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Kirstjen Nielsen Resigns as Secretary of Homeland Security; Acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney Says Democrats will Never See President Trump's Tax Returns; Kidnapped American Woman in Uganda Rescued. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired April 08, 2019 - 8:00   ET

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

[08:00:00] JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Rachael, let me start with you here, because this looks like a house cleaning. The Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen was forced out, pushed out, this after the president pulled his nominee for ICE. It looks like he wants a different type of person handling his policy at the border. The problem is, is the people still are running up against the law.

RACHAEL BADE, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: That's exactly right. It looks like the White House, not only Trump but his righthand guy on immigration, Stephen Miller, who is a hardliner in the White House on immigration, they're looking to roll out more additional hardline immigration policies. The president has talked about closing the border. There's complaints right now about asylum. Apparently the president called Nielsen at home and tried to convince her she needs to stop letting migrants come to the border and claim asylum. And she had been explaining to him, legally I cannot do this.

And so they're looking for someone to do their bidding right now at DHS, and that's one of the reasons they push her out, because she wasn't willing to.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Joe, how does that even make sense? He wants Kirstjen Nielsen to stop migrants from coming to the border. How would that work? How is she supposed to be a superhero and fend everyone off?

JOE LOCKHART, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: It's not a superhero. It's a law breaker. It is U.S. law that says you can come and present yourself. And it's been law, this is what this country was founded on, that we accepted people from other countries, that there's benefits to people coming, that immigration is a good thing. Illegal immigration is not. But she, I don't want to give her a pass on this because she is the woman who enforced the zero tolerance policy that separated kids.

CAMEROTA: And claimed it didn't exist.

LOCKHART: And claimed it didn't exist. We had at one point thousands of families that they couldn't account for. We had pictures of kids in cages. We had apparently according to reporting, the one time that Trump gave her an attaboy was when they used teargas on the migrants. So I don't think she deserves a pass here. But the idea that somehow that we're just going to make it up as we go

along, not follow the law, is very Trumpian. And anyone who comes in now runs the same risk that Nielsen has of ruining their reputation for the rest of their lives.

BERMAN: Just to read you that statement she made way back in June of 2017, she said "We do not have a policy of separating families at the border. Period." Well, they did.

CAMEROTA: We saw that with our own eyes. That's the problem is that when she said that, people were already seeing the video, already hearing the story. And so the bald-faced lie she was able to put out, maybe her tenure was doomed from that point.

BERMAN: And if that was not enough to win you a more permanent position in the cabinet, the question is, what is, Laura? And Jake's reporting that Kirstjen Nielsen, the Homeland Security secretary, felt the president was becoming increasingly unhinged in asking for the impossible, it's interesting.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ, NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER, "POLITICO": Right, it is. I think the closer we get to 2020, that Trump is becoming a bit more desperate, because this is the border wall and taking these hardline immigration stances are something that he has promised since his 2016 campaign and he hasn't been able to deliver on it. And if Nielsen was standing in the way of that and standing in the way of what he, and as what Rachael mentioned earlier, what he and Stephen Miller, one of his top immigration officials, wanted, then that's why he wanted her gone.

And so we're going to see her I think grasp at straws as we get closer to 2020 because he wants some tangible thing he can latch onto to show voters, I actually delivered on immigration. And this is -- we've seen that as he tries to ramp up and talk more about immigration in the leadup to elections, it doesn't always work for him. Yes, it worked in 2016. But in 2018 it didn't work. And that's why Democrats are in charge of the House. And we can expect them to push back as aggressively as possible against whatever he tries to do on the border.

CAMEROTA: Rachael, I'm not sure how long the new acting secretary Kevin McAleenan will last Given his philosophy. So let me just play for everybody how he felt about trying to help people in Honduras and El Salvador and Guatemala.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KEVIN MCALEENAN, CBP COMMISSIONER: We also need to invest in Central America. The State Department's announcement of an unprecedented increase in aid I think is a tremendous step forward. There are green shoots of progress both on security and the economic front in Central America. We need to foster that and help improve the opportunities to stay at home.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: He's in trouble. Green shoots of progress, that aid has just been canceled last week by President Trump.

BADE: The policies that he's expressing, the desire to help Central America create some economic growth there so that there are not as many people leaving their own countries to come to the United States and claim asylum, that's not controversial. It used to be very bipartisan. In fact you still hear some Republicans on the Hill express that sentiment. However, that is not the tact that the president of the United States right now, who is in charge, wants to take. He wants to cut off all aid to Central America, some sort of punishment for the governments not doing enough to keep people in their own countries.

