he recognizes, or his view is, "Look, I became a billionaire. I got elected president of the United States being who I am. I'm also in my mid-70s. I'm not changing."

I mean, this is not going to change. People in their mid-70s don't change. "And look at how society has rewarded me for being who I am."

CAMEROTA: Yes.

TOOBIN: Why change?

CAMEROTA: And it's the lack of chagrin that is also confusing. When you're busted, when it's so obvious and you're busted for cheating and for lying, the lack of chagrin is just -- you know, it's just curious.

SAMANTHA VINOGRAD, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: But if only the lying and the misinformation stopped with his family record, right? I mean, we talked about his father being born in Germany.

Let's fast forward to the event last night where he urged voters to be paranoid about supposed inconsistencies in past elections and forthcoming elections. That's a lie. That's not what happened in previous election cycles.

And he's saving Russia a lot of money when he does something like that. They used to have to spend a decent amount of rubles to send information warriors around to spread misinformation, lies about the president, lies about our institutions.

And he's actually doing that from the podium at a -- at a public event. And you have to just wonder why the president of the United States, leaving aside his father's reinvented history, is waging information warfare that actually helps the very country that's attacking our elections.

BERMAN: All right. One more curious moment last night, when President Trump, who's got his own well-documented history here, decided to bring up Joe Biden.

The context here is the president is talking about a general that he was having a conversation with, but listen to how he says it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I was going to call him. I don't know him well. I was going to say, "Welcome to the world, Joe. You having a good time, Joe?"

I said, "General, come here, give me a kiss." I felt like Joe Biden.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: People in glass houses, Sam. People who have at least 15 women who say they felt pawed at by Donald Trump. And whatever Joe Biden has done pales in comparison to what women say that Donald Trump has done to them.

VINOGRAD: And I worked with Joe Biden for four years at the White House. I work for him now at the Biden Institute. And let me just be very clear. Nothing about Donald Trump is or ever will be anything like Joe Biden.

Leaving aside the allegations about some women being uncomfortable around the vice president, Joe Biden has been one of the strongest proponents of women's rights and preventing violence against women. And the president, instead, chooses, again, in front of millions of people, to mock women and to mock a former vice president. That is nothing like Vice President Joe Biden.

[07:25:11] David, I get the feeling this is just the beginning, though.

GREGORY: Absolutely, just the beginning. I mean, you know, those close to the president are, you know, reviving some of these Internet claims about Biden to disparage him.

Trump doesn't have any shame about this, because he's denied everything and goes on the attack. And he's very clear about that that's the strategy that you have to follow. So, you know, the comparisons may hang out there. But he doesn't care.

As Jeffrey said, you know, he is who he is. He feels like he's been rewarded politically, financially, in society for everything that he is, that he doesn't pay a penalty. So he's not going to get caught up in that. And he will mock it. He will mock it as a tremendous overreaction, and he'll use it all as part of what he's doing against the left, which is, you know, the progressive left, whether it's Medicare for all, or whether it's forcing Joe Biden into position to apologize for these things that don't add up to sexual harassment based on all the claims. He'll use it to mock him and to mock the Democratic Party.

BERMAN: I've got to bring it full circle, back to the Germany thing, because I'm always left with this issue on a night like last night. You wake up, you see this, and you're like, "Oh, my God." But then what do you do with it?

Because there are people who say, "Well, you're pointing this out. Voters don't care that the president doesn't know where his father was born or is outright lying where his father was born there." Ian Bremmer, our friend who comes on the show a lot, says typically, the president is directionally honest about some things. Maybe he doesn't have exact facts straight.

CAMEROTA: I guess the Bronx is near Germany.

BERMAN: Well, it's Earth.

CAMEROTA: Directionally.

BERMAN: His father was born on planet Earth. That's directionally honest.

TOOBIN: Good point.

BERMAN: So Jeffrey, what does one do with this? What is productive? Or how should a president of the United States be judged?

TOOBIN: I mean, I think we can only do our jobs as journalists and point out what people say and whether it's true or not.

One of the great touchstones of this presidency has been that people seem to have made up their mind about Donald Trump on about January 22 of 2017; and, you know, we make a big deal when the polls move from 38 to 40 or 40 to 42 favorability for the president. There have been essentially no changes. It's all noise. Nothing changes people's minds about Donald Trump.

There are about 55 percent of the people who can't stand him. There are about 40 percent of the people who like him. I guess there are about five people who go back and forth.

But, you know, I don't think it's really our job to try to persuade people to stop liking someone or start liking something. All we can do is our job. And be honest, be forthright, tell the truth, say where Donald Trump's father was born. And if people don't care, they don't care. But we're not going to stop doing our job.

CAMEROTA: I think in terms of the election fraud stuff that he likes to peddle, I think it's more dangerous than just loose talk; this is just him being directionally dishonest. I think -- I mean, David, what I hear is him setting up something if it doesn't go his way in 2020.

GREGORY: Right. Look, and it is sinister. And you go back to the presidential debates in 2016, where he at that time said, "Well, maybe I, you know, wouldn't give up peacefully," if he lost. That's dangerous talk from a candidate or from a president of the United States.

And to Jeffrey's point, we do our job in these instances. You shine a light on this. But the problem in the modern media environment is that the president says something like that. It takes off on social media, and there's plenty of people who think, "Yes, absolutely, that's true." And there's people who are willing to proliferate that lie out there.

So it's vitally important that you shine a light on that kind of misinformation, going back to claims that there were illegal immigrants voting during 2016, claims that were debunked. There was nothing to it. You have to set the record straight on that, even in competition with so much bogus information that's coursing through the media bloodstream.

TOOBIN: Just remember what -- to add to what David said, remember, Michael Cohen testified in -- a couple of weeks ago that one of the reasons he has come forward now, you know, against Trump is because he believes, if Trump loses the 2020 election, he will not surrender power peacefully.

BERMAN: I fear that if he loses the election in 2020, that there will never be a peaceful transition of power.

TOOBIN: Which -- which, you know, is unprecedented, of course, in American history.

CAMEROTA: All right. Sam, David, Jeffrey, thank you very much.

One presidential candidate goes to the top of the class, thanks to some math. So Chris Cillizza is going to joins us with his 2020 mid- week grades.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)