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Kirstjen Nielsen Has Been Forced To Resign From Her Title Of Homeland Security Secretary; President Trump Promised At The Beginning Of His Campaign To Turn Over His Tax Returns, He Now Says It Will Not Happen; An American Tourist And Her Guide Rescued After They Were Kidnapped By An Armed Gang In Uganda. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired April 08, 2019 - 06:00   ET

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

[06:00:00]

ALISYN CAMEROTA, NEW DAY HOST: Never enough, but it is going to be a busy week. We begin with the revolving door in the Trump White House. The latest person to be shown the door is Homeland Security Secretary, Kirstjen Nielsen - the face of President Trump's anti-immigration push. She has been forced to resign. A senior administration officials tells our Jake Tapper that Nielsen believed the situation was becoming untenable and the president was becoming increasingly unhinged about the border crisis and making unreasonable and even impossible requests of her. Those are quotes. Nielsen is expected to stay on the job a few more days. The president naming the Head of Customs and Border Protection to temporarily replace her. Nielsen's sudden departure leaves Homeland Security, the Pentagon, and the White House Chief of Staff position without permanent heads.

JOHN BERMAN, NEW DAY HOST: Also new this morning, a brand new fight over the president's tax returns which he has never released despite promising back at the beginning of the campaign that he would. The White House Chief of Staff, Mick Mulvaney, or should I say the acting Chief of Staff put a new timeframe on when Congress would see these tax returns. Never as in not ever. This appears to violate the law. The Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee put in a formal request for the returns last week, which in 1924 law gives him the power to do. This begs two questions this morning - how will the courts handle the stand off and why is the president fighting so hard here? What, if anything, is he hiding?

We've got a lot to cover. Let's meet with CNN's Joe Johns live at the White House. One more acting cabinet, Secretary Joe.

JOE JOHNS, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: That's right, John. This has been a long time coming. A White House official telling CNN it's about time. Kirstjen Nielsen out at Homeland Security after a meeting that a source said did not go well. She was always in a tough position, seen as too tough on immigration on Capitol Hill, not tough enough here at the White House. Sources say she did not grovel or fight for the job.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) The face of President Trump's hard line immigration policies, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen forced to resign amid a growing humanitarian crisis at the border.

KIRSTJEN NIELSEN, SECRETARY OF HOMELAND SECURITY: This is not a manufactured crisis. This is truly an emergency.

JOHNS: Nielsen travelled to the border alongside President Trump on Friday, but a senior administration official tells CNN she believed the situation was becoming untenable with the president becoming increasingly unhinged about the border crisis and making unreasonable and often impossible requests. On Friday, the source says President Trump told border agents to stop letting asylum seekers across the border, a move that would be a violation of the law.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The asylum program is a scam. Some of the roughest people you've ever seen, people that look like they should be fighting for the UFC -

JOHNS: A person close to Nielsen says she's been on thin ice with the administration, often clashing with President Trump who has accused her of not doing enough to stem the tide of undocumented immigrants. A source familiar with her thinking says, "Nielsen was frustrated in her job but was staying on to try to repair her image after being tarnished by the controversy over family separations at the border.

NIELSEN: This administration did not create a policy of separating families at the border.

JOHNS: The move comes days after President Trump abruptly pulled Ron Vitiello's nomination for Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director. Nielsen supported Vitiello but was not told by Mr. Trump he was pulling his nomination.

TRUMP: Ron's a good man, but we're going in a tougher direction.

JOHNS: The president naming Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Kevin McAleenan acting Homeland Security Secretary - McAleenan becoming the administration's fifth acting cabinet level official, democrats applauding Nielsen's departure.

SEN. RICHARD BLUMENTHAL (D), CONNECTICUT: She has been a disgrace.

JOHNS: House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson calling Nielsen's tenure a disaster, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi writing, "it is deeply alarming that the Trump administration official who put children in cages is reportedly resigning because she's not extreme enough for the White House's liking.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

Nielsen tweeted that she's going to stay on at Homeland Security through Wednesday to ensure an orderly transition. McAleenan is not seen as an ideolog or a fire-breather at the department. He's only expected to be there in the short-term until a permanent replacement is found. John - BERMAN: All right, Joe Johns for us at the White House. Joe, thank you very much. Joining us now is CNN Political Analyst Margaret Talev. She's the Senior White House Correspondent for Bloomberg News. And Margaret, Jake Tapper's reporting is that Nielsen thought the president was becoming increasingly unhinged and asking for impossible things on the border, in other words things that the law does not allow. What does that tell you about the president's border expectations?

