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White House Braces for Release of Redacted Mueller Report; Schools Close as FBI Looks for Woman 'Infatuated' with Columbine; French Authorities Launch Probe Into Notre Dame Fire; Christophe Girard, Deputy Mayor of Culture in Paris, is Interviewed about Notre Dame Fire. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired April 17, 2019 - 06:00   ET

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

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: The president is feeling good. His aides are concerned that his mood might change once he sees what's in the report.

[05:59:24] GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: They're worried about his wrath. You don't want the president coming down on you publicly.

KELLYANNE CONWAY, COUNSELOR TO DONALD TRUMP: We're not looking at it that way at all. We know what we already feel, which is no collusion.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It isn't just Paris: the whole world has come together.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The structure is going to stand, and that outpouring of emotion continues.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You've got the whole country rising up to say, they are not going to destroy something we love.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: We want to welcome our viewers in the United States and around the world. This is NEW DAY. It is Wednesday, April 17, 6 a.m. here in New York. John Berman is off this week. Poppy Harlow joins me.

I promised you it would be an exciting week. I feel I've kept up my end of the bargain.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: You absolutely have. Again, no woman I'd rather be sitting next to.

CAMEROTA: Thank you. We have two presidential candidates coming on the program.

HARLOW: Yes, it's going to be a great show.

CAMEROTA: It's going to be a great show.

Also, the wait is almost over for the release of the redacted version of the Mueller report tomorrow. CNN has learned that President Trump is telling aides he expects it will be back -- it will back up his claim of complete exoneration.

But one Republican source tells CNN the president is, quote, "going to go bonkers," end quote, when he sees the testimony of current and former White House officials.

While those close to the president tell CNN they do not expect any bombshells, some details could prove embarrassing. So we'll speak to two presidential candidates about what they expect.

HARLOW: Meanwhile, the effort to see past the attorney general's redactions is, of course, already under way. A federal judge expressing concerns about transparency at a hearing on a request to have that full report released under the Freedom of Information Act. And Democrats are poised to immediately subpoena the Justice Department for the full Mueller report.

Now, the subpoena from the House Judiciary Committee could come as soon as Friday.

We have it all covered. Let begin this hour with our colleague, Sunlen Serfaty. She joins us in Washington.

Good morning.

SUNLEN SERFATY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning to you.

Poppy, there is certainly so much anxious energy hanging over Washington right now, ahead of tomorrow. Everyone -- lawmakers on Capitol Hill, the White House -- is just ready and waiting to pore over the nearly 400 pages of the redacted version of Mueller's report. And many White House aides are already expressing a lot of concern about the internal battles the report could set off.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SERFATY (voice-over): With Washington bracing for the release of Attorney General William Barr's redacted version of the Mueller report, anxiety is building in the White House, with several current and former aides telling CNN they are dreading the publication.

A number of the president's staff cooperated with the special counsel, including former White House counsel Don McGahn, whose 30 hours of testimony, sources say, unsettled the president.

Several aides now expressing concern that the release of the new information in the report may provoke Mr. Trump's anger and that the report will be embarrassing and unflattering for the president, providing the most credible account so far of chaos inside the West Wing.

One Republican source calling the tension among the president's aides, quote, "very high," adding, "They cooperated and had to tell the truth. He is going to go bonkers."

White House counselor Kellyanne Conway downplaying the concern Tuesday night.

CONWAY: That's sort of the latest iteration of the palace intrigue stories. They'd rather just try to pit us all against each other and the president against current and former future staff. I can tell you that we're not looking at it that way at all.

SERFATY: Sources who have spoken with President Trump over the past few days say he is not concerned about the report's public release, claiming it will vindicate him and help him move beyond the cloud of the Mueller investigation.

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I heard it's going to come out on Thursday. That's good. And there can't be anything there, because there was no crime. This crime was all made up. It was all a fabrication.

