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Report: Trump Wanted to Release Migrants Into Sanctuary Cities; Pete Buttigieg Surges in New Polls. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired April 12, 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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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There were ideas to take people to the border and move them to sanctuary cities.

[07:00:23] UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This White House will stop at nothing to hurt their political enemies.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I want to see evidence of the story. I don't want to speculate.

EVAN PEREZ, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: This is just the beginning for Assange. We expect additional charges.

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: WikiLeaks. I love WikiLeaks

I know nothing about WikiLeaks.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Trump is a cheerleader for WikiLeaks. They know a lot about him.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I picked up the coconut object, and it ended up being the top portion of her skull.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Aaron had found the remains of his own mother. Now Michael Haim is on trial for murder.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you feel at all responsible for Bonnie Haim's murder?

MICHAEL HAIM, ON TRIAL FOR MURDER: No.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning and welcome to your NEW DAY. New this morning, the president wanted to use undocumented immigrants, human beings, as a means to retaliate against political opponents. It is a stunning new report.

"The Washington Post" broke the story that President Trump personally pushed the Department of Homeland Security to release detained migrants at the border into so-called sanctuary cities. The plan was in part to retaliate against political foes.

And a source tells CNN now ousted homeland security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, she refused to follow through with this plan.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: CNN has also learned that White House aide Stephen Miller had a big hand in pushing this proposal.

"The Washington Post" reviewed e-mails that show the idea of releasing migrants into sanctuary cities came up six months ago. And House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's district was among the targets. We're joined now by one of the reporters who broke this story. We have Rachael Bade, congressional reporter for "The Washington Post" and a CNN political analyst, with us.

OK, Rachael, this is fascinating. And so just take us through it. The feeling was, well, if they're going to act as sanctuary cities, then we' re going to give them what they want and give them -- flood the streets, flood the zone with undocumented immigrants.

RACHAEL BADE, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes. Totally extraordinary story. Six months ago, remember, the caravan that the president always talked about during the 2018 midterm elections, they were approaching the southern border and there was a frustration in the White House that they weren't getting enough help from Democrats to try to sort of address the situation.

And so folks at the White House leaned on ICE to consider this policy where they would be taking migrants from the border and then bussing them to sanctuary cities, which obviously, are run by Democrats including Democratic opponents.

Now, ICE at the time was alarmed, according to our reporting. This would be political retribution, point blank. And so they sort of waved it off, saying, you know, that would cost resources; it would cost money. There's just no reason to do that when we can just release them here for their court dates or wherever they -- they were caught or apprehended at the border.

But then the idea came up again three months later during the budget stand-off. We had a 35-day government shutdown over Trump's border wall with Mexico. The president didn't get a dollar for that. And he re-opened the government for three weeks, if you remember, to allow Democrats and Republicans to negotiate some sort of border deal.

And there was one sticking point in particular that really irritated the White House again. And it was about detention beds. Democrats wanted fewer detention beds.

And so it was again at this time that the White House again leaned on ICE and said, you know, if we're have to release people, and it looks like we're going to -- let's bus them to places like Nancy Pelosi's district in San Francisco as punishment for her refusing to give us what we want.

CAMEROTA: I think it's really interesting. Part of what's very interesting in your story is to see the guardrails of government kicking in.

And so ICE, I mean, this is the agency that has the most frustration. They're the ones that deals with people presenting themselves at the border. They're the ones that have to figure out how to detain them, where to detain them. That they're the ones who had to say to the White House, "You cannot do this. This won't look good. This won't -- this will cost us lots of budgetary and P.R. problems."

BADE: That's exactly right. One of the people who delivered that message is actually somebody who is pretty close with the White House, somebody that we understand is close with Stephen Miller. His name is Matt Albence, and he's now going to be running ICE. He at the time was a deputy director at ICE, a hard liner himself. Somebody who is very sympathetic to, you know, the concerns and complaints coming from the White House.

But he pushed back on this. Now, he didn't give, you know, a moral reason saying that, you know, "Political retribution like this is wrong." His reason was more budget-aligned, concerned about spending money moving these migrants or that one of them would get hurt, and it would cause a legal issue.

