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Trump Ousts Homeland Security Secretary & Secret Service Director; White House Acting Chief of Staff: Dems Will Never See Trump's Taxes; Presidential Candidate Andrew Yang is Interviewed about His Platform; Sen. Angus King (I-ME) is Interviewed about DHS Shakeup. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired April 09, 2019 - 07:00   ET

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

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JIM ACOSTA, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: President Trump is shaking up the Department of Homeland Security. More departures expected soon.

[07:00:21] UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It indicates turmoil at an agency that needs to be running at full speed.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You see cabinet secretaries come and go in any administration.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A pivotal moment for the attorney general. The first time he will be in front of Congress since the Mueller report.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Just going to try to avoid anything that goes beyond what he put in his letter.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You need to understand why he chose that four-page summary.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: In just hours, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will learn whether he's secured a fifth term in office.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Netanyahu is playing the underdog, trying to energize his supporters.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There could be a situation where Netanyahu loses, because the people of Israel want a leader who doesn't have corruption charges.

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

CAMEROTA: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to your NEW DAY.

Up first, upheaval in the Department of Homeland Security. A senior White House official tells CNN the president is overseeing, quote, "a near systematic purge," end quote.

The Secret Service director and the homeland security secretary are out. More heads could roll today, the house cleaning signaling a shift to more hardline immigration policy, led by White House adviser Stephen Miller. That could lead to more families being separated at the border.

The most senior Republican, Senator Chuck Grassley, is alarmed by these changes. He tells "The New York Times," in reference to Stephen Miller, quote, "They haven't accomplished a whole lot, so they need to find some other way to make themselves look important."

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Also new this morning, in just a couple hours, Attorney General William Barr testifies on Capitol Hill. This is his first time answering any questions since the Mueller report was given to him. He will be grilled on the reporting that some in Mueller's team say that his summary, Barr's summary, does not adequately portray the Mueller findings.

Joining us now, Maggie Haberman, "New York Times" White House correspondent and CNN political analyst. And Maggie, we want to start with you on homeland security and immigration. Because it certainly seems that the president now, in the midst of this period where he's pushing everyone out and also pushing legal boundaries, if not overstepping legal boundaries.

MAGGIE HABERMAN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: We have seen him repeatedly over the last two years try to run up into what the law will allow on any number of topics right across the board.

We certainly have seen it on immigration. And he has been stopped and stymied by courts, by international law, by U.S. law. And right now, he seems to be wanting someone who he feels will be more acquiescent to what he desires.

I don't particularly think that, unless he finds somebody who is completely compliant and who shares his views on immigration, who's willing to do things that could be unconstitutional or willing to do things that thwart what the courts have said. I think he's going to be frustrated with whoever is in that job.

We know that the relationship between him and Kirstjen Nielsen deteriorated a long time ago. It's not a surprise that she's gone. We've been hearing she was going for any number of months over the last year. But I think he is going to run into the same headaches over and over.

CAMEROTA: Family separations were so unpopular. I mean, I, as you know, interviewed Trump supporters, panels. That's the one that they got stuck on.

HABERMAN: Right.

CAMEROTA: They didn't like that. It was so unpopular. Why would he go back to this? HABERMAN: I think because he wants to look as if he is taking a hard

line against a system that he now controls as he heads into a re- election effort, where he has a challenge. His numbers are not terrific, as you know. The economy has helped bolster them.

But he is looking to show his supporters that he is trying to tackle the system, and it is the system that is keeping him from doing things, not his own, you know, softness on immigration, as his harder line critics would put it. So I think that he sees political gain in this.

However, we are talking about families being separated. This is not just a political game. There are many children who still are not reunited with their families. And it is surprising that the president is choosing this as the route to go.

Again, I think this is where he thinks he has a political edge. I think there are a lot of critics of his who would say that this is going to cause him greater headaches.

BERMAN: John Cornyn, the No. 2 in the Senate, says that the one thing we all agree on right now is we shouldn't really be separating families. There's enormous pushback in Jake's reporting that the president just wants to separate families. And I know that's in "The Times" and other places. Really interesting.

And then there are also the legal issues. Telling border agents last week, going to California and telling border agents, ignore the judges.

HABERMAN: Yes. I mean, again, it goes against -- he is -- he is constantly trying to see whether he can either bend or, in some cases, push past laws. He is doing this consistently. And this is another area where he's doing it.

