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WAPO: White House E-mails Show After-The-Fact Effort To Justify Holding Up Aid To Ukraine; Official: Navy Secretary Fired Over Handling Of SEAL War Crimes Case; Ruth Bader Ginsberg Is Released From The Hospital. Aired 7-8p ET

Aired November 24, 2019 - 19:00   ET

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

[19:00:00]

ANA CABRERA, CNN HOST: -- Ukraine, details that are central to his impeachment inquiry.

Right now, a confidential White House review has turned up hundreds of e-mails showing extensive efforts to justify President Trump's decision to freeze military aid to Ukraine after-the-fact, this is new reporting from "The Washington Post." And according to "The Post", the documents include e-mail exchanges between acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney and white House budget officials from early August.

President Trump ordered the hold in mid-July. The reporting also says White House lawyers are expressing concern that the review has turned up some unflattering exchanges and facts that could at a minimum embarrass the President.

Tom Hamburger is the investigative reporter at "The Washington Post." He and his colleagues broke this explosive report today. What exactly do these documents reveal, Tom?

TOM HAMBURGER, INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER, WASHINGTON POST: Ana, what they show is that there was extensive discussion going on inside the White House, indeed inside the executive branch, after the President decided in July to withhold the congressionally mandated military aid to Ukraine. And it reveals some pretty heated discussions behind the scenes.

CABRERA: And do they actually expose the real reason the aid was put on hold?

HAMBURGER: You know, it doesn't quite take us there. What's apparent from some of the e-mail exchanges that we've heard about and also some of the public testimony is that the President decided -- made a decision to withhold the aid or at least to delay it initially without an explanation.

And then the e-mail trove that we're most familiar with in early August shows Mick Mulvaney exchanging messages with his successor at the Office of Management and Budget asking for justification for holding up this aid, looking for legal reasons to do so. And indeed the federal law, the obscure bit of legislation called the Federal Budget and Impoundment Act does require that if aid is rescinded, or even if it is delayed, or altered after a certain period of time, that Congress be notified.

And so what these e-mails reveal is an extensive discussion behind the scene after the President made his decision to withhold the aid saying, hey, what's the justification for this? And we believe that there are also in addition to the memos that we saw that show some exchanges between the OMB and the Acting White House Chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney.

The expectation is that there are also communications from other agencies involved, the State Department, the Defense Department, and particular the National Security Council where we know from public testimony there was concern bordering on alarm over the delay on this military aid to Ukraine.

CABRERA: Talk about the timing, though, of these e-mails and communications in relation to the whistle-blower complaint.

HAMBURGER: So one of the things that we found there are a number of sort of stunning things on the time line. And one of the things by the way that White House Counsel Pat Cipollone was engaged with as we understand it from our sources, was putting together a detailed time line of events. So that White House staff and defense attorneys would have access to a time line as they prepared for any questions that might result from the impeachment inquiry.

And one of the things that we found of course, one of the stunning bits is that the, that aid is released shortly after the whistle- blower reports concern that there is a political connection between the decision to withhold or delay aid to military aid to Ukraine and the President's desire to get information that will presumably help his 2020 political -- personal political campaign, that is information on Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden and their activities in Ukraine.

CABRERA: Tom Hamburger, an incredible reporting. Thank you very much for --

HAMBURGER: Thanks so much, Ana.

CABRERA: -- sharing it with all of us.

With us now, is White House correspondent and associate editor at Politico, Anita Kumar, along with David Gergen, a former presidential advisor to President Nixon, Ford, Reagan and Clinton. Anita, the Office of Management and Budget spokeswoman said there was a legal consensus every step of the way about withholding aid. This, you know, after the fact timing seems suspect, doesn't it?

ANITA KUMAR, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT & ASSOCIATE EDITOR, POLITICO: Well, right. And as you just pointed out those e-mails seemed to indicate that that is -- that there was a conflict there. And we've heard about a conflict between various people in the administration saying whether they could withhold things.

