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White House Is Restricting The Number of Officials Listening in to Trump's Calls to Foreign Leaders; Barr Echoes Trump's Conspiracy Theory Despite Watchdog Report; Boris Johnson Landslide Win May Make 2020 Democrats Nervous; White House Responds to Trump's Personal Attack on Teen Activist; Trump Touts His Toughness in Face of Impeachment; "Thanos" Creator Slams Trump Use of His Character. Aired 3:30-4p ET
Aired December 13, 2019 - 15:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[15:30:00]
BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN HOST: -- here at CNN, we've learned that the White House is restricting the number of administration officials who are actually allowed to listen in the President's phone calls with foreign leaders. According to multiple White House sources the limited access has been in effect since revelations emerged from President Trump's July phone call with Ukraine's leader. A conversation that is now the centerpiece of the impeachment inquiry.
April Doss is the former minority counsel for Senate intel committee's Russia investigation, so April, thank you so much for joining me, and what do you make of this new reporting?
APRIL DOSS, EX-SENIOR MINORITY COUNSEL, SENATE INTEL COMMITTEE'S RUSSIA INVESTIGATION: Well, it's really unfortunate. You know, having this career national security staff able to listen to calls is an important part of the process. It's an important part of making sure the President gets the policy advice he needs. The insights he needs and making sure there's really effective recordkeeping within government about what happens on these calls. Because that lays the foundation for all the subsequent decision-making.
BALDWIN: How danger us could it be?
DOSS: Well, you know, it really depends. You know, the chief danger in a lot of ways is the risk that the President could get into a thought bubble. Right. You know, ideally in a well-functioning National Security Council you have career people with lots of experience who are acting in a non-partisan way who can advise the President about history and context and things like that.
And if there's a sense of suspicion or distrust that causes the number of people who can listen in on the calls to get restricted too tightly, you run the risk that you end up with only people who are politically aligned from a domestic partisan sort of perspective and so it can really impair good, informed decision-making.
BALDWIN: Let me also ask you as we look ahead to impeachment on the Senate side and the trial and the possibility that this whistleblower may have to testify. We know that the whistleblower's legal team is preparing for that possibility. Do you think that that's likely to happen? And if so, what would the implications be?
DOSS: Well, whether it's likely is a great question that's going to depend entirely on how the Senate decides to approach the structure of the impeachment, the trial process. But on the merits, it really it shouldn't be necessary for the whistleblower to testify at this point, because, you know, the whistleblower --
BALDWIN: So much what this person said has been corroborated?
DOSS: Exactly. So at this point who the whistleblower was is less relevant than all other information developed since then.
BALDWIN: How about the Attorney General, Bill Barr, April. How he contradicted his own Justice Department's report, the IG report, the findings on the Russia investigation giving weight to Trump conspiracies? Are you concerned that the DOJ is
no longer independent?
DOSS: Well, I'm really concerned that some of these comments can create that impression. And the irony of it is that an independent Inspector General at the DOJ like at other agencies is such an important part of the checks and balances that we have built into our system. Right, you need good congressional oversight, you need strong judicial oversight, you need strong independent Inspectors General. So by casting doubt on the report of his own independent IG, it really runs the risk of undermining confidence in that work.
BALDWIN: April Doss, thank you.
DOSS: Thank you.
BALDWIN: How about this question? Should Boris Johnson's landslide victory make 2020 Democrats nervous? We'll talk about that.
And the first lady silent over the President's attack on a teen activist. But the White House just put out a statement, responding to critics.
[15:35:30]
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BALDWIN: So President Trump is congratulating the man, some call his British twin Prime Minister Boris Johnson for last night's big election. The big victory by Johnson's Conservative Party.
Trump promising Britain and the U.S. will now be free to strike a massive new trade deal once Britain leaves the EU ala Brexit. But Democrats may not be feeling so great about Boris Johnson's landslide at the polls against the Labour Party's Jeremy Corbyn.
Why? Well, a lot of critics saying Corbyn swung far too left and that that led to his Party's crushing loss. And now some Democrats here in America fear that could happen to them come 2020.
