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Senate Intelligence Committee Subpoenas Donald Trump Jr.; House Votes to Hold Attorney General William Barr in Contempt; President Trump Makes Controversial Comments on Immigrants at Florida Rally; Debbie Mucarsel-Powell (D-FL) Interviewed about House Contempt Vote for Attorney General Barr and President Trump's Comments on Immigration. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired May 09, 2019 - 08:00   ET

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


[08:00:00] JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: North Korea has fired two short- range missiles, two missiles. This is the second time this week that North Korea has done something like this. What does this say about the president's chummy relationship with Kim Jong-un and his claims for more than a year that it was a victory that North Korea wasn't doing any nuclear tests or any missile tests. That appears to have changed.

Joining us now, David Gregory, CNN political analyst, and Jeffrey Toobin, former federal prosecutor and CNN Chief Legal Analyst. And this morning the president's son is under subpoena.

JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN CHIEF LEGAL ANALYST: That is true.

BERMAN: I can imagine a time when that, in and of itself, Jeffrey, would be a very stunning head line.

TOOBIN: Like Malia Obama never subpoenaed, not even once.

BERMAN: As far as we know is that correct. The most interesting part of this story, though, might be who issued the subpoena, which is the Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee.

TOOBIN: Exactly. And it really -- it damages the narrative that the investigation of Russia and the contacts between the campaign and Russian interests are a complete Democratic idea, and to keep a political attack on the president. The fact that Richard Burr, the chairman of the committee, a Republican from North Carolina, authorized this subpoena is very significant, and that's why you see there is so much pushback against him from Rand Paul, another Republican senator, and, of course, from Donald Trump Jr. himself, who calls Burr a so-called Republican in his response.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Before we get to the politics of it and David Gregory, one more legal question. What does Chairman Burr do if Donald Trump Jr. ignores the subpoena, because from reports it doesn't sound like he is inclined to show up?

TOOBIN: It's a great question. I think the obvious legal possibility is that the committee could vote to hold -- to hold Donald Trump Jr. in contempt. Will Burr really want to take that step against the president's son? That would be a considerable political risk for Burr when you consider that North Carolina is a state -- even though he is not up for reelection in this cycle -- it's a state where the president is very popular among Republicans. Republicans who have challenged the president have found their careers ending -- Bob Corker, Jeff Flake. Does Burr want to take that risk? I think he may let -- in light of that, he may let Don Jr. slide if he doesn't testify, but that's a question.

BERMAN: I'm not even sure Burr is running for reelection. That's something we have to check. I think he may not be. But be that as it may --

TOOBIN: He's not up this cycle yet.

BERMAN: I know, but maybe not run at all, period.

CAMEROTA: That would totally change --

BERMAN: It would. That's something I believe I've heard. We should look into that.

But David Gregory, it isn't so much a legal question as it is a political question for Richard Burr, which is if you are going to ask for the president's son to testify and subpoena him, if he doesn't show up, what will you do about it from a political standpoint? Will he stand up to these unnamed sources calling him a so-called Republican, or the president's Chief of Staff, Mick Mulvaney, who say it was in bad form to subpoena the president's son without warning, or Kevin McCarthy, the Republican leader in the House who has criticized this action? What's Burr going to do, David?

DAVID GREGORY, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: I think he has clearly thought this through, because there was a negotiation to try to do this without a subpoena, and that fell flat. So now I think he's prepared to stand his ground.

And the importance of it is twofold. One, that you have a Republican chair of a committee who is giving a bipartisan cast to this to try to elevate it from the partisan fight that is everything Russia and Mueller, but it's also a commitment on the part of the intelligence committee to return to the core point of Russia's interference, which is this was a bad thing, and how do we make sure that it doesn't happen again?

And I think that's really critical and that's what gets lost in all of this, particularly by the president, whose treatment of all of this ignores the underlying interference. And I think that one of the larger questions for me in all of this is that you had a team around Trump in this campaign that was both inexperienced and I think arrogant to the point where they didn't care about potential danger signs of Russian interference. And we know from the Mueller report that they didn't conspire to do anything wrong, but they allowed themselves to be vulnerable, again, through that arrogance and lack of experience. That's a big deal. And people in the political world need to learn from that. And I think that Burr is helping us as a country at least get one step closer to learning more about that.

