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Trump's Power Grab Levels Assault On American Justice; Senate On Track To Pass Resolution Limiting Trump's War Powers; War Between President Trump And Mike Bloomberg Is Getting Uglier. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired February 13, 2020 - 14:00   ET

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

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: NEWSROOM with Brooke Baldwin starts right now.

[14:00:07]

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN HOST: Hi there. You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin. Thank you for being here.

President Trump wanted an Attorney General to protect him, one who would investigate whoever Trump wanted.

Those were just some of the findings in the nearly 500-page Mueller report, and now here we are, almost a year after that report was released, and fears are growing that the President may have gotten his wish and that the Department of Justice could be thrown into turmoil.

Prosecutors around the country tell "The New York Times" that they are worried that President Trump's actions in this whole Roger Stone case could become the norm and not just a one-off event.

That as CNN learns more officials may be following the lead of these four prosecutors who abruptly quit the Roger Stone case after the D.O.J.'s leadership overruled their sentencing recommendation for the President's good friend.

Let's begin the hour with CNN political correspondent Sara Murray in Washington for us. And Sarah, this internal fight has gone very public very quickly. Tell me what you know.

SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right. You know, other folks that are prosecutors at the Justice Department cannot ignore what just happened with Roger Stone's case.

I mean, I think we saw the blowback from the four prosecutors who decided to remove themselves from Stone's case, but there was a lot of uneasiness and unhappiness from other prosecutors who watched the way this went down. And there are other folks who are considering whether they want to resign.

I also think, you know, we can't forget that there's also a political retribution side to this that people are watching with some uneasiness. You know, Jessie Liu, who was over at the Treasury Department has now

resigned because she was up for this top Treasury job, and her nomination was yanked because she was previously at the U.S. Attorney's Office and her office oversaw the Roger Stone case.

So I think, you know, if you're a prosecutor at the Justice right now, you're watching these things play out and you're certainly not comfortable with the way it looks like, politics is intervening, particularly in high profile cases.

BALDWIN: We've got someone who can opine on precisely that. Sarah, thank you.

If there is one person who might know what's next on the President's retribution tour, it is Steve Bannon, the former Trump campaign CEO who went on to be the White House Chief Strategist before being fired back in 2017.

And Steve Bannon is talking to "The Washington Post" and telling them that what we've seen in the last week since Trump was acquitted on impeachment could be nothing compared to what lies ahead.

Let me quote him for you, "He is mad and he should be mad. The Democrats and the media wasted three years of the nation's time on a witch hunt. Now he understands how to use the full powers of the presidency. The pearl-cultures better get used to it."

Michael Gordon served as a spokesman for the Justice Department during the Clinton administration. So it is a pleasure to have you on, sir.

MICHAEL GORDON, FORMER SPOKESMAN FOR JUSTICE DEPARTMENT DURING CLINTON ADMINISTRATION: Good to be here.

BALDWIN: Listening to Steve Bannon's comments, what say you?

GORDON: Yes, so I can't believe I'm saying this, but Steve Bannon is right. So none of this should be surprising or shocking to anyone, if you've watched the President for the last three years, and I think if something happened this week that we're all talking about, something's going to happen next week.

I think he's even going to pardon the whole cabal immediately after the election, maybe even election night.

Like, this is the beginning.

BALDWIN: And that's -- he is the President, so he can. Period. Full stop.

GORDON: He has the power to do all this. But sort of in my experience of the Justice Department, there was a bright line between the Justice Department and the White House.

The President wouldn't even comment on cases, Federal or even local, because they didn't want to be perceived as having any influence on what was going on. BALDWIN: You say the full cabal being pardoned. So, name names: Roger

Stone --

GORDON: Roger Stone, Michael Flynn, Manafort, they're all going to be pardoned right after the election.

I could even see him doing it election night, particularly if he wins just to stick it in the face of the Democrats.