CNN politics White House reporter, Stephen Collinson, is with me now. And I mean, Stephen, the first thing I thought, other than the fact that I have an English husband who constantly reminds me what's happening over in England is you know you think back to the 2016 Brexit vote and how that was a really seen as a harbinger of things to come in November of '16 with Trump's win.
So are you seeing this at all as a predictor of what we will all see in 2020?
STEPHEN COLLINSON, CNN POLITICS WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Hey, Brooke, well, I think there are clearly parallels. It could be the victory of a center-right big personality politician who rails against the establishment and has, you know, an odd relationship with the truth with the U.K. could auger the same thing in the U.S. next year for President Trump
I think it's less perfect comparison than in 2016 for a couple of reasons. First of all, because Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour Party leader, was hugely unpopular not just politically but personally even among some of the Labour Party's own voters. I think it's unlikely that whoever the Democratic nominee is next year, that person is going to be so at odds with what many people see as their own country's foundational values. So that's one thing.
The other thing is, of course, this was almost like a second Brexit referendum. We're not going to have those conditions in the U.S.
[15:40:00]
Many of the Labour voters who voted to leave, thousands of them, in fact, were angry with their own party, because Jeremy Corbyn had a rather muddled position on Brexit. So they were actually lashing out because they hadn't been able to leave the European Union. So it's slightly different and less perfect than 2016.
BALDWIN: I hear you on the differences. You have though here in America, you know, the former Vice President Joe Biden. He's already jumping in. He's capitalizing on the news over in U.K. He's arguing that only a centrist like him can beat President Trump and as you point out Jeremy Corbyn, Johnson's opposition was pretty far left. So do you see this at all as an appropriate warning for Democrats to stay a little bit more in the middle?
COLLINSON: Right. It's very interesting. The postmortem is going on in the UK today are very similar to the debate that we've been having in the U.S. throughout the Democratic primary about whether candidates like Senator Sanders and Senator Warren are going too far left and leaving the vast middle ground where elections are usually won behind.
I think there's also another interesting parallel in that the Democratic Party and the Labour Party appear to have left their own voters in many cases in their heartlands behind. They've culturally shifted away from those voters when all of those results were coming in last night in the Labour heartlands in the north of England and in Scotland -- old, industrial areas, mining areas -- it was very similar to election night in the U.S. in 2016. When there was a great deal of shock that the President won Pennsylvania, won Ohio and won Wisconsin. And the reason for both is that Labour Party has culturally become -- and the Democrats have become a metropolitan liberal party that's not on the same page as some of their more conservative working-class voters.
BALDWIN: All right, Stephen Collinson, thank you for the analysis. Good to have you on.
And before we go to break, I need to get this off my chest. Greta Thunberg at 16 years of age she has become the face of the climate change fight. At 16 years of age she has addressed the United States. At 16 years of age has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. At 16 years of age she is the youngest person to be named "Time" magazine's person of the year.
And at 16 years of age she has been attacked by the President of the United States -- twice. After being honored by the magazine, the President said she has an anger management problem, telling her to chill. Immediately, she embraced it much like Speaker Nancy Pelosi did, moved the attack to the top of her megaphone.
Aside from accolades I just listed above, Greta Thunberg has also been open about her diagnosis of Asperger's. She has called it her superpower that helps fuel her activism.
So while it should go without saying the President mocking a teenage girl with Asperger's is pretty appalling, but unfortunately, we are in a different time now. A week after the President and his allies criticized a law professor for invoking his 13-year-old son's name, silence in this case.
David Nakamura over at the "Washington Post" says that he reached out to all people who were offended by the mention of Barron Trump to see if they are
just as offended by the President's attack on Greta Thunberg? None responded.
And as for the first lady, remember, last week she said, quote, a minor child deserves privacy and should be kept out of politics. That using a child to pander publicly is shameful. And today, after a day of silence, the White House Press Secretary just responded to criticism saying in part, their son is not an activist who travels the globe giving speeches.
So she seems to be saying if you're a minor who stands up for what she believes is right, that that's fair game to be personally attacked? Be Best. I guess. But only sometimes.
Coming up next, the creator of Marvel character Thanos joins me live. Why he says the Trump's campaign's use of his character in one of their videos was, his word, sick.