[07:05:11] But he also noted a P.R. problem. specifically in the e- mails that we reviewed. And it's interesting, because this same gentleman, you know, came under scrutiny last summer for sort of comparing family detention to summer camps.

So, you know, not someone that Democrats are exactly friends with. This is not somebody that -- this is somebody that typically would be aligned with the White House. But even him, he said that this is not something we can be doing. And, you know, apparently was shocked by that.

But again, it came up three months later. The same gentleman circulated the issue again to see, you know, could they find a legal justification? It just, again, shows the pressure that these folks are under from the White House to try to do something about this border crisis that we're seeing right now.

CAMEROTA: And very quickly, so much pressure that there were two whistleblowers, right, that alerted -- alerted people to this.

BADE: Yes. Two whistleblowers ended up coming to Congress. You know, obviously, I cover the Hill and, you know, it just shows how big of a problem people actually saw this. And they felt like people needed to know about it. And folks needed to be held accountable.

CAMEROTA: Well, excellent reporting, Rachael. Thank you very much for bringing this to all of our attention. Great to talk to you.

BERMAN: Really excellent reporting. And I think really important to know what the instinct and the efforts are from inside that White House.

So let's bring in David Gregory, CNN political analyst; Laura Coates, former federal prosecutor and a CNN legal analyst; Michael Smerconish, host of CNN's "SMERCONISH."

David Gregory, I want to start with you here. The White House instinct on this was revenge. They were looking for revenge and revenge with human beings, undocumented immigrants.

DAVID GREGORY, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: And the instinct was not to solve the problem, not to work with Congress, not to really educate the public about the depths of the problem and the challenges that our agencies face on the border, but to engage in something that's so cynical, that's so impractical. That sounds very much like a Donald Trump idea who doesn't understand how the machinery of government works, that he would think about something like this.

To say nothing of how exploitive it is of these people who are in a desperate situation, despite understanding from all of the headlines that the administration wants to crack down on the number of migrants coming. Still, they come as families to -- at their own peril.

All of that is shocking. Unfortunately, not surprising from this administration. But I think Alisyn's point is really important. The guardrails of government from the homeland security secretary to others at the agency saying, "No, no, no, we can't do this. There are laws that we have to follow. There's procedures we have to follow. And of course, this would be a disaster if we did that."

That's a note of reassurance here when you see all of that at work. And again, the final point is that the administration should be going to do the work of educating the public working with Congress, really shining a light on what the problem is, because there are real problems and challenges for the government instead of engaging in such hateful talk about -- about immigrants to scare people.

BERMAN: I will say, the president just blew up the Homeland Security Department, though. I mean, the Homeland Security secretary is gone and all these other people involved also. And if they were the guardrails, they're not there anymore.

CAMEROTA: That is a very important point, yes. So Laura, I mean, you can -- on a very base, impulsive level, you can understand being driven by sort of vindictiveness and saying, "Oh, sanctuary cities, you don't want to help us? You don't want to turn over any undocumented immigrants that you arrest to ICE? OK, You take them then. Here. Now they're your problem."

I mean, it is a very kind of -- it's just an impulsive, sort of satisfying in the moment, moment of, you know, vindictiveness. It's not normally what we think of as government policy. And it's interesting to hear ICE say, "We're not sure that's going to be legal."

LAURA COATES, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, first of all, the idea of unleashing undocumented persons as if they're part of the plague underscores many of the bigotry that's actually been conveyed about them in the public eye in the administration, No. 1.

But I think at first blush, people may read this and go, "I don't understand. Why would you release them to the sanctuary cities if you were trying to retaliate, one, against the undocumented persons and also the cities. You hit the point -- nail right on the head.

And also, thinking that, remember, this administration has previously tried to undermine the power of sanctuary cities and undermine the power of the states' rights and local jurisdictions to say, "We can set our own prosecutorial priorities. And this is not going to be one of them.

