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House Committee Releases Trump's Tax Returns; Jan. 6 Committee Releases Transcripts from 19 Additional Witnesses; Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) Huddles with GOP Members as He Works to Lock Down Votes. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired December 30, 2022 - 10:00   ET

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

[10:00:00]

JESSICA DEAN, CNN ANCHOR: Top of the hour here in Washington, D.C. I'm Jessica Dean. Good morning, everyone. Jim Sciutto is off today.

New this morning, House Democrats releasing six years worth of former President Trump's tax returns, giving deeper insight into his personal financial situation. Right now, CNN is sifting through the hundreds of documents that were just released in the last hour. But the former president is already responding.

CNN National Correspondent Kristen Holmes joins me now to break it all down. Kristen, walk us through what we're learning from these tax returns, again the caveat being they just came out an hour ago and there is say lot of data here and also how the former president is responding.

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: So, as you said, we have team combing through literally hundreds and hundreds of pages. But what we've been able to confirm so far is that Trump paid a very low amount of income tax in his first and last year of presidency. We're talking about 2017, he paid $750, 2018 and 2019, it was combined $1.1 million in income tax, in 2020, it was $0.

Now, that $0 is important and here is why. What we hope that these tax returns will show is not just the raw data of the numbers but it is actually looking at the detailed documents that were provided to give us some sort of insight into his businesses. Are they really as successful as he has said?

And I talked to a number of tax experts who say that that $0, that indicates that there might have been some faltering business. Is it really just strategic accounting, which we know Trump has boasted about for years. He even said in 2016 that it was smart not to pay taxes when he was talking with Hillary Clinton about why he wouldn't release them. But is it actually business losses, which is important when you think about the political ramifications of a man who ran on the fact that he was a wealthy and, therefore, successful businessman.

And, of course, Trump is agitated about this release. He has already issued a statement. He said, Democrats shouldn't have done this. And he went on to say, the great USA divide will now grow far worse. The radical left Democrats have weaponized everything. But remember that this is a dangerous two-way street.

And he released a video last week as part of the 2024 campaign essentially calling on Republican to start looking into Biden's finances and to Biden's family. So, that is what he referring to there when he talks about a two-way street.

DEAN: And, of course, the GOP is taking over the House in mere days, they're going to have a lot of oversight.

We also know that House Ways and Means Chairman Richard Neal put out a statement this morning after this came out. What did he say? Of course, he's the Democrat.

HOLMES: Right. And he said, Congress serves as a check on the executive branch and our committee is entrusted with oversight of our revenue system. A president is no ordinary taxpayer. They hold power and influence unlike any other American, and with great power comes greater responsibility.

And, of course, the important thing to note here is that Trump said -- he broke an enormous amount of precedent when he was running for president and then was president, he became the first president in modern history not to release his taxes. This is something he chose to do. And on top of that -- and this is something that, for decades, he has shielded from the public.

And one other thing I want to quickly touch on that we're looking for here is foreign entities and bank accounts. That is something we're going through these additional documents for. Does he have foreign bank accounts? Are there any foreign-owned businesses? The reason that is important is because you remember this was a big topic of conversation during his entire presidency. So, that is something we're going to be looking at closely as we go through these hundreds of pages.

DEAN: Right, a lot of data there to sort through. All right, Kristen, stay with us. We want to talk a little bit more about this. But we also want to bring in CNN Political Analyst Margaret Talev, Managing Editor for Axios, and Steven Rosenthal, Senior Fellow at Urban Brookings Tax Policy Center. Great to have you all here.

Margaret, let's start first with you. As I mentioned, the GOP taking control of the House in just mere days, timing everything here, the Democrats releasing these. At the last minute, they kind of could. We know that Republicans are planning for a lot of oversight investigations, but is there any indication, do you think, that they're going to try to push back on this specifically?

MARGARET TALEV, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: I think they're going to message around it, and we've already seen that. But Republicans actually have an opportunity right now. If they want to, they could push to put this in legislation so that future presidents, including Democratic presidents, will be required to release this. That is not where their messaging is at right now and it might never get there.

Are they going to use this to try to require more disclosure not only from Joe Biden but from everyone in Joe Biden's family? Probably. But the truth of the matter is there is a difference between running for president of the United States and being related to somebody or in somebody's family, or even a candidate for other kinds of offices has long been what Americans expect.

And the messaging from Republicans so far has been that if they can do this to Donald Trump, they can do this to you, like the ordinary person will somehow have all of their voluminous tax information revealed. It is, first of all, simply not true. Second of all, there is no interest in making an ordinary member of the public's tax returns public for the world to see. And third of all, if you did, what would it show? Most people can file in easy return.

[10:05:00]

Many people who earn a fraction of what Donald Trump's holdings are paid much more in taxes in 2020, to the best of everyone's knowledge.

And so, it is -- so far, the messaging is kind of a scare tactic but it is really not on point. There is a completely different standard and the polling shows that a huge majority, somewhere between two- thirds and four out of five Americans say that former President Trump's tax returns should be made public.

DEAN: And it is the precedent. And to your point, the average American is not running for president or the president. There are very few Americans doing that.

Steven, can you explain some of the things you would be looking for that would be, say, a blockbuster revelation beyond what we've already earned in bits and pieces or key nuggets that could be gleaned from this?

STEVEN ROSENTHAL, SENIOR FELLOW, URBAN-BROOKINGS TAX POLICY CENTER: Well, we just got the documents posted. And I've been looking closely at foreign accounts and foreign sources of income in the last hour. What strikes me immediately is that in 2015, '16 and '17, Donald Trump had foreign accounts in the U.K., Ireland, China and also it looks like St. Thomas. But then in 2018, only U.K. In 2019 and '20, only U.K. And so that is one of the things I'm looking at.