MARGARET TALEV, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes, John. I think the president is making very clear through his words also, but in his recent actions that he sees his ability to shut down the border, shut down the illegal flow of immigrants or get tougher on these policies as being essential to holding his base in the 2020 election.

[06:05:00]

TALEV: And I think what you've seen in the last week with the pulling the nomination of his own choice to lead ICE sort of precipitously without Kirstjen Nielsen knowing about it - which probably should have been assigned to her about what perhaps was to come next - kind of goes to this. And I think the gamble that he's taking, what is interesting or what we don't know yet is that it's - immigration is such a lighting rod kind of position for him. He may need to get tougher to hold his base, but for many kind of more moderate republicans or independent voters, there's a sense that his immigration policies have been too aggressive with regard to how asylies (ph) are treated, how people at the border are treated, the policies surrounding families and children. So this is sort of a warning sign to any - or appointee for the President who feels like they're pushed closer, pulled by him in a harsher direction than they want to go that in the end he may dump you anyway.

BERMAN: Yes, look. The law's an issue. If the law says you can't do something, that's a constraining force here. And if you wanted the secretary to go further than the law would allow, that does put pressure on her. Let me show you this list of acting cabinet-level officials right now because it's Interior, Homeland Security, the Defense Department, at the U.N., Mick Mulvaney. That's not even a Senate confirmed job. You've got an acting Chief of Staff in Mick Mulvaney. He could just unilaterally remove the word acting there, the President. So he's got a full acting level cabinet instead of a permanent legacy. What does that mean?

TALEV: Right. Well it sort of keeps all these acting on their toes because they have less job security than they would otherwise. It suggests that no position where you're advising the President is permanent. And, you know, I think on immigration what we need to see is whether he is going to move forward with a permanent nominee for this anytime soon or whether he'll move first to fill kind of a czar position, which is one thing that our reporting has shown, and in fact who that czar will be. Perhaps someone since if they didn't need to go through the confirmation process could be maybe a little bit more polarizing or less of a consensus candidate.

BERMAN: Maybe he could start with an acting czar. All right, Margaret Talev, thanks for being with us this morning. Appreciate it. Alisyn?

CAMEROTA: All right, John. The battle over President Trump's tax returns is intensifying. Acting White House Chief of Staff, Mick Mulvaney, telling democrats they will never see the President's taxes. CNN's Lauren Fox is live for us on Capitol Hill with more. So how about never I guess is the timeframe.

LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL REPORTER: Well, that's right, Alisyn. The President's team increasingly aggressive about this request for his tax returns, his personal lawyer sending a letter to the Treasury Department on Friday essentially saying that they believe that democrats have only reached here, that they only want these tax returns for political purposes. And then we heard from that acting White House Chief of Staff, Mick Mulvaney, yesterday essentially saying that America's never going to see the President's tax returns.

(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: To be clear, you believe democrats will never see the President's tax returns?

MICK MULVANEY, ACTING WHITE HOUSE CHIEF OF STAFF: Oh, no. Never, nor should they. Keep in mind that that's an issue that was already litigated during the election. Voters knew the President could have given his tax returns, they knew that he didn't, and they elected him anyway, which, of course, is what drives the democrats crazy. But they know they're not going to get this. They just want the attention on the issue because the don't want to talk to us about policy.

(END VIDEOCLIP)

FOX: And Alisyn, you know, democrats were prepared for this field. Richard Neal, the Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee who requested these returns last week, we expect that he'll send a follow up letter when we don't see the tax returns by that April 10 deadline which is coming up in just a few days. Then after that, it's - we're in a little bit of unchartered territory. 6103, which is this procedural law that essentially allows the House Ways and Means Chairman to request anyone's tax information, it's never been tested in the courts. So Richard Neal, who has heard a lot from liberal democrats on the committee who wanted him to do this sooner, the reason he took so much time here is he knew that this was going to go through the court. So a lot of unexpected territory moving forward, but we'll be watching up here on Capitol Hill to see what comes next.

