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Trump Heads To U.S.-Mexico Border, Backs Off Threat To Close It; Job Growth Rebounds In March: 196k New Hires; Dems Ramp Up Pressure For Mueller Report, Trump Taxes; Trump Threatens Mexico With Tariffs, Economic Penalties; Rep. Jerry Nadler (D) New York Demands Communications Between DOJ And Mueller Office; Trump Hails New Economic Numbers; Trump Again Says U.S. Should Get Rid Of Immigration Judges; Trump Under Scrutiny As Dems Push For His Tax Returns; Sanders To Reach Out To African-American Voters At New York Event. Aired 10- 10:30a ET

Aired April 05, 2019 - 10:00   ET

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


CLARISSA WARD, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Jim, this crackdown in Saudi Arabia very much ongoing.

[10:00:01]

Jim?

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN NEWSROOM: This is how autocrats work. Clarissa Ward, thanks very much for staying on the story.

Top of the hour this Friday, I'm Jim Sciutto in Washington. Poppy has the day off.

President trump leaving the White House on his way to the border this hour, California's border with Mexico, which is not, in fact, closed as the President had threatened just days ago, only to then back off and then to threaten to close within a year, and then maybe not at all. His West Coast trip got off on the right foot with a jobs report showing a big rebound from a dismal February number. And he'll have a weekend away from the still escalating tug of war over the Mueller report and a fight as well over his tax returns. Can you and I, can the public see them?

CNN's Abby Phillip is at the White House. Where do we stand on the border emergency? Because just a few days ago, it was such an emergency, the President required this enormous step of closing the border. That's punted until next year. Why the change?

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jim, apparently, according to President Trump, there is still an emergency, but he is not closing the border, at least not right now.

The President just spoke just to reporters a couple minutes ago on the south lawn and they asked him why did he change his mind about closing the border. And he claimed that he never did. But what is happening at the border is that Mexico has changed their behavior, that Mexico is doing more. They're apprehending more people at their southern border and preventing those people from coming up on a journey to the United States.

But what we're hearing from our sources, Jim, is this has been several days in the making of President Trump getting feedback from his aides, from republicans on Capitol Hill, who have been telling him that closing the border would be catastrophic to the U.S. economy.

And the President has taken the option to find a way out of this threat to close the border by essentially saying, in one year, if Mexico doesn't do more on immigration, if they don't do more on drug enforcement, stopping illegal drugs from coming into the United States, then he's actually not even going to close the border, he's going to go to auto tariffs. He's going to tariff cars coming from -- or car parts coming from Mexico to the United States. And then if that doesn't work, then he'll close the border.

But the reality is that is a 180-degree shift from where the President was just a week ago. Last week, he said that he would close the border this week. A top White House aide also said on Sunday that it would take something extraordinary for the President to change his mind about closing the border. But change his mind he did.

And as President Trump heads to California right now, he's going to a part of the state where there is some fencing that has been replaced. He's going be talking about the border wall and what he's doing there to stop illegal immigration. But, clearly, he's backtracking on this whole issue of the need to close the border in order to deal with the immigration issue, that I think he's going to go back to what he's been talking about for months, which is the wall and the fact he wants Congress to do more to fund a border wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, Jim.

SCIUTTO: Well, two flip-flops this week. Also on healthcare, we have the President's comments that are going to be coming in shortly, and we will air them here. Abby Phillip, thanks very much.

Two days after the House Judiciary Committee authorized subpoenas for the full and unfiltered Mueller, plus the supporting evidence, the Chair of the Committee wants to see communications between the Special Counsel's team and the Justice Department. Why? At issue there, objections among some on the Mueller side to the Attorney General's four-page recap of their two years' work. Some of them is saying it does not reflect their work and what they found.

CNN's Sunlen Serfaty following this on Capitol Hill. I mean, really, it's one of multiple fronts now in this battle over how much of the Mueller report comes out and the White House is going to fight them.

SUNLEN SERFATY, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: That's absolutely right, Jim. And all of this really certainly adds fuel to the fire of Jerry Nadler, the Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, to push hard for the information that he wants and the information that he intends to get. The reports of the Mueller team are unhappy, were -- felt frustrated with how their own summaries and the conclusions of the Mueller report were characterized. That really has emboldened Jerry Nadler even more to push for the information. He sent a letter last night to the DOJ saying in part, quote, in light of the reported disagreements between the Special Counsel's office and yours, we also request that you produce to the committee all communications between the Special Counsel's office and the department regarding this report.

