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Shooting in Colorado School Leaves 1 Dead, 8 Injured; Trump's Tax Returns in '80s and '90s Show His Narrative of Business Prowess Was Untrue; Judiciary Committee in House to Vote on Holding Barr in Contempt of Congress; Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) is Interviewed about Barr Contempt Vote. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired May 08, 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 MALE: Two individuals walked into the STEM School. A number of students were shot and injured almost immediately

[07:00:30] UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She said, "Mom, I love you."

I said, "What's going on?"

And she said, "It's not a drill. It's a real lockdown, Mom."

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm very happy to have my daughter, and I'm praying for all the other families in this school.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Every year that we looked at, he lost money. His businesses were doing horribly.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He forces us to redefine what we think of Trump, the value of what he built.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's never done anything illegal. He has filed all his paperwork. And if it ends up out in the public domain, that's fine.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: This hour, the world will gets its first look at the newest addition to the royal family.

PRINCE WILLIAM, UNITED KINGDOM: I was thrilled. I'm looking forward to seeing them.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We get to see what this new royal baby looks like and perhaps a few words from Meghan.

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

CAMEROTA: All right. Well, that's very good news that we will look forward to this hour. BERMAN: We need it.

CAMEROTA: We do, because good morning, everyone. Welcome to your NEW DAY. We start with sickening news. That this morning police yet again are trying to find clues in what caused another school shooting in America.

Police say two students opened fire inside a Colorado charter school just miles from Columbine. An 18-year-old student was killed and at least eight others hurt. One parent tells "The New York Times" that students tried to stop the attackers as they shot at the kids inside two classrooms.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Officers say when they arrived on the scene, the shooters were still firing. Investigators say the officers ran toward danger and, after a struggle with the suspects, took both of them into custody.

Our Ryan Young is live in Highlands Ranch, Colorado, with the very latest. Ryan, give us the latest. What are you learning this morning?

RYAN YOUNG, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, so very tough. There still remains a police presence here. We're about an hour away from a news conference. But when you think about that, the officers getting here so quickly, with the shooting still going on. Students jumping in to try to stop the shooters.

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Attention all units. Getting information on a shooting, STEM School. All units, we have a shooter in Room 1-0-7, 1- 0-7.

YOUNG (voice-over): Emergency crews arriving to STEM School in Colorado after reports of a school shooting. Police say the attackers split up to target two different locations.

HOLLY NICHOLSON-KLUTH, UNDERSHERIFF, DOUGLAS COUNTY, COLORADO: As officers were arriving at the school, they could still hear gunshots and as they were entering the school.

YOUNG: Police arresting two suspects, identifying one as 18-year-old Devon Erickson; the other believed to be a juvenile. Authorities say both are students at the school.

TONY SPURLOCK, SHERIFF, DOUGLAS COUNTY: Our officers went in. And we engaged the suspects. We did struggle with the suspects to take them into custody.

YOUNG: One 18-year-old student was killed and eight others injured. The father of senior Brendan Bialy telling "The New York Times" Brendan and two friends saw one gunman pull a weapon from a guitar case. The friends tried to tackle the gunman, and one of the boys was shot in the chest.

As the school went on lockdown, many students say they thought it was just a drill.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Usually, it wouldn't be so concerning. We could see people running out of the building. So we immediately knew that it was not a drill. So we went to hide inside of a classroom.

YOUNG: Some students running for their lives, others hiding until help arrived.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I heard two gunshots. Like, I was inside my classroom. Someone said, "I have a gun. Get down on the ground." I started crying, because I was so scared.

YOUNG: Young children seen leaving with their hands on their heads.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She said, "Mom, I love you. It's not just a drill. It's a real lockdown, Mom."

YOUNG: An agonizing wait for parents.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She said, "Mommy, there's gunshots at the school." I stopped what I was doing, and I just ran into my car.