BALDWIN: Wow. The Democrats, so they say that Attorney General Bill Barr has agreed to testify before Congress and that is supposed to happen by the end of March. Here's the quote, "The President's improper influence over the department and our criminal justice system ... " that's how they're seeing this, so that's about seven weeks from now.

A lot has happened in a week. So that's a long ways away, can they grab them and yank him in now?

GORDON: They can try, certainly, but we've seen how well they've responded to subpoenas to date.

So a lot can happen in those seven weeks, too that may give them more ammunition to ask questions.

BALDWIN: I want to ask you about how the Democrats are going about this, right? Because I know you have thoughts on that.

And so first of all, you have to go out on a limb and guess that Bill Barr is not going to resign. Right?

So Senator Elizabeth Warren says if Barr won't stepped down, he should face impeachment.

GORDON: Yes. That's not going to happen.

BALDWIN: Not going to happen.

GORDON: Yes, so the Democrats really need to stop whining, and I say that as a good Democrat, but they get dragged into all these distractions and scandals, and it's taking up air time from talking about the issues.

Guess what? We don't win elections based on scandal by the other team. We win elections by talking about the issues. So we have to quickly -- very quickly respond when something comes up, say your piece, but then pivot to the issues that we know we win on.

We win on healthcare. We win on gun safety. We win on so much, but we get dragged into this and the President is winning whenever we talk about his scandals.

[14:05:10]

BALDWIN: What options do the Democrats have?

GORDON: Yes, I think they need to focus on the election. Okay. There's not a lot they can do. We've seen it.

You know, the Republicans are in lockstep with the presidency. If the Republicans were going to do what's right, they would have done it with Kavanaugh. They would have done it with witnesses. They would have done it with conviction. They don't do it.

So the Democrats don't have any power, their power is to win the election and win the Senate.

BALDWIN: You wrote in a "Business Insider" column recently, you said this to congressional Republicans quoting you, "Meet your conscience and stand up to President Trump."

I mean, so far, Mitt Romney seems to be the only lawmaker to really do that and he is in a pretty safe seat. Who else are you talking to?

GORDON: Well, it's crazy because, you know, Lisa Murkowski just this week, said in a very mild muted tone, I don't think the President has learned his lesson, right?

BALDWIN: Susan Collins.

GORDON: Susan Collins, no, Susan Collins has been a voice. She said last week that she thinks the President has learned his lesson. And this week, she's been avoiding reporters.

BALDWIN: Right, she has.

GORDON: So they're all --

BALDWIN: We see Manu chasing her.

GORDON: Yes. They're all sort of slinking away from any questions because they know there's no answer.

BALDWIN: So none of them will be meeting their conscience and doing the right thing.

GORDON: We've seen it. We've seen it. You know, when there was that talk, oh, let's censure the President instead of convicting him, they weren't going to censure him. There was no way that was going to happen.

So the Republicans are in lockstep with the President. He knows that, that's why he keeps pushing the envelope, and it's going to happen until he's out of office, whether it's the end of this year or four years from now.

BALDWIN: How do you see this playing out? How do they keep the President in check?

GORDON: They're not keeping them in check. That's the exact issue.

BALDWIN: So how does this play out then?

GORDON: Yes. So the Republicans will try to avoid him and try to say as little as possible or when they think it's in their political interest, they'll back him fully. The Democrats should call it out. Call it out quickly, but don't spend months and months talking about it. Don't spend months and months investigating.

Hit it the things that actually people care about, people vote on. You know, they want to know that preexisting conditions are protected. They want to know that their prescription drug prices are going down. They want to know that children will be safe in their schools. And this President is preventing them from getting those things done. That's what they should be talking about.

Don't let the scandal take up your airtime, take out the airtime with the things you win on.

BALDWIN: As a Democrat speaking to Democrats, maybe they're listening. Michael Gordon, a pleasure. Thank you very much.