SERFATY: People familiar with the matter say the president is not expected to review the report ahead of Thursday's release but will be briefed on the findings once they're public. The president will also likely spend hours watching TV coverage analyzing the details.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi tamping down expectations but keeping pressure on the Justice Department as Democrats push to see the full unredacted report.

REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA): I respect protecting sources and methods. I don't support hiding the truth from the American people.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SERFATY: And the president's personal lawyers have been reworking the response they've been planning for months in anticipation of what they expect in Mueller's report. That rebuttal, of course, is not expected until sometime tomorrow morning after the redacted version is released -- Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: OK, Sunlen. Thank you very much.

Joining us now to talk about it, we have CNN senior political analyst John Avlon.

So John, let me just put up for you and everyone the list, the partial list of the officials that we know have spoken to Mueller. So everybody from Sarah Sanders, Jared Kushner, Steven Miller, Don McGahn, Hope Hicks. I mean, it just -- it's going to be juicy, frankly, to see what these folks reveal. Who knows what's in there? But just to read some of the things that they reveal will be fascinating.

JOHN AVLON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Even in the redacted version, I mean, a 400-page report. What's news is what's new, and there's going to be a lot of new information out there. And what you hear is that high anxiety in the White House about who

talked, what information is going to go and whether it's going to set the president off. And whenever you have Republican aides saying, quote, "He's going to go bonkers," that's battening down the hatches time in the White House

CAMEROTA: I suppose. Except that, of course he's anxious. He doesn't know what's in there. And he is publicly quite confident --

AVLON: Yes.

CAMEROTA: -- that it will continue to, in his words, exonerate him. Of course, that's going to be his public stance. But who knows what will happen to his mood? This is hard to predict.

[06:05:04] AVLON: Yes. And you don't want to sort of hang the republic on that.

But look, first of all, the word "exoneration." We know, even from the 101 words that Barr took from the actual memo, that exoneration is not what the conclusions lead to. Now, they can make claim vindication on the big-ticket items, but the question is, what do the devil -- the details say. And the devil is in the details.

The relationship in this atmosphere is complicated. On the one hand, they want to feel vindicated. On the other hand, they're already preparing a rebuttal. And I think the facts are going to set up a really complicated pattern; going to pull the curtain back on the White House.

CAMEROTA: One thing that was very fascinating is that some officials in the White House have said that President Trump does not plan to read it.

AVLON: Yes.

CAMEROTA: His legal team is going to read it instead. Maybe they could just tell him everything's fine after they read it. Maybe then we could just be done with it.

AVLON: Yes. I think encouraging the emperor wearing no clothes phenomenon is probably not good for the republic. But you would think, given all the time we have spent about this as a country, that the president, the central figure in this, would have the curiosity to read the report. Life doesn't always work that way.

We'll do it for him.

CAMEROTA: OK.

AVLON: And then he can watch it on TV.

CAMEROTA: All right. We'll see what happens. John Avlon, thanks for that preview -- Poppy.

HARLOW: All right. Breaking news overnight. Dozens of schools are closed in Denver as FBI officials say they're looking for an armed woman who is infatuated with the Columbine massacre.

Scott McLean joins us from Littleton, Colorado.

This is terrifying. If you're a parent waking up this morning, what do you need to know?

SCOTT MCLEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Poppy.

We're actually talking about nearly 20 school districts in the Denver metro area that are closed. We're talking about hundreds of schools, easily, and tens of thousands of students being affected, all because of this massive manhunt for this 18-year-old woman from Florida named Sol Pais.

Authorities say that she flew here Monday from the Miami area, and she bought a pump-action shotgun and some ammunition. The concerning part, though, is that, according to the FBI, she has a history of credible but nonspecific threats to schools.

And they also say that she has this infatuation with the Columbine school shooting that took place here nearly 20 years ago and the shooters who carried it out, killing 13 people.

Now the Jefferson County sheriff says, look, this is far from the first time that Columbine has had threats against it. But it does open an old wound, especially given that the 20-year anniversary of the awful day is coming up on Saturday.