YOUNG: Packing into a nearby recreation center, hoping for the best.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's the worst phone call or text message that you could ever get.

YOUNG: Emotional reunions for families.

But some, like Fernando Montoya, not as fortunate, saying his daughter is safe, but his son is one of the injured.

FERNANDO MONTOYA, FATHER OF VICTIM: I talked to him. You know, thank God he's OK. He told me that he was shot, like, three times. He said he was -- he saw shots from everywhere.

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YOUNG: Yes, this school is actually going to be closed for the rest of the week. They're going to provide grief counselors, as well.

And just think about this: about two weeks ago, the school was already put on lockdown. People were already worried in this area after a woman from Florida was threatening to do violence in this area. Now you have the reality of this. Students having to step up. It just makes you ask, when is enough enough?

CAMEROTA: Yes, I think we -- I think we've crossed that point, Ryan. Listen, thank you very much for the reporting and bring us any developments.

So now to this big story. "The New York Times" got their hands on Donald Trump's taxes. Ten years' worth, from 1985 to 1994, and they are very revealing. Donald Trump's businesses lost more than $1 billion during that time. [07:05:08] "The Times" compared Donald Trump's taxes to millions of

other Americans and found Mr. Trump lost more money than nearly any other individual taxpayer in the country.

President Trump just responded to this report in a pair of tweets. He writes, "Real estate developers in the 1980s and 1990s, more than 30 years ago, were entitled to massive write-offs and depreciation, which would, if one was actively building, show losses and tax losses in almost all cases. Much was nonmonetary. Sometimes considered tax shelter. You would get it by building or even buying. You always wanted to show losses for tax purposes. Almost all real estate developers did and often renegotiate with banks. It was sport. Additionally, the very old information put out is highly inaccurate."

All right. Well, is it -- was it accurate or not accurate? First, he talked -- all right. We'll get into it right now, because joining us is "New York Times" reporter Susanne Craig. She cowrote the story.

Sue, thank you so much for being here.

Let me take people through the five big takeaways, OK, from some of your reporting. No. 1, Donald Trump was in deep red, even as he peddled his deal-making book, "The Art of the Deal," which deigned to give other people financial investment advice.

No. 2, in multiple years, he appears to have lost more money than nearly any other American.

No. 3, Donald Trump paid no federal income tax for eight out of those ten years.

Four, he made millions posing as a corporate raider until investors realized he never followed through.

Five, his interest income spiked somehow in 1985 at $52.9 million. But the source is a mystery.

So first, Sue, can you just react to what President Trump just tweeted about your reporting, where he's sort of justifying not paying any federal income tax?

SUSANNE CRAIG, REPORTER, "THE NEW YORK TIMES": Depreciation, he's right in terms of it does give a break to real estate developers. But we're not talking this is all depreciation. There's a portion of it. It's probably even not a great portion.

Donald Trump, in many years, lost more than pretty much any individual taxpayer. And it's not just -- we're not comparing him to teachers. These are other high net worth people.

So some of it's depreciation. A lot of it's just bad business.

CAMEROTA: The fact that -- I mean, there's a couple of, you know, dubious things in here. The fact that he didn't pay any federal income tax and the fact that you said that there was this mysterious spike of $52.9 million in one year, in 1989. Does any of what you saw point to fraud?

CRAIG: In these, no. We have questions around that one, the 52 million that he had in interest income. And for me, like, we don't know where that came from, and that really -- that number, really, to me says we need to see when we get tax information, not just the front pages of the tax return, but all of the schedules.

And that goes to, you know, stuff we have now but also the modern stuff. Where is Donald Trump getting his money? It's a core question. And that number just really highlights that we need to understand that.

CAMEROTA: The fact that he didn't pay any taxes, I mean, is that -- it sounds like what he's saying, in the tweet at least, that that's sort of a badge of honor for him.

CRAIG: Well, for him, I guess maybe it is. But he didn't pay income tax in eight out of the ten years. A large part of it is because he lost so much money.