It's very interesting as "The Post" points out that its OMB is saying, oh, it could be, you know, we can withhold this aid or at least temporarily. But it's the sort of more the people dealing with aid, the State Department, the National Security Council, who deal with aid generally to foreign countries saying no, we can't do that. So, I mean it's clear that the administration is split. Look, we've been seeing that split all along in this House impeachment inquiry.

[19:05:02]

CABRERA: David, these e-mails trying to justify a decision after the fact, did that happen in any of the administrations you served in?

DAVID GERGEN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: It happened in the Nixon administration with some regularity. But nonetheless that is not to diminish what happened here. And especially now, just after the hearings have ended to have this story come out look very suspect right afterwards, like they've been sitting on it. But more importantly what it says is that stonewall that the President has erected, there's a reason why he's done that. And that is because if there was transparency, if they turned over the documents as they should, as they did in past scandals like this.

If they turned over those documents there'd be a lot of stuff in there that might not be illegal but would be embarrassing to the President. That's what "The Washington Post" is saying. And clearly what the President and his men are doing is trying to prevent, to obstruct, every effort by the Democrats to get a full story. Now, we may know more soon. It may be that a courtroom tomorrow could prompt Mr. Bolton to come forward and say, yes, he would be willing to testify.

So there may be more to come. But this in and of itself, I think, just emphasizes there's a lot to this story that we still don't know after two weeks of intensive hearings. And frankly the public deserves to know what the rest of the story is.

CABRERA: And so Anita, with this new development from "The Washington Post" is there any indication that Democrats might pump the brakes and push for testimony from Mulvaney and others before they proceed with any votes on impeachment?

KUMAR: No. I mean you've seen House Democrats say that they need to move forward. They've closed out these investigations or this inquiry these last couple of weeks. They know that there's more out there as, you know, as we've indicated Don McGahn, John Bolton, there are other pieces of information out there. They want that information.

But if they hold this up any longer we're well into 2020 when the Senate gets this and has this trial and that's just getting too late. So I don't think there's really any way that they're going to do that. They have indicated that every time the White House and the President has stopped them from getting information or a witness, they're just going to use that against him as part of this obstruction. They're going to say he's obstructing an investigation and that could be an article of impeachment. Does it indicate -- there's no indication they would stop it at this point.

CABRERA: I spoke to former White House Counsel during Watergate, John Dean earlier, and he said this about President Trump.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN DEAN, FORMER WHITE HOUSE COUNSEL UNDER PRES. NIXON: This president doesn't think through anything. He just goes and does things, and his staff is the last to learn often by reading his Twitter account. I'm sure this is what happened here. My god, does the man know that he's breaking the law if he's trying to put a freeze on this money that he can't do? And so I'm sure that was part of the after-the-fact look at this.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: David, do you agree? Are these e-mails attempting to justify the decision to withhold aid proof that the President knew what he was doing was wrong?

GERGEN: No, I don't think they -- I don't you can say that based on what we know. But that's why it's important to see the e-mails. Because what we're getting is secondhand accounts, those -- it's a leaked information. We're not seeing documents. But -- And one would have expected and what we saw in the past on big scandals like this, when the White House and the Congress have a conflict and the Congress says, we must see the documents as part of our investigation, typically, when you get issued a subpoena, people come forward and they talk and typically there are documents.

And that's all been blocked here. And so I agree that it's going to be hard to change the dynamics of this, but it shouldn't -- it's not that hard to go out and raise hell about it. It's not too late to do that. I think that the -- this is after all a political event as much as it is a legal event. And I think that's where the White House should -- can and should be making much more noise about the obstruction.

CABRERA: I just wish I were a fly on the wall in the White House right now to see what the reaction is there. Because this "Washington Post" reporting puts acting White House Chief of Staff, yet again, Mick Mulvaney, back into the middle of this entire scandal. Anita, he was already on thin ice, we recall after his press conference where he admitted a quid pro quo and then he walked it back. I'm not seeing these new developments ending well for him, do you?