GORDON: Thank you.

BALDWIN: Come back. Come back. Let's get you now to breaking developments in Capitol Hill.

Less than a week after the President's impeachment acquittal, a rare show of bipartisan support for rebuke of President Trump.

Senators appear to be on track to pass this War Powers Resolution which will restrain the President's ability to use military action against Iran.

Of course, Congress is responding to President Trump's authorizing January's deadly strike against Iran's General Qasem Soleimani, who is responsible for hundreds of American deaths, according to the Pentagon.

So speaking of Manu, let's go to CNN senior congressional correspondent, Manu Raju on the Hill, and Manu, where does all of this stand?

MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, it appears that this is on track for passage. This being, this War Powers Resolution that would essentially limit the President's ability to wage war with Iran, force him to come to Congress to get approval and moving forward with extended military action against that country.

At the moment, this vote is still open. They have not officially called it, but the unofficial tally, they're saying right now is at 55-45. There are eight Republicans who have defected, eight Republicans defected yesterday to move forward on this measure, despite the President's vow to veto it and the President's warning that this would essentially make the country weaker.

He has said that, but the handful of Republicans have defied the President on this and now, are going to join with 47 Democrats in pushing this measure through.

So when they officially called this vote closed in a matter of minutes here, this will pass the United States Senate. Then the House will take up this measure in the coming days and after the House is expected to approve it, in which it will, then it will send it to the President's desk.

The President will, as I said, will veto this. It will come back to Capitol Hill, it will not have enough votes to override the President's veto. So his veto, ultimately stands.

Well, Brooke, what this does is send a message, a bipartisan message to the President that there is concern about him moving forward with any military action against Iran without coming to Congress first, without coming to -- dealing with lawmakers and seeking the appropriate authorization and moving ahead.

And the Republicans who have defected are not just some who we have seen defect on other issues, too. But there are people that are more conservative, including Todd Young of Indiana. He is a member of the Republican leadership, as well as Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, someone who sided with the President in the impeachment trial, and We're seeing some of the more libertarian voices in the caucus, too, speak out as well, Mike Lee and Rand Paul.

So we have eight Republicans who have defected, joined ranks with Republicans and now it's officially passed here, Brooke. It says 55- 45. The Senate has passed the War Powers Resolution, now calling on the President to come to Congress first, before moving forward with military action with Iran -- Brooke.

[14:10:22]

BALDWIN: Got it. Manu Raju, thank you. General John Kelly unleashed the former White House Chief of Staff going off on President Trump on everything from the harassment of impeachment witnesses to protecting convicted criminals, and now, you guessed it, the President is punching back and punching back hard.

Also a disturbing accusation for Republican Congressman Jim Jordan, a former wrestler at Ohio State University testifies that Jordan begged him to go against his own brother who blew the whistle on sexual abuse at the school.

And Mike Bloomberg unleashes a new weapon in his fight against Trump -- the biggest meme creators of Instagram. One of them joins me live here on CNN. I'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:15:34]

BALDWIN: We're back. You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin. This guy, the President's former Chief of Staff, John Kelly has incurred his boss's -- former boss's wrath for publicly disagreeing with him on impeachment witness, Lieutenant Colonel Vindman, on immigration, the media and much more at an event last night at Drew University in New Jersey and some of Kelly's remarks hit the headlines the President hit back on Twitter. And among other things, he says Kelly was way over his head, came in

with a bang, out with a whimper, can't keep his mouth shut.

And even invoked Kelly's wife saying that she once vowed that they would not criticize him.

CNN's Kaitlan Collins is with me now. And Kaitlan, you know, John Kelly made a lot of comments that obviously got under the President's skin. What seems to be drawing the most reaction?

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Rally, all of it just the former Chief of Staff, the fact that he is publicly criticizing the President, of course, this is behind closed doors at an event where a reporter happened to be in hearing what John Kelly had to say.

