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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin
Trump Pressed Australian Prime Minister To Help With DOJ Review of Russia Probe; Secretary Of State Pompeo On Trump's Phone Call With Zelensky; China Marks 70th Anniversary Of Communist Rule. Aired 5:30- 6a ET
Aired October 01, 2019 - 05:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[05:30:00]
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: Giuliani was just as noncommittal on Fox News.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RUDY GIULIANI, PERSONAL ATTORNEY TO PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Oh, I don't know, I'm weighing the alternatives. I'm -- I'll kind of like go through it. I'll get all my evidence together. I'll get my charts.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: Giuliani was repeatedly mentioned by Mr. Trump in his call with the Ukrainian president. Giuliani was to be President Zolensky's primary contract -- contact, rather, in Trump's push to have Ukraine investigate his political rival, Joe Biden, and his son.
DAVE BRIGGS, CNN ANCHOR: The Intelligence Community watchdog firmly debunking a GOP conspiracy theory about the whistleblower complaints.
President Trump tweeting last night, quote, "Who changed the longstanding whistleblower rules just before submittal of the fake whistleblower report? Drain the swamp!"
Other Republicans pushing the claim the new rules allow secondhand or hearsay information, which they claim the Ukraine complaint relies on.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-SC): I can't believe we're talking about impeaching the president based on an accusation based on hearsay. Why did they change the rules about a whistleblower -- you can use hearsay when you used to could not -- just weeks before the complaint?
REP. JIM JORDAN (R-OH): He had no firsthand knowledge. He heard something from someone who may have heard something from someone.
JAKE TAPPER, CNN CHIEF WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT, CNN HOST, "STATE OF THE UNION": No, no -- his sources were firsthand sources. You know as well as I do that you do not need to have firsthand knowledge to be a whistleblower. And even if --
JORDAN: Well, you don't now because they changed the form. You used to and they changed the form.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRIGGS: But the Intelligence inspector general says none of that is true. In a statement issued yesterday, Michael Atkinson wrote, "The complainant had official and authorized access, including direct knowledge." The statement says the whistleblower had, quote, "...more than secondhand assertions" and that the I.G. found "other information that supported the complainant's allegations."
Meantime, President Trump made clear he still wants to know the whistleblower's identity.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REPORTER: Mr. President, do you now know who the whistleblower is, sir?
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Well, we're trying to find out about a whistleblower when you have a whistleblower that reports things that were incorrect.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRIGGS: The identity of a whistleblower protected by the law.
ROMANS: All right.
CNN has also confirmed that in a recent phone call, President Trump pressed Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison to help Attorney General Bill Barr's investigation into the origins of the Russia probe.
Back in April, Barr raised a lot of eyebrows when he testified he believed the Trump campaign had been spied on.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WILLIAM BARR, ATTORNEY GENERAL: I think that some spying did occur. Yes, I think spying did occur.
SEN. JEANNE SHAHEEN (D-NH): Well, let me --
BARR: But the question is whether it was predicated -- adequately predicated. And I'm not suggesting it wasn't adequately predicated but I need to explore that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: The White House has released a statement on President Trump's call to the Australian prime minister. They say it "...relates to a DOJ inquiry publicly announced months ago to uncover exactly what happened. The DOJ simply requested that the president provide introductions to facilitate that ongoing inquiry, and he did so -- that's all."
An Australian government spokesman says his country is always ready to assist and cooperate with efforts that help shed lights -- light on matters under investigation.
BRIGGS: Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, President Trump's 2016 opponent, appeared on "THE LATE SHOW WITH STEPHEN COLBERT" last night. So what does she think of the Trump-Ukraine call and the impeachment inquiry?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
STEPHEN COLBERT, HOST, CBS "THE LATE SHOW WITH STEPHEN COLBERT": We learned about the Trump-Ukraine call --
HILLARY CLINTON (D), FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE: Yes.
COLBERT: -- the private server. Is it time to, dare I say, lock him up?
(APPLAUSE)
COLBERT: What do you make of it?
CLINTON: Well, I --
COLBERT: Stop it.
AUDIENCE: Lock him up! Lock him up!
COLBERT: I created a monster.
CLINTON: Yes, right.
COLBERT: I created a monster. I apologize.
CLINTON: Yes, OK, OK.