KUMAR: Right. I mean he has -- he was on thin ice but he's been sort of back in the fold. We've seen him out talking to members of Congress trying to sort of talk to them about impeachment and convince them, these are Republican members of Congress, convince them what the White House did wasn't wrong. But you're right, he's back in there.

And if you'll recall over these last few weeks, even these last few months, the President has considered firing him and finding a new chief of staff. And there are people that have convinced him this is probably not the right time to make a change, and so he's there for the duration. But, yes, he's right back in the thick of things. It puts OMB right back in there. And there's -- just as you've indicated, there's so many questions more than these answers. We're just having more and more questions with little bits of information coming out.

[19:10:19]

CABRERA: Yes, more and more information just creating more questions. David, if you were advising President Trump right now after these stunning developments, what would you say to him?

GERGEN: Well, I'm -- as someone who went through Watergate I'm a huge believer in transparency, I'm a huge believer in turning stuff over in the long run. That's a way you're going to have a healthy democracy. And I actually think it would strengthen the President's Position. But he's so far down this track right now.

The most we can ask of him is would he stop denigrating his own people, would he stop insulting us, would he stop insulting, you know, our intelligence as a people, and would he just essentially run a more civil administration. If he would do that alone, I think we -- some of our exhaustion might pass.

CABRERA: Yes. It is exhausting, no doubt. David Gergen and Anita Kumar, thank you both, great to your contributions tonight.

GERGEN: Thanks so much.

CABRERA: We're also following other breaking news, this one in the case of Navy SEAL, Eddie Gallagher. The defense secretary has now ordered the resignation of the Navy's top civilian leader for his handling of this war crimes case. The President is responding tonight, all the details on this breaking story just ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:15:06]

CABRERA: Breaking news in the controversial case of Navy SEAL Edward Gallagher, a senior defense official telling CNN, Navy secretary Richard V. Spencer has been fired for going outside his chain of command and proposing a secret agreement with the White House.

According to this official, Spencer proposed a review of Gallagher's case with a secret guarantee that Gallagher would be allowed to keep his status as a Navy SEAL. A quick reminder, Gallagher was convicted of opposing with a body of an ISIS detainee. President Trump reinstated his rank after he was demoted as punishment.

CNN Pentagon reporter, Ryan Browne is following this for us. And Ryan the official says Spencer was fired for circumventing his own chain of command. What more can you tell us?

RYAN BROWNE, CNN PENTAGON REPORTER: Well, Ana, we're hearing three kind of very different stories about exactly why the secretary of the Navy, Richard Spencer was fired from his job. Now, the Pentagon issuing a statement saying that the secretary of defense, Mark Esper, had found out that Spencer had conducted these secret talks supposedly with the White House about the fate of Eddy Gallagher who was due to face a review board about whether he would keep his status as a Navy SEAL.

Now, according to the Pentagon, Spencer had made a secret deal with the White House and that he intended to keep Gallagher in the Navy SEALs to allow the review to go forward.

Now, we're hearing two very different stories. One from President Trump who says Spencer was fired in a tweet, said that Spencer was fired because of how he handled the Gallagher case overall. And because of cost overruns in with regard to Navy contracting. And we got a letter from Spencer himself. He says he was fired because of his refusal to follow an order that he thought would violate good order and discipline that was unethical, that is likely referring to the Gallagher case here.

And President Trump clearly stated desire to keep Gallagher in the Navy SEAL. So it's very unusual to have such three kind of conflicting stories about a senior member of the Pentagon, the Navy secretary. Of course Spencer has been one of the longest serving members of the Trump administration. He joined very early on in 2017. He's a former marine. He's actually served as a brief time as acting secretary of defense.

There hasn't been much controversy surrounding his time in post. But this Gallagher case which has been prominent on "Fox News," which has been prominent in President Trump's twitter feed has seemed to call his downfall.