CAMEROTA: OK. Lauren, thank you very much for all of that. Joining us now to talk about it, we have CNN Senior Political Analyst, John Avalon. John, when Mr. Mulvaney says that democrats will never see the President's tax returns nor should they, keep in mind this was an issue that was already litigated during the election, maybe he doesn't have as good of memory as we do or maybe he doesn't have access to videotape because the President said the opposite during the -

JOHN AVALON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Should we go to a montage?

CAMEROTA: Let's go. Well, I don't think we need a montage. Let's just go to this May -

AVALON: All right.

CAMEROTA: - 2016. Listen to this.

(BEING VIDEOCLIP)

[06:10:00]

TRUMP: Hopefully before the election I'll release and I'd like to release. By the way, you learn very little from a tax return.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

Hopefully before the election I will release, and I would like to release. That was not litigated during the election.

AVLON: Oh no, and look, the President has said especially during the election even before his candidacy that he wanted to release, that he was delighted to release them. So, you know, Mick Mulvaney says this was litigated during the election first of all.

Litigation is probably what we're going to see going forward, it's definitively not what occurred before. The president promised he would release his tax returns, and now he's singing a very different tune.

What's significant about the Mulvaney attack on the Sunday shows this weekend is he's saying never. Now they're no longer playing footsie, they're saying it will not happen, which raises this basic question.

What is the president trying to hide? What is he afraid of the American people seeing? This will end up being litigated, the House committee was very careful to try to fall outside the purview of anyone saying they're playing politics.

Obviously that's what the White House will say. There is this procedure that goes way back to the 1920's where they can request these returns, so we'll see how it plays out in the courts.

CAMEROTA: I mean they - he's never provided any evidence that he's under audit, though he has continued to say it. And so historically, I mean recent history, when Republicans on the Ways and Means Committee have wanted tax returns, have they been given it?

AVLON: So yes, this was - this was most recently fought over during the IRS scandal in the Obama era, the Republicans saying that the IRS was targeting conservative groups unfairly and they pushed to have individual returns released and they were - you know, they were arguing what now the Democrats are arguing, this is important for transparency, this isn't politics.

This is a big deal fight because again, what is the president hiding? Is it that he hasn't paid any taxes as in some years past, is there evidence of, you know, sort of untoward connections with other countries? We shall see. But this is going to get played out in the courts,

hasn't been litigated yet.

CAMEROTA: John I want to thank you very much for all of that, John.

BERMAN: All right, a key new data point in the 2020 race for the Democratic nomination, Senator Cory Booker released his first quarter fundraising numbers. CNN's Arlette Saenz live in Washington, Arlette what is behind door number one for Cory Booker?

ARLETTE SAENZ, POLITICAL REPORTER, CNN NEWS: Well John, these early fundraising figures are an early marker of a campaign's viability as candidates get closer and closer to that first presidential debate in June and we're still waiting to hear from numbers from nearly a dozen candidates.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. CORY BOOKER (D), N.J.: I feel incredible, we set goals for ourselves and we surpass our own goals.

SAENZ: Senator Cory Booker announcing he's raised more than $5 million since launching his presidential campaign two months ago, putting him well behind the leaders of the Democratic field.

Front runner Bernie Sanders raked in $18.2 million during the first quarter of 2019. Kamala Harris has raised $12 million. Other candidates like Beto O'Rourke and Pete Buttigieg pulling in $9.4 million and $7 million respectively.

Buttigieg headlining an LGBT event criticizing Vice President Pence for his opposition to gay marriage.

PETE BUTTIGIEG, MAYOR, SOUTHBEND, INDIANA: My marriage to Chaston (ph) has made me a better man. And yes, Mr. Vice President, it has moved me closer to god. And speaking only for myself, I can tell you that if me being gay was a choice, it was a choice that was made far, far above my pay grade.

SAENZ: Meanwhile, former Vice President Joe Biden under fire for joking repeatedly after complaints of how he has treated women.

JOE BIDEN, FORMER VICE PRESIDENT, OBAMA ADMINISTRATION: I just want you to know I had permission to hug Lonnie (ph) (inaudible). By the way, he gave me permission to touch him.