We want to foster good community rapport between even undocumented persons, because it actually helps our law enforcement agencies to be able to attack violent crimes and crimes that are happening that really do present problems with the public.

[07:10:09] And so you have this idea, this back and forth. What the president was trying to do essentially, I think, was not only retaliate politically but also try to undermine the momentum that the public had to support sanctuary cities, to say, for example, like in California or in cities like Chicago, say, "Look, I need you to turn the tide. If perhaps I released the Kraken here, then you will be joining my side, thinking about why sanctuary cities are bad and undermine the public interest in trying to support them."

BERMAN: Michael, did you want to get in on this? Because I was going to change the subject.

MICHAEL SMERCONISH, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes. Real quick, I would say this. The plan is nutty and probably illegal. Because the role of ICE is to deport, and not to relocate.

But I don't know that I can buy into the vindictiveness in terms of the motivation. Because glass half full, it's leverage. It's the president not getting what he wants, relative to border control, and saying, "I'm going to turn up the heat on the Democrats who won't fund my wall." Notwithstanding the fact that this issue is not created by lack of a wall.

BERMAN: Yes. The vindictiveness and retaliation were actually words used by people who were involved in it. The Department of Homeland Security and e-mails seen by "The Washington Post," they felt that it was being done. They were told it was being done for political reasons.

CAMEROTA: True. Except that I think that Michael actually makes the point, which is it's a political weapon. So using it as a political weapon because he's angry, let's say, at Nancy Pelosi. "So here, we're going to foist this problem on you." It's the same. It's just by a different name.

SMERCONISH: Look. The problem is everyone's perception of the border now is tied to the personality of President Trump.

"The New York Times" itself, in that great expose yesterday, said we're at a breaking point. A hundred thousand migrants a month, more than a million in the last 12 months. And instead of talking about data and solutions, I think so many are

weighing in based on their perception of whether they like him or dislike him. And that's a shame. This should be a data-driven conversation.

BERMAN: All right. I do want to talk about --

GREGORY: It should be a data-driven conversation by President Trump.

BERMAN: Right.

SMERCONISH: True. I agree. Yes.

CAMEROTA: Right. But that's -- he's turned it into a purely emotional feeling. So if you're angry, this is a satisfying solution.

We're going to stick it to the people who have sanctuary cities. And that's just not normally how we create policy. There's not a question. There is no question.

BERMAN: I am going to change the focus now, because it is Friday, and it won't be Friday for that much longer. OK?

And on Fridays, I'm told, that sometimes people dump big news. We are within the window, albeit the front end of the window where William Barr, the attorney general, could release the redacted Mueller report.

And David, what I want to know is, has he changed the prism with which we should view his decisions now? Now that he did what he did and said what he said, chose to say what he said before the Senate, that he believes that the Trump campaign was spied on, does that color how one views his decisions on how to release the Mueller report?

GREGORY: Well, I think it -- I think it's part of it. I remember, when we first started talking about this, I thought Republicans would want to see more of the report for the reasons that now Barr has articulated.

They want to argue garbage in, garbage out. Garbage in was why did this become a special counsel investigation in the first place, based on what information. And did the FBI use political motivation, this idea that somehow there was an anti-Trump feeling coursing through the FBI to launch a counter-intelligence investigation based on the evidence that you had.

So I think, yes, you could look at it through that prism. But looking at much of the report in a -- in a fulsome way gives you some sense of how it all started, based on what -- how it led to certain conclusions. That's the part that I think is even more in the public interest now that Barr has raised these questions.

CAMEROTA: So Laura, if you had to bet, do you think we're going to see it today, and No. 2, what do you think, having listened to the attorney general, what do you think this is going to look like when it comes out?

COATES: Well, Alisyn, since I have plans today, we will get it today. That's the way this works.

CAMEROTA: That's exactly right.

COATES: That's usually the pattern that's going on right now. If I had nothing to do it would not be --

CAMEROTA: Fair enough.

COATES: No. 1. No. 2, I think that what we're going to see, frankly, is going to be a lot of unsatisfying redactions that are not going to give us a full version and full knowledge about why particular sections were actually redacted.

