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Michael Cohen Preparing for Prison; Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO) is Interviewed; President Trump Tweets Robert Mueller Should Not Testify before Congress; Kamala Harris Gives Speech in Detroit on Electability. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired May 06, 2019 - 08:00   ET

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

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't think that we should take it lightly. We're trying to exert a show of power. We could find out soon why that's happening.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: President Trump is saying flat out Mueller should not testify. He didn't express those concerns on Friday.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: That's up to our Attorney General.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Only Mr. Mueller can tell us what is exactly on that report and why is he afraid of the truth.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: For the first time in the history of the Kentucky Derby, the horse that crossed that line first has been disqualified.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's bittersweet. I'd be lying if I said it was any different. You always want to win with a clean trip.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome to our viewers in the United States and all around the world. This is NEW DAY. It's Monday, May 6th, 8:00 here in New York. And in just a few hours, President Trump's former fixer and lawyer becomes a federal inmate. Michael Cohen will serve a three-year sentence after admitting he made or directed payments to silence women who claimed affairs with then candidate Donald Trump. Cohen also admitted to making false statements to Congress. He is expected perhaps to give a press conference before reporting to prison. What will he have to say before heading to a few years behind bars.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Meanwhile, all eyes at this hour on the opening bell on Wall Street. Signs point to a rough start after President Trump threatened China with a new, more severe round of tariffs. The president continues to criticize China this morning ahead of what was scheduled to be the final round of trade negotiations this week. "The "Wall Street Journal" reports China is now thinking of walking away from those talks altogether.

But we begin CNN's Kara Scannell. She is live in New York with the latest on Michael Cohen. What do we expect, Kara?

KARA SCANNELL, CNN REPORTER: Alisyn, that's right. Michael Cohen always said he would take a bullet for Donald Trump. Today he is going to prison to start a three-year sentence. We're waiting outside his apartment here in midtown Manhattan to see if he's going to say anything before he makes that drive.

But Michael Cohen pleaded guilty last year to tax fraud charges, to campaign finance violations, and to lying to Congress. And Cohen is the only person in this two-year-long investigation that has implicated the president directly in a crime, and that was those hush money payments to those women.

We're waiting for Cohen outside his apartment here. He's expected to be picked up by some friends, we're told, and they will make the 75- mile drive to Otisville, New York, that's just northwest of the city. Cohen is due there by 2:00 p.m. today, and when he arrives, he will join other inmates such as Billy Mcfarland, the co-founder of the doomed Fyre Festival, as well as Mike "The Situation" Sorrentino, one of the cast members of that reality TV show "The Jersey Shore."

When Cohen arrives there, he will trade in his suit for a green prison uniform. That's a green shirt and green pants. He will also live a regimented schedule, waking up at 6:00 a.m. with lights out at 11:30. And he will be assigned some kind of job from laundry to landscaping. We're still waiting for Michael Cohen. We think he might address the press. He gave hints that he was wanting to do that. He might have some final words. It will be interesting to hear what he has to say, if he has some contrition or a final message for President Trump. Alisyn?

CAMEROTA: Yes, it would be interesting to hear from him, Kara. Thank you very much. Please bring us any developments.

In the meantime, let's bring in Abby Phillip, CNN White House correspondent, Nia-Malika Henderson, CNN senior political reporter, and Errol Louis, CNN political commentator. Great to have all of you. Errol, I was interested to read that you said Michael Cohen going to prison today does actually not eliminate him from continuing to be a threat to President Trump. How so?

ERROL LOUIS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Absolutely, absolutely. Listen, he is referenced in the Mueller report as somebody who was clearly involved in a lot of misconduct involving the president. The Southern District of New York all but said that Individual One had ordered him to take some of the illegal actions for which he is now going to prison.

CAMEROTA: What incentive does he have to still keep cooperating now that he's going to prison?