And he, of course, is also demanding the immediate release of all summaries that Mueller had made that he intended to become public. The fight over the information, as you said, Jim, really at a fierce level now. And Jerry Nadler making it very clear that he intends, he believes it's inevitable he will get Mueller to testify before his Committee, he says, in short order. Jim.

SCIUTTO: That will be quite a moment on the Hill.

[10:05:00]

Remember the Comey testimony? Bob Mueller on the Hill would be interesting. Sunlen Serfaty, thanks very much.

Let's discuss with Lanhee Chen. He's the former Public Policy Director for Mitt Romney, and Susan Hennessey, former National Security Agency, NSA Attorney.

Let me start with you, if I can, Susan, seeing as you're a lawyer here. The argument that Barr and others are making is that he's not going to be James Comey with Hillary Clinton, right, when he had that famous press conference, July 2016, where he said, listen, I'm not going to charge her. It doesn't meet the prosecutorial standard. But she had all this bad behavior, it's reckless, et cetera. So he's saying if he's not going to be charged, we shouldn't then, the public should not see the evidence that might have indicated there was wrongdoing.

SUSAN HENNESSEY, SENIOR FELLOW, BROOKINGS INSTUTE: Well, there's a couple different arguments there. There're things like grand jury material, classified information, things that there really is an obligation for DOJ to at least review it potentially.

SCIUTTO: That's one thing. But it seems like he's making a broader argument that anything that sullies the reputation of people who weren't charged with --

HENNESSEY: Right. So this much broader argument about of who qualifies as a peripheral third party. But the problem is is that if he decides not to charge individuals and then doesn't provide any information about what they did, the American public and, more importantly, Congress is not going to have a full story about what occurred. And, specifically, as it relates to the President, the argument that you cannot provide information to Congress about someone who has not been indicted, for the one person who can't be indicted would actually put him in a position of being sort of completely beyond the reach of the law.

SCIUTTO: That's an interesting point. And it just makes you wonder, in less than two minutes, we're going to hear the President on his departure for California.

But, Lanhee, before we do get there, I want to ask you, republicans at least in the House, they voted to make this report public, 422 to 0. But now, you have republicans pushing back, echoing some of the arguments you're hearing from the Justice Department. Are there republicans, perhaps your former boss, Mitt Romney, who will come out and say, full disclosure?

LANHEE CHEN, FORMER PUBLIC POLICY DIRECTOR FOR MITT ROMNEY: Yes. Look, I think most republicans, Jim, are going to be of the view that the report should be released with appropriate redactions. I don't know that you're going to hear a lot of republicans saying that the full report ought to be released without any appropriate redactions.

The question is going to be, at some point, if the pressure is going to mount on republicans because the democrats clearly are using their platform in the House, they are using the majority in the House to advance the point of view that more disclosure and more transparency is better. The question is do the American people agree with that? This has become a political argument, Jim, as you know, not a legal one.

SCIUTTO: But the polls show that even republicans want to see the report released. That is republican voters. So, I mean, who's opposing it except the President and his team?

CHEN: Well, this is the question though, it's the report in what form. Is it the report with appropriate redactions or is it just the report with everything, warts and all. And I think that's a distinction that democrats are pushing for. I'm not sure politically though, like I said, at the end of the day, if that's going to be an effective mean for them to follow.

SCIUTTO: Okay. We are seconds away now from hearing the President. In fact, less than ten seconds. This is the President on his departure for California answering questions from reporters. Let's listen in.

DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: The economic numbers just came out. They're very, very good. Our country is doing unbelievably well. Economically, most of you don't report that because it doesn't sound good from your perspective, but the country is doing really, really well. We have a lot of very exciting things going on. A lot of companies will be announcing shortly they're moving back into the United States. They're all coming back. They want to be where the action is.

I'm heading to the border. We're building a lot of wall. We're going to show you a section. And a lot of things are happening. A lot of very positive things are happening.

REPORTER: What should the fed do with interest rates?

TRUMP: Well, I personally think the fed should drop rates. I think they really slowed us down. There's no inflation. I would say, in terms of quantitative tightening, it should actually now be quantitative easing, very little, if any, inflation. And I think they should drop rates and they should get rid of quantitative tightening. You would see a rocket ship. Despite that, we're doing very well.

REPORTER: [INAUDIBLE], what is happening with [INAUDIBLE]?

