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New Day

Pennsylvania Republicans Urge Supreme Court to Overturn Mail- in Ballot Ruling; Trump and Biden to Debate for First Time Tonight; New York City Elementary Schools Reopen As New COVID Cases Surge. Aired 7:30-8a ET

Aired September 29, 2020 - 07:30   ET

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


[07:30:00]

MICHAEL COHEN, FORMER ATTORNEY FOR DONALD TRUMP: And let's just say he's worth $1.6 billion, well, he has a 25 percent loan to value. That's not the issue. Let me tell you what's keeping Donald Trump up at night and why this tax issue is such a big problem for him. First of all, Trump has no cash-on-hand, right, and that's a big problem.

So in the event that he gets hit with a taxable consequence, which he will, and let's just assume for argument's sake that it's $300 million. It's not just the $300 million which he doesn't have the cash-on-hand to pay, he's going to have to sell assets.

And if he starts to sell assets, the ones that he owns outright by himself -- well, you have taxable consequences there, too, 50 percent of the profit belongs to uncle Sam.

So, if hypothetically, he has to sell 40 Wall Street, and he sells 40 Wall Street for $500 million, $250 million belongs to uncle Sam. He's now still shy of the 300 he may owe uncle Sam, not including the $420 that's coming in. So he's so far behind that he may never get out, which is why I said that he may be actually facing potential bankruptcy.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: OK, but I want to ask you a --

COHEN: And if not bankruptcy --

CAMEROTA: Yes --

COHEN: It gets even worse. And this is something that you guys have talked about a lot, national security risk.

CAMEROTA: Yes, and do you have special --

COHEN: It's unlike Donald Trump to go --

CAMEROTA: Information about that?

COHEN: Well, no, but it's not unlike Donald Trump to then seek out the ability to obtain a billion dollars or whatever amount of money that he needs from a foreign capital source. And that's something that could put this country into very significant national security risk.

CAMEROTA: Well, people think we already are. I mean, people think that just with the amount of debt that you've just described there, that there is obviously room for him to be compromised in various different ways. But let me just ask you specifically about some things that you may know about. That purchase of the old Post Office in D.C., that he bought, I guess for $200 million, what do you know about that?

COHEN: Well, I think what you're trying to refer to, if I'm judging by the question. Donald Trump was successful in obtaining the old Post Office because he had the best financials of everybody that had put in, you know, financials. I know you had the Pritzkers bidding on to it, you had --

CAMEROTA: Yes --

COHEN: The biggest brands in the United States and abroad putting in --

CAMEROTA: Their bids, yes --

COHEN: Donald Trump's allegation -- well, I should say, his documentation demonstrated that he had the greatest financial portfolio with the highest or I should say, the lowest debt-to- earnings ratio. Well, the problem with that is, he may have actually lied to the GSA within which to obtain the old Post Office --

CAMEROTA: But you're saying --

COHEN: And I think the tax documents --

CAMEROTA: Do you know that he falsified it?

COHEN: No, but I think now that you have the tax returns and you have personal financial statements, I think it's incumbent upon individuals to take a look at the application that was submitted to the GSA for not just that, but also think about ferry point. The same thing, it's all predicated upon his net worth --

CAMEROTA: Yes --

COHEN: And the valuation on the Trump Organization --

CAMEROTA: That he may have inflated. I mean you talked about this --

COHEN: If we now learn that, that's inaccurate, those are inaccurate --

CAMEROTA: That he inflates it at times and he deflates it at times when convenient. You know, Michael, I also want to ask you because you have this in your book. What did he say to you about his low tax burden? The fact that he only paid $750 the first two years that he was in office. The fact that many years he paid zero, and the fact that he got a refund from the IRS. I mean, you had conversations with him about this? COHEN: Yes, well, the conversation that I had, I was sitting in his

office and he flicked a check at me across the desk. It was a$10 million check, it wasn't that he told me it was a $10 million -- I actually, physically held it. And I looked at it and I said, wow, all of a sudden, he goes, yes, would you believe how f-ing stupid the IRS, this government is in order to give somebody like me a refund.