LOUIS: His cooperation isn't even necessary. The fact is, if you have a crime that involves a couple of people or somebody who has clearly adjudicated, he's guilty, he's going to prison, he said I did this at the behest of somebody who because they are president right now cannot be criminally charged, it's still out there. There's still more information to come out about it. There's action that Congress can take related to it. That's the whole inquiry and impeachment question that we keep churning around. And then someday the president won't be president, and then the criminality actually can find a different forum. So his problems with Michael Cohen don't go away just because he goes to prison today.

BERMAN: The most 2019 thing ever is that Michael Cohen is going do the same prison as "The Situation" from "Jersey Shore."

CAMEROTA: I had lost track of what happened to "The Situation." I am surprised to see that he's in there.

BERMAN: We can get a report from Michael Cohen, how he's doing. I couldn't let that slide.

[08:05:01] All right, I think a big development over the weekend, Abby, about the president's view of Robert Mueller and whether he should testify, I just want to put up the statement that the president made over the weekend, "Bob Mueller should not testify. No re-dos for the Dems," so says the president. Again, we get word that maybe as soon as May 15th Robert Mueller might testify. This is a change from the president because on Friday he said it was up to William Barr to decide whether the president should testify. And just so people know, a week ago, William Barr said this about whether the president should testify, Robert Mueller should testify.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What about Bob Mueller, should he be allowed to testify before the Senate?

WILLIAM BARR, U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL: I've already said publicly I have no objection.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: So Abby, you've been telling us all morning. What do you think is going on here? What's the president afraid of with the potential Mueller testimony?

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: The president has changed his mind about this. He was on Friday of the view that Bob Barr would do what was necessary in this case and he could leave it up to Barr. But on Sunday, after spending the weekend doing what he usually does, talking to his friends, watching TV, he's changed his mind and he's putting a marker down for his base that he's not going to give an inch to Congress.

I think that that's -- what he's been doing all along, he does not want -- even when there's potentially nothing for him to be afraid of, he's not going to change his tune about the Mueller report as a result of anything that Bob Mueller testifies about on Capitol Hill. But he wants to stop Congress from doing anything at all to advance this investigation, even if there is not really any material risk to him, meaning that he's not going to be facing any charges even though he might very well be facing further embarrassment, and the story of potential -- a sense of corruption around this administration that could be politically damaging to him.

CAMEROTA: I just want to leapfrog over Nia for a second, because we're saving something good for her. Back to you, for a second, Errol, Mueller doesn't need the president's permission.

LOUIS: That's right. He doesn't work for the Justice Department anymore.

CAMEROTA: He does technically, but he could quit today.

LOUIS: He could quit today. And executive privilege is out of the question. It's not as if he has some secrets that the president wants to keep from the rest of the public.

Look, what the president fears here is what I remember vividly as a child, which is watching those Watergate hearings. It galvanized the country. It moved the polls from a majority saying Watergate is about nothing to a majority saying Watergate is really, really serious. It started the ball rolling. And in those unscripted moments, it's when you have people -- and the president knows this better than anybody -- step forward as characters in the national drama. They get the heartstrings of the country, they capture the imagination of the public. Their credibility is superior perhaps to that of the president and his supporters. So the president doesn't want a reality show that's out of his control to go unscripted on national television involving the characters that have been pursuing him for so long.

BERMAN: By the way, we haven't heard Robert Mueller's first lines in this reality show. We still haven't heard his voice yet. I know Alisyn wants to get you on the Kamala Harris speech last night in Detroit because you were there, but I just want your take on the Democrats, where the Democrats are now on Robert Mueller. David Cicilline over the weekend was saying that May 15th --

CAMEROTA: It's a request.

BERMAN: He had to sort of back it off a little bit. Now it's just a request. We're not 100 percent sure if it will happen or not. How hard do you think Democrats will push on this and all other things the next few days?

NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER: Very, very, very, very hard. We've seen so far what they've been doing, whether it's Barr's testimony and talking about maybe having a contempt citation against him. They very much want to hear from these folks, they want to press the president on any number of officials who he said he doesn't want to have before Congress.