TOOBIN: If I can just elaborate on that point a little, the Mueller report -- Mueller did a criminal investigation. What both the House and Senate Intelligence Committees are doing is counterintelligence investigations, national security issues -- what was Russia doing? How were they trying to manipulate our campaign? One of the ironies of this whole situation is that the Trump administration, the president himself, is attacking the FBI for doing this investigation.

[08:05:08] It wasn't that the FBI was investigating his campaign. They were investigating counterintelligence. What were the Russians trying to do? Was the Trump campaign the victim of Russian aggression? That's what these committees are investigating, though that subtlety seems to be lost on a lot of people.

GREGORY: Right. It's a really, really important point, because the vulnerability of any campaign moving forward, the sophistication of a campaign or of an interference campaign and how it could compromise our politics. And, remember, that part of what Russia was trying to do, they did want to help Donald Trump. And by wanting to help Donald Trump, by making it so political, it paralyzed the Obama administration, it created this political vortex where it's almost impossible to focus in a bipartisan way on the reality of that. It becomes, oh, well, this is an effort to delegitimize. I know this feels like going back to the first principles, but that's what we lose in all of this.

CAMEROTA: And so now you hear the term Constitutional crisis, Chairman of House Judiciary Jerry Nadler told it to us yesterday that he feels that we are already in a Constitutional crisis because when the Department of Justice stops cooperating with Congress that has oversight, and when the White House stops cooperating with Congress that has oversight, you're just at an impasse. And he was saying that he sees lawlessness happening here.

Another person who felt very strongly about the attorney general and what the attorney general's responsibility is to Congress is Republican Senator Marco Rubio. So let's play a little bit of how he feels the attorney general was stonewalling.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. MARCO RUBIO, (R-FL): I think that it is outrageous that any attorney general, Republican or Democrat, refused to comply with Congress' Constitutional right to hold them accountable and the Justice Department accountable. The stonewalling by the attorney general has been so egregious that I think he has to resign. Now they've argued executive privilege, which is basically a protection the president uses if someone in the White House or the president themselves wants to protect their communications from discovery.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Now, before --

TOOBIN: Can I just say one thing. CAMEROTA: Yes. Yes.

TOOBIN: Whatever. Right? That's the answer. That was then --

CAMEROTA: That was 2012.

TOOBIN: Right.

CAMEROTA: We should let everybody know.

BERMAN: That was the joke, is that was Marco Rubio talking about Eric Holder.

CAMEROTA: Eric Holder during Fast and Furious. It is shockingly similar, David, to what's happening.

GREGORY: I'm glad you played that because I think it makes a really important point. Are a lot of these investigations really political? Yes, of course they are, because you have political power plays that are involved. Let me try that again -- political power plays that are involved.

CAMEROTA: Well done.

GREGORY: But there's -- the real point is on this assertion of executive privilege, on stonewalling Congress, there is no minority party in Washington that's ever going to stand by and let the White House just say you get nothing, we will say nothing, we will not cooperate at all, we'll treat you as some kind of lower branch of government that doesn't have to be listened to. Nobody is going to stand by and allow that, which is why in our present context we have to look at the potential for some accommodation.

TOOBIN: What's different about what's going on now is that under George W. Bush, under Barack Obama, there were fights about cooperation, but there was never a total ban on any sort of cooperation between the administration and the Congress. That's what's going on now, and that's what makes this situation Constitutionally different from Eric Holder, Harriet Miers under George W. Bush. There were those fights, but this is different.

BERMAN: All right, Jeffrey Toobin, David Gregory, thanks very much.

I'm going to put that on pause because I want to bring in Democratic Congresswoman Debbie Mucarsel-Powelll. She is a member of the House Judiciary Committee. She was part of that vote yesterday. Thanks so much for being with us. And let me just ask you, because we are a day after that vote. What did you get from it, do you think?

REP. DEBBIE MUCARSEL-POWELLL (D-FL): Good morning. I have been thinking about what happened yesterday since I left that committee room. It weighs heavily on me. I think that we are going through a very critical time in our nation's history. I think that it is important that we actually hold Attorney General Barr in contempt. We can't allow the Department of Justice, the attorney general, to not comply with a subpoena that we sent to him. We've been negotiating with the attorney general since he received the

Mueller report, and he has been blocking every request that we have provided to him. And I think that we need to just remind the American people that the attorney general should be an independent counsel that is working for the American people, not for the president. He is acting right now as if he is the president's defense counsel.