I said, well, you know, maybe then you ought to take that refund and start to replenish some of the reduction that you, you know, that you did regarding salaries to all of the employees, myself included.

And he basically ignored that, told me to take the check and go bring it to Allen Weisselberg for deposit. I mean, you know, his statement was nothing shy of, you know, anybody that pays taxes is stupid. Well, I have to tell you, during those two-year tax period of 2015, 2016 that he paid $750 a year, I paid close to $3 million.

CAMEROTA: Yes --

COHEN: So I guess I am stupid and I am the sucker because not only did I end up paying, what is it, about 2,000 times what he paid --

CAMEROTA: Yes --

COHEN: I'm certainly not a billionaire and I ended up getting hit with tax evasion.

CAMEROTA: Yes, and going to jail --

[07:35:00]

COHEN: So Lord knows what he's going to -- Lord knows what he's going to end up getting hit with. If I ended up getting 36 months on a million dollars, Lord knows what he's going to get. He may end up doing the next century.

CAMEROTA: I know -- I know you've been busy crunching those numbers and doing that math because it's so galling to you that you went to jail for this. And in fact, I mean, also, you paid the check to Stormy Daniels and that -- by the way, on that front, on the Stormy Daniels front, "The New York Times" says that there's no line item deduction reimbursing you for the Stormy Daniels payment. He might have deducted that as a legal expense. Do you know where -- how he accounted for that?

COHEN: No, but I'm pretty sure he probably took it as a legal expense. Look, anything that they could do in order to get a benefit, Donald Trump is willing to do and Donald Trump does.

CAMEROTA: You know --

COHEN: I mean, that's what he's shown himself. You know, one of the things that I talk about in the book and also on the podcast is we -- what's going to happen with the taxes will ultimately come out. It's going to take smarter people than I. There are all these think tanks now, which is something he's been petrified of. This is really his Achilles heel. They will rip through those tax returns, and they're going to provide to us, the people who don't understand taxes, exactly what's going on here.

But here are some facts. And I talk about this again in the book, in the podcast. Donald Trump is a racist. I said it, it's been proven. Donald Trump is a con man, I have said it, it's been proven. Donald Trump is a cheat. Well, here we go again. Everything that I have said has turned out to be 100 percent accurate, and yet they try to constantly -- the White House --

CAMEROTA: Yes --

COHEN: Attack my credibility.

CAMEROTA: One more question, Michael, about Ivanka Trump, because she is implicated in this "New York Times" reporting. Do you think if she was aware of the -- possibly illegal things that her father was doing, some of which involved her.

He appeared to at one point be kind of -- I mean, according to "The New York Times", she's sort of double-dipping. He's funneling money frequently as a million dollars to her when she already collects a salary from the Trump Organization and also paying her as a consultant. Do you think that she --

COHEN: Right --

CAMEROTA: Knew about that?

COHEN: One hundred percent. But it's not only -- that money didn't really come from the Trump Organization. What they had is licensing deals. And the three deals that were referred to the Hawaii and the other two deals, those are licensing deals with equity partners that basically pay 100 -- not basically, they actually pay 100 percent of all of the fees associated.

The real question is to speak to them and see whether or not that they knew that they were paying Ivanka Trump for consulting fees when as part of the Trump Organization, that was what they had got paid the upfront money for.

CAMEROTA: Yes --

COHEN: So I don't -- does she know? Of course, they know.

CAMEROTA: Michael Cohen --

COHEN: The same way that she also knew that I had changed my testimony in order -- when I had spoke before Congress. They know -- they know everything. Nothing goes on at the Trump Organization without Mr. Trump knowing, without Don, Ivanka and Eric knowing.

CAMEROTA: OK, Michael Cohen, thank you very much, great to get this insider take from you. We'll talk --

COHEN: Thank you, Alisyn. CAMEROTA: John?