It is, I think -- to Errol's point, it's almost a difference between a book and a movie. Maybe people don't read the book, in this case the Mueller report, but the movie of Mueller testifying before Congress would be must-see television. We haven't really heard Mueller's voice. Most people probably don't even know what he sounds like since he hasn't been in the public eye in a number of years. So to hear him recount what we know happened in the Mueller report, only something like three percent of the people actually read it according to "The Washington Post," so that would I think be a game-changer, something that Democrats obviously want to see, and the president is going to try to stop. We'll see if he's able to do that.

Mueller, by all accounts, wants to come before Congress. And we, of course, heard from Barr saying that he felt like that would be fine as well.

CAMEROTA: So Nia is in Detroit. That's where Kamala Harris' event was this weekend. And so let's talk about what's going on over in the Democratic side of the presidential race. Kamala Harris introduced this concept that we all sort of take the word "electability" as gospel, that we all have agreed what that's about, we all know the definition. But her point is it's quite nebulous. So listen to her try to redefine "electability."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[08:10:06] SEN. KAMALA HARRIS, (D-CA) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: There has been a lot of conversation by pundits about the electability and who can speak to the Midwest. But when they say that, they usually put the Midwest in a simplistic box and a narrow narrative. And too often their definition of the Midwest leaves people out.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Nia, very quickly, how did that go over in the room?

HENDERSON: It went over pretty well. I talked to people after the speech. They think Kamala Harris is a phenomenal candidate. They're obviously looking at other candidates as well. But I did think this was an important speech she made, basically challenging the folks in that room to expand their idea of electability. And what do people mean when they talk about electability? They often mean without saying white candidates as well as white voters and what white voters want and what kind of candidate white voters would vote for. And you see that in the polls in many ways with people like Biden, people like Bernie Sanders, and even Pete Buttigieg being seen as people who can connect better with those white working class voters in the Midwest.

And Kamala Harris yesterday said that when we talk about electability we leave out the people in that room. The people in that room of course were 5,000 African-Americans with the NAACP. And if you think about what happened in 2016, not only did you have white working class voters switch from voting for Obama to switching to Donald Trump, but you also had African-Americans not voting. In Michigan, for instance, there were about 11,000 -- decline of 11,000 decline of African- American voters from 2012. And how much did Donald Trump win the state of Michigan by? About 11,000 voters.

So she I think is challenging not only the voters in that room who have questions about whether or not the country would elect an African-American woman. She's also challenging pundits to expand our definition, their definition of what they mean when they talk about electability and not just rely on it as a code word for white candidates and white voters.

BERMAN: Nia, Abby, Errol, thank you all for being with us this morning.

HENDERSON: Thank you.

BERMAN: There is a new entry to the Democratic field. The latest person to get in, Senator Michael Bennet from Colorado. He joins us next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Colorado Senator Michael Bennet announced last week that he is running for president making him the 21st Democratic candidate, the seventh senator joining the race and the second politician from Colorado. Joining me now is Senator Michael Bennet. Senator, thank you so much for being with us. Welcome to the fray.

SEN. MICHAEL BENNET (D-CO), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Thanks, guys for having me today.

BERMAN: So Senator, you are running as what you call a pragmatic idealist -- not a moderate, you say. What and why the difference?

BENNET: Well, I think that pragmatism is important because we actually have to get stuff done. I've been in the Senate for the last 10 years and I can tell you that we have not gotten very much done since I've been there. We've had a politics that is mostly because of the Freedom Caucus' tyranny there that's immobilized the Federal government.

And when I think about the kids that I used to work for the Denver Public Schools when I was their Superintendent, you know, I think we've accomplished very little on their behalf, for the kids all over this country, and I think if we go another 10 years like this, we're going to be the first generation of Americans to leave less opportunity, not more to the people coming after us, and that would be disgraceful, particularly since we can do this and that's the idealist part.

I believe in democracy. I believe in self-government. I think we can restore integrity to our government. I don't think we have to accept the pathetic nature of our partisan politics that we've had to endure for the last 10 years or so. And, and there are others that don't believe that. I believe it. I think that we can do it, we can overcome it. It's going to take a lot to do it. But I think we can.