Having said that, I am particularly curious about William Barr's statement about the genesis more than I am about the spying statement.

The reason for that is I expect the Mueller report to actually talk about the conclusions of the investigation, not the genesis. I don't expect a reference to the Steele dossier or George Papadopoulos or Carter Page and FISA warrants.

[07:15:08] I expect much more about what you've done post Comey. Since Barr made that statement, it leads me to believe that perhaps the concerns that he has means there is a focus in the report on the genesis, which would lead us to talk more about people like Andrew McCabe and James Comey and Peter Strzok.

So I'm wondering whether or not it is going to be the balance revealed that overwhelmingly tells us the results or about the beginnings. I think the American people want to know what the conclusions were with respect, specifically, to obstruction of justice; and if that part is overwhelmingly blacked out, I'm going to have a lot more questions, given the 19-page essay that Barr previously wrote.

BERMAN: Michael Smerconish, you have a show tomorrow morning. Will you be talking about the release of the Mueller report?

SMERCONISH: Can I say this? Tiger is playing good golf, and it's Masters weekend. Please don't release it until Monday.

BERMAN: Why is about Tiger?

GREGORY: Right. Stay focused.

BERMAN: I -- Phil is ahead of Tiger. I -- I -- one of the things that bothers me more than anything in life is the insistence on focusing on Tiger Woods in every tournament.

CAMEROTA: Wow. You're really exercised.

BERMAN: Even in the lead.

GREGORY: Wow.

BERMAN: There are four better stories than Tiger Woods.

GREGORY: Talk about getting off track.

BERMAN: I know. I'm sorry. I can't let that slide. I can't let it slide.

Go ahead, Michael.

SMERCONISH: OK. My real point is that I think that the president's campaign for inoculation is now complete. Deliberately or unintentionally, Bill Barr played right into it by dropping the "spying" word. And the president and his base are now emboldened.

It hardly matters to them what the report says that so many of us are hanging and waiting on every word to be able to parse it. But I think to him it's going to be "No collusion, no obstruction," conflating the two. And I think it will hardly matter to half the country.

BERMAN: Everything you said there except "Tiger Woods" was 100 percent correct.

CAMEROTA: Accurate. Yes.

All right. Guys, thank you very much. Have a great weekend. Be sure to watch "SMERCONISH" tomorrow at 9 a.m. Eastern. Michael's guest will be former Trump campaign advisor Carter Page, who plays prominently in this.

BERMAN: A year of my life was spent following Tiger Woods after his whole mess.

CAMEROTA: I can tell. And it's left a traumatic imprint.

BERMAN: Being on a street corner in Windermere, Florida, with people yelling at you --

CAMEROTA: Leaves a mark.

BERMAN: It leaves a mark. It can shape how you view things going forward. Just saying.

Pete Buttigieg soaring in new polls. I wonder what Tiger Woods thinks about that? That's how we cover the Masters.

CAMEROTA: So do I.

BERMAN: Pete Buttigieg is soaring in new polls. Our Harry Enten has dug through the numbers to tell us what that means and where the South Bend mayor ranks in the overall power rankings. Stay with us.

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[07:21:38] BERMAN: Eighteen Democrats now in the 2020 field, but one who is about to make his run official is making big new moves in the new polls. CNN's Chris Cillizza and Harry Enten are out with their new power rankings.

CAMEROTA: Here with us is CNN senior political writer and analyst, Harry Enten.

HARRY ENTEN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL WRITER AND ANALYST: It's a Friday. Come on. Get excited! Smile, yay!

CAMEROTA: Wow. We're going to have you jump out of a cake next time.

BERMAN: Yes.

ENTEN: Whoosh!

BERMAN: Marilyn Monroe.

CAMEROTA: Power rankings, that sounds important.

ENTEN: Yes.

CAMEROTA: Let's do that.

ENTEN: OK. So you know we come out with these every month. Maybe we might start doing it every two weeks from here on in, given that we're less than 300 days from Iowa.

BERMAN: That's a tease.