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: We have two brand-new polls out from the key swing state of Pennsylvania -- they both show the same thing. Joe Biden with a 9-point lead over President Trump. This morning, the state Republicans there are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to block a lower court ruling that allows absentee ballots in the state to be counted up to three days after the election. CNN's Kristen Holmes joins us now with the very latest on these legal battles. Kristen?

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, John, and just to be clear here, the ballots would only be counted if they were postmarked on election day or before that. So I just want to make that very clear because of the argument. Now, this was all part of a case that was brought by Democrats to loosen the restrictions on absentee ballots amid this pandemic.

There is expected to be a surge of mail-in votes. And on top of that, there are a lot of concerns. Concerns about the Postal Service, can they deliver? Do they have the capacity to do that? And also about Pennsylvania's counting system as a whole.

Remember, the state cannot process a single mail-in ballot until the morning of election day, which is likely to cause massive delays. Now, Republicans say this.

They say that the extension could destroy the American public's confidence in the electoral system as a whole, and they argued that this was an open invitation for people to just vote wherever they wanted after the election, and that it would cause mass chaos. In their scenario, there is no postmark. People would have to account ballots that had a blurry postmark. They wouldn't really know what to do.

Whatever happens here, this is absolutely critical with enormous consequences. We're talking about thousands of votes, either being counted or rejected in a state that is still a critical swing state. And even with the polls that you just read, the Trump campaign officials, they tell me they still think that Trump could win the state because he did so in 2016.

[07:40:00]

BERMAN: Kristen Holmes for us on the legal battles, thank you very much for the reality there. Really appreciate it. The first presidential debate just hours away and it really comes in one of the most eventful years in American history. So what does history tell us about elections at fraught times? That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: Obviously, at the debate tonight, you're looking at live pictures of the debate hall in Cleveland, Ohio, Case Western University. This is where President Trump will face off against Vice President Joe Biden. This is now just hours away, obviously crucial for this presidential election, but also crucial for this point where we are in history. We're in the middle of a crisis, a deadly pandemic. So, what does history tell us about elections during times like these? No better person on earth to explain than presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin.

[07:45:00]

She is the author of "Leadership in Turbulent Times". Doris, thank you so much for being with us this morning. So what does history --

DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN, AUTHOR & PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: Oh, you're welcome, John.

BERMAN: What does history tell us? Presidents have run for re- election during crisis before, so what do we know about it?

GOODWIN: There's just no question --

CAMEROTA: That's a cliff-hanger. OK --

BERMAN: That's a tease. There's just no question -- we are hanging on the words from Doris Kearns Goodwin here. We're going to work to get her back. Obviously, she has written extensively on a lot of the people who have faced re-election during crisis here. So what we're going to do is we're going to get Doris back --

CAMEROTA: You know, it's just not a live show until something goes off the rails, I feel.

BERMAN: Not a live show, yes, exactly. Which is why we do it every day!

CAMEROTA: Until there's rock music pumped into your ear piece, it's not a live show.

BERMAN: We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:50:00]

BERMAN: We are talking about elections in a time of crisis. Back with us, presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, and we're broadcasting in a time of crisis also and occasionally the signal goes down. But we were talking, Doris, about the challenges that President Trump faces in trying to be re-elected during this crisis. What does history tell us?

GOODWIN: Well, everything history tells us suggests that an incumbent running in a time of crisis, that his handling of that crisis will be the most important -- really the single thing on which the election is decided, and it should be tonight, the major issue in the debate. When you've got ordinary times as one of FDR's aides said, you can stick the president in a picture frame and talk about a whole bunch of different things.

But when a crisis comes, which means people can no longer handle it on their own, they look to the president for guidance, they want national direction, they want him to take responsibility. They want to feel that they're all in it together, that they're sacrificing together for the collective good, and that's what presidential leadership has to show in a time of crisis.

CAMEROTA: And in fact, you looked back as you always do in history to Abraham Lincoln and Herbert Hoover who can give us illustrations for the ways to do it and not do it.