Now, authorities say that Pais, when she got here, she was taken to the foothills area. This is an area on the outskirts of Metro Denver toward the west side. But she doesn't have a connection to this area that they know of, and so it is unclear where exactly she might have gone.

Schools were on lockout yesterday as a precaution. That means that it is business as usual inside but no one was allowed to come or go. Some of those schools were actually let out early in a controlled way, with extra security. Today, they're obviously ramping that up and closing them all together until they can find this woman.

CAMEROTA: Scott, "infatuated with Columbine." What does that even mean? What would police charge her with?

MCLEAN: You know what? I've interviewed the former principal, Frank DeAngelis, who was at this school at the time of Columbine, and he says there is a long, long list of people who have, really, an odd obsession with what happened 20 years ago. Some of them have even come to this school to see it for themselves.

And so that is obviously concerning to law enforcement. It's unclear what this woman might do.

But here's the other question, Alisyn, is that is what would they even charge her with? None of the threats that we know of have been specific to anything. It's not illegal, obviously, to buy a gun in this country either. And so the FBI says they don't know at this point.

They are working with the U.S. attorney's office to figure out what the appropriate charges may be. They say they will hold her as long as they are legally able to.

What's interesting is that Colorado, just last week, passed a red flag law that would allow authorities to take weapons from people who are deemed to be a threat to themselves or others. But that law doesn't come into effect until next year.

That said, there are laws on the books that would allow authorities to take someone in and hold them for mental health reasons. But again, it is unclear what exactly she might be charged with.

CAMEROTA: Scott McLean, thank you very much.

HARLOW: Yes.

CAMEROTA: We'll continue to follow the story throughout the program.

HARLOW: And you wonder how would she be able to buy this gun with no red flags coming up, given the history she has that the FBI knows about.

CAMEROTA: Absolutely. It's troublesome.

HARLOW: Yes.

CAMEROTA: So we'll follow that.

HARLOW: We will.

All right. So authorities in Paris are launching an investigation into what started the catastrophic fire that ravaged the iconic Notre Dame cathedral. Now French leaders are taking the first steps toward rebuilding.

Our Melissa Bell is live in Paris with the latest developments this morning.

Hi, Melissa.

MELISSA BELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Poppy.

Emmanuel Macron, the French president, will be officially launching later today a fundraising effort to begin that crucial restoration work that he believes can take place within the next five years.

Already, though, even before that is launched, $920 million have been raised already, many from big corporate names here in France, some of the country's wealthiest clients, an indication of the support to that restoration effort that will get under way as soon as investigators and the firemen who have been working here at Notre Dame overnight, can get to the bottom of how precisely how secure the edifice is structurally but also, crucially, how the fire began.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BELL (voice-over): In the aftermath of the devastating fire that left the beloved Notre Dame Cathedral charred but still standing, French authorities looking for answers, interviewing 30 employees who were working at the building the day the fire broke out.

The blaze, which began in the cathedral's attic, is believed to be accidental, possibly a result of restoration work on the historic landmark.

Authorities revealing that cathedral staff struggled to find the source of the blaze for 23 minutes after the first fire alarm rang out.

President Emmanuel Macron pledging to rebuild, setting an ambitious five-year deadline.

EMMANUEL MACRON, FRENCH PRESIDENT (through translator): We will make the Cathedral of Notre Dame even more beautiful. We can do this.

BELL: One possible challenge: the part of the cathedral's roof known as the forest, which was destroyed in the blaze. The French Heritage Foundation tells CNN the country no longer has trees large enough to replace the ancient beechwood beams originally used in its construction.

France's top business leaders making generous pledges, donating more than $700 million for Notre Dame's reconstruction. This as the scope of the destruction inside the iconic cathedral becomes clear. Its beautiful interior extensively damaged. Mountains of debris stacked high. Light pouring in through holes in the roof. But the pews, surrounded by piles of rubble, seemingly undamaged.

The cathedral's iconic spire, lost to the fire, crumbling as on- lookers watched.

But a copper rooster that sat atop the spire recovered intact. Some of the cathedral's priceless relics, including the Crown of Thorns also rescued, transported for safekeeping to the Louvre Museum and Paris's city hall.