[08:10:09] And so it was a difficult day and I can tell you that we shared not just with our Democratic colleagues, but I did have some conversations with some of my Republican colleagues in the committee. I do believe that if we are to receive the evidence that we are requesting, not just the full report without the redacted versions, but also all the underlying evidence, I do think that some of my Republican colleagues are going to come with us through this process.

BERMAN: Let me just read you what the response was from the Department of Justice yesterday so people know what it was. "Unfortunately, rather than allowing negotiations to continue, Chairman Nadler short-circuited these efforts by proceeding with a politically motivated and unnecessary contempt vote which he refused to postpone to allow additional time to explore discussion and compromise." You say you think it was important to hold the attorney general in contempt. I guess my question is, how will you hold him to account? Where are the teeth here?

MUCARSEL-POWELL: Well, we have different options, and we've been discussing those options. And I don't know today, this morning, what we're going to do exactly. I can tell you that we're going to have that contempt vote on the House floor. There are three different types of contempt. One is criminal, which obviously we can't pursue because it's the attorney general that would have to pursue that criminal contempt charge, but we have other options. And if we have to go to court, we will do that. If we have to fine the attorney general, we will do that. We are discussing those options right now. There will be consequences.

BERMAN: And of course, there are people who will ask then, if you have to impeach, will you? And where's the space -- and I'm just trying to understand this. And I'm not saying -- it's not for me to decide which way it goes, but where is the space between the Constitutional crisis as described by the House Judiciary Chair Jerry Nadler, and impeachment? When does one get to the other?

MUCARSEL-POWELL: Because we are so divided right now, and because we have millions of Americans right now that are not making ends meet -- look, we talk a lot about this economy, but it's not working for everyone. People are losing their healthcare coverage. We are actually today voting to protect people with preexisting conditions, we're working on healthcare issues, we're working on gun reform issues, we're working on lowering prescription drug medicines. One of the reasons why the president is really involved in this pull and tug fight is because he doesn't want to talk about the issues that are affecting everyday Americans.

Now, we need to do our oversight duty, and we will do that, and there is a process for that. And I can assure you that none of us are scared to do what is right for this country. I know that I was elected to do that. I can do both. I can pass legislation that's going to help every day Americans. But I think it's important for us to communicate that story because most Americans don't have the time to pay attention or read the Mueller report. It's a 500-page report. So I think it's very important that as we go through this process, believe me, we will perform our duties, we will perform our Constitutional oversight, we will not allow this crisis to continue. But yes.

BERMAN: Let me ask you, the president was in your state last night, he was in Florida last night, albeit in the panhandle doing a rally there, a political rally. And there was this moment that came up, he was talking about illegal border crossings and what should be done with people crossing the border and how they should be treated. Let me play this for you.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We don't let them, and we can't let them use weapons. We can't. Other countries do. We can't. I would never do that. But how do you stop these people? You can't.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Shoot them.

(LAUGHTER)

TRUMP: That's only in the panhandle you could get away with that statement.

(APPLAUSE)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: So someone in the crowd made a joke about shooting migrants, the president laughed it off, and said only in the panhandle. Your reaction?

MUCARSEL-POWELL: John, this is dangerous, OK? I am an immigrant. I came here from Ecuador. The rhetoric of attacking immigrants, criminalizing them, saying that we are criminals, is just completely wrong. What we have is desperate families that are coming to the border that have every right to request asylum, and the Trump administration is aggravating the situation because he is not processing, they are not allowing these asylum requests to be processed. That's one.

Now, when he talks about shooting, I lost my father to gun violence. I take that very seriously. We are in a situation right now in this country, we just had another shooting in Denver. He has to be careful. I can't reiterate that fact more strongly. We cannot allow this president to carelessly say that immigrants are coming and that they're shooting. I mean, that is a dangerous road to take, and I urge the president, people close to him, to please measure their words, because we had just another shooting a few days ago.

[08:15:04] We have thousands of families that are affected that are survivors that have lost their loved ones to that and we cannot connect immigrants to shootings in that manner.

And, obviously, it's playing well for him politically, but it's not going to play well for him in Florida. We, in my district, in my area, about half of the people that live there came from another country and they are paying attention.