People have chosen not to listen to those directives. And I think, again, we saw that at DHS any number of times. I don't know that he's going to get a different result with other people. But I think he is going to keep trying.

I do think you raise a point that's really important, which is Republicans in the Senate taking issue with this. The Republicans in the Senate have been basically his, you know, his fail safe against criticism, against being seen as going too far. They have generally supported his agenda.

[07:05:15] Chuck Grassley is not somebody who criticizes the president easily. And he's criticizing the White House over planned purges. Still may not happen but are expected to happen, of other senior officials at DHS.

CAMEROTA: Do you have what he --

BERMAN: I have a few things that Grassley said.

CAMEROTA: That would be great. BERMAN: This is the interview with "The New York Times," not "The Washington Post." He's talking about Stephen Miller inside the White House. They -- he haven't accomplished a whole lot, so they need to find some other way to make themselves look important. That's the idea that Stephen Miller is seizing power there.

Chuck Grassley, you know, isn't at all happy about that. And with Seung Min in "The Washington Post," he basically said, I can't name a single accomplishment that Stephen Miller has inside the White House on immigration.

HABERMAN: Gave a gentle nudge there. Again, we don't normally see that from Chuck Grassley.

It's interesting, too, because this is not a position that Stephen Miller likes to be in. Stephen Miller, who is the president's, one of his longest serving advisers, you know, he is known long before this administration as an immigration restrictionist, and he has pushed a lot of these policies.

But he likes to operate in stealth mode. He does not like to have his fingerprints attached to a lot of things. And now he is basically just out there for all to see and all to take a swing at. And I'm not sure how he will withstand that pressure.

CAMEROTA: Great-grandson of refugees. Or at least people who had to, before the Holocaust, flee to the United States. We've heard from his uncle about how he can be doing this, and the family feels betrayed on some level.

But back to family separations. Not only is it -- was it a P.R. disaster, it also didn't work.

HABERMAN: Right.

CAMEROTA: It didn't work.

HABERMAN: Right.

CAMEROTA: And so the idea that the president has fastened on this as some sort of solution, we have the numbers. We went back to look at the numbers. The apprehensions at the border, they fluctuate up and down. They spiked after right family separations began. And then they fluctuated up and down. So the word that he hoped to get back to Honduras as a deterrent, didn't work.

HABERMAN: Right. I guess I do wonder how much of this is him doing sort of, you know, talk or floats, and seeing whether anything has an impact versus an actual policy that they plan on implementing.

Because to your point, it didn't work, and there was legal blowback. I'm not sure that they are actually going to go ahead with this. We have seen this president, over and over, invoke possible initiatives that he then doesn't enact, but which he says he will use, as a cudgel. I think what it shows is that this is a problem that the president had said -- and look, he has a lot of supporters. There are people in this country who support his view. That is certainly true. And he feels as if he is trying to, you know, lean into that.

But I think that what we have seen is he ran on a campaign of "I alone can fix this." And he's discovering this system has a lot of problems, and it is almost impossible to do it without Congress.

BERMAN: We brought up John Cornyn, Chuck Grassley, and other Republican senators who might speak up. Does the president care? Do you think it has any impact on him?

HABERMAN: I do. I mean, I don't know what the impact will be. It might just save the two jobs in question here that Grassley is concerned about, people who he knows and he has worked with. He does -- he does care about that kind of thing.

But on the other hand, he also seems to be trying to leave more of a mark and churn at DHS. So whether it will get to him this time, I don't know. I do think he hears stuff like this. And I think it depends on what he sees on television and how much criticism he gets.

CAMEROTA: It's also just interesting, the amount of vacancies. We can just look at the DHS. If more heads roll today -- you know, he often does things that seem to be at counter purposes to what he's trying to do.

And so can the country function well without enough people at DHS? You know, all sorts of people who have been it, who have run it before say that it can't and that it gets dangerous at some point.

HABERMAN: Right. It is -- it is a sprawling security agency, and that is getting sort of lost in a lot of this conversation about who's going to be fired and who might not be fired.

And there is only so long, potentially, that the ghost in the machine can keep things running. I think that they are testing the bounds of exactly what the system will handle right now.

BERMAN: Secret Service, the Secret Service head is one of the people pushed out.

HABERMAN: Yes.