CABRERA: And on that note we're going to talk about the President's latest tweets on this. Ryan Browne, thank you for your reporting.

President Trump is responding to the navy secretary's firing, and he's also naming his replacement. Let's get straight to CNN's Jeremy Diamond at the White House. And Jeremy, the President's tweets don't exactly line up with the reason the Department of Defense gave for Secretary Spencer's firing. What do you learning?

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: That's right. As Ryan just laid out, there are three different versions of this story out there right now, three different versions why Richard Spencer was forced to resign in the wake of this Eddy Gallagher controversy.

Let's read what the President is saying. He says, I was not pleased with the way that Navy SEAL Eddy Gallagher's trial was handled by the Navy. He was treated very badly. But despite this was completely exonerated on all major charges. He says, I then restored Eddy Gallagher's rank. Likewise, large cost overruns from past administration's contracting procedures were not addressed to my satisfaction. Therefore, secretary of the Navy Richard Spencer's services have terminated by secretary of defense, Mark Esper.

He then goes on, to thank Richard Spencer for his service and he says he plans to nominate the ambassador to Norway, Ken Braithwaite who is a retired rear -- retired admiral of the Navy. The President calls him a man of great achievement and success.

Now, what's also notable in to President's tweets here is that he says that Eddy Gallagher will indeed retain his trident pin, which signals his membership as a Navy SEAL. That is notable because that is what defense officials had been raising concerns about. In fact, the Defense Department says that Richard Spencer was fired because he tried to work out an arrangement with the White House going around Mark Esper to allow exactly this to happen, to allow Eddy Gallagher, to retire while maintaining his membership in the Navy SEALs.

So this is really quite remarkable circumstance that we're seeing particularly because the President is ultimately getting the exact outcome that he wanted despite all of those concerns and even in the wake of the firing of in the Navy secretary.

CABRERA: Jeremy Diamond at the White House for us, thank you.

I want to get a military voice in here now. Joining us is retired U.S. army lieutenant general Mark Hertling. General, what's your reaction to all this?

LT. GEN. MARK HERTLING (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Confusion, Ana, complete confusion.

CABRERA: Me too.

HERTLING: There's so many stories involved with this. I think Ryan and Jeremy just brought up the different aspects of this. In reading the resignation letter or the termination letter if you will of Secretary Spencer, there was a whole lot more to this than what's being reported right now.

[19:20:06]

You know, it's certainly understandable that Secretary Spencer went to the President behind the Secretary Esper, the defense secretary's back as he, Secretary Esper and General Milley were petitioning the President to back off of this case and let it go through the administrative processes of determining whether or not Chief Gallagher should retain his pin. That's understandable. You don't go to your boss's boss and petition without letting your boss know. So if that all happened, that's true. I can understand Esper being pissed.

But the other piece of this is for the last three days there has been reporting, good reporting, about the fact that Secretary Spencer is prepared to resign, prepared to offer his letter of resignation because he's defending the Navy SEALs, the command of the Navy SEALs. And he understand what Admiral Collin Green, the commander of the SEALs is going through in this situation in terms of an administrative elimination of Eddy Gallagher's trident pin.

This is so extremely confusing. It's just another night in Trump world. And it's unfortunately bad for the civil-military relations and an understanding of what command authority has to do within the military.

CABRERA: Without trying to figure out all those pieces who knew what, why, and what was going on exactly just answer this question. What kind of an impact can an abrupt shake-up like this have on the stability, on the readiness, and even just the morale on the rank and file?

HERTLING: Well, all indicators. And I'm not a sailor so I don't know this for sure. But I've heard that Secretary Spencer's reputation was extremely good as a secretary of the Navy. He was well-liked and well-admired by those in that service. So that will cause a shakeup.