BERMAN: I just wanted -- it was someone from the audience who said shoot them. The president laughed and then made a joke, he didn't contradict them, but it wasn't the president -- just so people who saw the video know.

Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, thanks for being with us this morning and talking to us about the Judiciary Committee action yesterday. I really appreciate it.

MUCARSEL-POWELL: Thank you very much.

BERMAN: And a quick programming note. Tonight, former FBI Director James Comey joins around Cooper for a town hall. It begins at 8:00 p.m. Eastern, only on CNN.

CAMEROTA: OK, breaking news now, South Korean officials say North Korea launched two short range missiles overnight. This is the second time North Korea has launched missiles in a week.

CNN's Paula Hancocks is live in Seoul for us with the breaking details.

What's the situation, Paula?

PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Alisyn, the information from the Joint Chiefs of Staff here is that they were both hired from the northwest of North Korea. One believed to be in Sino- ri, which is a missile base that North Korea hasn't admitted to but we know about thanks to satellite imagery. It's where they fired missiles from in the past and another one about 25 miles away.

They both flew in an eastward direction before landing in the waters off the east coast of North Korea. We have had some response from the South Korean President Moon Jae-in, he's doing an hour long nationwide interview at the moment which was preplanned before these launches, but he says what he believes is going on in North Korea is they are showing their discontent after the Hanoi summit, that summit with President Trump where President Trump walked away and Kim Jong-un was both surprised and humiliated.

But President Moon Jae-in is saying that Kim Jong-un is showing his discontent but also not going so far that he would actually break the detente. He says he is in some ways staging a demonstration against South Korea and the United States. One thing that took me by surprise, he did say he didn't see today's launches coming and doesn't know if they are the last ones. Most experts are expecting that this may not be the last we hear of North Korea. CAMEROTA: OK, Paula, thank you very much. Please keep us up to date.

Meanwhile, back here at home, Kendrick Castillo was shot and killed in a classroom when he charged a gunman who opened fire at his school. We will talk to a student who escaped the attack, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:21:42] CAMEROTA: Hundreds of people gathering at a vigil last night in Colorado to honor Kendrick Castillo, the 18-year-old who classmates are hailing as a hero for lunging at one of the shooters who opened fire at that school near Columbine.

By doing that survivors say that Castillo gave other students time to hide and survive.

Chris Elledge is a freshman at the STEM School, he survived the attack, and his father Eldon Elledge join us now.

Guys, we are so sorry that you had to endure this and we really appreciate you being here.

I want to start by reading the text messages that you two exchanged while the school was on lockdown and the gun fire was breaking out because I feel as though, Mr. Elledge that this just turns the blood cold of any parent to imagine getting these text messages from their kid while at school.

So, Chris writes: Dad, the school is on an unexpected lockdown. They've got sirens playing all in the school and the radios are going crazy. I'm in the PE room with four different entrances, everyone is freaking out. It's not a drill, I'm actually scared, my house is racing I'm actually freaking out, I'm really scared.

You, Mr. Elledge, write back, OK. Calm down. Remember your training and breath.

Then Chris writes, dad, the announcements are going crazy, the speakers are telling everyone to get out of sight, the teacher thinking somebody is in the school.

Mr. Elledge, you write: I'm on my way to the school now.

Mr. Elledge, can you just tell us what happened when you got those texts?

ELDON ELLEDGE, SON ESCAPED SCHOOL SHOOTING: You know, when you first hear them you're hoping it's not the worst and then later in the message when you hear the -- you see the message for gunshots you realize it is. Like any parent you get scared, you want to get to the school, you want to grab your kid.

CAMEROTA: How long did it take you to get to the school?

E. ELLEDGE: Approximately six minutes.

CAMEROTA: And when you got there, what happened and what was the scene?

E. ELLEDGE: So when I first got here, there wasn't a lot of cops here yet, they had the road blocked off, I couldn't pull into the school parking lot, so I turned around and parked over beside the school and walked over. There was one other parent here waiting as well. So, we basically just stood and waited to find out what we could and wait for the kids to come out.

CAMEROTA: Oh, my gosh. We can only imagine the terrifying moments.

So, Chris, what were those moments like in the gym as you were hearing school announcements, what were they telling you?