TRUMP: We're going in a little different direction. Ron is a good man, but we're going in a tougher direction. We want to go in a tougher direction.

REPORTER: What exactly is offensive about Joe Biden's behavior, and are you the right messenger for that?

TRUMP: Yes, I think I'm a very good messenger, and people got a kick out of it. He is going through a situation. Let's see what happens. But people have got a kick. We've got to sort of smile a little bit, right?

REPORTER: Do you see Joe Biden as a threat?

TRUMP: No, I don't see Joe Biden as a threat. No. I don't see him as a threat. I think he's only a threat to himself. I just don't see him as a threat. He's been there a long time. His record is not good.

[10:10:01]

He'd have to run on the Obama failed record. You look at what happened with so many different things, North Korea, the Middle East, the economy never got going. No, I don't think Joe is a threat. I would love him to be. Look, I would be happy with any of them, to be honest.

I never changed my mind at all. I may shut it down at some point, but I would rather do tariffs. So Mexico, I have to say, has been very, very good. You know that over the last four days, since I talked about shutting down the border. If they continue that, everything will be fine. If they don't, we're going to tariff their cars at 25 percent coming into the United States. So every time they make a car, it's a 25 percent tariff. That means we make money as opposed to lose money. We probably bring those car companies back into the United States.

But if, on the other hand, it doesn't work, which it will, 100 percent, the tariffs will work just like they have worked with steel. Our steel industry is so hot right now because of what I did with tariffs, same thing with aluminum. They'll work. But if they didn't work, I will close the border.

I also am looking at an economic penalty for all of the drugs that are coming in through the southern border and killing our people.

The China meeting was a big success. I think we're going to have a -- look, we have a very good relationship. We're going to see. I don't want to predict a deal or not a deal, but we're very well along. We have really negotiated probably the two hardest points very successfully for our country. And China understands. You know, China has taken advantage of our country for 30 years, and we can't do that anymore, not with me.

REPORTER: [INAUDIBLE]?

TRUMP: Because Mexico has been absolutely terrific for the last four days. They're apprehending everybody. Yesterday, they apprehended 1,400 people. The day before, it was 1,000. And if they apprehend people at their southern border, where they don't have to walk through, that's a big home run. We can handle it from there. It's really good.

Now, Congress has to act. They have to get rid of catch and release, chain migration, Visa lottery. They have to get rid of the whole asylum system because it doesn't work. And frankly, we should get rid of judges. You can't have a court case every time somebody steps their foot on our ground, so very important that Congress acts. But Mexico for the last four days, it's never happened like that in 35 years.

REPORTER: [INAUDIBLE]?

TRUMP: This will supersede USMCA. USMCA is a great deal and it's very good for Mexico. But this will supersede USMCA.

REPORTER: Mr. President are you going to the correspondents dinner or are you going hold a rally?

TRUMP: I'm going to hold a rally. Yes, because the dinner is so boring and so negative that we're going to hold a very positive rally. And we haven't determined. We have about three sites. Everybody wants it. It will be a big one. But the correspondents dinner is too negative. I like positive things, okay?

No, they have already got it. It's old news. He lied numerous times during his last testimony. They've had that for many months.

Oh, I don't know. That's up to whoever handles it. I don't know. Hey, I'm under audit. But that's up to whatever it is. From what I understand, the law is 100 percent in my side.

Venezuela is a mess. This is what socialism brings. If you elect a socialist here, you'll have the same exact country as you have in Venezuela. Thank you.

SCIUTTO: The President there on his departure to California, touching on a number of topics, job numbers, interest rates, Joe Biden, his border decision. At the end there, he's saying that the law is on his side about his tax returns because he claims he's under audit. I'm not aware of any law preventing him releasing those while he's under audit.

But we have Gloria Borger, Chris Cillizza, Lanhee Chen and Susan Hennessey to break this down a little bit. Gloria, if I could begin with you there, let's talk about Biden because, of course, the President tweeted out that somewhat adolescent video yesterday targeting Biden for the claims of harassment against him.

[10:15:05]

He says there are people got a kick out of it. I think he's only a threat to himself, when asked if he believes Biden is a credible contender. Your reaction to his comments?

GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, look, I think that, you know, in terms of the President taking Joe Biden on this particular issue, remember, nobody has charged Joe Biden with sexual harassment. They charged him with effectively being a handsy person. He has said he's going to watch it and he understands that people need their personal space, and that the world has changed.