BERMAN: I want to ask about some of the practical implications of being a pragmatic idealist, I want to put up the issues the Democratic voters tell us are the most important and they have climate change as number one, but number 2, seventy five percent say, Medicare-for-All. Now, as a pragmatic idealist, you do not support the version of Medicare-for-All, which would force people to drop their private insurance, correct?

BENNET: That's true. I feel even more strongly about that since in the last month, I've had had an operation for prostate cancer, and my daughter had an appendectomy. So we can talk about the reasons for that. But here's what I support. I support universal coverage for every American, I think we need to dramatically reduce healthcare cost for families, and for this country. And I think we need to make sure that we preserve quality.

When you tell people the first thing about Medicare-for-All, either that it takes insurance away from 180 million Americans that have it through their employer, or the taxes we would have to pay to afford that $30 trillion program, that 70 percent support falls to the mid- 30s.

So I think we need to level with the American people and be honest with them, and I think as long as what we're talking about is universal coverage, the question then becomes how do we get there? And every single Democrat in this race believes that that should be our objective.

Donald Trump on the other hand, I mean, it's shocking for me to say this, but Donald Trump on the other hand, ran against the Affordable Care Act, ran against what he called Obamacare and promised to give us a much more beautiful plan that would cover everybody lower price, blah, blah, blah. He hasn't done anything since he has been President except take away healthcare from people.

[08:20:18] BENNET: The uninsured rates are going up in this country, and he even tried to take it away from people with preexisting conditions. And now what he is saying the American people is, "I can't deliver you a plan until after I'm reelected President." So that's a pretty stark dividing line, and, you know, my belief is that as long as Democrats stay focused on what the American people really want, whether it comes to climate change, or whether it comes to healthcare, or whether it comes to the economy, there's no reason that Donald Trump's threadbare record ought to be able to stand up to them.

BERMAN: First of all, I do want to say you, you mentioned your battle with prostate cancer, you had surgery which you noted cost $53,000.00. I just want to say we're glad that that battle is going well, it's nice to see you out on the campaign trail, having put that behind you.

The second thing is you said we need to level --

BENNET: By the way, I only had to pay $1,800.00 because thank God, I have insurance, right, you know, for somebody without insurance, their whole family's livelihood and the future of their lives could have been completely disrupted by this, and that happens to people every single day in America.

BERMAN: I can't imagine.

BENNET: This does not happen in other industrialized countries.

BERMAN: And now I should know, you have a preexisting condition. So you're a part of that group.

BENNET: Exactly.

BERMAN: Going forward, which makes you think about it a different way. But you said on Medicare-for-All, we need to level with the American people. Do you think again, this gets to the pragmatic issue here? Do you think the Democratic candidates who are calling for Medicare-for-All or nothing are not leveling? Do you feel that is not being pragmatic?

BENNET: I think it depends on who they are. I think Bernie Sanders believes it is exactly the right thing to do for the country. He has believed it since 1973. He has probably believed it since then.

BERMAN: You think he is wrong?

BENNET: Bernie, you know -- I think he's wrong. But I think he's leveling with the American people from his point of view. I just -- I think that -- I genuinely believe that if you sat down in a living room in my state, in a red part of the state or a blue part of state, and after all to create enduring policy, no matter what the partisanship is in Washington, in our -- at our homes, we need people of both parties to agree.

If you sit down in my state and said to people, we want universal coverage, do you agree? They would say, "Yes." Do you want to lower prices for everybody? They'd say, "Yes." Do you want to maintain quality? They'd say, "Yes, that's what we want to do." And then if you said to them, "By the way, half the people on this side of the street, are going to have to lose their employer based coverage if we go forward." Their first question would be, "Hey, do you have another plan, Michael?" And then I'd be able to say, "Yes, I do. It's called Medicare X." It creates a public option that allows people to choose for their families, what's best for them in terms of insurance and in terms of primary care.