BERMAN: The timing of this is interesting. All the reporting is it was in the works prior to the Mar-a-Lago fiasco, but where does the Mar-a-Lago fiasco fit into all of this?

HABERMAN: So, I mean, this was a great Jake Tapper scoop yesterday, and that we all had to catch up on.

I think that 10 -- 11 days ago now, is what I was told, the head of the Secret Service was told to start figuring out an exit plan. He was going to be allowed to leave sort of as he wanted to. He is not somebody who the president has ever liked particularly. He

was a John Kelly person. And I do think some of what you're seeing right now is the post-John-Kelly-era purge. Kirstjen Nielsen would certainly be a part of that.

The Mar-a-Lago thing did not help, obviously. It's not going to add to keeping someone. But my understanding is this was all in the works well before then.

BERMAN: And this is a former Marine general we're talking about, and the president made fun of his appearance?

HABERMAN: Made fun of his ears.

BERMAN: Dumbo ears, he said.

HABERMAN: Right.

CAMEROTA: That's mature.

BERMAN: Classy.

CAMEROTA: Let's move on in the couple minutes that we have you left, about the taxes.

So as you know, President Trump during the -- Donald Trump during the campaign said that he wanted to release them. He looked forward to releasing them. He was going to release them, just as soon as that pesky audit that he's never provided any evidence of was over.

[07:10:12] And now, all the way to Mick Mulvaney this weekend saying, "Oh, no, never. Democrats will never see his taxes, and they have no right to."

So do you have any sense of what's going on and whether President Trump is -- I mean, look, I don't want to say hiding something, but people -- there are different speculations that his taxes would show that he is not as wealthy as he thinks. And who cares? That's about ego. Or that it would show something actually wrong.

HABERMAN: Look, by definition, he's hiding something. Right? Because he has not produced tax returns as any other president or presidential candidate did for 40 years, including Mitt Romney, who fought it tooth and nail throughout 2012 and then ultimately did, as you recall in October, to his political detriment, by the way. But he did ultimately release them. And I think that folks in his orbit remember that very well, as they watch this.

I don't know why he is not releasing them. I also don't know why he won't provide proof that he's under audit.

I thought that Mick Mulvaney actually said the quiet part out loud over the weekend, when he said the Democrats are never going to get these. Because that was taking away any ostensible separation, where this will be up to the IRS, and this is not going to be a political concern. He was just saying it. Again, I have no -- I have no idea. I have heard theories over a very

long period of time, why Donald Trump will never release his taxes. We heard this during the campaign. We heard this in 2011 when he was thinking of running. I do think it is something that they've decided, I think, that voters don't care. They feel like, "Well, he ran, and voters don't care." And I guess we're going to find out in the next 18 months if that's true.

BERMAN: You know, you brought up the Mitt Romney thing. There is the irony here, which is what bothered Romney and his team, was that it showed that Romney was very wealthy.

HABERMAN: Correct.

BERMAN: And wealthy --

HABERMAN: And had a very low effective tax rate.

BERMAN: Low effective tax rate. There could be -- and we don't know -- the reverse here, which is that the president's tax returns show that he's not as wealthy as he lets on.

HABERMAN: Right.

BERMAN: So there's, you know, the topsy-turviness of it all.

HABERMAN: And look, he is Donald Trump, right? He likes to dig in when he is criticized and told to do something. So I don't totally disavow that, but I do think that the question of how much financial disclosure he was going to be interested in making has plagued him long before he ran for president. And it's going to continue until he actually shows something.

BERMAN: Maggie Haberman, great to have you with us. Thank you very much.

In just a moment, he is running for president. And he wants to give every American over 18 $1,000 a month. How is that going to work? Andrew Yang tells us how. He'll explain his plan next.

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[07:16:31] ANDREW YANG (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: If you heard anything about me, you've heard that there's an Asian man running for president who wants to give everyone $1,000 a month. And all of those things are true.

We will take this case all the way to the White House and win, because the opposite of Donald Trump is an Asian man who likes math.

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BERMAN: All right. In a crowded field of 2020 Democratic candidates, Andrew Yang is standing out. The former tech executive wants to give us all, give every American over 18 a universal basic income of $1,000 per month. Why? Well, let's ask him. Andrew Yang, Democratic candidate for president, joins me now.

Thank you very much for being with us. Universal basic income, $1,000 a month for everyone, including, say, Alisyn Camerota?

