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Trump Signs Laws Backing Hong Kong Protesters; North Korea Projectile Launch; Worry Rises in U.S. Military Over Trump Decision- making; Macy's 93rd Annual Thanksgiving Parade Underway; Scrutiny of Rudy Giuliani's Business Dealings in Ukraine Continues to Grow; Trump Denies Sending Giuliani to Ukraine for Biden Probe. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired November 28, 2019 - 09:00   ET

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

[09:00:20]

ANA CABRERA, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. And thank you for joining us for this special Thanksgiving edition of CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Ana Cabrera. And the decision is in. The parade is starting. And the balloons are flying.

The 93rd Annual Macy's Day Parade kicking off just moments ago in New York City. And wait for it. Wait for it. There you see it. The balloons are up in the air. Strong wind warnings had threatened to keep those famous floatables grounded for the first time in nearly 50 years but thankfully conditions are safe enough. We'll have a live report from the parade route in just a moment.

Also this morning, American flags are waving on the streets of Hong Kong. Anti-government protesters holding a pro-U.S. Thanksgiving rally. It follows President Trump's signing of a human rights bill that was passed nearly unanimously by Congress. The bill could lead to sanctions on Chinese officials who cracked down on protesters. China is pushing back calling it bullying behavior by the U.S. and publicly supporting violent criminals.

Joining us now from Hong Kong is CNN's Will Ripley.

Will, what are people there saying about the U.S. president finally weighing in?

WILL RIPLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, it depends on which people we're talking about. And this really illustrates how divided Hong Kong is right now, Ana. Because you saw all of those people, thousands of people out on the streets. They're still out on the streets right now waving American flags, expressing gratitude and thanksgiving on Thanksgiving Day for President Trump and U.S. lawmakers as you mentioned almost unanimously passing this bill that not only could potentially sanction government officials accused of human rights abuses but it puts into question Hong Kong's key to its economic success, really, which is its special trade status, a trade status that the mainland does not have.

So if Hong Kong were to lose that in a State Department review, the consequences could be catastrophic. But yet people -- they don't see it as a negative. They see it as a positive because the United States they feel is standing up for the pro-democracy movement. And that's exactly what's happening. So despite overwhelming numbers of people in Hong Kong expressing gratitude, then you have Hong Kong's government firmly in line with Beijing talking points condemning this decision saying the U.S. is a bully and questioning why the U.S. would support protesters who are manufacturing weapons and storing them on university campuses.

Because just hours before that rally, we saw images of police, you know, bringing out hundreds. You're talking 600 petrol bombs, Napalm, and other weapons that they say protesters were storing on that university campus for clash with police. Beijing asking why would Washington support a group of people engaging in regular violent confrontations.

CABRERA: And Will, what can you tell us about these projectiles that South Korea is now saying North Korea fired overnight?

RIPLEY: You know, all I can say is this, I lost count when I heard about this latest projectile launch. It's the 13th launch this year. And by this point, North Korea knows that President Trump doesn't really care about this. I mean, he's made it pretty clear the short- range missiles are not his concern. Now if it was an intercontinental ballistic missile or a nuclear test, we'd be talking about a much different situation.

I suspect, Ana, that what North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is doing is he is playing to his internal audience. He's projecting strength inside the country at a time that the sanctions are still hurting his economy. Relations with South Korea have crumbled. There's obviously nothing happening at the moment with diplomacy with the United States as far as we know and as far as my sources tell me. And so how does he make himself look strong in light of all of these failures? Launch more missiles.

CABRERA: All right. Keeping on it for us. Thank you very much, Will Ripley, in Hong Kong today.

President Trump will have his traditional Thanksgiving call with military leaders later this afternoon. But it comes as we're learning the president's impulsive decision-making and intervention in war crimes cases is worrying top military leaders and hurting morale within the military. Tensions have apparently been mounting for months on a range of issues.

Let's get to CNN's Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr who's with us now.

Barbara, what are you hearing about this?