But what does seem to be bothering the President the most based on people we've been speaking with is his defense of Lieutenant Colonel Alex Vindman, of course, the impeachment witness that the President fired and had escorted off White House grounds last week from the National Security Council.

And John Kelly was essentially saying that he identified something he believed was wrong and he did what he was supposed to do by reporting it to his superior.

Of course, the President is not likely to agree with that since he believes that call with the Ukrainian President was perfect, and you're seeing the President lash out at John Kelly and really go after him.

We should note that when John Kelly left the White House, it had not been pleasant between President Trump and he, because they weren't even barely on speaking terms by the time he left and Mick Mulvaney then came in to take over as Acting Chief of Staff.

But now you're seeing not only the President, but also other administration officials go after John Kelly, including the Press Secretary saying that she feels that John Kelly was disingenuous and that she is disappointed.

He is speaking out and Brooke, what really is going to be interesting as this is all coming before the -- in the months leading up to the election is whether or not John Kelly continues to speak out against the President, if he chooses to do so publicly, and not in a venue where there appears to be some kind of paid speaking event, which is where he has been making this latest string of comments that we're seeing today and the ones we saw during the impeachment trial.

And it'll be really notable if he does come out and continues to criticize the President, but of course, he is someone who was the President's longest serving Chief of Staff.

BALDWIN: Can you imagine if he keeps doing this and all the tweets? The wrath of President Trump as a result. My goodness. Kaitlan, we'll see. Thank you. Let's talk about it. CNN contributor and Donald Trump biographer,

Michael D' Antonio is with me and Michael, I mean, John Kelly is coming right out with it.

You know, he is saying I'm disappointed in myself for leaving, but it was killer. I mean, no joke. That's a quote, you know, the President firing back, you know, Donald Trump, is there any greater sin than not supporting him or one of his policies?

MICHAEL D'ANTONIO, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Well, there's no greater sin than not supporting him and doing precisely what he says.

You know, I actually think the policies are beside the point where Donald Trump is concerned. Absolutely, everything is personal.

So he expects someone who was in his service to remain in his service for the rest of his life, and in this case, you see Kelly is actually standing up for the tradition of military professionalism. He's saying that Vindman did precisely what soldiers are trained to do.

And he's standing up for America in a way in favor of sort of the rules of the road against a President who believes there are no rules except you be loyal to me.

BALDWIN: I hear you. So no huge surprise, right that President Trump in his tweets is taking on John Kelly, but he is bringing John Kelly's wife into it. Is that a bridge too far? Or does he just not care?

D'ANTONIO: Well, it's not. I mean, you remember he brought Ted Cruz's wife into things during the campaign.

So this is a man, Donald Trump, for whom there is no such thing as the low blow. Everything is fair game. He will attack people for their appearance, he'll attack them for how they speak.

You know, look at Mike Bloomberg, he is going after Mike Bloomberg because he is not as tall as Donald Trump. You know, this is all -- this is his style. This is what we know represents winning to Donald Trump.

He thinks that if he can get a good shot on Twitter, that he has somehow prevailed.

[14:20:15]

BALDWIN: Mike Bloomberg is hitting him right back.

D'ANTONIO: Yes, he is.

BALDWIN: On John Kelly. I'm in a New Yorker versus New Yorker. That's a whole other conversation, but on John Kelly, I mean, I can't imagine perhaps for him, it is refreshing maybe to be able to say these things now, you know, for example, he talked about the Navy SEAL Eddie Gallagher and that whole situation and had had he still, you know, been in the White House that that wouldn't have happened. But let's be clear, you know, John Kelly is hardly blameless. He

supported some of the very policies that he is criticizing when he served as Chief of Staff.

You know, I'll point out that when he was Secretary of Homeland Security, before he was Chief of Staff, he defended the administration's efforts to reduce immigration.

He helped devise the child separation policy saying that it would be a "tough deterrent" to migrants crossing the border.