We've known for a long time that he was a corrupt businessman who cheated people, and we've known that he and his campaign asked for aid from Russia. We've known that.
But to see him in the office of the president putting his own personal and political interests ahead of the national security of country just pierced through whatever confusion or denial people had. And at that point, Speaker Pelosi rightly said this is something we have to investigate, and that's what's going on.
(APPLAUSE)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: We should mention she was on to -- they wrote a book -- her daughter -- they wrote a book together? Is that right?
BRIGGS: Her daughter wrote a book -- ROMANS: Right.
BRIGGS: -- to help promote that.
ROMANS: All right.
BRIGGS: But, yes, he created that "lock him up" --
ROMANS: Yes.
BRIGGS: -- chant there.
ROMANS: All right, 34 minutes past the hour.
A new poll shows a shift among Republicans and Independents when it comes to impeachment of President Trump. We're going to talk about that and more, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[05:38:48]
ROMANS: All right.
A new CNN poll shows Americans about evenly split over impeachment and support is growing among Republicans and Independents.
Overall, just about half -- 40 -- just about half -- 47 percent say President Trump should be impeached and removed from office. Forty- five percent oppose impeachment. Among Independents, support for impeachment and removal has jumped 11 points since May to 46.
And it's even rising among Republicans. It's risen eight points among Republicans to 14 percent.
BRIGGS: All right, let's turn to "Washington Post" White House correspondent Toluse Olorunnipa. Good morning, sir. He joins us from Washington and writes on "The Washington Post" about the Republican game plan moving forward, and we'll get to that in a minute.
But let's start with the Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. We have confirmed he was on that call with Trump and Zelensky.
Where do you see Democrats going with that information now?
TOLUSE OLORUNNIPA, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, THE WASHINGTON POST: Yes, Democrats are likely to push very hard on the State Department and on Mike Pompeo to get a sense of what was happening behind the scenes.
What was the State Department doing with Rudy Giuliani to try to pressure the Ukrainians to investigate Joe Biden, to investigate President Trump's political enemies?
President Trump, on the phone call, talked about how he wanted this investigation to go forward, but he also said talk to Rudy Giuliani. And it appears that the State Department was very much involved in having Giuliani go over to Ukraine and originally talk to various people who are close to the Ukrainian government to get a sense of what the U.S. government wanted to do.
[05:40:13]
Now, the House Democrats are likely to try to get documents -- to get information from Mike Pompeo about what he was doing on the call and whether or not he knew that these calls were being placed into a separate classified server, and why he was somewhat deceptive when he was asked about the calls a week ago, before everything came to light. He'd said he didn't really know anything about it.
ROMANS: Yes.
OLORUNNIPA: And if he thought everything was perfect, as the president said, why was he being elusive in trying to talk about those calls without saying that he was actually on the call.
ROMANS: We're showing -- Toluse, we're showing pictures of him just arriving moments ago in Rome where he is on a diplomatic visit.
You know, this is going to dog him. I mean, this Ukraine controversy will dog this secretary of state.
It is -- and what's also been interesting -- and you write about this today in the -- in "The Washington Post -- is that -- on the front page -- is that the Republican response -- the talking points are so easy to debunk. The inspector general of the Intelligence Community did debunk these talking points.
So what is the Republican response going to be? Is there a push for a more coordinated response from Republicans?
OLORUNNIPA: Yes. There's no war room, as we saw during the Clinton impeachment, within the White House.
And there are a number of Republicans that are not happy that they're not getting a centralized message from the White House. They're not really sure how to defend the president. A lot of the talking points they're using are easily being debunked by the president's own appointees.
The inspector general of the Intelligence Community basically saying that this idea of hearsay -- that the whistleblower did not have the direct knowledge -- that entire idea -- that entire house of cards has fallen down because the I.G. said this whistleblower did have direct knowledge and there wasn't some last-minute change to have the deep state help the whistleblower by changing the form so they didn't have to have direct knowledge.
That whole line of questioning, which the Republicans have been using for the past couple of days, has fallen apart with this inspector general --
ROMANS: Sure. OLORUNNIPA: -- basically debunking that.
And now, Republicans are saying we need something from the White House. We need more than the president's tweets to help us have an organized, centralized messaging strategy. And right now, they don't have that.