CAMEROTA: Yes, I mean, you know, he -- it's funny, because he likes to do things "bigly." And so he certainly lost bigly during that decade.

CRAIG: Yes. He was the best at losing money in that decade.

CAMEROTA: I mean, as Erin Burnett last night was saying, his reality show could have been "The Biggest Loser." Then, obviously, that's not how he depicts himself.

CRAIG: No. I think if he was a headline writer at "The Times," he would have had some fun with that one this morning.

CAMEROTA: I mean, the point is, is that this is so different than the narrative that he has peddled, obviously, in "The Art of the Deal" and what he's continued to peddle about he was just on this winning streak. In fact, he had the opposite of the Midas touch.

I mean, from what you found, it was his casinos. It was his investments in property. It was his airline. It just -- you know, the Taj Mahal casino. They just -- all the other casinos, these were all failures.

CRAIG: You'd think if there was one decade and I, coming into it, before I saw the tax information that we got, you would have thought this was a decade where he would have had a couple good years. He did, after all, write "The Art of the Deal" in 1987.

We found out his core businesses lost more than $40 million that year, and that was one of the better years that we looked at. The losses were phenomenal, even in a year where he's writing a book about how great a businessman he is.

CAMEROTA: Did he pay any -- did he give any money to charity? Could you tell? CRAIG: We don't know, because he lost money. And so, when that happens, you can give money to charity; but it's not going to show up on forms that we have, because it doesn't have an effect if you lose money.

CAMEROTA: So how do those years that you were able to see, from 1985 to 1994, inform what lawmakers may see if they ever get their request for his more recent six years of taxes?

[07:10:08] CRAIG: Well, I think what it shows, we're going to see a lot of things if you get your taxes. One of them is how much money did he make or lose in the last six years?

But I think the most important thing that's going to come out of it, if the modern tax returns become public is the sources of income, how profitable his business are, but where is his money coming from. And that's a big question mark. It's still a question mark we haven't gone through. Now, we have ten years of tax information, you know, from '85 to '94. But we still don't have a lot of the schedules behind that. There's just so many questions about where his money is coming from.

CAMEROTA: And just very -- I mean, just very quickly, because when you see something, like something spike $53 million, was he audited during these years?

CRAIG: We don't know, but one of the interesting things is that those years, we have a lot of specificity around his finances, because the New Jersey Casino Control Commission, because his businesses were doing so poorly, his casinos, they were all over him.

They actually put out a report in 1990 that was based on tax return information. So we know a lot about the assets that he had. We could find nothing that would be throwing off that much interest income in those years. It's a really big mystery, and this just goes to the fact that the schedules on the tax returns are so important.

CAMEROTA: Sue Craig, thank you very much for the great reporting and sharing it with us this morning.

BERMAN: All right. Want to bring in Bianna Golodryga, CNN contributor; and also Joe Lockhart, former Clinton White House press secretary; and Jeffrey Toobin, former federal prosecutor and CNN chief legal analyst.

Can we just take a step back? The superlative, he lost more money than just about anybody

CAMEROTA: Bigly.

BERMAN: It is staggering.

You know, Bianna, you covered business for years.

BIANNA GOLODRYGA, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Right.

BERMAN: Still do. If you're losing more money than anybody, are you good at business?

GOLODRYGA: Well, it doesn't make you the best businessman in the country.

BERMAN: Which is what he said.

GOLODRYGA: What the president sold himself as, which is what I think you can't underestimate the power of "The Apprentice" and what that did for him on a national landscape, right, where you had so many Americans turn to him as a successful businessman.

Now, covering business, especially real estate here in New York, any -- any real estate expert would say they didn't take him seriously. We know so many banks wouldn't deal with him, which is why Congress has now subpoenaed many banks, in particular Deutsche Bank. Because that was the one bank that seemed to be his go-to lender.

