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Democrats Demand Full, Unredacted Mueller Report be Provided; President Trump Expresses Reservations about Providing Full Mueller Report to Democrats; Presidential Candidate Julian Castro (D) is Interviewed on His Immigration Plan and Support for Medicare for All; Interview With Rep. Jackie Speier (D) CA. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired April 03, 2019 - 8:00   ET

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

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are asking that the entire Mueller report be given to Congress.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: There is no collusion. I think it's a disgrace.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are the committee that has responsibility to determine whether or not there was any wrongdoing, not the attorney general.

MITCH MCCONNELL, (R) SENATE MAJORITY LEADER: Closing down the border would have catastrophic economic impact.

TRUMP: Mexico makes a hell of a lot of money off us, so they don't want the border closed.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All the president is doing here is posturing. I can't imagine the president won't come to his senses.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A security breach at President Trump's Mar-a- Lago resort leading to an arrest.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There is a reason why there's Camp David. The president doesn't like it so he doesn't go there.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It just doesn't feel like a spy effort to me. It's somebody who thought they might be currying favor back home in China.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is NEW DAY with Alisyn Camerota on John Berman.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, and welcome to your NEW DAY. It is Wednesday, April 3rd. It is 8:00 in the east.

Just about one hour from now Congress takes a significant step in trying to get its hands on the full Mueller report. The House Judiciary Committee is expected to vote to authorize the subpoena to get Special Counsel Robert Mueller's full and unredacted 400-page report. Democratic lawmakers, they want to see why the four-page summary in Special Counsel Mueller specifically did not exonerate the president on obstruction of justice, and even though the Special Counsel did not establish a criminal case against the president for conspiracy or coordination with the Russians, Democrats want to see if the report outlines questionable activity or contact with the Russians, perhaps short of a crime.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Just last week President Trump said he did not mind if the report went public, but now he appears to have had a change of heart. Overnight he used new language to suggest he does not want it out at all. He even called a public release, quote, ridiculous and a waste of time. And the other day on Twitter he suggested maybe we should just say no to its release.

CNN's Manu Raju is live on Capitol Hill in the room where the committee will meet with a preview of what we can expect. What's going to happen there this morning?

MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: This is going to be a very lively meeting that's going to happen in about an hour as Democrats push through a resolution to authorize subpoenas for the full Mueller report, for the underlying evidence, and to five former White House officials who they believe may have communicated with the White House in preparation with their testimony before the Special Counsel. They are planning to authorize these today, but not necessarily serve these subpoenas today.

Jerry Nadler, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, says that this is essentially going to be -- he's going to issue them when he feels it is necessary, essentially in his back pocket to decide when to really ratchet up the fight with the Justice Department to get the full Mueller report and the underlying evidence.

This all started last Friday when Bill Barr sent a letter to Capitol Hill saying that he would provide the Mueller report by mid-April, if not sooner, plus there will be several areas of redactions. Those areas of redactions have prompted significant Democratic concern, mainly about grand jury information that would be redacted, as well as peripheral third parties, people who are not indicted who may have their reputations impugned if their names were in the Mueller report. Barr suggested that he would redact that as well.

Those four areas in particular are causing Democrats to say they are entitled to this information, they cite past cases like the Watergate case, the Starr investigation, the Clinton email investigation, when the Justice Department has provided this committee with information central to what they plan to investigate going forward.

Now, Republicans have pushed back rather strenuously, said, why not give the attorney general time to be as transparent as possible. Don't set arbitrary deadlines. That fight is going to take place here in just a matter of moments as both -- as the Democrats are starting to really use their majority here in the House in their fourth month in power, issuing subpoenas that could end up in a court battle with the Justice Department. Ultimately, of course, Alisyn and John, it will determine -- it will be up to the Justice Department to determine just how much information to provide, which will then essentially force the Democrats' hand to decide whether to issue these subpoenas, or maybe this will ultimately just be a threat.

BERMAN: It's interesting, Manu, because when the summary, when the Barr summary first came out, President Trump made it clear that he felt that they should release the whole report. He had no problems with releasing the whole report, but his rhetoric has changed decidedly on that. Just listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I don't mind. I mean, frankly, I told the House if you want, let them see it.

I think it's ridiculous. Anything that's given to them will never be good enough. You could give them more documents than they have ever seen, and it would never be good enough. So I think it's somewhat of a waste of time.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: The other night the president even wrote maybe we should just say no to releasing the report. How do Democrats view this? Just posturing?