Notre Dame's stained-glass windows, twin bell towers, famous 18th Century organ also surviving the blaze.

Paris's mayor thanking the chaplain of the Paris Fire Brigade, who is being lauded as a hero for rushing into the burning building to rescue the holy relics. Pope Francis expressing his distress and thanking the first responders in his first address after the fire.

While the number of days Notre Dame will remain closed is unknown, outside the cathedral's walls, people coming together to hold their own service at a vigil last night.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HARLOW: Now, that outpouring of emotion will continue here in Paris tonight, Poppy. Chrism mass is traditionally held by the Catholic Church within Holy Week. It was due to be held here at Notre Dame. Instead, it will be held just a couple of blocks away at Saint-Sulpice on the Left Bank in Paris. And there, 400 priests will gather to mark that moment, coming together once again to pray, to sing, but also for the Catholic community to begin to look ahead -- Poppy.

HARLOW: Melissa Bell, thank you for the reporting.

Joining us now for more on this, from Paris, is the -- is Christophe Girard, Paris's deputy mayor for culture.

Christophe, thank you for being here, and again, just our hearts are with all of you and all Parisians as you continue to now rebuild.

What can you tell us about where the investigation stands? I mean, the latest we heard is that this was an accident. Any update from investigators?

CHRISTOPHE GIRARD, DEPUTY MAYOR FOR CULTURE, PARIS, FRANCE: Well, first of all, good morning. As you can see behind me, Notre Dame is standing and very proud. You know, and this is a very important week for the Catholics, because we are a few days from Easter.

And also, the fact that no fireman or firewoman was killed during the fire, or just one slightly injured, is the most important issue, first, for all.

Now, as you know, consolidation is to be done and companies are doing the work. And consolidation is the main issue, because after, you know, architects, specialists, engineers would be working to rebuild Notre Dame. Within five years, we hope like our mayor, Anne Hidalgo, and our president announced they wished.

HARLOW: How realistic do you believe a five-year timeline is? I know you have very generous donations: $700 million donated from some of the richest Parisians. I know the U.S. government is going to help, as well. Is five years doable in your mind?

[06:15:00] GIRARD: When you look at today's big construction in the world, I mean, Louvre Abu Dhabi or the latest monument museum built in Qatar by Jean Nouvel or the Philharmonie in Paris was built, it doesn't take so long.

So Notre Dame, of course, was built during two centuries but at a time where you had no protection and technologies like today. But that will be a big discussion.

Anyway, the Olympics are coming before Los Angeles. I think it's good to have this aim; and our mayor and our president, I think, are right.

HARLOW: Tell me what it is like to be French this morning. What does it feel like on the streets of Paris? Because this came, frankly, at a time when all of France was particularly fractured and divided.

GIRARD: It comes like a signal from -- I don't know. I'm not a believer. But it comes like a signal from -- from the sky or from Viktor Hugo to tell us Europe has to be protected and our, you know, heritage needs to be also protected and shared.

And maybe the lesson, also, is to be a bit more conscious of spiritual life and less, you know, into consumption of goods. And maybe there would be a way also to show that money can pour in for beauty, but money could pour in also for Social Security and health care.

HARLOW: Clearly, a message there. We appreciate your time very much. And we do hope that this helps to unite France. Thank you very much, Mr. Deputy Mayor.

GIRARD: Well, and thank you to -- and thank you to -- and thank you to America. Because they're a society of friends, helping Notre Dame for a long time.

HARLOW: We have the ambassador on with us this morning. We will share that message. Thank you very much, Mr. Deputy Mayor. We appreciate it.

And for all of you watching, if you'd like to help in the rebuilding effort of Notre Dame, go to CNN.com/Impact.

CAMEROTA: OK. Up next, as we await the Mueller report, what are legal experts looking for? We have the five key words that one former federal prosecutor says he will search for immediately in the document.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:21:08] CAMEROTA: OK. The countdown is on. The redacted Mueller report is set to be released tomorrow.