The actual act of this back and forth between the secretary of defense, the President, and the secretary of the Navy, and you have to understand also the fact that Secretary Spencer cited good order and discipline within the service was what he vowed to defend, and he's saying in his letter, I can't agree with the way the President is handling these things.

So one has to question the fact of what good order and discipline is he talking about, and it's certainly a result of these pardons and the interference in a command authority relationship within the SEAL and other communities. So there's that.

There's also just the shakeup of the civil-military relationship between Secretary Spencer, Admiral Green, others within the Navy who supported at the higher ranks this action that has been denigrated on the likes of "Fox News" with various correspondents there, attacking the secretary of the navy, attacking the commander, in fact, that occurred this morning where Admiral Gallagher actually attacked as a guy wearing the uniform in violation of the military uniform code of military justice, he attacked in public his superior officers.

CABRERA: Yes.

HERTLING: So this is. I mean, this is another part of crazy town that we're just starting to see that will have deleterious effects on the military in my view. Certainly not catastrophic, but certainly some questioning of civil-military relationship and command and control within the force.

CABRERA: Lieutenant General Mark Hertling, always good to have your perspective. Thank you.

HERTLING: Thank you, Ana.

[19:23:43]

CABRERA: A new report alleges U.S. Intelligence agencies briefed lawmakers that Russia is behind a year's long effort to wrongfully frame Ukraine for the 2016 U.S. election meddling. So just how deep does Russia's disinformation campaign go?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CABRERA: What a week it has been for Ukraine and the news, explosive testimony in the impeachment inquiry including a witness who says, yes, there was a quid pro quo linking Ukrainian aid to digging up dirt on the Biden's.

Rudy Giuliani, the President's personal attorney announces he has insurance against getting thrown under the bus for any of this Ukraine business. And something you may have lost sight of in the tornado of breaking news, we learned Russia could be behind that theory being pushed by some Republicans blaming Ukraine for meddling in the 2016 election.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. DEVIN NUNES (R-CA): It is entirely possible for two separate nations to engage an election meddling at the same time.

REP. JIM JORDAN (R-OH): We all know that Russia meddled in the election, but that's not to say Ukraine didn't try to influence the election.

REP. SCOTT PERRY (R-PA): Why, as long as Russia does it is it mutually exclusive only to Russia? Russia is doing it but other countries are as well.

REP. CHIP ROY (R-TX): And we know that Russia is involved in our elections but we certainly have credible information that Ukraine was meddling and engaged.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: Is that a fact? No, not according to Fiona Hill who testified to the House Intelligence Committee this past week.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FIONA HILL, FORMER TOP RUSSIA ADVISER: Some of you on this Committee appear to believe that Russia and its security services did not conduct a campaign against our country and that perhaps somehow for some reason Ukraine did. This is fictional narrative that has been perpetrated and propagated by the Russian security services themselves.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: Thomas Rid joins us now, he is a professor of strategic studies at Johns Hopkins and is considered the authority on Russian disinformation. He's also the author of the forthcoming book, "Active Measures: The Secret History of Disinformation and Political Warfare." Professor, great to have you with us.

THOMAS RID, AUTHOR "ACTIVE MEASURES: THE SECRET HISTORY OF DISINFORMATION AND POLITICAL WARFARE": Hi.

CABRERA: Does this conspiracy theory about Ukraine meddling in our 2016 elections have Russia written all over it?

RID: The story there is quite treacherous and complicated. We have to be very precise here. The story has two components. Did Ukraine somehow have a role in the 2016 election campaign? And did the Ukraine hack the Democratic National Committee, the DNC or other democratic targets?

[19:30:02] The conspiracy theory that you often hear claims that something is wrong with the server, the DNC server and that somehow Ukraine hacked it and that is simply completely wrong. What is correct is that Ukraine -- some Ukrainians members of parliament did favor Hillary Clinton in 2016. But that does not mean they actually interfered in 2016.

This is key important thing about disinformation. Disinformation is not completely inventing something from scratch. They take something that has a kernel of truth and then add forgery, fake information to that kernel of truth and that makes the whole brew hard to counter.