BRIGGS: That's entirely consistent, though, with the last couple of years -- this administration. No real political operation. It's one man and his Twitter account.
Republicans, to your point, really attacking the process and the procedure and not the substance of the accusations.
Lindsey Graham went so far as to say there's nothing unethical about that call between Trump and Zelensky, which was head-spinning.
But here's what Lindsey Graham said about impeachment and this process the last time we went through it as a nation -- listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GRAHAM: You don't even have to be convicted of a crime to lose your job in this constitutional republic because impeachment is not about punishment. Impeachment is about cleansing the office. Impeachment is about restoring honor and integrity to the office.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: How does Lindsey-then conflict with Lindsey-now?
OLORUNNIPA: It's night and day. Senator Graham is up for reelection in 2020 and he's made a strategic decision that he's going to stick with Trump all the way through.
So that even though a number of other Republicans are saying this may not be impeachable but we don't like what happened on the call -- this is not OK -- Sen. Graham is sort of saying everything is fine. There is nothing unethical.
He's even calling for an investigation of his former colleague, former senator and former vice president Joe Biden, based on these conspiracies that the president has been pushing.
So there are some Republicans that are going full-on in support of the president, saying he did nothing wrong. But there are some cracks beginning to show -- and I think you see some of it in that polling -- where Republicans are saying even though a lot of us don't think this is impeachable, we're not comfortable with the idea of pushing another country to investigate a political rival to interfere in the 2020 election.
So that's the trouble Republicans are having -- that a lot of them can't fully swallow the fact that the president is sending his personal lawyer to talk to Ukrainians about investigating Joe Biden and having these phone calls that they're uncomfortable with but they still feel the need to defend the president.
So there hasn't been that cohesion among the party because there are those cracks beginning to show with some Republicans uncomfortable with what the president has done.
BRIGGS: Yes.
ROMANS: All right. People can read your piece this morning in "The Washington Post" on the front page. Toluse Olorunnipa, nice to see you this morning. Thank you, sir.
OLORUNNIPA: Thank you.
ROMANS: All right. Next, a tale of two cities on China's national day. A military parade in Beijing and protests heat up in Hong Kong. We'll take you there, live.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[05:49:02]
BRIGGS: The president of Ukraine says his country is willing to open an investigation into the so-far unproven claims against Joe Biden and his son, but Volodymyr Zelensky says Ukraine won't take orders to do so from anybody.
For the latest on the reaction to the whistleblower scandal and Ukraine, let's bring in Matthew Chance, live from Kiev. Matthew, good morning. What are you learning?
MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, thanks very much.
Well, right, this suggestion by the Ukrainian president that an investigation may be reopened -- it's the role that Joe Biden played in the ending of the investigation Burisma, the gas company for which his son worked.
Well, that's an attempt by the Ukrainian leadership to try and walk that very delicate but narrow tightrope they're having to walk between the various political factions -- the United States political parties in the United States.
They don't want to get further sucked into the political crisis there but they do want to make sure they keep the current administration -- the Trump administration -- on side without alienating any future administrations.
Of course, remember, Ukraine is fighting a bitter war in the east of its country against Russian-backed rebels. It's also engaged in a diplomatic campaign to try and regain territory annexed by Russia in Crimea in 2014. And they desperately want to ensure cross-party support in the U.S. for that to happen.
[05:50:10]
They need the military aid, they need the economic assistance, and diplomatic backing as well.
And so, they're trying to sort of placate the Trump administration while not alienating anyone else in the American political arena as well. A very difficult line the Ukrainians are having to tread.
BRIGGS: Boy, it sure is.
Matthew Chance live, just about 1:00 p.m. there in Ukraine. Thanks.
ROMANS: All right.
China is celebrating 70 years of communist rule today while protesters take to the streets of Hong Kong.
Take a look at the huge national parade in Beijing. China's military might on full display. More than 100,000 participants with 2,019 of them carrying a giant national flag.
As China projects an image of unity, Hong Kong remains engulfed in protests. Demonstrators on Hong Kong's northern shore were out early this morning, shutting down the subway.
We're following both sides of this historic day.
Let's begin in Beijing. CNN's Kristie Lu Stout is live there -- Kristie.