ENTEN: Yes. Yes, it is.

Look, these are six through ten. We haven't seen a lot of movement in here. Most of these candidates are down. But basically, this relative order is the same. Castro, Gillibrand, Warren, Booker, Klobuchar.

I will say, if I was booking them into tiers, these three are one tier, and then these two are in a tier level. These three are more -- have a better shot, clearly, than those two do.

CAMEROTA: OK. Go to the top five.

ENTEN: I think this is the key. Why are most of those candidates down? It's this dude right here.

Whoa. The line is so low, it goes right off the screen. Mayor Pete, who wasn't even on our list last month, has shot up all the way to No. 5. We'll get to why that is in a second.

We also see Harris dropping from one to three. And look, we have a tie for the top one. It was a little bit of a back and forth between me and my dear friend, Chris Cillizza. We couldn't quite determine it, so Biden and Sanders are tied at No. 1.

BERMAN: Which is significant.

ENTEN: Which is significant.

BERMAN: But let's talk about the mover here. Pete Buttigieg. Why have you vaulted him up to No. 5 from nowhere? ENTEN: Look at the polling. These are two early state polls that we

just got in from the Iowa Caucuses; Monmouth, New Hampshire, primary, from Saint Anselm College. Look at this: Buttigieg is No. 3. Buttigieg is No. 3.

.

BERMAN: Could I -- in the New Hampshire one, I find stunning to me. And I know it's plus or minus 5 percent. He is very close to Bernie Sanders.

ENTEN: Very close.

BERMAN: From Vermont, a border state, and Bernie Sanders crushed the New Hampshire primary --

ENTEN: Won it by over 20 points.

BERMAN: -- in 2016. And Elizabeth Warren, Buttigieg is right there with Elizabeth Warren, who's from Massachusetts. Massachusetts politicians typically do well in New Hampshire, because it's basically a suburb of Massachusetts.

ENTEN: Sure. I'll leave that to you. As a Dartmouth College grad, I say that New Hampshire is its own state.

But I mean, look at this. This is not a particularly good poll for Bernie Sanders; nor is it for Elizabeth Warren. That's something we've seen overwhelmingly, even in her own home state. She's running third or fourth, depending on which poll you look at.

Mayor Pete, though, clearly is rising across the board. Joe Biden, though, also holding after these two weeks of very bad news. I don't want to undersell this. His support has stayed relatively solid in these two states, and he's even leading Bernie Sanders in that state of New Hampshire, where he won overwhelmingly -- overwhelmingly the last time around.

And look at this. I think this is also something that's really interesting. If you look at the very liberal lane, look at this. Sanders is ahead. Buttigieg is actually second in the New Hampshire poll. Joe Biden in all the way down at third place.

But this is what we were talking about when we spoke earlier this week. Look at the moderate to conservative lane. Look at this. Look at this, folks. The moderate to conservative lane, Joe Biden, well ahead by over 20 points here. And this is something we've seen a lot.

BERMAN: Can I tell you why that's particularly important in New Hampshire? Because theoretically, presumably, President Trump won't face any serious primary opposition. And in an open primary, Republicans, independents, moderates can vote in the Democratic primary. More moderates might vote in New Hampshire than they would otherwise.

ENTEN: That's exactly right. And so this is a lane, especially if he's all alone in it, leading it, a pretty good lane.

One other thing I point out, you know, Harris dropping. We had a poll from California this week. Look, she's running third. If you're running third in your home state, chances are you're not going to be No. 1 in our power rankings.

CAMEROTA: All right. So what's behind the numbers? Do you have a sense of why Pete Buttigieg has leapfrogged over other people?

[07:25:10] ENTEN: Well, I will say this. I mean, look at these -- look at these cable mentions. All of a sudden, he's started getting a lot of mentions on cable news. You know, we saw it in the Google trends first. Then we're starting to see it in the cable -- in the cable news mentions. He's starting to get his name out there. His I.D. is starting to become a little bit higher. And I think that's something very, very important to keep in mind about.