And I just think that's going to be an easier thing for us to sell and, and it'll mean, people will get it more quickly. I mean, I've got people all over my state who don't have health insurance. It's ridiculous.

BERMAN: Senator, a lot of -- for a lot of people, you popped onto their radar -- at the center of their radar -- when you took on Republican Senator Ted Cruz with a very, very passionate speech on the Senate floor. I don't have time to play that right now. But perhaps not surprisingly, Senator Cruz welcomed your entry into the Democratic presidential candidate with a tweet as one does.

He says, "Michael Bennet's campaign is a Seinfeld campaign -- about nothing -- that typifies the left's empty rage in 2020. In a decade in the Senate, he's done very little, but he did stomp his foot and yell at me at the Senate floor." Anything you want to say to Senator Cruz this morning about his tweeet?

BENNET: Hello, Newman. What I would say is for the "Seinfeld" fans that are out there, you know, I mean, here's a guy who came to the Senate, stomped his feet on the floor, shut the government down while my state was flooded in 2013 and rode it all the way to a first place finish in the Iowa caucus.

Today, we've got incredible, massive flooding in western Iowa, Congress still can't pass legislation to deal with these disasters. And I guess, you know, my point is that we ought to have the same expectation, the high expectation for our Federal government that we have for our local governments, you know, nobody in Washington could get away with the kind of stuff.

I mean, sorry, nobody in America could get away with the kind of stuff Ted Cruz gets away with routinely on the Senate floor and be able to show up at the grocery store on Saturday and say, "You know, they had done their job." We've got to find a way to come together and work for the American people, not just to do little things, but to do big things.

I mean, the 10 years that I've been in the Senate, John, we've been in a continuing resolution for 40 percent of the time that I've been there. Those are temporary budgets, which means we haven't had a real budget that establishes priorities for the American people.

[08:25:15] BENNET: We haven't invested in infrastructure meaningfully in the last decade, we haven't dealt with climate change in a way that's durable. We haven't fixed the issue of not having universal healthcare for the American people. I mean, how much longer are we going to continue to print press releases and have these fights on the cable television, instead of actually figuring out how to roll up our sleeves and get this work done? That's what we need to do.

BERMAN: Sorry, very quickly here, Alisyn, we'd be remiss if I didn't ask you this. She would kill me. She just said.

BENNET: Well, don't kill anybody.

BERMAN: Candidate mixtape here. We do like to ask the presidential candidates to come on something about themselves personally, one of the things we'd like to ask about is the music you're listening to. So what are you listening to if you could pick one or two to put on your mixed tape.

BENNET: I was I -- when I was sick, for you know, the week that I was at home, I started to watch "Atlanta," which is an incredible television program. And there was a scene in a bar of these guys running after each other. And I had never heard this music, so I looked it up. And it's this guy who's passed away, actually passed away right when their only album was released.

The name of it was "Baby Huey & the Babysitters." They were a band in the '60s that mostly played covers in bars in Chicago, and it's only six or seven songs, but it's phenomenal.

BERMAN: Wow.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: I did not see that coming.

BENNET: So check that out.

BERMAN: That is a real answer and an unusual answer. Senator Michael Bennet. Thanks for coming on.

BENNET: Thank you. I try to give real answers, so thanks for having me. I hope you'll have me back.

BERMAN: That's great. Please come back, we have a lot more to ask you about your mother and your grandparents are Holocaust survivors. A whole great territory we discovered. It would be fascinating.

BENNET: Great. Great.

BERMAN: Thanks so much for being with us.

BENNET: Please, bring me.

CAMEROTA: We'll do. I also didn't see the Newman.

BERMAN: Hello, Newman. Yes, he and Ted Cruz. No love lost between those two senators.

CAMEROTA: I'm getting that.

BERMAN: Yes.

CAMEROTA: All right. There was this massive upset at the Kentucky Derby after the winner was disqualified. Was Maximum Security robbed or was this called justified? We'll discuss it next.

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