CABRERA: So what would you tell those GOP lawmakers who are giving credence to this theory?

RID: The core of the conspiracy theory is that Crowd Strike, this company that found out the Russian fingerprints all over the DNC hack is somehow -- it somehow has links to Ukraine and potentially gave the server to Ukraine. There is no factual basis to this. This is the heart of the conspiracy that President Trump articulated in that famous Zelensky call.

And it's important to understand that this conspiracy theory was, indeed, amplified by Russian disinformation entities. But there is so far no good evidence that they actually started this conspiracy theory in the beginning in the first place.

CABRERA: The genius though is that Russia seem Tuesday have learned how to take advantage of our own toxic political disks, right?

RID: Russia has literally a century of history in advancing dis -- spreading disinformation and sometimes leaking secret or confidential files in to the public domain to drive wedges into the cracks that already exist among these adversaries. This is very old trade craft and old tactic that is indeed was used in 2016.

But it's also important to understand there's a risk in overestimating Russian capabilities. Russian intelligence certainly wants to be overestimated. They want to be seen as all-powerful. So if we do that, if we blame things that go wrong here in Washington, think domestic problems on foreign interference without really looking at the evidence very critically and very closely, if we blame Russia for everything's that's wrong here in D.C. or for major things that are wrong here with the White House and this conspiracy theory is an example, then we are becoming a little bit more like Russia which after all blames their own domestic problems with foreign interference.

CABRERA: I hear you urging caution here. You have said Russia though is known for trying to frame others for their own interference, right? What other examples can you offer?

RID: So let's look at history briefly. And one of the most famous -- infamous disinformation theories is the idea that HIV/AIDS is an American bioweapon engineered by the U.S. army. If you zoom in to the myth that emerged inn the mid-1980s, then there were actually fringe conspiracy theories in the far left LGBT community at the time that purported a similar myth which the Russians then picked up the soviets and amplified over years. And finally it became quite successful and well-established as a conspiracy theory. So there's always an interaction between domestic organic conspiracy theory and foreign disinformation. And that is what we are seeing here as well.

CABRERA: So what is the best way to counter this kind of disinformation campaign?

RID: I believe the best way to counter it is by doing what I am trying to do here, by being extremely cautious and sober and looking at the facts. So far we only have hints and two congressional testimonies. And "New York Times" article based on purely anonymous sourcing that alleges that conspiracy theory, the Ukraine conspiracy theory was invented and amplified by Russian operatives. I would like to see a little more evidence before we run with that theory.

CABRERA: OK Thomas Rid, thank you. We appreciate your expertise on this. Thank for being here.

Our breaking news this evening "the Washington Post" reports tonight that the White House developed an after the fact justification for withholding military aid to Ukraine. We will take a look at why this is so significant in this week's "Presidential brief."

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:38:38] CABRERA: Tonight there is new fall out in the controversy surrounding the aid to Ukraine withheld by President Trump. "The Washington Post" is reporting that there was an extensive effort after the fact to justify the decision to halt that aid and a debate about whether this delay was even legal. That brings us to your weekend Presidential brief, a segment we bring to you every Sunday night highlighting the most pressing national security issues the President will face tomorrow.

And with me now is our national security analyst Samantha Vinograd.

Sam. first on this breaking news from "the Washington Post," what's your take on this?

SAMANTHA VINOGRAD, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Well, Ana, this is a case study on how the process isn't supposed to work. And it really signals that President Trump doesn't really care how illegal or dangerous his actions may be.

Before President Obama took decisions when I was at the White House two key groups of people were involved -- the lawyer and security experts. But what we are learning from this reporting that the lawyers were not part of any discussion about whether freezing this aid was actually legal. And we know from previous reporting that security experts also weren't in the loop, so President Trump relied on something else, an intuition or some other group of people in order to make this decision.