[08:05:08] The reality is it doesn't work like that policy-wise, and it makes it harder for governments who already are struggling to doing anything to help the people keep them from coming to the United States.

But I just want to go back to the point that Laura was making. And I just think it's ironic because one of the lessons from the House flipping to Democrats that Republicans took away including former Speaker Paul Ryan was that Trump went too far on immigration. But the White House and Trump's reelection campaign, they very much feel that this is going to help the president. It's just another reminder that when it comes to the Republican Party, Trump sees his own reelection as the first priority rather than that of members of Congress in his own party.

BERMAN: And there's also questions about the business of governance here, Joe, because McAleenan will be the acting secretary of Homeland Security. There is an active Defense Secretary, and acting Interior Secretary, acting ambassador to the United Nations. Mick Mulvaney is acting chief of staff. That's the craziest one of all because it doesn't require Senate confirmation. He could become full chief of staff, the president could snap his fingers.

LOCKHART: It shows that there may be one wise man in the White House who doesn't want to have the full-time job and wants to keep acting as leverage with the president.

I think that overall shows the pervasive policy failure of the Trump administration, not just on immigration, but that's what we're talking about today. He made this his signature issue. Things have gotten considerably worse. He's not been able to do the things -- he passed. The part about Nielsen's letter that really bothered me was when she blamed Congress for this. Congress put together a comprehensive plan for $25 billion which included a DACA solution for the kids who were born here. The president signed off on it. Stephen Miller pulled him back, Sean Hannity pulled him back. So it's not Congress's fault. This is squarely on the president.

And he made protecting the homeland his number one concern. He doesn't have a defense secretary for months, he does haven't a DHS person to protect the homeland. This is failure across the board.

CAMEROTA: Laura, let's talk about the president's taxes. Mick Mulvaney sounded quite unequivocal that he does not think that anyone, Americans, Democrats, will ever see the president's taxes. Listen to what he said yesterday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: To be clear, you believe Democrats will never see the president's tax returns.

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

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Laura, Mr. Mulvaney remembers this quite differently than the videotape suggests. Here is what the president said about releasing his taxes and how excited he'd be to do it during the election.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: 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)

CAMEROTA: It was not litigated during the campaign. Your thoughts?

BARRON-LOPEZ: Right, this is classic Trump tactic, saying one thing and then ultimately doing another. But it is very difficult to get a president's personal tax returns. Also if Democrats decide they want to go after his business returns, that would be difficult as well. But Ways and Means Chairman Neal wanted to make this a very narrow request because he knew how much of a heavy lift this was going to be. He also consulted lawyers. And so since January he had been preparing this. And it wasn't until they felt that they had a very sound legal case, because Democrats expect this to go to court, they expect a challenge from the administration. And so they want to make sure that they're on solid legal footing.

And I spoke to a number of Ways and Means members last week, Democrats who said that they were actually happy with the way that Neal carried this out. A few of the more liberal members were upset that it took him so long, and they were itching, and some were even threatening that they were going to go to the press and really try to push the chairman to get this done already. And other members told me that they thought Neal went the exact right way by not throwing caution to the wind and by taking his time with this.

BERMAN: Rachael, I was interested to see Mitt Romney over the weekend say that yes, he'd like to see the president's taxes, but he thought Congress tried to do it -- I think the word he used was "moronic." Is that the word? So Mitt Romney, not necessarily the biggest fan of the president's, a Republican who sometimes is willing to buck the White House, doesn't seem to agree with this push here.

BADE: Someone who has criticized the president many times. I think Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House and the Democrats are going to be watching very carefully to see where public opinion is on this. But right after the election, "The Washington Post," we did a poll and found 60 percent of voters actually did support the new Democratic House trying to get the president's tax returns, because there has been a tradition over the past four decades of people running for president, releasing their tax returns.

[08:10:13] And the reason they do this is to show that there is no conflict of interest, that when they're in the White House, the policy decisions they make are in the best interest of everyday Americans and not some business or some financial ties to another country or something like that.

And so I think that voters, at least last November, did support this. The question is, does the Mueller -- the ending of the Mueller report and the fact that Mueller did not find enough evidence to charge the president with either obstruction or conspiracy, does that change public opinion? And I think Democrats are going to be gauging that very carefully, but right now they feel like they have to get this information to try to shed some light on the president's background.

CAMEROTA: We only have a few seconds. What does the president not want us to see?

LOCKHART: It may be that he is not as rich as he told --

CAMEROTA: That's what David Cay Johnston said.

LOCKHART: And maybe that he's been cheating on his taxes for a while. But let me make one other point about Mitt Romney. He also said this weekend that he was tougher on immigration than Donald Trump. That's moronic.