SAENZ: Immediately after the event, Biden offering a mixed apology for the way he addressed the allegations.

BIDEN: It wasn't my intent to make light of anyone's discomfort.

SAENZ: Biden saying this when asked if he's sorry for making women uncomfortable.

BIDEN: I'm sorry I didn't understand more. I'm not sorry for any of my intentions, I'm not sorry for anything that I have ever done. I've never been disrespectful intentionally to a man or a woman.

SAENZ: This as President Obama expresses concern that progressives could undercut other Democrats.

BARACK OBAMA, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We start sometimes creating what's called a circular firing squad where you start shooting at your allies because one of them is straying from purity on the issues, and when that happens typically the overall effort and movement weakens.

SAENZ: Joe Biden will make his second appearance as the allegations first surfaced in Philadelphia later this week. The question now is will Biden be able to move past this controversy as he gets closer to entering the 2020 race.

[06:15:00]

Biden told me last week that he hopes to announce that decision very soon. Alisyn.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: All right Arlette, we wait to see what happens, thank you very much. Now to this, an American tourist and her guide rescued after they were kidnapped by an armed gang last week un Uganda.

CNN's Robyn Krill is live in Kampala, Uganda with the latest developments. How did this happen, Robyn?

ROBYN KRILL, CORRESPONDENT, CNN: Well Alisyn, a ransom was paid and she was released we understand and it all went down peacefully and uneventfully. We do know that the U.S. military was involved, they said that they had a surveillance on - on this armed group at some point.

We're not sure if they watched the handover of some amount of cash go down or if they were watching the armed group from tracking her cell phone, we're just not sure how they managed to find Kimberly Sue Endicott.

What I can tell you is at the moment she is with U.S. embassy officials and there is an operation going - happening right now in that area of Uganda where they - where - Ugandan military are searching for these kidnappers.

Now you can imagine, Alisyn, Uganda does not have kidnap for ransom - it just - that doesn't happen here, it's usually very safe and of course its game parks are extremely safe. People come here with the idea, an expectation that they will be fine, particularly when going with these high profile tour groups that have companies around the world, around the continent rather.

And this has happened. So this is definitely coming over from - spilling over from events in the Democratic Republic of Congo. John.

BERMAN: Robyn Krill for us, thank you very much for that report, good for that family. Appreciate it. So the president is surrounding himself with the master thespian cabinet. What do I mean by that?

It's acting.

CAMEROTA: Brilliant.

BERMAN: Thank you. So what's the impact of that? That and dramatic new details about how the secretary of homeland security lost her job, that's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:20:00]

BREMAN: All right, new this morning in addition to the master thespian cabinet running the country, again, what exactly do we mean by that?

(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Acting. Genius, thank you (ph).

(END VIDEOCLIP)

BERMAN: A Senate confirmed cabinet secretary is out. An acting secretary is in. Now, Homeland Security, the Defense Department, Interior, even the White House Chief of Staff is just acting. Joining us now, Frank Bruni, CNN Contributor and New York Times Op-ed Columnist, Juliette Kayyem, CNN National Security Analyst and former Assistant Secretary at the Department of Homeland Security, and John Avlon, CNN Senior Political Analyst. Juliette, what's the impact of this, these acting secretaries instead of the Senate confirmed people running their agencies, especially at Homeland Security where apparently Kirstjen Nielsen is leaving because she wouldn't break the law for the president.

JULIETTE KAYYEM, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Right, she wasn't harsh enough which is shocking when you think of some of the policies so far. There's two sort of aspects to this. The first, of course, is internal. What does it mean to the 300,000 or so agents and Coast Guard officials who are working every day to protect the homeland? And I think the acting status just probably says something a little bit about sort of the stature of the person. You know, like there's a difference between a Mattis and then whoever replaces him, right? There's a difference between even a John Kelly and then an acting person who came in in between. So there is that sense of stature importance. Is the White House paying attention?

The second, though, I think is the more important piece which is, of course, you're acting because the senate has not confirmed you. And so, it's one thing to get Senate confirmed to run the customs and border protection, another to be Senate confirmed to run a multibillion dollar department. So having all these actings once again bypasses the Senate's constitutional duty to have oversight over who is running a major department. So I think that external factor's actually more important and maybe explain why Trump likes these acting people so much. CAMEROTA: Frank, Kirstjen Nielsen's tenure in this position has seemed tortured for a long time. I mean, ever since she sent that false and kind of crazy tweet where she said, "we do not have a policy of separating families at the border," period where we could all see with our owns eyes what was happening.