Second, "the Washington Post" reporting indicates there was not a consensus among the lawyers that President Trump's move -- again, this is after the fact -- was actually legal. That really throws water on the GOP's defense there was nothing wrong with what the President did.

[19:40:02] CABRERA: There's also another big development this week and a lawyer for the indicted associate Rudy Giuliani told CNN that his client is now willing to tell Congress that Republican congressman Devin Nunes was meeting with a former Ukrainian prosecutor. To be clear Nunes has emphatically denied this reporting calling it demonstrably false, but how significant could it be?

VINOGRAD: Well, this reporting is pandora' box of problems. Devin Nunes is a ranking member on the intelligence committee. His jurisdiction is oversight of the intelligence community. His work is not supposed to include using his official perch to do domestic political errands for the President or to look into investigations for the President's political rivals. We have the department of justice for actual law enforcement matters. Plus this also raises even more questions about Nunes' competence to sit on this committee.

Intel 101, consider your source. Getting information from Victor Shulkin, the former prosecutor general of Ukraine really should be taken with a grain of salt. He is a strong bias against vice President as does Rudy Giuliani who reportedly Devin Nunes also got information from.

And I think we could expect to see Devin Nunes get a subpoena as part of this impeachment inquiry. He could be called as a fact witness. He has met with several of the characters according to this reporting that are key to the impeachment inquiry like Victor Shulkin and Giuliani.

And Ana, he is very close to the President. So there's real questions about whether the President was aware of Nunes' extracurricular activities or in some directed or condoned them.

CABRERA: And let me move on to something else. Because while wave been caught up in the impeachment inquiry other things are happening.

VINOGRAD: Yes.

CABRERA: The President has been talking about for example the trade deal with China. Are we close to a deal?

VINOGRAD: President Trump says we are very close but this feels like deja vu and very expensive deja vu because the President has said this before. And while he had been involved in this trade negotiation, he has really put other policy issues with China on ice because he doesn't want to upset the Chinese.

What we are talking about right now is what the President has called a phase one deal. The original negotiations were on a much broader set of issues. President Trump currently appears focused to getting the Chinese to focus on more U.S. agricultural products. The Chinese for their part wants the United States to remove tariffs on Chinese goods.

And President Trump has a deadline coming up. On December 15th, he ahs set to impose more tariffs on China. And if he does so, that will certainly throw negotiations off. While all of that is happening, Ana, we have massive protests in Hong Kong. And President Trump has stayed relatively silent because he does not want to upset the Chinese.

At the same time the Chinese are according to U.S. national security advisor O'Brien, in turning Muslim minorities in concentration camps, yet another issue Trump hasn't spoken out much about. So while his trade negotiation may slip past the end of the year, other policy priorities are being seriously downgraded.

CABRERA: Quick follow on Hong Kong, what is the impact of Trump's decision on whether to sign the penalties against China?

VINOGRAD: Well, if Trump doesn't sign legislation that just passed in Congress with a strong bipartisan majority, he is really signaling that his number one priority is getting the Chinese to buy more U.S. goods. It's really signaling that everything has a price for the President. He is willing to stay silent on human rights abuses. He is willing to stay silent on China violating the rule of law, just as long as China agrees to buy more U.S. goods. That could lead other leaders to try to buy Trump's silence as well as we abandoned core American values like the rule of law and human rights.

CABRERA: Sam Vinograd, good to see you. Thank you.

VINOGRAD: Thank you.

CABRERA: A health scare for justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg. She felt the week in the hospital. We will have an update on how she is doing tonight next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:47:39] CABRERA: Welcome back. Supreme court justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg is now out of the hospital and recovering at home following her latest health scare. The 86-year-old was admitted to John Hopkins Friday night after she experienced chills and a high fever. Court says Ginsberg's symptoms improved after she was given IV antibiotics and fluids and that she is now quote "doing well." Ginsberg a four time cancer survivor has been hospitalized multiple times just since last November.