HARLOW: Stay tuned.

CAMEROTA: I know that you and I have been doing calisthenics to get ready for this. While White House aides tell CNN they do not expect any bombshells, however, current and former staffers who talked to Mueller are said to be worried about how the president will react.

So joining us now we have Margaret Talev, senior White House correspondent from Bloomberg News; Elie Honig, former federal prosecutor and CNN legal analyst; and Laura Barron-Lopez, national political reporter for Politico.

And Elie, I want to start with you. Because you are one of the people who will be sequestered in a room when these 400 --

HARLOW: Locked up.

CAMEROTA: Locked in a room when these 400 pages are released. And I'm fascinated by your process. And you have shared with us that the first thing you will do is hit the search function for five key words. Let me pull them up for everybody: "collusion," "dirt," "Junior," "McGahn" and "defer." Why are these to you the money words?

ELIE HONIG, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: So Alisyn, I'm going into the bunker. I'm consenting to it. I'm looking forward to it. I will lock in and go through this.

Ctrl-f is a beautiful thing that we have nowadays, where you can just search for the key terms.

"Collusion," first of all. A little bit of a trick there. I don't think Robert Mueller is going to use the term "collusion," because it's not a legal term. There's no crime called collusion. He may quote somebody talking about collusion, the president or Trump.

But I want to see what does Robert Mueller make of the various contacts with Russia that we know about.

And that brings me to sort of the second term, which is "dirt." Right? We know that this Trump Tower meeting happened where Donald Trump Jr., Paul Manafort, Jared Kushner -- this happened. They met with Russians who offered dirt on Hillary Clinton in Trump Tower. And I'm very interested to see what does Robert Mueller make of that. Maybe it's not a crime; maybe there's not proof beyond a reasonable doubt to charge it as a crime. But is it a security breach? Is it an abuse of power?

Which brings me to the third term: "Junior." And I'm talking here specifically about Donald Trump Jr. That's one of the big mysteries to me. Mueller never interviewed Trump Jr. He never subpoenaed Trump Jr. Was he a target? Typically, if you have someone who's a target, you don't subpoena them. But targets usually get charged. And Donald Trump Jr., of course, has not been charged.

What does he make of Junior's attempt to get this dirt from Russia? Did he perhaps refer Donald Trump Jr. to one of the U.S. attorneys' offices for future investigation?

Fourth is "McGahn," and that's for Don McGahn, who was counsel for Donald Trump for quite a while. This is getting into the obstruction piece. McGahn was inner-inner circle. He was there when a lot of the internal conversations happened.

Specifically, one of the things we know McGahn was involved in was the president wanted to fire Robert Mueller. And Don McGahn apparently talked him out of it.

And so McGahn gave 30 hours' worth of testimony to Robert Mueller. It will be really interesting to see what he learned.

And finally, the last word is "defer." And what I mean by that is, who did Robert Mueller intend to make this decision on obstruction? We know Mueller said evidence is too close to call. Did he mean to defer that decision to William Barr? I don't think so. Or did he mean to defer that to Congress, which is, of course, the only entity that can really do anything about it, since DOJ will not indict?

HARLOW: So maybe "Congress" would be the sixth word on that list. Right, Elie?

HONIG: Could be.

HARLOW: All right. That's fascinating.

Margaret, to you. There's a key question in terms of is there going to be a difference in what is -- what the public gets to know from the Mueller report between what is released in the redacted version, the Barr version of it tomorrow morning, versus what the public may end up seeing because of these Freedom of Information Act requests. Right? How wide do you expect that divide, the delta, to be there?

MARGARET TALEV, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes, I mean, Poppy -- and good morning, Alisyn -- I think we'll see this with the color coding and what's blacked out, to some extent.

But look, already we've seen President Trump and his legal team push a lot of issues to the courts to decide. And we have every reason to believe that this will be similar, to some extent. That there's going to need to be a FOIA process and a court process. And that if Democrats don't get what they think they're entitled to, that they're going to push in court for it.