It's very clear from listening to the President that he doesn't see any problem with himself as the messenger on this. And I would argue that there is a little bit of a problem. And that, you know, Biden responded to him last night, if you recall, saying you know, good to see you acting presidential again.

And so, you know, if the President wants to take on Joe Biden on this, if I were Biden, I'd say, bring it on.

SCIUTTO: Chris Cillizza, the President, of course, is going to California to stand along a portion of border wall that he claims is dubiously that this is an example of the wall already being built, but he was asked about his decision to reverse, to not close the border. He said, listen, he's going to use other penalties on Mexico. He raised the prospect of tariffs, auto tariffs. And he said, if that doesn't work, I'll close the border. How significant of a turn is it? Because he was threatening this week, his Chief of Staff was on the Sunday shows last week talking about it. How significant a reversal, a flip-flop for him?

CHRIS CILLIZZA, CNN EDITOR AT LARGE: Well, first, Jim, on your point of Trump touting this new wall built. It's just rehabbing an old wall that had fallen into disrepair. So put that there. It's significant because it's what he does. We saw it twice this week on healthcare. Remember how republicans were going to pass a great plan and become the party of healthcare going into the 2020 election? Well, then Donald Trump said, actually, we're going to do it after the 2020 election. And the reason for that, although he didn't say this, is they don't have any plan, certainly not one that can go through Congress.

So this is a similar thing. Donald Trump stakes out a very extreme position. We'll just shut the border down. Republicans blanch. You saw everyone from John Cornyn, Ted Cruz saying, look, the economic -- first of all, the feasibility of logistics. Second, the economic impact, even if we could do this, is hugely problematic. And Donald Trump then says, no, I never said that. We're going to give them a year.

For his supporters, it will be enough, but I do think it continues to be important to say here's what he said on Monday. Here's what he said on Friday. Here's why those things are different.

SCIUTTO: Yes, Susan Hennessey, sort of a passing comment as he left, he's asked about his tax returns. And we've done a lot of reporting today about all of the steps that the President has taken, fairly transparent steps, it seems, to avoid this coming out, including hiring a general counsel to the IRS who used to work with his own tax lawyers, Trump Organization.

But as he left, he said that I'm under audit, I think the law is on my side, therefore, do not hand out his tax returns. Is there any law preventing the President from handing out tax returns?

HENNESSEY: Well, there's certainly no law that prevents the President from handing over his tax returns when he's under audit, but there's a more significant law now, which is that Congress has requested those returns. And the law is very, very clear on that. The IRS now has to produce those returns to Congress. And so even though he's reportedly installed someone at the IRS who he thinks might be in a position to protect him, this is an area in which federal law is not ambiguous. They're going to have to turn it over.

And so do you think the President is about to learn that there's a difference between sort of the passive non-disclosure of just ignoring things versus actually what the political optics are of having that aggressive fight trying to keep these tax returns secret. It's certainly going to raise the suspicion that he has something significant to hide.

SCIUTTO: Lanhee Chen, where are republicans who are willing to stand up to the President on this? They talk about transparency. You have a president who appoints a general counsel who worked with his own tax lawyers, who appoints a commissioner of the IRS who publicly said he agrees with the president he should not release his tax returns before he's appointed, brings up Barr's statement about the Mueller obstruction of justice prior. Where are republicans who are willing to say, no? This is a norm. The President seems to be pushing an agency of government in his favor. We won't stand for that.

CHEN: Well, in fact, Jim, there's actually bipartisan support. There are some republicans who have said in the past, look, we ought to have legislation that says that presidential candidates ought to turn over or make public their tax returns. So you do have members of Congress on the record on this. The challenge is going to be for those who have said, look, you ought to have tax returns publicly released if they're republicans saying about democrats. Now, if they say the President ought to be allowed to not disclose those, it presents a serious political challenge.

So I do imagine you're going to see a few republicans saying, look, let's get behind this kind of legislation. It doesn't speak to the situation involving President Trump specifically but it does give them cover going forward.

[10:20:03]

SCIUTTO: Sure, so the next president but not this one. That sounds to me like an easier vote to make. Thanks to all of you, lots to digest here. In just minutes, Joe Biden will speak at his first public event since allegations arose that his behavior around women made them feel uncomfortable, in some circumstances, very uncomfortable. We're going to be live.

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[10:24:42]

SCIUTTO: Happening in just minutes, Joe Biden is set to make his first public appearance since facing allegations that his behavior made women feel uncomfortable. And 2020 presidential candidate Bernie Sanders reaching out to African-American voters at an event in

New York, Sanders speaking amid growing pressure to release his tax returns.