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, good morning. And of course, we want to start by reminding everyone, tens of thousands of U.S. troops around the world, they're eating their Thanksgiving meals far away from home on this day. And it's a bit of a contrast with the tensions that you see in the political arena here in Washington. You know, look, the military is a reflection of society. There are

many troops, of course, that support the president. They support whatever president is in power. They believe President Trump is looking after them. But top commanders do have a sense of growing unease. It's been building for months and it has really come to a head over the question of the president intervening in these war crimes cases because there's a strong feeling in the top levels of the U.S. military that the chain of command, that military justice must remain apolitical.

[09:05:07]

That is free from political influence by anybody that the military must look after its own discipline. The fired Navy Secretary Richard Spencer really honed in on one of the points that we continue to hear about the president's intervention writing in "The Washington Post" about all of that and calling it -- and let me just read it to everybody, "shocking and unprecedented. It was also a reminder that the president has very little understanding of what it means to be in the military, to fight ethically or to be governed by a uniform set of rules and practices."

And that's really the point here that many top commanders think that a president really should not intervene solely on the basis of political influence and there's a growing belief that that is exactly what President Trump did -- Ana.

CABRERA: OK. Barbara Starr at the Pentagon for us, thank you and Happy Thanksgiving. And we do salute all of those military men and women who are serving, especially overseas today.

Thanks, Barbara.

Joining us now to discuss is columnist for the "Washington Post" and CNN global affairs analyst Max Boot.

Max, obviously, former Navy Secretary Spencer has a bone to pick. He was fired. Could that make his op-ed less potent? Could he come across as disgruntled? Or do you think people are going to really think about this?

MAX BOOT, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Well, there's no question that, you know, I'm sure if President Trump reacts to it, it will probably be a personal attack on Secretary Spencer. And Secretary Spencer, obviously, has some things to answer for. I mean, Defense Secretary Mark Esper said that he fired Spencer because Spencer went behind his back to try to cut a deal with the White House. And Spencer hasn't denied that. In fact on the op-ed he admitted that he did negotiations with the White House and he did not keep Esper fully informed.

But leave all that to the side. I think Spencer's critique was devastating, important and accurate because what he's saying is self- evidently true. President Trump does not understand the military. He does not understand the code of conduct. And he has made so many shocking and ignorant statements that I think have appalled many people in uniform who are otherwise inclined to support any president, much less a Republican president.

CABRERA: This president has tried to frame any kind of pushback from especially senior Pentagon officials as coming from the deep state. In fact he did it again this week at a rally in Florida. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I stuck up for three great warriors against the deep state. I will always stick up for our great fighters. People can sit there in air-conditioned offices and complain but you know what? Doesn't matter to me whatsoever.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: What are the implications of that kind of messaging?

BOOT: It's very destructive. It really undermines the military justice. He's already undermined the State Department, he's undermined the intelligence community. He's undermined the Department of Homeland Security. And wherever Trump goes and he sees a sense of professionalism, a code of conduct and ethos, he wants to destroy it because he wants everybody utterly subservient to his own political whims.

And, you know, here he's attacking our special war fighter community, the Navy SEALs, and calling them the deep state. I mean, what basis is there for this slur? There is none except that he disagreed with the outcome of court martials that have been held in the normal course of the military justice system. And so he is, you know, maligning our SEALs, he's maligning our military.

You know, Donald Trump has a very instrumentalist approach to the military. He loves to celebrate it when it does something great like killing Baghdadi. You know, he had the photo-op with the dog last week. He loves parades, but he doesn't really understand what makes the military tick. And I thought that Secretary Spencer's article was very powerful on that score saying that it's -- that the reason why the U.S. military is as successful as it is, it's not because of the weapon system.

It's because of the people and because of the code of conduct, the code of honor, the military justice system which ensures that our armed forces are the most professional in the world. And that is something that Donald Trump literally does not understand.

CABRERA: Barbara Starr's reporting that the tension is still mounting, that there are morale issues right now among the rank and file. Does that sort of up the ante or create greater expectations for the president's call with the military today?

BOOT: Well, I don't think he's going to, you know, solve these issues with a phone call and a few pleasantries this afternoon. I think the military is probably pretty divided because I'm sure especially at the lower ranks there are probably a lot of soldiers who are saying, yes, you know, go president, but I think at the more senior ranks there are a lot of generals and admirals and others who have actually dealt with Trump and who are appalled by what they're seeing like the abandonment of the Kurds where we promised we'd stand with them or now this intervention in the military justice system.