[06:25:20] And so I think the question is both legal, in terms of what do, ultimately, the courts determine that Congress and/or the public is entitled to and also political. Because when the timing is spaced out like this, when you have two years' worth of an investigation. And then you have a four-page summary, and then the president is able to define the narrative between the time of the four-page summary and the 400-page report. And then some of the report is blacked out. And then you go to court, and you have to wait until the courts come out to see what's in it. You know, you are both running the clock between now and the election, and the public becomes tired of one story line, or they set their views and they turn their attention elsewhere.

And so this kind of tug of war between, legally, what information the public is entitled to know and Congress is entitled to have, and how fast people are entitled to have it has a lot to do with the way public opinion now is set heading into the election cycle.

CAMEROTA: Laura, CNN is reporting that current and former aides in the White House are nervous about some of this being made public, understandably, you know. They don't want what they had to testify to under oath to be available for general consumption.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ, NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER, POLITICO: Right. It's -- it's understanding that they're nervous. Barr has said that he is not going to redact stuff simply because it may be damaging to the president. He has said, however, that he, you know, would redact stuff that may involve private citizens. So that could include Don Jr.

We know that Democrats want the public to be able to see the underlying evidence. They also want the public to be able to see the grand jury information. They do agree, though, that classified information should be maintained, you know, classified.

But Democrats are very frustrated right now. They expect a lot of redactions, and they are already readying subpoenas -- a subpoena in order to get more information. Because they're -- they're really preparing for the fact that Barr could have a heavy pen in redacting this report.

HARLOW: Sort of a two-pronged fight here, Elie. Of course, the Democrats' fight on seeing -- for Congress to see the entire Mueller report, but then also the fight among congressional Democrats to subpoena the Trump administration on numerous fronts.

And my question to you is we're seeing how tough Trump lawyers are at fighting back on this. But how much confidence should they have, legally, in being able to resist these congressional subpoenas?

HONIG: Yes, so Poppy, this is a legal battle that is definitely going to happen. Whether it's in the context of Congress trying to get the full Mueller report or trying to get information on the security clearances that were given to Jared Kushner and others. At some point or other, this will come to a head in the courts.

Now, on the one hand, Congress has a very broad ability. The fundamental task that Congress has is oversight and investigation. And so I think courts will generally side with Congress, so long as the request is not completely out of line; so long as it generally falls within the oversight ability.

But as a practical matter, if I'm looking at this from the White House's point of view, there's a real incentive to just drag your feet here. This Congress is only in session for under two more years. And you can drag these things out in court. There's trial court. There's appeals. There's potentially Supreme Court.

And so there may be a legitimate strategy here -- I don't know if it's legitimate, but there may be an effective strategy here of just delay, delay, delay and try to run out the clock.

So it will be interesting. And I think Congress should do their best to expedite this. And there's ways you can go to a court and say, "We need an expedited decision." You can even go direct to the Supreme Court in extreme situations, and that may be necessary here.

CAMEROTA: Yes, because by the way, this is beyond just the stuff in the Mueller report, Margaret. This is about security clearances. This is about things that, you know, most Americans say that they're quite concerned with.

So if this -- I mean, if the White House is already saying, "We're not going to hand over the information that Congress wants," then obviously, the court battle is next.

TALEV: Well, that's right. And you know, Alisyn, there are some elements of executive privilege that are sort of long protected. The -- any administration has an ability to have a lot of deliberations internally.

But if your default mode is that it's all either covered by privilege or you're just not going to do it, then of course, it's going to force a court battle. Democrats want the court battle anyway.

And the question really is, you know, it's April now of 2019. And if you can -- if you can expedite someone through the courts in 12 or 13 months, then the president maybe has a political problem if he delays.

CAMEROTA: Yes.

TALEV: But if this drags on for two years, he runs -- he runs the clock.

HARLOW: Finally, just to put a button on it, Laura, any political risk for the Democrats here in terms of overreaching in the court of public opinion?

[06:30:00]