GOODWIN: Right on. I mean, in 1932, Hoover didn't believe that the federal government had the responsibility to deal with the increasing problems of the great depression. So states and local areas were left on their own, and when FDR comes in, he says I've been given the gift of leadership, I will take this responsibility, I will call Congress into session, I will get jobs for people. And it's that -- that's what people needed.

There was a guy who had lost his roof and his dog ran off and his wife was mad at him. He said, all these things are terrible, but I'm OK now because you are there, Franklin Roosevelt. And the incredible thing about Abraham Lincoln is, he was almost ready to lose the election in August of 1864 because the war was going so badly, it was going on so long, Grant was stuck in Petersburg and Sherman wasn't getting into the sea.

And they told him, unless you call a peace conference and forget emancipation, you'll lose. He said I'll be damned in time and eternity if I do that. He throws them out of the office, but then Atlanta falls and then the whole mood changes and he wins the election.

But again, it was all judged on his handling of what's going on in that crisis at the time. So that will be the major issue. We get distracted on a lot of issues with Mr. Trump, but how he's handling the crisis which is feeling by all of us and the whole country has felt it, whether he's given national direction, whether he's given guidance, whether he's made us feel sacrificed, it's all part of it.

BERMAN: What about debates themselves, and the role that debates play in presidential elections, particularly for incumbents. It's a relatively modern thing, right? We didn't have televised presidential debates or debates at all until Nixon-Kennedy, and then they went away for a little while and came back or Ford-Carter. But what does history tell us?

GOODWIN: Well, I think history tells that the historians and the journalists love to have the narrative that some gaffe or some clever remark really turns the forces of a debate. And I'm not sure that's really true. There are certain moments I think when Ronald Reagan in 1980 was able to say, are you better off now than you were four years ago?

He distilled in that incredibly brilliant phrase, what people were feeling about the economy under Carter. High interest rates, you know, high unemployment, lack of respect from abroad. But most of the time, if it's just a gaffe unless it reinforces the negative perception that's already there, it becomes part of the story. But in the end, the underlying factor has become much more important, probably the most important one was JFK and Nixon because it was the first televised debate.

My husband was there as a young speechwriter, and he said the most important thing that happened, not only that JFK looked better and he seemed vital, and Nixon was pasty and sweats coming from his brow, but after the debate, when John Kennedy went out on the street, there were screaming people trying to get through the police barriers.

He'd become the first political celebrity. Suddenly, his crowd surged and momentum happened. So that debate set the tone. And that's why people didn't do it for a long period of time, they were afraid of it until 1976 and Ford finally said yes.

But I think it's just watching two people together, especially in this campaign when we haven't seen them out campaigning together. They will be on that same stage. But whether or not it really makes a difference in the underlying factors which are already at play, we'll only know as historians maybe 10 years from now and not tonight.

CAMEROTA: Hey, Doris, how about debates during times of scandal, if that's what you want to call these revelations by "The New York Times" yesterday in terms of President Trump's taxes and his lack of paying many years any tax bill whatsoever. How does that -- those types of things play?

[07:55:00]

GOODWIN: Well, I think it will fit in, in two ways. I mean, one way will be, it will give Vice President Biden an argument for talking about the fairness of the tax system in the country and being able to contrast the essential workers, the nurses and people in Scranton, and how much taxes they had to pay versus the $750 that President Trump has paid.

But I think even more than that, in a time of crisis going back to that again, the first income tax came during the civil war because they needed sacrifice for people to pay for the union soldiers. The whole way that we made paychecks -- taken out of our paychecks and having withholdings came during World War II. So, you could argue too that you would want the president to be sacrificing along with all the rest of us in the resources to help for -- help for this crisis that we're in.

CAMEROTA: Doris Kearns Goodwin, always great to talk to you. There's something very comforting about even going back in time to war and scandal to know that these things do pass. So we really appreciate you always giving us a perspective.

GOODWIN: It's always so glad to be on with you.