FRANK BRUNI, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Right.

CAMEROTA: I never understood what that was about. And now to find out that she wasn't hard line enough it sounds like for the president, but I'm not sure what the president expects the DHS Secretary to do at the border.

BRUNI: To do magic acts, to work wonders. I mean, I think she'll go down more than Jeff Sessions, more than Rex Tillerson. I think she'll go down as the kind of etc (ph) case of what it's like to work for Donald Trump in this administration. Your reputation is shredded, you compromise your principles, then at the end of the day you end up paranoid. A lot of the reporting on her is that she was paranoid in recent weeks because she kept on seeing all these signs that she was going to be canned even as the president wasn't telling her that forthrightly. How do you work in this administration? I mean, it's like an acid bath more than it is a job, and you know, there's no Senate confirmation, so there's no outside vetting, but also none of these people whether they're acting or whether they're not acting and they watch what happened to Kirstjen Nielsen, all of these people know that at any moment that acts can fall on them, that they're operating at the president's mercy and subject to his whims. And I don't think a government can be run effectively that way.

BERMAN: You know, and then our reporting is, John, that Kirstjen Nielsen thinks the president's becoming unhinged on immigration and asking impossible things, flailing around for policy when he can't find one that the law permits.

AVALON: It's one of the many signs why we should be really concerned about the state of this government and the state of this president. If there's no such thing as someone who can be extreme enough to satisfy his demands. If you really - this is a place for supplicants and extremists, that's not a good way to run a government. We are so far away from the only the best people's promise and run it like a business. This is really being run like a banana republic with an extremely ideological agenda, and if Stephen Miller's really going to pull all the strings, then he should go up for Senate confirmation, but oh. He couldn't get through one. This is a real sign of dysfunction at the highest levels of the American government.

[06:25:00]

CAMEROTA: One of the problems, Juliette, according to the reporting is that the president cut the funding, the humanitarian aid to Honduras and Guatemala and El Salvador that was supposed to be helping the situation on the ground so that there wasn't a mass exodus of people, and that was at complete counter, I guess, purposes to what Kirstjen Nielsen was doing. And so, I - you know, the president has started to say things like we're full. Everybody go home. KAYYEM: Yes.

CAMEROTA: Get away. We're full. I mean, what is the plan here? What is going to happen at the broader?

KAYYEM: Well, so one theory - and I think it's worth saying - is that the president's plan is to exacerbate what's going on at the border in anticipation of an election that he wants to be about the border. What we have to remember is that over the last two decades, unlawful or undocumented migrant passings over the border have steadily declined or had steadily declined. Ever since Donald Trump has become president or at leas in the last year, those numbers have shot up, so you ask yourself why. Because the focus has been on a wall which everyone knows is not successful. He has not supported the first responders but instead has them doing things like the Muslim ban and child separation, let's not forget.

And finally just to your point, Alisyn, the problem at the border begins 2,000 or 3,000 miles south, right? It is the migrant flow. Almost nothing we do in terms of enforcement - I've been in border enforcement a very long time - serves as either a deterrent of a magnet. It's so complicated. And so, everyone in the field knows what we have to do is focus on that flow, that pull that is taking people away from their homes. We're not full, but we do have a migration problem. We do have an unlawful migration problem, so we use the tools we have, better enforcement, technology, and helping countries south of the border to stop the migrant flow. The president has thrown all of those out the window to simply get the symbolism of a wall or to be cruel, and none of them - I mean, that's - the irony or the tragedy is family separation did not even serve as a deterrent, so you did this cruelty and it didn't work.

CAMEROTA: Friends, thank you all very much for helping to analyze this with us this morning.

BERMAN: All right, this week you can catch three CNN presidential town halls. First up tomorrow night at 10 p.m. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand followed by Governor Jay Inslee on Wednesday and former HUD Secretary Julian Castro on Thursday.

CAMEROTA: All right, voters head to the polls tomorrow in Israel, so we'll tell you about Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's latest move ahead of that election next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:30:00]

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