[08:05:00] RAJU: They believe that the president is getting cold feet. They believe the president saying that he's OK with releasing the Mueller report before was just talk. I talked to Adam Schiff, the House Intelligence Committee Chairman, about this very topic yesterday, he said that the president believes -- he believes the president is clearly concerned about the release of the report. And Democrats also are very skeptical about Bill Barr, skeptical that he is going to release as much as possible. They are not willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, as James Comey, the former FBI director, said yesterday, give Bill Barr some time. That is something Democrats are not willing to do.

So the question here, John, is when will they issue these subpoenas? They are going to be authorized today, but when will these be served back to -- served to the Justice Department, Alisyn, that's going to be the big question for Jerry Nadler in the days ahead.

CAMEROTA: OK, Manu, thank you very much for previewing all of that for us.

Now Democratic presidential candidate Julian Castro is unveiling his immigration plan that would roll back a series of laws implemented under Presidents George W. Bush and Donald Trump. And Julian Castro joins us now. He is the former Housing Secretary under President Obama and former mayor of San Antonio. Mayor, thanks for being here in studio.

JULIAN CASTRO, (D) PRESIDENT CANDIDATE: Great to be with you. CAMEROTA: You are the first of the 2020 candidates to present a

comprehensive immigration plan, so let's go through it, because I have a lot of questions for you. So here is what you have said, we will put up the first graphic of what you're calling for. End border wall construction, increase refugee quotas. Let me stop you right there, because, as you know, right now at the border the Customs and Border Protection agents say they are overwhelmed by the number of people coming in and families seeking asylum. Why would you increase those numbers?

CASTRO: Well, about four decades ago the United States actually set a cap on the number of refugees at about 100,000, 110,000. I think right now we might be at 30,000 or 40,000. During that time we have basically been going downward. Now, these are refugees as opposed to the folks that are seeking asylum that you're talking about, people presenting themselves at the border. But as I'm sure you will get to, I also believe we should handle the people presenting themselves at the border differently.

CAMEROTA: And tell me about that, because, again, the feeling from this administration is that we are in a full-blown crisis and that they are overwhelmed by it. How do you think --

CASTRO: I don't believe their narrative. I don't believe the B.S. that women and children who are fleeing dangerous circumstances present a national security threat to this country.

CAMEROTA: Well, what about the fact that they just don't have beds for them? They can't contain them?

CASTRO: What does that have to do with whether they should be treated as criminals or not? What does that have to do with whether they should be able to present their claim for asylum? Right now, this administration is playing games with them, not allowing them to present their claim for asylum at the border, keeping them caged in pens. Folks probably saw the other day, for instance, the visuals out of El Paso, they were under a bridge, fenced in in a pen, treated like animals. I don't believe that we should do that. I have a different vision. I believe that we should go back to how this was handled before, about 2004. I believe that --

CAMEROTA: Meaning it should be civil.

CASTRO: That's right.

CAMEROTA: You see these as civil infractions, you don't see them as criminal infractions. You know what people will say, you have to come to this country legally.

CASTRO: Well, that's why my immigration plan also includes improving our legal immigration system. Sometimes people tell me, well, why are you talking about undocumented immigrants? I have a cousin or my parents or my grandparents, they came here and they came here legally. Why don't these folks apply legally?

And these two things are not mutually exclusive. What I'm asking people to do is to recognize that this president's cruelty has failed. He said about a year ago, this administration said if we would just be cruel enough to treat little children so badly, so cruelly that we would take them away from their mothers, that that would deter more families from coming. And instead the opposite is true, more families are coming today.

So I'm saying that we've tried cruelty. I believe that we should try compassion, and that we're still going to have a secure border.

CAMEROTA: How? Let's talk about that, because this is where I think that the president will come after you as will Republicans, because when you say that immigration detention will become a rarity, they say, well, you want open borders. They believe you must arrest people who are trying to enter the country illegally.

CASTRO: This is just a Republican talking point. You're still going to have all of the Border Patrol that are on the border. You're still going to have -- they have 654 miles of fencing right now out of a 2,994 mile border. We have helicopters, we have airplanes.

CAMEROTA: But when people show up, if you don't detain them, what are you going to do with them?

CASTRO: We're going to process them, and it's true we still have the option to deport them. To say open borders is a complete falsehood because you still have the option to deport people.

[08:10:06] CAMEROTA: There are still children who are separated from their parents today as we speak. So after the administration did that and thousands of kids were separated from their parents, and they tried to rectify it, and first they tried to say they weren't doing it intentionally, then they had to admit they were doing it, then they tried to rectify it, but they didn't have addresses for the parents that they deported. There are still today kids who are separated. What is your solution for them?