CHRIS ELLEDGE, STUDENT AT STEM HIGHLANDS RANCH: It was really -- it was just terrifying. It was scary. Looking around at my friends' faces, seeing that they were just as terrified as I was and there was crying, people were crying in the classroom. Over the intercom, they had announcements going on saying lockdown, lock lights, out of sight and it just kept repeating over and over and over, and it just kept repeating itself for the whole course of the time that we were in the building and it was -- it was extremely scary.

The whole time you are just debating and the first thought that you had was I need to make sure my parents know what's going on and I need to make sure my parents know I'm OK, I don't want them to worry.

CAMEROTA: Oh, my gosh, Chris, and Mr. Elledge, what an ordeal to have to do this via text and to be so terrified.

Mr. Elledge, when you said to Chris, remember your training and breath, what's that based on?

E. ELLEDGE: Well, Christian is a national competitor in tae kwon do from iron horse dojo in Colorado Springs and they work a lot on pacing themselves and breathing and so forth, so that they can get through the training and then also here at the school on somewhat of a regular basis they go through training for these kind of situations. So, in these times, remembering those things that you've learned is what I was trying to get to him.

ROMANS: I mean, the idea that our kids have to go through regular lockdown training and active shooter scenarios, just tells you the point that we have gotten to. Obviously I don't have to tell all of you from Colorado how long this has gone on and how crazy it is that you as a freshman, Chris, have to live through this.

So when you were in the -- how long were you in the gym? What were your classmates saying and with as it comforting to be in contact with your dad via text?

C. ELLEDGE: Just having the text messages from my dad was -- it was relieving. It was great knowing that I had my friends right beside me sharing the same experience I was. I mean, of course, I wasn't happy that we were going through that, but it's always better to have someone there with you when you're going through it. And being with my dad, you know, texting my dad and having him respond

to me was just that extra feeling of relief, gave me a little bit of reassurance that, you know, maybe I was going to be OK. And as far as how long we were in the classroom, I can't give you, you know, an exact time span, but I can tell you that it was -- it was long enough to hear pretty much everything that went on. It almost went on right outside our classroom, down the hall, it transferred from like down the hall to by our classroom and then it left, sounds faded away and then it came back and then the cops came and all you could hear was screaming and yelling in the hall, get down on the ground and it was -- it was -- it was terrifying.

But having -- being able to text my dad was just -- it was really reassuring. It was a relief.

CAMEROTA: Chris, we can hear how shaken you still are, of course, because of what you've just lived through. How are you going to get through this and go back to school?

C. ELLEDGE: As a community. We're going to get through it as a community because, you know, you don't stop your life just because of one bad thing. You can't -- you can't let that get in the way. You have to band together as a community, you have to stay strong, STEM strong. STEM strong. STEM is strong and we are a strong community and we will -- we will get through this as a school and just with my friends and with my parents and with my community as a whole.

CAMEROTA: Mr. Elledge, the parents of Kendrick Castillo lost their only child and the people in his class say that he and other heroic students charged the shooter and I'm just wondering if you have anything you want to say to his parents?

E. ELLEDGE: You know, we had a prayer vigil last night and we all as a community recognized his heroics as well as the others. And, you know, I don't know what you can say at the moment. As far as the parents go, you know, what a great job as far as raising their kid, what a great kid, what a great loss to us as a community.

So, you know, those are -- those are things that are hard to put into words. We as a community will be able to show them how much we appreciate what he did.

CAMEROTA: Eldon and Chris Elledge -- I think that you said it beautifully, Mr. Elledge, actually. We really appreciate your words, we are so sorry that you went through this. Take care of yourselves, this is going to be a long road.

C. ELLEDGE: Can I say one thing?

CAMEROTA: Yes.

C. ELLEDGE: Kendrick Castillo and Brendan Bialy, you guys are heroes and we owe our lives to you and we owe our lives to the brave men and women and the police officers who got us out of there safely. You guys are amazing. CAMEROTA: Thank you for recognizing them. I know that they

appreciate it and I know that Kendrick's parents really appreciate your words, Chris.

Did you know Kendrick?

C. ELLEDGE: I did not know him personally but I know that his smile illuminated the halls in our school. Everybody looked up to that kid. He was brilliant.

He was -- he was probably the best of us. He was one of the best of us by far.

[08:30:00]