YANG: Yes. That's exactly right. And we need to make this move, because we're in the midst of the greatest economic and technological transformation in the history of our country.

The reason why Donald Trump is our president today is that we automated away 4 million manufacturing jobs in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. And my friends in Silicon Valley know full well that we're about to do the same thing to millions of retail workers, call center workers, fast-food workers, truck drivers, and on and on through the economy.

BERMAN: Not to shorthand it, but there are people who joke that this is a robot apocalypse that's coming. You look at automation as a threat to the fabric of the nation, yes?

YANG: Yes, very much so. And you can look around our Main Streets. Thirty percent of malls and stores are closing in the next four years, because Amazon is soaking up another $20 billion in commerce every year. So you don't think of that as robots, because robots don't just walk into the mainstream and sit behind the counter. But if you go to an Amazon fulfillment center, you'll see it's wall to wall robots.

So this is all real. It's not science fiction.

BERMAN: Is Amazon the enemy?

YANG: Well, Amazon is a huge winner in the system that we built. And we need to make it so that more people can share in the progress that's being driven by all this innovation.

BERMAN: So universal basic income, $1,000 a month, is an insurance policy against the threat of automation?

YANG: Yes, it helps give tens of millions of Americans a real path forward. And the thing that excites me the most is you can see that it would improve people's health, nutrition. It would elevate graduation rates. It would improve people's mental health. But it would help people make transitions in a time of historic change.

BERMAN: If you get pushed out of a job by automation, how is $12,000 a year going to change your life?

YANG: Well, I've looked at the numbers around the country, and I've spent the last seven years helping create several thousand jobs in the Midwest and the South. And so $1,000 a month would be a game-changer for tens of millions of Americans.

But it would also lead to 2 million new jobs because of all the economic activity. It would make our labor force much more dynamic. Because right now, a lot of Americans are stuck in place, and they're having a hard time moving for different opportunities.

BERMAN: Why does someone -- why does the 1 percent deserve $1,000 a month, as does someone making $35,000 a year?

YANG: Well, if you look at our own country, Alaska has had a dividend for the last about 38 years. And it's wildly popular, in large part because it's universal. So it's not seen as like a, "Oh, you get it. I don't. I'm giving it to you." Instead, it's just a right of citizenship in Alaska. And because of that, it's very popular. We should do the exact same thing in the rest of the country.

BERMAN: Alaska has got about 700,000 people and a lot of oil. America has got, what, 350 million people?

YANG: Yes.

BERMAN: And a huge national debt. This will add to that.

YANG: Well, it won't necessarily. Because if you look around, again, one of the big winners from this process is going to be Amazon, and Amazon paid zero in federal taxes last year. So what we have to do is we have to join every other advanced economy and have a value-added tax that would give the American people a tiny slice of every Amazon sale and every Google search.

[07:20:08] BERMAN: VAT often adds taxes and burdens on people who don't make that much money. You're talking about purchases on common everyday goods.

YANG: Well, you can tailor a VAT so it falls more heavily on, let's say, luxury goods, than consumer staples. We need to make this kind of move, because if you have things like artificial intelligence, right now, our income tax system will do a very, very poor job of getting some of those resources in the hands of the American people.

BERMAN: I want to ask you some questions on other subjects. You worked at Manhattan Prep. You ran Manhattan Prep, which is a test preparation company.

YANG: Yes. That's right.

BERMAN: Here in the city. It is the type of place that is now seen as tied up in this entire higher education machine, complex. Do you -- how do you see the college admissions scandal recently, and what's a way to solve it?

YANG: Yes, so the college admissions scandal is a symptom of all sorts of problems. I mean, college has gotten 2 1/2 times more expensive, even though it has not changed in quality. And the admissions rates have plummeted because of the competitiveness to get in.

BERMAN: The automation of getting in. he common application is a form of automation.

YANG: That's one reason. But a lot of it is that people are incredibly stressed out about their children's futures. And so they think if their kid doesn't get into a certain school, it's going to be the end of the world.

And you reflect on that and you're like, wait a minute. Why is that? And the reason that is, is because our economy has changed so that, if you feel like if you don't get a certain sort of degree, then your child is going to have a very bleak path forward.

BERMAN: Do you think organizations like Manhattan Prep add to that anxiety, by creating this place where people think they need to go to go to improve their test scores?