CASTRO: Well, I mean, the first thing is that the federal government needs to get its act together. They went into court a couple months ago and they said essentially that it's not worth making the effort, that they couldn't make the effort to try to reunite little children with their mothers and fathers. Not only is that un-American, more importantly that's inhumane. That shows a basic lack of human respect for people. And I hope that that is fully investigated in Congress, and I hope that people are held accountable, and by that I mean at least lose their jobs over that.

CAMEROTA: Quickly on healthcare, you want Medicare for all. Yes?

CASTRO: Yes.

CAMEROTA: How will you pay for it?

CASTRO: During the course of this campaign, because I think that's a good question and people deserve that answer, we're going to release our own plan on how we would pay for that. But in general, as others have pointed out, we're going to have to expect a lot more from people at the top who I think over the last 40 years, basically the tax code has gone in the direction of asking less and less from people that are very, very well off and asking more and more from the middle class and people who are lower middle class and even poor, and from very successful corporations. Folks may have seen about three or four weeks ago, for instance, that Amazon reported they earned more than $11 billion. But they didn't pay any federal taxes. How does that happen? We've gone completely in the wrong direction.

So part of the way that we're going to pay for this and other things is we're going to get our tax code in order so that it rewards work and not just wealth.

CAMEROTA: Under your plan does private health insurance go away?

CASTRO: It would not. I believe that if somebody wants to have a private health insurance plan or supplemental plan that they should be able to do that. We should strengthen Medicare for the people that have it and then expand it so that everybody can take advantage of it. I grew up with a grandmother that had diabetes, and right before she passed away in early 1996 she had to have one of her feet amputated, but that entire time she had Medicare. I want Medicare to be there for everybody.

CAMEROTA: Vice President Joe Biden who is not yet officially in the race but obviously considering it, has, as you know, come under fire from women who said that he made him feel uncomfortable, he invaded their personal space, he touched them in a way that made them feel uncomfortable. Do you think that Vice President Biden has handled this well thus far?

CASTRO: I know that he put out a statement and explained his recollection of what happened. I'm glad that in 2019 that we take seriously the claims, the perceptions of women who have come forward and reported things like this, because for a long time we didn't. People were just dismissed or ignored. I know Vice President Biden also is a good man. I don't believe that he intended to harm anybody.

CAMEROTA: So does he need to do more? Say more?

CASTRO: I think that's for him and that's for the American people if he decides to run to determine.

CAMEROTA: Mayor Julian Castro, thank you for telling us and spelling it all out what your plans would be as president. Great to talk to you.

CASTRO: Good to be here, thank you.

CAMEROTA: John?

BERMAN: President Trump is now less enthusiastic about releasing the Mueller report to the public. This as the House Judiciary Committee makes moves to get the full unredacted report. Will they be successful? We'll speak to a prominent House Democrat next.

[08:15:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: Less than one hour from now the House Judiciary Committee will vote to authorize a subpoena to obtain the full un-redacted Mueller report. President Trump now calls the move ridiculous, just after saying he wanted to let the people see it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Let it come out, let people see it. 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)

BERMAN: Joining me now is Democratic Congresswoman Jackie Speier. She serves on the intelligence and oversight committee. Congresswoman, thank you so much for being with us.

You just heard the President there. It's very different than where he started on releasing the Mueller report after Barr put out the summary. Do you think he's getting cold feet?

REP. JACKIE SPEIER, D-CA.: I think it's a pattern. He said he was going to release his tax returns and then he never released his tax returns. He said that he was going to be interviewed by the special counsel and then never was interviewed.

And then he comes forward and say, "I want it all to come out," and then of course now he's saying no. What is he afraid of, is the question we should all be asking. This report belongs to the American people. It's their tax payer dollars that went into the two year investigation, and we will one way or another find out what's in that report.

BERMAN: And the House Judiciary Committee will authorize this subpoena, in really just a few minutes. Why not wait until you see what William Barr provides here before hanging this subpoena over his head?

SPEIER: Well I think that Chairman Nadler may in fact wait. This is just to authorize the issuance of a subpoena. He will then determine when to issue the subpoena.

BERMAN: I want to ask you, because you serve on the oversight committee, which has been looking into this issue of security clearances, and we heard in public from Tricia Newbold, I know your committee has spoken to her, but we got to hear her voice in an interview last night.

And she explained why she revealed to your committee that 25 people inside the administration, who had initially been denied their clearance, it was then over ruled, she explained why she went forward with this information. Let's listen to her.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRICIA NEWBOLD, WHITE HOUSE WHISTLEBLOWER: The protection of national security is not a Democratic issue or a Republican issue, it's an American issue. I'm always concerned, but it's important that we stand up to do the right thing no matter what.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Here's my question to you, is you now have issue a subpoena to her supervisor to have him come in and testify, what do you want to find out?