But yes, there was this whole facade of a man who was a primetime, big businessman over many, many decades. And come to find out when he wrote his book, he was actually losing a ton of money.

JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN CHIEF LEGAL ANALYST: One of the amazing things about the story to me is, OK, so he's lost all this money. Like, but he kept living like the billionaire he pretended to be. Like, why didn't he feel any of the pain of losing this money? Why is it other people who, you know, had to sacrifice. You know, his -- the famous contractors and subcontractors. He didn't pay, but he never suffered at all. He lived like a prince, like a king throughout all these years that he lost all this money.

GOLODRYGA: Thanks, in large part, to his dad.

CAMEROTA: The borrowing --

TOOBIN: Do you think that's what it was? I mean --

GOLODRYGA: Well, his dad was his nonstop backstop. I mean, between the few banks that would deal with him and then his father. We know time and time again he would ultimately turn to his father to bail him out.

CAMEROTA: But it's also his super power. That is his super power, is being able to spin whatever yarn he wants about himself and not necessarily feeling any shame about it. And the reason I know that is from his own words.

Here are words from his book, "The Art of the Deal." Now, of course, it was ghost-written, so it's not really not his words. But he approved --

BERMAN: Tony Schwartz's words.

CAMEROTA: Yes. But he approved of these words. So here they are.

"The final key to the way I promote is bravado. I play to people's fantasies. People may not always think big themselves, but they can still get very excited by those who do. That's why a littler hyperbole never hurts. People want to believe that something is the biggest and the greatest and the most spectacular. I call it truthful hyperbole. It's an innocent form of exaggeration and a very effective form of promotion."

And I think that, Joe, we have still seen that today.

JOE LOCKHART, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: I think the story settles a debate that's been going on on whether he was a tax cheat or whether he was a terrible businessman. He's a terrible businessman.

You know, if you look at the reason he's not paying taxes, it's because he was losing money. That's a reasonable position.

What we really have here is he's a con man. And this is -- he's played the long con, now over 40 years. And, you know, a con man you know, it isn't just someone who's, like, a self-promoter. A con man is someone who out -- goes outs of his way to take advantage of other people and to lie to them and to misrepresent his assets. So there's subcontractors across -- I mean, New Jersey is littered with subcontractors who went out of business or businesses were hurt because he didn't pay his bills. He also took advantage of banks.

And I think some serious questions are raised here about, well, how did he continue to fuel this? This is what the Democrats on the Intel Committee have been trying to get at and the Judiciary Committee, which is somewhere a lifeline was extended to him to keep him going. Did that come from Russian money? Is -- does that explain why Vladimir Putin has some sort of stranglehold over him?

So I think it answers a basic seminal question here but then raises a bunch of other ones, which gives way more legitimacy to what the Democrats in Congress are trying to find out.

BERMAN: There's over $52 million in interest income that they can't figure out where it comes from.

TOOBIN: Well, that happens to me. Sometimes it's just in my account.

CAMEROTA: You forgot about it.

TOOBIN: And you know, back in the '80s, it happened all the time.

BERMAN: But if he was lying about his business prowess and his success over this ten-year period, does it raise questions about the previous six years from now, Bianna?

And that is what Congress wants to get ahold of now. The House Ways and Means Committee is looking for the last six years of tax returns. All right? We have ten years from 25, 30 years ago where we know the president was misrepresenting how he was doing in business.

Is it legitimate to ask, has he been misrepresenting the six years before his entry into the White House?

GOLODRYGA: I think it is legitimate to ask. I mean, you see decades now of data that seems to suggest what he presented himself as was not true. And we don't know the source of a lot of that income.

I would say take him at his word. Look at his tweet today where he said it's a sport. For him, it was all a way of gaming the system.

And think about -- I think the most interesting part of all of this reporting is that he presented himself as a corporate raider, where he would come in and sort of, you know, display that -- this urgency of taking over a company, which that was never his intention. It was just to see the stock price go up so then he could sell it off and make another source of income.