I think at the senior levels of the military they understand how erratic the president is and try to shield the military from that.

[09:10:02]

I think they had more success when Jim Mattis was the secretary of Defense. But now with Secretary Mark Esper, it seems that he is more willing to do Trump's bidding. And I fear that will do long-term damage to the professionalism and the apolitical ethos of the military.

CABRERA: Quickly, if you will, I do want to get to your op-ed that you wrote this week in the "Washington Post" in which you really skewered the Republican Party for its undying and never-ending loyalty to this president.

And you write in part, "As a reward for their allegiance, Trump keeps handing his followers one poisoned chalice after another. They get judicial appointments but Trump's law-breaking undermines any conservative claim to be defenders of the Constitution. They get tax cuts but the resulting deficits undermine any conservative claims to be budget hawks. They get pro-Israel policies but by backing Israel's annexation of the Palestinian territories, Trump is undermining its future as a democracy. Most important of all, they get to keep power for the time being but his unethical and unhinged conduct undermines any claim that they deserve to hold it."

And yet, what about Republican voters? Because you know the most recent polling shows 90 percent of Republicans think the president is doing a good job.

BOOT: Well, there's no question that President Trump is a very skilled demagogue and he's has won over the Republican base. But that's a shrinking share of the overall electorate. And, remember, his approval rating basically never goes above 42 percent which is pretty shocking considering how -- you know, what great shape the economy is in. Very rare for a president never to go above 50 percent, especially in such good economic times.

So I think most Americans are appalled by what Trump says and does, but the Republican base is four squares behind him. And to me, you know, this is appalling and almost inexplicable as somebody who was a former life-long Republican. I can't understand how Republicans can continue to support a president who violates so many of the principles that Ronald Reagan and John McCain and so many other previous Republicans stood for but, clearly, Donald Trump has kind of this mind melt of the Republican base and even the persuasive evidence that he tried to extort Ukraine into interfering in our politics on his behalf, even that evidence is not breaking the Republican support for Trump.

CABRERA: Max Boot, it's great to have you here. BOOT: Thank you.

CABRERA: Happy Thanksgiving.

BOOT: You, too, Ana.

CABRERA: Thank you for making time for us as well.

Thanksgiving just wouldn't be Thanksgiving without the Macy's Day Parade, right? And thankfully Mother Nature came through. The balloons are flying.

Let's get right out to CNN's Miguel Marquez. And, Miguel, before we all, you know, gobble until we wobble, it's all about the parade. How is it going out there?

MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, we're having a parade. Hey, look. The balloons are flying. This is the first time for the Astronaut Snoopy and it is up in the air. Look at the number of handlers that are taking care of it, though. Come over here, Dave, because they're going to run over us here in a second. They have so many handlers. They are staying low to the ground.

Snoopy is almost dragging on the ground. Not much of an astronaut. Look at these guys. They're actually sort of holding him up so he doesn't scrape. But they are flying. All the balloons are flying. The winds right now are as high as they've been all day long and the spirits, they're just as high. Happy Thanksgiving.

CROWD: Happy Thanksgiving.

MARQUEZ: People have been lining up here. We got here around 4:00 this morning. There were already people lining up here and the parade is on. A thousand clowns, 1200 dancers and cheerleaders, 11 marching bands, 26 floats, 16 of those big balloons and 40 other balloons. So just an amazing day. And the sun has just come out as well. So Happy Thanksgiving.

CABRERA: No doubt. A blue bird sky to boot. Thank you so much, Miguel. We will check back with you. I hope the wind continues to stay calm. We know they will be monitoring conditions throughout that parade.

All right, ask Rudy. That's what the president says. He's distancing himself from his personal lawyer as we are finding out more about Rudy Giuliani's actions behind the scenes in Ukraine.

Plus, before Democrats kick off the next impeachment phase, they are facing their constituents back home on this Thanksgiving Day holiday. Is this investigation a winning or losing issue for Democrats?