CNN's Correspondent, Ryan Nobles, is following the latest with Bernie Sanders.

[10:25:02]

CNN Political Reporter Arlette Saenz has the latest on Joe Biden.

Arlette, let me begin with you because I'm curious what you're hearing inside his camp, the level of concern about these allegations against the former Vice President, and crucially, is he going to apologize explicitly, Because those are words a lot of commentators have said they haven't heard so directly from his mouth yet?

ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN POLITICAL REPORTER: That's right, Jim. People, like Lucy Flores, the woman who accused him first last week of making her feel uncomfortable in their interaction, she said that Biden needed to take one step further and apologize. Right now, it's unclear if he is actually going to make any comments like that. We'll be hearing from him in a short while as he's speaking to a union group of electrical workers. It's unclear if he's going to address these allegations in any way.

But you saw that video that the former Vice President released on Wednesday. It was just a clear sign from both him and his camp that he needed to say something more beyond that first statement where he had just said that he didn't think he had acted inappropriately. He's trying to make it clear to people that he understands the current environment that he needs to be more aware of people's personal space.

And yesterday, you saw Biden kind of engaged with President Trump. The President had tweeted out a doctored video of Biden that seemed to show a fake Biden kind of lurking over the former Vice President's shoulder, and Vice President Biden went ahead and commented on Twitter saying, I see that you're on the job and acting presidential as always.

President Trump was asked about all of this a short while ago before he took off from the White House. And he said that he feels he's an effective messenger when it comes to Biden despite the fact that President Trump himself has faced multiple allegations of sexual misconduct over the years. He said he kind of felt people needed to have a little bit of a good laugh. So we'll see if Biden decides to respond to that at all in his speech coming up here.

And one other thing that I wanted to note was, yesterday, we got a little bit of a clue, a little bit of a hint about Biden's 2020 plans when -- we have a Tweet that I want to show you. One of the neighbors up in Scranton, Pennsylvania, the neighbor of Biden's former childhood home, Tweeted out this photo that appears to show the former Vice President there with a camera crew potentially filming some type of video. Biden himself in his message earlier this week said that in the next month, he's going to be be talking about a lot of issues going forward. And we expect that decision about 2020 to come in the coming weeks. Jim?

SCIUTTO: Yes. Those childhood homes always show up in the announcement videos. Arlette, thanks very much.

Ryan, to you, Senator Sanders is going to speak in a few minutes. And the question looming over his head, particularly when we speak about President Trump and tax returns, when will Sanders release his? What's the delay?

RYAN NOBLES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: -- soon is the answer we have been getting since shortly after Sanders got into this race more than a month ago. But still those taxes have not been revealed to the public. And, in fact, last night, Senator Sanders was on Trevor Noah's Daily Show on Comedy Center and even Trevor Noah was pressing the Senator as to when he's going to release his taxes. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TREVOR NOAH, HOST, THE DAILY SHOW: My theory is Trump doesn't want us to know that he's not billionaire and you don't want us to know that you are. So are we going to see your tax returns.

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (D-VT): You sure are. Look, April 15th is coming. That will be the tenth year, and we'll make them all public very shortly.

NOAH: Well, what's all? What's all, just so people know?

SANDERS: Ten years.

NOAH: Ten years of --

SANDERS: And by the way, I'm delighted to do that, proud to do that. Hey, Mr. Trump, you do the same thing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NOBLES: So you see there, even in that answer, Jim, Senator Sanders giving a slight nudge to President Trump to get him to release his taxes, this is something he's consistently push President Trump to do for several years. But we still don't have a real explanation other than that he's waiting until the April 15th tax deadline to finish up this round of taxes before he releases them all. He's insistent that these tax returns are very boring. There isn't anything that exciting for us to see.

And we should also point out that there are more presidential candidates in the democratic field that have not released their taxes than those who have released their taxes. But there is a different level of scrutiny with Sanders because he is a frontrunner now of the candidates that are in the race. He's raised the most money. He's getting the most attention. The big question, Jim, we're waiting for is when will we see the tax returns.

SCIUTTO: Ryan Nobles, Arlette Saenz, thanks very much.

Harvard University's fencing coach is under investigation now after selling his home to the father of a student athlete, and well above the asking price. Coming up, why this deal has raised suspicion, understandable suspicion?

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