CAMEROTA: On that note, thank you very much.

BERMAN: Senator Romney, call us if you want.

Breaking news, an American tourist and her tour guide have been rescued after they were kidnapped by an armed gang last week. They have now arrived at the U.S. embassy in Uganda. CNN's Robyn Kriel is live in Uganda's capital with all the breaking details. Robyn, tell us what you've learned.

ROBYN KRIEL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We do understand, John, that they are, as you said, with U.S. embassy officials. In fact, they've been with U.S. embassy officials since what seems like yesterday afternoon we've seen video that shows that they have been with them all along. So that was good from that perspective. We were wondering about just how involved the U.S. was in this rescue operation. We do now understand that the U.S. military was also involved in a surveillance sense with what they called ISR, reconnaissance and surveillance. We're not sure exactly where the perpetrators of this kidnapping are now. We do understand from the Ugandan police force and security services that there is a manhunt of sorts under way, that it began last night. They are searching for these kidnappers.

We're told that Ms. Endicott is in excellent health, she and her driver, every calls him J.P., Jean Paul Mirenge, are both in good health. You said she's with U.S. embassy officials. Not sure when she plans to leave Uganda, if that is in the cards as of yet. But the question now will become, why did this happen? Was she targeted specifically because she was an American. Others were with her, they were released. Was the ransom demand that was paid, exactly how much was paid. They demanded $500,000. And of course, the burning question really is will this happen again here in Uganda. And that is what makes this military operation so important.

CAMEROTA: Robyn Kriel, thank you very much for reporting for us from the ground there.

So how much of Robert Mueller's report will be redacted? We will speak to an attorney who dealt with this very issue during Watergate.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: The Mueller report could be made public any day now. The big question is how much of it will remain secret even once it's public. During the Watergate issue - era - this very issue was litigated and won by our next guest.

So joining us now is Philip Lacovara, he is the former counsel to the Watergate special prosecutor. Mr. Lacovara, thank you very much for being here. You have a lot of expertise in this, so you're the perfect guest for us to have. So you argued in 1974 ...

PHILIP ALLEN LACOVARA, FORMER COUNSEL TO WATER GATE SPECIAL PROSECUTOR: Good morning.

CAMEROTA: ... that the grand jury testimony should be made public. So what was your rationale then and does it apply to today?

LACOVARA: Well, it applies in part. The rationale at the time -- and this was the decision by the grand jury in consultation with us in the special prosecutor's office, that the information that they had developed about President Nixon's own complicity in the Watergate cover-up was so important that it should be submitted to the House Judiciary Committee and even though it was understood that that could complicate the indictments of President Nixon's aides or the trial of those indictments, the grand jury concluded and we argued to the courts that the information was just too important not to share with the House Impeachment Inquiry.

CAMEROTA: And so you could make the very same argument today, couldn't you, that what's in there is so important to Americans who have lived through this for the past two years, that they should be able to see it?

LACOVARA: I think the arguments are pretty much the same about the importance of getting this information to the American public and to the House Judiciary Committee. There is, however, a technical, but an important legal complication that I think may make this situation turn out differently so long as Speaker Pelosi continues to adhere to her position.

CAMEROTA: What's that?

LACOVARA: That this should not be considered a formal impeachment inquiry. The key technical issue that was dealt with in the Watergate case -- and just this last Friday the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington reaffirmed this distinction -- was that there was a formal impeachment inquiry under way.

So far, Speaker Pelosi and Chairman Nadler have refused to characterize their hearings as impeachment investigations and that could make a decisive difference in the right to get access to the grand jury material.

CAMEROTA: That is a big difference. And so do you think that Robert Mueller should be called in front of Congress to answer questions?

LACOVARA: Yes, I do. I think, however, he is going to be guided in what he will say by whatever instructions he gets from Attorney General Barr, and this is another issue on which I have some strong feelings, that Barr himself has a good deal of discretion about how he interprets the concept of grand jury secrecy. This is a rather vague concept as it's laid out in the rules.

[08:20:01]

LACOVARA: But I think Bob Mueller will apply whatever standards Attorney General Bill Barr instructs him to apply in talking about what he found during his investigation.

CAMEROTA: There are some other criteria that we're hearing about for having much of the -- or at least a significant portion of the report redacted. So the next one is the classified information.

Now, Members of Congress have security clearances. Do you think the classified information -- in other words, does that wash since they can look at classified information?