But I think don't underestimate this president to spin this to benefit him. I mean, it's what he did during the campaign, as well. He said, yes, I know how to game the tax system, and I'm going to change it so we can help everyday Americans.

CAMEROTA: And his supporters will believe that, Joe, because he did turn it around. So that was a decade during which he had shocking losses, and then he did turn it around.

BERMAN: Did he? Did he?

LOCKHART: I mean, here's the thing. We don't know. The only thing we know for certain is he had one successful business enterprise, which was his television show.

Now, I don't know that you can become a billionaire off of one television show. I don't think. I don't know how much he owned, how much of it was owned by Mark Burnett. But we don't know.

And I think what we really need to understand is, after his father stopped bailing him out, who bailed him out? And I don't think it's a coincidence that all of this is coming out now that Deutsche Bank has turned over some documents. And, you know, these documents, many of which were available from New Jersey regulators, because he ran three casinos into the -- into the ground.

But the, you know, front running of stock is against the law. And, you know, he wasn't even good at that. But it is part of the con. It's -- if you look at his business, it was all as, you know, Michael Cohen said, an illegal enterprise.

CAMEROTA: Your thoughts?

TOOBIN: Well, it just cries out for more information. I mean, this is astonishing, wonderful reporting from "The New York Times." It's great that they got these documents. They -- they answer a lot of questions. But especially about his presidency.

I mean, you know, yes, it's embarrassing to him that he lost so much money in the '80s. But what's important, what's important to the country is where he's getting his money now. Because that suggests where his loyalties are.

CAMEROTA: Or then, I mean, as Joe pointed out, you can still have old loyalties if you got a strange $53 million infusion. BERMAN: But the nature of his business fundamentally changed between

this period and the period before the presidency. It's been all about --

CAMEROTA: We think so.

BERMAN: Well, it has. I mean, it's been all about licensing.

CAMEROTA: Yes.

BERMAN: For the last 10 or 15 years, which is a fundamentally different business than building or running casinos. So we just don't know.

GOLODRYGA: And expect this president now to say this is all boring is what he did with this last bombshell tax report, this tax piece that they wrote, and to say that this is all complicated, as he's sort of been justifying it now. The tax law is different. That people don't understand it. That you know, yes, I was a successful businessman. I knew how to game the system, and I will continue to help millions of Americans.

LOCKHART: But this -- this -- this president has always been about creating an image and a brand. And this is a huge hit to that brand. Whether voters will stay with him or not, he's -- you know, David Cay Johnston in the last segment said he's the emperor without dough. And that's true.

CAMEROTA: All right. Joe, Jeffrey, Bianna, thank you very much.

Coming up in our next hour, we have the House judiciary chairman, Jerry Nadler. He's going to join us to talk about today's pivotal contempt vote. Is that still on? He's also going to respond to the Justice Department threat overnight, basically, to invoke executive privilege.

[07:20:06] BERMAN: And battle over a contempt vote, and the Justice Department threatening to invoke executive privilege --

CAMEROTA: I've heard that somewhere.

BERMAN: -- on everything, it's almost as if you just said that. How will that play out? A key Democrat in the Senate joins us next to discuss.

CAMEROTA: Plus, we're just minutes away from our first look at the new royal baby. Prince Harry and Meghan Markle will, we're told, speak about this.

BERMAN: Out loud?

CAMEROTA: Yes.

BERMAN: With sound?

CAMEROTA: Yes. Will we learn the baby's name? You don't want to miss this hour.

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BERMAN: The House Judiciary Committee will vote just hours from now to hold Attorney General William Barr in contempt. But the Justice Department is threatening to have President Trump invoke executive privilege on everything involving the Mueller report if that vote takes place.

Joining us now is Democratic Senator Chris Coons. He's a member of the Judiciary Committee.