[08:20:00]

SPEIER: It's incumbent on us to find out why these recommendations not to issue security clearances were overruled. What were the conditions under which the decision was made by the FBI? Typically, it's over a conflict of interest or foreign involvement or a criminal background.

So we want to know what the FBI originally thought, and then why they were over ruled and on what conditions they were over ruled.

BERMAN: You do know--

SPEIER: This is a courageous young woman who came forward and --

BERMAN: I can't imagine how hard it is to come forward ever and then to go back to work, where she's working right now. She's back in the office with everyone knowing that she felt important to go forward.

The president does have the authority to over rule the career official's recommendation, yes?

SPEIER: He does, it's rarely done, and it is a national security risk if a number of people are made to be given these clearances and then for any number of reasons maybe subjected to bribery or any number of things from foreign governments.

One of the complaints was, even a janitor was going to be denied his clearance. Well, often times it is those kinds of situations where people don't have a lot of resources, where dangling $100,000 in front of them can turn any number of assets.

BERMAN: And this gets me to my next question, though, have you seen any evidence at all that national security was compromised by any of these 25 people who did receive those clearances?

SPEIER: So we don't know who these 25 people are and that's why --

BERMAN: We know who two of them are Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump. Have you seen an y evidence that just those two are people that any national security issues were compromised?

SPEIER: I don't know that, but I do know that Ivanka Trump received, shortly after the president was sworn in, 39 copyrights in China that she had been attempting to get for many years, and since then another three or four.

So again it is-we are not in government to enrich our pocket books and that's one of the big problems in this administration.

BERMAN: All right, this event that happened yesterday, where we learned that a woman with two Chinese passports, four cell phones, and a thumb drive with malware has been charged now with trying to get inappropriate entrance to Mar-a-Lago, she got in.

She got in to Mar-a-Lago, and the Secret Service put out a really interesting statement on this. It said "The Secret Service does not determine who is invited or welcome at Mar-a-Lago; this is the responsibility of the host entity."

What concerns does this raise for you?

SPEIER: Huge concerns, we have Camp David precisely for the President of the United States to use it as a retreat. We spend millions of dollars of taxpayer money every year to maintain it. He has been there once. He goes to Mar-a-Lago because he wants to, once again, feather his nest. Create great interest in that facility, up the cost of initiation to be a member, and it's very porous as we have just found out. We are ripe for the picking by the Chinese, the Russians, and any number of other adversaries and the president is making us more vulnerable.

BERMAN: Should the president not have right to go to his own property? George W. Bush went to Crawford, Texas all the time.

SPEIER: Well, but there was a way of maintaining the perimeter of that. That was his private home. This is a public place, and it's a very different set of scenarios that we're dealing with here.

BERMAN: No, indeed. There's no clubhouse at the Bush house in Crawford, Texas to say the least. Congresswoman Jackie Speier thanks for being on with us.

SPEIER: Thank you John.

CAMEROTA: All right John, it's a first in Chicago. The city electing a black woman as their new Mayor, she joins us live for her first national interview. That's straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:25:00]

CAMEROTA: President Trump, once again falsely, claiming that there was election fraud. He's also raising the prospect of future election fraud this time-first he talked about the 2018 mid term election that resulted in Democrats winning the house back.

So, listen to that...

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: We got to watch those vote tallies. You know, I keep hearing about the election and the various counting measures that they have. There were a lot of close elections that were, they seemed to-every single one of them went Democrat.

If it was close they say the Democrat -there's something going on fell-you got to-hey you got to be a little bit more paranoid than you are. But we have to be a little bit careful, because, I don't like the way the votes are being tallied.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: I don't remember the close 2000 Presidential going Democrat, maybe I'm missing something. You're the expert.

BERMAN: Yes, no.

CAMEROTA: Joining us now is Jeffery Toobin, CNN's chief legal analyst and former federal prosecutor, Seung Min Kim, CNN political analyst and White House reporter for the Washington Post, and Josh Campbell, CNN law enforcement and former FBI supervisory special agent.

So, look, Jeffery you talk all the time about what is just the President kind of vamping, what is the President just using-being loose talk, using loose and fast with the facts but I hear something different there and I hear him setting something up in case 2020 doesn't go in the direction that he wants it.

JEFFERY TOOBIN, CNN, CHIEF LEGAL ANALYST: Right let's just do a little bit of a fact check first. The senate and governor's race in Florida, very close, went Republican. The Governor's race in Georgia, very close, went Republican.

So the idea that the Democrats won every close race is simply false.

BERMAN: And it was election fraud in North Carolina in ninth district, the district that went Republican.

TOOBIN: Right and fraud by people affiliated with the Republicans not by the Democrats.

[08:30:00]