CAMEROTA: Talk to you again soon. OK, now today, New York City elementary school students head back to the classroom for the first time in six months. But an alarming surge in new cases has parents worried of course about the risks. CNN's Bianna Golodryga joins us now with more. So what are they telling you, Bianna? BIANNA GOLODRYGA, CNN SENIOR GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Well, Alisyn,

the day is finally here, but it's after not one, but two delays -- and you can understand a lot of parents are nervous. In fact, nearly half of all students are not going to be returning for in classes, they will be remotely, they will be working online for the first few months. But for those parents that are deciding to send their children back, it's not an easy decision. And I spoke with one parent, one mother who explained why?

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GOLODRYGA (voice-over): Six months after COVID-19 shuttered New York City's schools, six-year-old Antonio and his two-year-old sister Zoe are finally putting on their backpacks.

MELODY ANASTASIOU, TEACHER, NEW YORK CITY PUBLIC SCHOOLS: Do you like that one? I was so thrilled that I was able to even get my 2-year-old to wear her mask so vigilantly, and to keep her hands so clean.

GOLODRYGA: Vigilance is especially important for Melody and Ariscules Anastasiou(ph), given that Melody, a teacher herself suffers from autoimmune disorders.

M. ANASTASIOU: I live in a state of fear.

GOLODRYGA: She understands the concerns over keeping schools closed, but she's not convinced that now is the time to reopen.

M. ANASTASIOU: Forcing this very large school system to go back to normal as kind of forcing a square peg into a round hole.

GOLODRYGA: While most of the nation's largest school districts have started the Fall semester virtually, New York City, the country's largest with more than 1.1 million students and 75,000 teachers is offering families some in-person learning. Options include one to three days a week of in-school or all online. But even with the positivity rate of less than 1 percent in New York City among the lowest in the country, reopening schools has been a contentious process filled with concerns.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's creating a lot of anxiety for the teachers because it's a lot of unknown, right? It's a lot of uncertainty.

GOLODRYGA: Pressure over safety conditions from the city's teachers and principals union led the city to push back its initial in-person start date by 11 days.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If you asked me if we were ready to open today, I would say we are not.

GOLODRYGA: That was followed by yet another delay from Mayor Bill de Blasio.

MAYOR BILL DE BLASIO, NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK STATE: We're going to make sure it's safe, and so I ask everyone for some patience here. GOLODRYGA: Finally, the announcement of a staggered reopening plan.

Last week, some 90,000 pre-schoolers and special needs students resumed face-to-face instruction. The city has created a COVID situation room to monitor both testing and contact-tracing as well as hiring an additional 4,500 teachers. Despite initial setbacks, de Blasio insists, he is taking the right path.

DE BLASIO: So we're trying to be measured, we're focused on the data and the science with every move we make to make sure we come back, but we come back safely.

GOLODRYGA (on camera): What is your reaction to everything that he's laid out suggesting that everything that needed to be done has been done?

M. ANASTASIOU: First off, when I heard about the war room, I thought, well, why weren't we doing that already?

GOLODRYGA (voice-over): Melody will be teaching remotely. Her medical condition qualifies her to work from home. But her kids will be at school for most of the week. And that has her worried.

M. ANASTASIOU: There's an extreme amount of guilt, and I think any parent could understand that. But then it's also the fear that you are taking this huge, tremendous risk and could potentially bring ruin.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

GOLODRYGA: And Alisyn, after that interview, Melody sent me an e- mail, and she said, "even though my husband and I are at risk when we send them out and they return, the irony is not lost on, that my children have to attend some in-person learning so that we can do our job."

You can understand her concern as well, especially, when you see headlines like this. Employees have tested positive at 150 New York schools thus far, and remember, classes have not started for the majority of students here. So we're going to be keeping a close eye on in this. It's important to get the kids back in, it's important to keep them safe as well.

CAMEROTA: Absolutely. Bianna, thank you very much for all of that reporting. All right --

GOLODRYGA: Sure --

CAMEROTA: NEW DAY continues right now.

BERMAN: All right, welcome to our viewers in the United States.