You've been in the center of all of this for some time, so we appreciate you being with us. Senator, can I read you the letter that the DOJ sent last night. Stephen Boyd wrote this letter to the Judiciary Committee in the House side.

"In the face of the committee's threatened contempt vote, the attorney general will be compelled to request that the president invoke executive privilege with respect to the materials subject to the subpoena. I hereby request that the committee hold the subpoena in abeyance and delay any vote on whether to recommend a citation of contempt for noncompliance with the subpoena pending the president's determination of this question."

He basically said, "You do this, game over," in terms of anything Congress wants on the Mueller investigation. Do you think they have a legal case?

SEN. CHRIS COONS (D-DE): I don't. I don't think that it's possible to assert executive privilege over everything that Congress might be seeking to get from the executive branch.

Look, one of the fundamental powers of Congress is a power of oversight, a power to investigate actions by the executive branch. It's part of our balance of powers. It's something that has been well-established over many administrations of both parties.

Look, there's always skirmishes at a boundary line issues, famously the fight by Richard Nixon to say that he shouldn't have to give up tape recordings of discussions in the Oval Office, which led to U.S. v. Nixon. There's always been some disagreements.

But this is a wholescale effort to assert executive privilege across an entire investigation and a whole range of things. And John, this fits into a broader approach by the Trump White House to declare Congress's oversight power illegitimate. That's more of a threat to our separation of powers than any specific fight we might be having right now.

BERMAN: When you're talking about a threat to the separation of powers, there are those who ask the question, is that a constitutional crisis? Is it?

COONS: We keep coming up against constitutional crises here scalover the last two years. I'll put it this way. President Trump has taken a series of actions over his two years as president where he has genuinely pushed the boundaries.

Across a whole range of things -- criticizing sitting federal court judges, the way he talks about the media and now the way he is challenging the power of Congress. He's done this previously in terms of spending decisions. He's done it in other ways in terms of the reach and scope of his executive orders. This is, I think, just another way in which he is genuinely pushing the boundaries of presidential power.

John, what worries me is that we have two new Supreme Court justices and an attorney general who have publicly and repeatedly asserted a view of presidential power that I think is ahistorically overbroad, meaning they support this unitary executive theory idea that, when Justice Scalia first wrote about it in a dissent, it was very much a minority view.

They are now in a position to potentially make it the law of the land, if there were a Supreme Court decision resolving this fight.

BERMAN: You know, the president on Twitter, and he's incorrectly interpreted the Constitution, by the way, and exactly the separation of powers.

But he said he will take the notion of impeachment or investigation to the Supreme Court. Leave his interpretation aside. But you seem to be suggesting is he might have his justices, the ones he appointed, on his side should these issues get to that court. Is that your view?

COONS: He might. Exactly why I voted against Justice Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh after vigorous questioning on this, was their views on executive power, which I think are significantly overbroad. And in fact, pose a threat to the ways in which our constitutional order has always worked.

BERMAN: Senator, if I can, I want to talk to you about what's happening with Iran this morning. I remember you talking -- talking to you before the Iran deal was signed in 2015. You had concerns. You ultimately supported it at the end.

But now a year after the United States backed out unilaterally, Iran says it will start reentering the nuclear realm with production of various things. What's your reaction to these moves this morning?

COONS: This is a significant moment in our many years'-long effort to try and contain or hopefully stop Iran's race towards a nuclear weapon.

Iran is a very dangerous, destabilizing power in the region. They export their view of terrorism and their engagement with the region in a way that is extremely harmful to our allies and our interests. And the announcement that they may well go back to enrichment and enrichment, possibly to weapons-grade levels is very concerning.

The JCPOA, the Iran deal is something that was cobbled together between Russia, China, our European allies and the United States. And at its most positive, it gave us searching inspections, insight into what Iran was doing. And they committed to not develop a nuclear weapon.

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