YANG: Well, what I did, after Manhattan Prep was acquired, is I went and started an organization, Venture for America, that helped train hundreds of entrepreneurs around the country. Because, in part, of what you're describing. Which is we need to create a more diverse set of paths for our young people, so they don't think they can only do one of a few things in a few places.

BERMAN: The president is having all kinds of issues on the border. He wants to alter, if not end, much of the asylum process. How would you solve what's going on at the border right now, with more and more families coming over, with more and more kids? How would you get them or process them more efficiently?

YANG: Yes. So I'm the son of immigrants. I feel very, very strongly that this country has an important role to play. But we need to both secure the border and do a much more efficient job of helping process people who are applying for asylum under our processes.

BERMAN: How?

YANG: Because right now, there's like a multi-month wait process.

BERMAN: How? How?

YANG: A lot of it is putting more resources to work. And also, giving people more authority on the ground. Because right now, a lot of people's hands are tied with bureaucracy.

BERMAN: Not judges, people who aren't judges? You want to give them more authority?

YANG: Well, you know, to me, it's unacceptable that you have, in some cases, like an 8- or 10- or 12-month waiting period. So it could be that we need more judges.

BERMAN: All right. You say you have qualified for the Democratic debates in June and July. Because by your accounting, you've got the fundraising and the money from the number of people --

YANG: And the polling.

BERMAN: And the polling. When you are standing on that stage with the other Democratic candidates, what is going to distinguish you? Why should Democratic voters pick you instead of the other Democratic candidates?

YANG: Well, I believe I have the right vision for the country, to help create a path forward for tens of millions of American families, who right now are being sidelined and swept aside by all these economic changes.

And unfortunately, most political leaders do not want to confront the magnitude of this fourth industrial revolution that we're in the midst of. Now, because of my work in technology and business over the last number of years, I can see it plain as day. And I can see what we need to do to move our country forward.

BERMAN: Andrew Yang, I have to say, I've got a million more questions for you. There are some fascinating issues among certain groups of surprising people who are supporting you. But the good news is that CNN viewers will get to see a lot more of you coming up shortly. So Andrew Yang, thank you very much for being with us.

YANG: Thank you. It's a pleasure.

BERMAN: And this coming Sunday, CNN will host a town hall with Andrew Yang. But first, we have three other town halls this week, starting with Senator Kirsten Gillibrand tonight, followed by Governor Jay Inslee tomorrow, and former HUD secretary Julian Castro on Thursday. It all starts tonight at 10 p.m. Eastern. Only on CNN -- Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: All right. Attorney General Bill Barr will face Congress for the first time since writing his summary of the Mueller report. What do lawmakers want to get out of him? Senator Angus King joins us next.

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[07:28:17] CAMEROTA: President Trump's purge of top officials at the Department of Homeland Security fueling fears even inside the Republican Party. Senior Senator Chuck Grassley tells "The Washington Post" he's, quote, "very, very concerned," end quote. And CNN has learned the president is pushing to reinstate his controversial family separation policy.

Joining us now is Independent Senator Angus King.

Good morning, Senator.

SEN. ANGUS KING (I-ME): Good morning, Alisyn. How are you?

CAMEROTA: I'm well. So you say that the dismissal of Secretary Nielsen should worry everyone. Why is that?

KING: Well, I think on a couple of levels. It's not only Secretary Nielsen. I counted up this morning, I counted 13 empty positions or acting positions -- I don't even think they're acting -- at the top of the Department of Homeland Security.

And this is -- you know, we're talking the Secret Service. We're talking immigration, all of those important functions. So that's a concern, I think, for us.

But deeper than that is why were these people being fired? It appears they were being fired for the offense of telling the president that what he wants to do is against the law. And when you get fired, when you start firing people because they tell you you have to follow the law, you know, that's a really bad sign, Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: Here's what Senator Ron Johnson, Republican, not a critic of the president routinely, here's what he says about this. He echoes your concerns: "I'm concerned with the growing leadership void within the department tasked with addressing some of the most significant problems facing the nation."

And so, Senator, just help us understand, is this -- is the Department of Homeland Security such a kind of big, chugging juggernaut that it can just go on doing its work without those 13 people, or is it truly a risk to American safety?

KING: Well, I think it is a risk. And you know, there are many, there are thousands of good people who are going to get up this morning, working for homeland security, whether it's in the Coast Guard or Customs and Border Patrol. All of those people, they're going to go to work; they're going to do their jobs.

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