A CNN Special Report explores the effect President Trump's lies have on foreign policy, business and national culture. A preview next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:51:57] CABRERA: Tonight CNN is taking a closer look at all the President's lies.

Our Jake Tapper talks with fact checkers, historians, scientists and pundits about Trumps falsehoods. Here's a preview of his special report.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: What I have tone is defeated ISIS. We have defeated ISIS essentially. We defeated ISIS.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ISIS was never defeated.

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST, STATE OF THE UNION (voice-over): When the U.S. President lies on the world stage he's doing more than trampling truth.

TRUMP: We captured many ISIS fighters. Most from Europe.

TAPPER: He's up ending world order.

RICHARD HAASS, PRESIDENT, COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS: The United States has essentially gone for what I describe as the principle architect and principal general contractor of the world, the preserver of the world and how we had become the principal disrupters.

TAPPER: Trumps lies are a big part of that disrupting.

Richard Haas of the Council of Foreign Relations believes there are two kinds of Trump lies.

HAASS: One is to only present one side of the story.

TAPPER: Such as hailing the end to the recent Turkish assault on the Kurds in northern Syria.

TRUMP: By getting that serious fire to stick we have done something very special.

TAPPER: Instead of explaining he helped facility the Turkey by withdrawing the troops who were protecting the Kurds, a U.S. ally.

HAASS: And then you have situations like we saw in the wake of the decision to Turkey and Syria where the President stands up and basically says this is a great success.

TRUMP: And now people are saying wow, what great out come.

HAASS: Well, no. That's not the case.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CABRERA: Joining us now is CNN chief Washington correspondent and host of "THE LEAD" and "STATE OF THE UNION," Jake Tapper.

Jake, obviously not everyone can watch every second of this impeachment inquiry. There's a lot of information and misinformation coming at them. What will viewers learn tonight that they don't already know?

TAPPER: Well, first of all, that the President's defense is largely based on falsehoods. He says that the whistleblower complaint has been proven to be false. That's not true. A lot of witnesses have verified the essential part of the whistleblower complaint. And more broadly that the mendacious manner of the strategy this idea that it's falsehoods is part of a very widespread pattern coming from President Trump. That is troubling to a lot of people who are worried about what the long term impacts will be of all of these lies. And yes, he lies much more than previous presidents.

CABRERA: If the goal of the public testimony was get this in front of the country and sway public opinion in favor of impeachment did Democrats succeed or has Trump's strategy worked?

TAPPER: It's a little early to say right now because we probably need to give it a week or two. But I think it is entirely possible that opinions on impeachment are pretty locked in with a narrow majority of the country favoring impeachment and removal from office. But a narrow majority of people in battleground states which are obviously key to President Trump's reelection taking the other view. So it's possible that opinions are not going to change. And it's possible that the President's defense which is largely based on lies and changing the subject. And a lot of supporters in conservative media and on Capitol Hill who are willing to say things that are just not true. It's possible that's going to work to a degree.

CABRERA: It seems as though the President's most supporters just accept this as baked in the cake. The guy doesn't always tell the truth. And they are almost enthusiastic about it.

TAPPER: There is a degree to which people like his supporters -- President Trump's supporters, like him telling it like it is and their view. Like him saying, you know, anything off the cuff. Taking on the people they hate which include Democrats and the media and Hollywood. And the like. But there's something else going on here and that's what we really try look at in this special which is these lies are not just going to Trump supporters. They are going to the world.

So what is the impact on our allies across the ocean? What is the impact on science? What's the impact on traders on Wall Street. If you can't take the President's word on face value then what happens when he really needs you to believe him. These are some of the questions we are going to get into tonight.

CABRERA: We look forward to that deep dive.

Jake Tapper, good to have you with us. Thank you, my friend.

TAPPER: Thanks, Ana.

CABRERA: Thank you for joining us this evening. The premier of the impeachment inquiry words of the witnesses with Anderson Cooper is next.

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