KRISTIE LU STOUT, CNN ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT: Christine, it is a national day here in Beijing -- a day to mark 70 years since the founding of the People's Republic of China. There have been celebrations and there will be fireworks, but the centerpiece was that massive military procession that marched up and down Changan Avenue or the Avenue of Eternal Peace.
We witnessed, earlier today, 15,000 military personnel taking part in the march, but 160 aircraft on display, as well as 580 pieces of military equipment.
Military analysts all around the world were taking very close notice to some new firepower on display, including the DFF1 (sic), a new intercontinental-range ballistic missile that is believed to be among the most powerful in the world.
And earlier today we also heard from the Chinese paramount leader -- the core leader, Xi Jinping, who in an address, he emphasized the strength of China, the unity of the nation, and also the concept of one country. He also namechecked Hong Kong, as well as another special administrative region, Macau, saying that the long-term stability of Hong Kong will be maintained.
That's the latest from here in Beijing on this national day of celebration. Back to you.
ROMANS: All right, thanks Kristie.
BRIGGS: Kristie, thank you. That split screen -- let's go to the other side of it. Will Ripley
live for us in Hong Kong.
Will, it seems like things have calmed a bit. What are you seeing?
WILL RIPLEY, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: At least in this area, Dave. And I have to admit that we kind of have been seeking a place of calm because it has been quite chaotic here over the last hour or so. So we're not kind of off on a side street from the area where we saw a lot of that action the last time we checked in, and the tear gas and the fires being set.
And you can see the riot police now. They are regrouping. They're here, they have their tear gas guns at the ready. They have their flags ready to warn the next front line of protesters, wherever they may be.
We've moved from Admiralty towards the east. We're now in Wan Chai. Down that way is Causeway Bay where everything kicked off here during your overnight hours -- our morning hours here in Hong Kong.
And this is a scene that we just see play out time and time again. We don't actually know where the protesters are right now because they ran very quickly when these officers moved in to disperse the crowds.
Officers who basically are having to move from location to location trying to chase down wherever the next front line of protesters is -- protesters that have been inciting clashes with police, throwing bricks at the police officers, and firing petrol bombs, which is basically Molotov cocktails, setting fires just at the feet of the police officers.
We see a very large group of riot police now moving down this way so it seems as if this area where we are is where the police are going to use as their -- as their on-the-field command center for the moment, regrouping and figuring out where they'll be deployed next.
OK, we're going to move out of the way here as the officers come by.
BRIGGS: All right, Will Ripley being ushered out of the way.
RIPLEY: So that's the scene --
BRIGGS: Go ahead, Will.
RIPLEY: Yes.
BRIGGS: Go ahead, finish up.
RIPLEY: Yes -- no. I was just going to say that's the scene here right now. It's -- this is probably the most calm that we've been over the last hour or so.
I'm just enjoying being able to breathe the fresh air after wearing a gas mask. You can still feel some of the sting from the tear gas, which was fired -- dozens of rounds of tear gas. Also, I need to tell you that we have confirmed within the last hour that a police officer fired on a protester here in Hong Kong with live ammunition, hitting that protester in the chest.
Well, actually, we don't for sure it was a protester. It was somebody out at the protest. We don't know if they have been identified and charged.
But we do know now that a citizen has been hit with live ammunition and that takes this to a whole new level here -- a whole new level of violence in Hong Kong because once word spreads on social media that somebody was hit, these protesters who came out in droves, illegally, on one of China's biggest holidays, they're only going to be motivated to come out again and again.
[05:55:10]
Which is why I tell you standing here and talking to protesters and seeing the way that they're interacting with police and the escalating violence that the intensity of it -- you can feel continues to ratchet up. This is some of the worst that I've seen this summer covering this.
BRIGGS: Yes.
RIPLEY: And I don't see -- I don't see an end. I don't see an end to this at this stage.
BRIGGS: Still four key demands those protesters are demanding and you can see a relative calm there but a very intimidating scene.
Will Ripley live for us in Hong Kong. Chief executive Carrie Lam, a lot to handle when she returns.
Thank you, Will.
All right. Back here, defying the NCAA, California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill allowing college athletes to hire agents and make money from endorsement deals.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. GAVIN NEWSOM (D-CA): It's now a law in California.