And we are thankful for the men and women serving overseas on this holiday. 131 tons of food are now being delivered to our troops so they can celebrate with a traditional Thanksgiving dinner. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:15:00]

ANA CABRERA, ANCHOR, NEWSROOM: We have new reporting this morning on Rudy Giuliani's pressure campaign in Ukraine. "The New York Times" reports as the president's personal lawyer was pushing for an investigation into the Bidens at the same time Giuliani was trying to sign business deals in Ukraine for hundreds of thousands of dollars.

"The Times" reports Giuliani's discussions with Ukrainian officials proceeded far enough along that he signed at least one retainer agreement on his company letterhead. CNN national correspondent Kristen Holmes joins us live from near the president's resort in West Palm Beach. Kristen, what more can you tell us about Giuliani's involvement in Ukraine?

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, good morning,(), this is certainly not a good look for the president's personal attorney. Essentially what we know is that at the same time, he was digging up dirt on the Bidens, trying to get this investigation to be announced, he was trying to work with Yuriy Lutsenko.

And I want you to remember that name because it's going to come, you know, again in a second or the Ukrainian Ministry of Justice to try and help them recover about $7 billion worth of funds that they believe was stolen from the Ukrainian government.

[09:20:00]

The big thing here is why is this important? Why does this matter? Well, there are two major reasons. One is the ongoing investigation. It's a federal criminal investigation happening in New York. And "The New York Times" reports that this is all about that smear campaign to oust the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch who we heard testify.

Part of this according to the "New York Times" is a look, a deep dive into Giuliani's potential financial situation or financial dealings with Ukrainian officials. So why does this matter? Well, one of the main proponents to get Yovanovitch out of office was no other than Yuriy Lutsenko. The same Yuriy Lutsenko who might have been paying Giuliani or at least was in negotiations to pay Giuliani hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Now, the other major reason why we are paying attention to this story and watching it very closely is about President Trump. We know the president is already distancing himself from his personal attorney. We heard him in that O'Reilly interview essentially saying, I never directed him to do anything.

This gives the president and the White House an out. They can paint Giuliani as a rogue actor here, and say that he was just doing his own business while he was there. So, these are two lines to watch very closely as the story develops.

CABRERA: OK, Kristen Holmes, there's always a new nugget it seems like every single day in this investigation, thank you. Joining us now to discuss is CNN political analyst Karoun Demirjian; a congressional reporter for "The Washington Post", and CNN legal analyst Shan Wu, defense attorney and former federal prosecutor.

Shan, if Giuliani was trying to make these business deals -- we're talking hundreds of thousands of dollars, with the very same Ukrainian officials he was talking to in his efforts to dig up dirt on the Bidens, what kind of legal trouble could this pose even if they didn't follow through?

SHAN WU, FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR: Ana, two issues here. First of all, on the criminal side, he could be running afoul of the Foreign Agent's Registry Act which means he's working on behalf of a foreign government, he fails to register. Even if he didn't actually complete these contracts, he likes to brag how he isn't getting paid, he could still have to register because he may be taking actions on their part even before he enters into a contract.

Then separately on the legal ethics front, this is really swarm for him because the conflicts of interest are just ramping. I mean, he is trying to negotiate business deals to be an advocate for the same people that on behalf of the president, he's trying to pressure those same people. So big conflict of interest there.

CABRERA: Karoun, the president is now saying he didn't direct Giuliani on the Ukraine dealings, and he told Bill O'Reilly, Rudy has clients other than me. Do you think he was maybe getting out ahead of this story that shows Giuliani seeking other clients in Ukraine?

KAROUN DEMIRJIAN, CONGRESSIONAL REPORTER, THE WASHINGTON POST: It seems like the president is definitely creating space between himself and Giuliani and leaving the room for the conclusion to be that -- well, Giuliani was operating in order to advance his own bottom line and then just saying that he was working on behalf of the president when he really wasn't.

The problem is that Rudy has been saying for a very long time, everything I've been doing has been on behalf of the president. And so, it's kind up to the president to now be pivoting because the president has been saying that he and Rudy are very close and to -- this is definitely a 180-degree turn in terms of the way that the president has been describing their relationship and the work that his lawyer was doing on the ground.