Remember, Donald Trump rode a lot of free media to jump up in the polls. And Joe Biden is still up there. Obviously, that was more bad news, but he was able to hold it despite that. So that's one thing I'd point out.

Look at the money, though. Again, Pete Buttigieg, despite being a no one at the beginning of the quarter, is right now fourth, is right now fourth in money raised. Bernie Sanders, this is a very solid No. 1 here. He still knows how to raise a lot of money. But the fact that Buttigieg is here already is an indication of what I would call his top-tier status.

BERMAN: I would submit that none of this is tons of money yet. I'm a little surprised that they're not bringing more at this point. But that's something we're going to watch very closely going forward.

ENTEN: Hillary Clinton rose $47 million. And these four combined is $47 million.

BERMAN: So when you talked about the cable mentions for Pete Buttigieg, one of the things driving that, to an extent, is he's in this back and forth with the vice president of the United States.

And our Dana Bash did an exclusive interview with the vice president, Mike Pence, at the border yesterday. They talked about a lot of things. And let me play for you this exchange where Dana talks to the vice president about Buttigieg and then after that -- well, let's just play that first.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MIKE PENCE (R), VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I hope that Pete will offer more to the American people than attacks on my Christian faith or attacks on the president as he -- as he seeks the highest office in the land.

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Right, well, he argues that -- that your quarrel is with him as a gay man. And that he says, "I was born this way, and this is the way God made me." That's just not your belief?

PENCE: Well, I -- I think -- I think Pete's quarrel is with the First Amendment.

BASH: How so?

PENCE: All of us in this country have the right to our religious beliefs.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Mike Pence wouldn't answer the question about whether he thinks that people are born gay or straight. And Pete Buttigieg, the mayor, was on "Ellen" yesterday, an interview that will air today, and he talked about it like this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAYOR PETE BUTTIGIEG (D), SOUTH BEND, INDIANA: I'm not interested in feuding with the vice president. But if he wanted to clear this up, he could come out today and say he's changed his mind, that it shouldn't be legal to discriminate against anybody in this country for who they are. That's all.

ELLEN DEGENERES, TALK SHOW HOST: Yes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: That's a good fight for the mayor to be in?

ENTEN: I think the polls are indicative that Mayor Pete has a pretty good understanding of the Democratic electorate. And I would say to win a Democratic primary, it's certainly a good fight.

Democratic voters are overwhelmingly in protection for LGBTQ Americans. Democratic voters are overwhelmingly in favor of same-sex marriage. And the fact of the matter is Mike Pence is not very well- liked among the Democratic electorate.

I would say this has been a very smart move by the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, and I think it's showing up in the numbers so far.

CAMEROTA: All right. Harry, thank you very much.

ENTEN: Thank you.

CAMEROTA: That was an action-packed "Something About Harry."

ENTEN: It was an action-packed "Something About Harry." Can I just say one last thing?

BERMAN: Apparently, he's got an epilogue. An epilogue.

ENTEN: Look at this.

CAMEROTA: He's coming back for an encore. ENTEN: If you're doing your taxes this weekend --

CAMEROTA: Yes.

ENTEN: -- you know, the IRS is actually pretty well-liked. I thought that was kind of interesting. And plus 21 net favorability rating. Donald Trump and Nancy Pelosi are --

CAMEROTA: How is that possible?

ENTEN: Well, maybe people actually like doing their taxes, or maybe they realize they may not love doing their taxes, but they have good feelings, warm hearts for the people who are actually counting those taxes for them.

CAMEROTA: Fascinating. Glad you snuck in that encore.

ENTEN: You know what? Why not, folks? It's a Friday. We're all going to go running after this.

CAMEROTA: We are?

BERMAN: You're getting another encore if you're not careful here.

CAMEROTA: I can see that.

BERMAN: I go to the tease.

CAMEROTA: That's how he runs. Wow.

Meanwhile, he gave police information about his mother's disappearance when he was just 3 years old. You have to hear this story. Harry, stick around, because decades later, this man found something that may have cracked his mother's cold case. We bring you the incredible story next.

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