LACOVARA: I think that's another red herring in the Attorney General's analysis. As you note, there are Members of Congress who have very, very high security clearances, the so-called "gang of eight" and, therefore, some portions of the investigation that need to be preserved in confidence as a matter of protecting sources and methods and, therefore, cannot be shared with the general public, could certainly be shared with key Members of Congress.

CAMEROTA: Okay, another issue, they said they don't want anything that impedes ongoing investigations. Okay. That makes sense. We understand that, that that might have to be redacted, but then the fourth thing and this is really interesting, and that is that no derogatory information be released about someone who is not charged. And of course, you understand that's sort of a Catch 22, which is the President and his family members and other people in his orbit have not been charged with anything, yet this subject matter is about them and what they were doing in and around the campaign, and so how will that work? LACOVARA: Well, I think that's another potential excuse for

suppressing information that should not be suppressed. That value in preserving grand jury secrecy is designed to protect people who have no profile in the public and, therefore, if there is a derogatory information leaked from a grand jury proceeding, they have no effective way to combat that in the public forum. That's hardly the case with President Trump or even his family.

They have been very much in the spotlight, and so any attempt to, quote, "shield them from embarrassing information" seems to me to be just an excuse for suppressing information that the public has a legitimate interest in knowing and that both the President and his family have adequate resources through tens of millions of Twitter feed followers to rebut should they think that the information is not accurate.

CAMEROTA: Yes, but you know how much criticism Jim Comey got for releasing, quote, "derogatory information" about Hillary Clinton, though he wasn't charging her, for saying her decision making was careless during the e-mail thing. So why not avoid that problem again?

LACOVARA: Now, what Jim Comey was criticized for was not so much releasing information about the basic facts of the use of the e-mail servers, the non-government e-mail servers, what he was criticized for was pronouncing judgment that she had been grossly negligent, but just short of criminal liability.

That was the characterization that he was criticized for making. I think what we're talking about here is a very different situation, which is letting the public know what the basic underlying facts are so that members of the public and, of course, the House Judiciary Committee, can make their own independent decision about the significance of those facts.

CAMEROTA: Okay, so last, from your experience, how much of those almost 400 pages do you think Congress and/or the public will ever see?

LACOVARA: Oh, I think given what the Attorney General has said before he was nominated and what he said since he was confirmed and got the Mueller report, I would not be optimistic that we will see anything close to 90 percent much less a hundred percent of the Mueller report.

I fully expect that there will be those big black bands that people apply with magic markers to redact material, and I suspect that if he's living up to what he has promised or threatened, there will be a lot of redactions in whatever is ultimately turned over.

CAMEROTA: Philip Allen Lacovara, thank you very much for sharing all of your expertise with us.

LACOVARA: Glad to be here.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, overnight, a dramatic Cabinet shakeup. The Homeland Security Secretary forced out. What does this tell us about the President's border policy, and what does this tell us about the future of the administration? We'll discuss next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:25:53]

BERMAN: Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen's Resignation from Homeland Security is just the latest departure from the Trump administration. It also leaves another acting leader in a Cabinet-level job. The new acting Homeland Security Secretary joins a list that includes the President's own acting Chief of Staff, Mick Mulvaney.

Joining me now, Samantha Vinograd, former senior adviser to the National Security Adviser under President Obama and now a CNN national security analyst and Juliette Kayyem, former assistant secretary at the Department of Homeland Security and a CNN national security analyst.

And Sam, to be clear, you say this isn't just about Kirstjen Nielsen. What do you mean?

SAMANTHA VINOGRAD, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: It's not just about Kirstjen Nielsen in the sense that every other Cabinet secretary that's still there and that's been confirmed and it's a small number at this point has to really wonder about their own job security.

If they are not willing to be propaganda parrots for the President, if they are not willing to come to him and say, "Mr. President, I finally figured out how you can bend the law." Then they probably have to be wondering if they're next on the chopping block. And John, I've been with a lot of Cabinet secretaries, I've been in a lot of meeting with President Obama and his Cabinet, and Cabinet secretaries aren't just there to follow orders blindly from the President. Sure, after he makes a decision, if it's legal.

What they're there to do is faithfully represent the equities of their departments, their resourcing needs and to be honest about when the President is doing things that are not helpful from that perspective.

President Trump doesn't use his Cabinet secretaries that way. He wants them to implement his orders and tell him what he wants to hear.

BERMAN: And it's interesting, Juliette, because Sam used the phrase if it's legal here. Our reporting - Jake Tapper's reporting is that Kirstjen Nielsen felt that the President was becoming unhinged in asking the impossible when it came to the border and by impossible, I mean, things that were not legal. So again, what does it tell you if the President is asking for things not legal from a Cabinet Secretary and what the next one will have to expect?

[08:30:09]