It is important for the president to try to make this part of his defense at this point because the impeachment inquiry is looking at connecting the dots to him, and Rudy was his translator for a lot of the people that were dealing with the president, working on the side parallel policy on Ukraine. We're getting their instructions from Rudy Giuliani because the president told them to. So, if the president --

CABRERA: Right --

DEMIRJIAN: Is doing this now, it's certainly a course shift --

CABRERA: And let's not forget --

DEMIRJIAN: And whether that will actually shield him is unclear.

CABRERA: Let's not forget the phone call, right? With the president --

DEMIRJIAN: Right --

CABRERA: Of Ukraine in which the president brought up Rudy Giuliani, and said, I want you to just speak to him. I'm going to have your people re-talk to my people, and that being Giuliani as well as the Attorney General William Barr. A personal lawyer, though, Shan, working for Donald Trump who also profits off of using his association with him. Who else does this sound like?

Michael Cohen, right? And the president is starting to sound --

WU: Yes --

CABRERA: Like he did when talking about Cohen before he flipped, solely distancing himself from him. But remember when Cohen testified with evidence, mind you, Republicans mostly ignored it and they attacked his credibility. Karoun, let me come back to you because I want to ask, what do you think they'll do regarding this news with Giuliani with Republicans there in Congress?

DEMIRJIAN: I think Republicans have been looking for somebody to take the heat off of the president for a while. The campaign that they have been making in response to the march of witnesses who came through is that most of these people are only speaking based on what they know in terms of hearsay.

[09:25:00]

That they were getting their information not directly to the president, but through Giuliani, through Gordon Sondland, through Mick Mulvaney sometimes. Of course, the one exception to that is the fact that there are these direct conversations that were overheard between Gordon Sondland and the president.

But again, Republicans have been saying, well, maybe he misinterpreted or it's just his word. We haven't necessarily heard the president say himself --

CABRERA: Right --

DEMIRJIAN: That he wanted these investigations. Apart from the transcript of the phone call in which he refers to the Bidens and crowd-strike server and things like that. And so, I think the Republicans will probably seize on this to try to create, again, that space between the president and the people who were speaking for the president.

In this case, Rudy Giuliani. And Rudy Giuliani because he is such a loose cannon at times, he does go on television and speak his mind in ways that others probably would not. He's an easy target basically to try to wrap much of these allegations around, and much of this -- the scrutiny about the wrongdoing around, and the GOP will certainly try to amplify that.

CABRERA: And Shan, Republicans and the president have already seized on that one interaction between Gordon Sondland and Trump. A phone call where the president supposedly said no quid pro quo. But now, we have new reporting from "The Washington Post" saying, no other witnesses or documents can corroborate that call.

It's just Sondland himself. And according to "The Post", quote, "there is evidence of another call between Trump and Sondland that occurred a few days earlier." One with a very different thrust in which the president made clear that he wanted his Ukrainian counterpart to personally announce investigations into Trump's political opponents.

So, Shan, Sondland is a key figure obviously in this impeachment inquiry, but is he a reliable source?

WU: He certainly is not a reliable source in our usual sense of who is trustworthy. He obviously has dissembled, probably lied under oath, but where you can trust him is when you have corroboration from other sources, other statements, sometimes from the president's own mouth. And what's happening here is the Republicans have been trying for a while to place so much emphasis on the Latin phrase quid pro quo.

It's really kind of a meaningless phrase in this instance because it's really what is the president trying to do? It does not matter whether they use the magic words quid pro quo. It would be like a person in a mafia setting which the president seems to like to talk about, saying, you know, take care of that guy, get rid of him. But I never said the word murder.

It doesn't matter he didn't say that or he tells Sondland, that's not what I'm asking for, a quid pro quo. It's his actions, what he is asking for. Asking for the investigation, this other call that may have been the correct date. It seems clear from that context that he's very specific about how he wants the Ukrainians to make a public statement that they're opening the investigation into Biden.

So, that's really where the problem is for the president. These sorts of sort of technical word defenses are really just falling away as they usually do.

CABRERA: Shan Wu and Karoun Demirjian, bless you both for getting up early to be here with us on Thanksgiving, thank you for being here and happy Thanksgiving.

WU: Happy Thanksgiving.

DEMIRJIAN: Happy Thanksgiving.

CABRERA: Thank you. Still ahead, with a new round of impeachment hearings set to start in just days, will Democrats change their strategy? (COMMERCIAL BREAK)