But first let me just show you how you can help the top ten CNN Heroes of 2019 continue their important work. And your donations will be matched dollar for dollar.
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DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: A regular President would have been under a table, thumb in the mouth saying take me home, mommy, this is too tough for me. It's true. True, they know.
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BALDWIN: That was President Trump just this week at a rally in Hershey, Pennsylvania, riling up his supporters and his campaign has taken that tough guy talk one step further. The Trump war room Twitter account released this ad superimposing Trump's head on top of Marvel villain Thanos who is infamous for being this genocidal warlord.
The 21 second clip features the President snapping his fingers to turn Democratic leaders including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Congressman Adam Schiff into dust. The comic book writer-artist who created Thanos, Jim Starlin, was not so assumed. He joins me now here in New York. So Jim, a pleasure to have you on.
JIM STARLIN, CREATOR OF MARVEL CHARACTER "THANOS": It is good to be here.
BALDWIN: My goodness. When you first saw this, I read what you had written, that you felt violated?
STARLIN: I probably shouldn't use that term because that is so much connected with the me-too movement. I was mostly shocked and saddened. Shocked to begin with and then saddened.
BALDWIN: Tell me why?
STARLIN: I'm old enough where I remember our Presidents when they spoke to the public they did so to encourage, to inspire, to lead, not to complain like some teenage girl who's had a bad day, and that's what I see so much going on with this particular administration. And I'm sad for my country.
BALDWIN: You point out -- for people who aren't mega-Marvel fans, explain -- the fact that they took Thanos of all of these characters, and used Thanos in this ad, explain who Thanos is.
STARLIN: Well in the movie Thanos is a genocidal maniac, he wipes out half of the universe with the infinity gauntlet by snapping his fingers. Why --
BALDWIN: Not exactly a superhero.
STARLIN: No and not the kind of role model that you want to emulate. Why anyone while they're trying to get elected would choose to take this image on, it just escapes me.
BALDWIN: Do you have any recourse? Can you have them take it down?
STARLIN: No, the first amendment protects it under satire if nothing else. I feel that the only thing I can do is sit there and speak out about it because as an artist my creations, I'd like them to be used for something that has something to do with what's going on in me, rather than somebody else to exploit. And I felt sort of obliged to speak out on this particular point.
BALDWIN: You had written and I'm quoting you. Fortunately, all things, even national nightmares eventually come to an end. I think it's safe to assume you will not voting for Trump in 2020, right? So --
STARLIN: Seems unlikely.
BALDWIN: Who would you like to see replace him?
STARLIN: Just about I would say at least 80 percent of the people that I've seen on the Democratic ticket I would vote for easily. My dream ticket right now would be Elizabeth Warren and Cory Booker. I think that would just bring in the voters and that would be the end of that.
BALDWIN: Jim Starlin, thank you very much.
STARLIN: My pleasure.
BALDWIN: Thank you.
It is an historic day on Capitol Hill. The House Judiciary Committee voting to send the articles of impeachment to the House floor. We have details on the vote for next week.
[15:55:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BALDWIN: When Army/Navy take to the field tomorrow in one of the college football's biggest rivalries they will bring 120 years of tradition with them.
And CNN's Coy Wire is there in Philadelphia. And so, Coy, we know the rivalry is a big deal. But I want you to tell me really how big of a deal it is?
COY WIRE, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: You think about the history, Brooke, it dates back to 1890. This is our nation's greatest display of tradition and pageantry in all of sports. It's so big that 10 sitting U.S. Presidents have attended the game, President Donald Trump is expected to attend tomorrow for the second straight year.
You know, it is said that this game is the only college football game where everyone on the field is willing to sacrifice their life for everyone who is watching. It's so much more than just a game.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The Army-Navy game is special because of what it represents. What each team represents.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It is everything to West Point. It's on every brick, it's on every stone.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The Army-Navy game is America's game.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The Army-Navy game is a national treasure.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The Army-Navy game is the greatest rivalry in college football.
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WIRE: Brooke, our 34th President Dwight Eisenhower had a great quote, he said the Army and Navy are the greatest friends 364 1/2 days of the year but on this one Saturday afternoon, we are the worst of enemies. Games tomorrow -
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