Do you think -- actually, let me rephrase, how much sway do you think John Kelly ever had over President Trump?

D'ANTONIO: Well, that's a really good question, because you just described some instances where Kelly seem to be capitulating to the Trump viewpoint.

You know, in his remarks last night, he defended immigrants and really expressed this outrage about what the President had said about them being rapists and killers.

So we now know what Kelly really thought, but then you look at what he did, and it was often to appease the President. And I sense in all of this, somebody trying to walk a very narrow path where he might prevent the worst things from happening by allowing some terrible things to happen and what an awful position for anyone to be in.

And maybe that explains why he was exasperated and eventually had to leave that -- it really is too much for most people to work for this President.

BALDWIN: To leave and then to finally speak up about it, and you know, when you look at sort of the highlights or lowlights, depending on your perspective of what John Kelly said at Drew University, you know, he is talking about he went to bat for the media that we're not the enemy of the people.

He disputed how the President handled the whole Vindman and Gallagher's situations He even said that the President got played by Kim Jong-un and I'm curious, I was listening to Kaitlan and she thinks it was the Vindman situation that really got the most under Trump's skin the most, which do you think it was?

D'ANTONIO: Well, I think because the President's attention span is very short, that he really is focused on Vindman right now. And so Kelly's remarks about Vindman probably heard him, but there is really a long list of criticisms that Kelly made and they were very specific.

I think the bit about North Korea and Kim Jong-un and how the President got played there, that's got to hurt him.

Donald Trump thinks that he can make a deal with anybody --

BALDWIN: Especially after the President just recently saying, he was like, I don't -- I'm not talking to him for the election. You know, I'm putting that on ice. Right?

D'ANTONIO: Well, how many of us could have said to the President don't talk to him in the first place? And this is all Kelly really saying it like it is. But for many, it'll be a little bit too late.

You know, he could have spoken up at an earlier date and had a greater effect.

BALDWIN: Right, but maybe he continues to speak. Who knows? Michael D. Antonio, thank you, as always. Thank you. Thank you.

D'ANTONIO: Thank you.

BALDWIN: The prosecutors and the judge apparently were not enough. President Trump is now attacking the jury who convicted his friend, Roger Stone. What he is saying and why it's wrong.

Plus the war between President Trump and Mike Bloomberg is getting uglier. Now, the former New York City mayor is grabbing a new weapon -- memes and the power of social media. We'll talk about all of that with an Instagram star who is running paid ads for the Bloomberg campaign. What's up?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:28:41]

BALDWIN: Billionaire Democratic presidential candidate, Mike Bloomberg has already spent at least $350 million and counting on ad, spending way more than any of his rivals and he has been in this race only for two months and that has led some to say that he's trying to buy his way into the White House.

And Bloomberg is using some of the money in hopes of flooding your Instagram feed in some of those popular meme accounts, started posted screenshots of what looked like direct messages from the 77-year-old former Mayor of New York.

Here's an example. We'll throw it up here. So this is one from Adam, the creator who has 666,000 followers and so here it is.

Mike Bloomberg says, "Hello Mr. Creator, could you Photoshop me an image to make me look cool for the upcoming Democratic primary?" And then Adam sends back this image of Danny DeVito, labeled Trump's bank account and then Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson labelled Bloomberg's bank account and a Bloomberg response rolling on the floor laughing and obviously, that wasn't a real conversation. This is all part of what we're discussing here.

And it's rather -- something that the Bloomberg campaign has paid this man to create and Adam Padilla is with me now.

Thank you so much for coming into CNN to talk about this. This is totally interesting. So backup, so who reached out to you to even put this on your Instagram? ADAM PADILLA, ADAM THE CREATOR: First of all, it was very nice for

Bloomberg, you know, 50 million went to me for that meme, so it was really -- I think it was a good spend.

BALDWIN: What?

[14:30:09]

END