LEBRON JAMES, LOS ANGELES LAKERS: Wait, this is the -- this is the number one reason why --
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: That's LeBron James joining California governor -- California's governor signing the bill under the Fair Pay to Play Act. Athletes would be able to profit from their name and likeness and is scheduled to go into effect in 2023.
Newsom says the fair pay law is an attempt to bring more fairness to big-money college athletics and let players share the wealth that they create for their schools. If it survives, expect court challenges. It could upend the world of collegiate sports.
All right, speaking of money, let's get a check on "CNN Business" this morning.
Taking a look at global markets around the world, markets in China and Hong Kong are closed for that national holiday.
On Wall Street, you've got futures leaning a little bit higher here.
Look, the president often looks to the stock market as a sign of his success. He often exaggerates his success as well. So we're going to give you a by-the-book progress report here.
Stocks closed higher on the last trading day of September, basically flat for the quarter. But year-to-date, the S&P 500 is up 19 percent. That's the best 3-month -- or 3-quarter performance since 1997, so that's good.
Since Trump's inauguration, the S&P 500 is up 31 percent. How does he stack up? Well, that's pretty close to the same period of the Reagan administration, less than George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, far better than the 23 percent loss for George W. Bush as the dot.com bubble burst.
And, Trump's stock market trails that of one Barack Obama, when the S&P 500 rose 44 percent from the ashes of the financial crisis.
Now, if history is a guide, October could be unpredictable. Goldman Sachs found volatility rises 25 percent on average in October, all the way back since 1929.
No coincidence, Goldman notes. "We believe it is a critical period for many investors and companies that manage performance to calendar year-end."
For investors, three big fourth-quarter hurdles here. There is still the tug-of-war in the U.S.-China trade war. The next meeting between these two biggest economies is October 10th. The Fed meetings again on interest rates, and earnings seasons begins.
So those are all hurdles for this fantastic year-to-date performance in the stock market. And we saw the quarter kind of stalled.
Not stalling -- look at this.
BRIGGS: It's going to hit the airplane. Here it goes.
ROMANS: A quick-thinking employee stopped an out-of-control catering truck from crashing into a plane at O'Hare on Monday.
American Airlines says the accelerator became stuck and it started driving wildly in circles, right toward a plane. That's when a worker crashed into it with only a second to spare, knocking it onto its side.
No one was hurt.
BRIGGS: Nice save.
All right, the bride wore white and so, too, did everyone else in a manner of speaking.
ROMANS: Gorgeous.
BRIGGS: A surprise record-breaking snowstorm hit Spokane, Washington this past weekend, the same day Brittany and Sean Tuohy had planned their outdoor fall wedding. The storm dumped more than a foot of snow on their wedding venue.
The bride and groom and the entire wedding party got some breathtaking photos in the mountain snow.
ROMANS: Beautiful.
BRIGGS: Cheers to them.
ROMANS: All right. "THE DAILY SHOW" taking on the latest headline emerging in the wake of the Ukraine scandal.
Here are your "Late-Night Laughs."
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TREVOR NOAH, HOST, COMEDY CENTRAL "THE DAILY SHOW": Yes, it is now being reported that after the Mueller report was released, Donald Trump asked Australia's prime minister to help him get information that would discredit Robert Mueller's report.
It also means he's been using world leaders as his personal errand boys. Think about it. Just running around like Ukraine, I need you to investigate Joe Biden and his son. Australia, help me discredit Robert Mueller. Spain, I want some of those little pies you guys make.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: Very funny.
BRIGGS: I didn't see that coming.
ROMANS: All right, thanks for joining us, everyone. Have a great rest of your day. I'm Christine Romans.
BRIGGS: I'm Dave Briggs. Here's "NEW DAY." We'll see you tomorrow.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: We're trying to find out about a whistleblower.
SEN. JOHN WARNER (D-VA): Any rational person would be concerned about the whistleblower's safety after the president's comments. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The president now has to worry about conversations that he's having with world leaders being leaked to the press. That is not good.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The fact that Mike Pompeo would be part of this call -- he doesn't say anything about it or he doesn't bring it to anyone's attention in Congress is problematic.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This could get awfully messy if it includes the Secretary of State.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ANNOUNCER: 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 Tuesday, October first -- welcome to October -- 6:00 here in New York.
So, are you ready? Every time.
END