And we know from last month's trial of the Trump Organization in New York, that Trump's accountants, tax accountants, said that his presidential returns had to be squeaky clean. So, I suspect that things got cleaned up some later on.

DEAN: Yes. And it is interesting, and that is a little bit of what Kristen was talking about earlier, too, is that you were saying that it's going to be key about foreign entities, where were the investments, where was the money going, what foreign entities was he involved with.

We also know that President Trump was supposed to have a mandatory audit from the IRS and he didn't have one three out of four years. He was always so paranoid around his taxes, as you alluded to earlier. Do you think that there is any appetite to codify this into law from -- it would have to come through Congress. But also doesn't this just speak to just the broader paranoia of Trump's feelings around his money and his taxes?

HOLMES: Yes. And I do think this goes to politics, in general. When you are thinking about Trump, we can always say, is his base going to turn on him for everything that happens, right, any kind of glitch unknown (ph)? And is this something that's going to do that? Probably not.

But when you look at Trump, the things that he really cares about are his image and the narrative that he built for the several decades before he ran for president, before he even was considering that level of politics. This is something that he sold his entire life on, the Trump Hotel. It was his brand. And it's associated with success and wealth.

So, that is part of why there have been rumors for decades around New York that he might not be as wealthy as he seemed. In fact, I talked to some of his closest associates back from those days who said, they believe he would never run for president because it will be too much financial scrutiny. And they just didn't believe that because he's so private and so invested in not sharing this information publicly, that he just couldn't get through that and run for president.

Of course, obviously, he did and he did not release his taxes and broke precedent there. But, yes, this is a big part of how he even ran back in 2016. He said that if he could be the successful of a businessman, that he could successfully run a nation. And that is why we're looking so closely at just how successful those businesses were.

And that is why it is so interesting when you look at the fact that, yes, some of this is strategic accounting. This is something people who have this kind of money and these kind resources do. They claim large losses and then they carry over millions and millions of dollars, we already know he carried over $105 million in 2015, $73 million. These are losses. It carries over in order to offset his income tax and pay less money.

But when you look at 2020 number, did that actually come from those offsets or was this a COVID number coming at that time where businesses were severely impacted? And so it is just going to be interesting to paint a picture of this because we only know one narrative, and it has been Donald Trump's narrative that he is a wealthy, successful businessman and that is what gives him this power and this strength in this country.

DEAN: And, Steven, do you believe that president should be required by law to disclose their tax returns? And should this be codified and be made mandatory? Should there be a mandatory audit?

ROSENTHAL: Yes. Tax returns are a window into a person's financial character. And we need to know about our president as to whether he's pursuing our interests or his own.

And to your point earlier, sure, legislation would be quite helpful and the House already passed legislation but it couldn't get past by the Senate before the Congress adjourned.

As to rich people generating and carrying over hundreds of millions of dollars of losses, in my practice experience, that is unusual.

[10:10:06]

Trump lost money spectacularly, tens and hundreds of million dollars, through the 1990s and 2000s. For this five-year period, 2015 through 2020, Trump's businesses lost $7 to $20 million over the term. Every single year, he lost money.

Now, the question, ultimately, is are those losses real? Was he an unlucky businessperson or did he inflate those losses? For that, we need further information.

DEAN: Right. We'll have to continue to come through the documents.

And, Margaret, before we go, I want to ask you, also, a look ahead, what does this mean going ahead? We could talk about the fact that he didn't release them in 2016 but he's running for president again. So, what does this mean as we look ahead to 2024?

TALEV: Yes. I think what this does is this provides a lot more potential for scrutiny of a -- I was going to say a second run, but Donald Trump started running for president. And it kind of closes that gap, I think, between spin and reality, like he has been one of the masters of our time at spinning a narrative. And this creates a fact check against all of the points in that narrative from how wealthy he is to how successful the businesses are, to where he derives his income, to who he's connected to from a business perspective. And that is all important scrutiny. It's also ammunition for his political opponents inside the Republican Party, as well if he were to be a nominee again in the general election.

DEAN: Right, and if they might use it, right?

TALEV: It's all information for voters also. And in a strong democracy, voters have the ability to get a lot of information to help them make their decisions. This is important information about an elected official or a potential elected official.

DEAN: We like information, we like facts. These are all helpful things to help people make decisions. Kristen Holmes, Margaret Talev and Steven Rosenthal, thanks to all of you. I appreciate it. Happy New Year.

Still to come, scathing accusations out of the newly released transcripts from the January 6 committee, one Trump lawyer detailing the length Senator Lindsey Graham was willing to go to, to further the former president's election lies.

Plus, Russian President Vladimir Putin inviting Chinese Leader Xi Jinping to Moscow during a virtual meeting early this morning. What else the two discussed and what it could mean for the war in Ukraine.

And later, remembering Soccer Legend Pele, as tributes pour in from all around the world.

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[10:15:00]

DEAN: More details this morning from the new batch of transcripts from released by the January 6th committee. They include revelations about the text Donald Trump Jr. sent to Mark Meadows the day after his father lost the 2020 election, and also insights into former First Lady Melania Trump's distrust of the people in her husband's inner circle.

CNN's Katelyn Polantz is here with me now. And, Katelyn, we also learned more about Senator Lindsey Graham's search for fraud claims after the election and what he was saying about that.

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE REPORTER: Right. So, the perspective we're getting here is from somebody who was in a meeting with Senator Graham and with Mark Meadows, the chief of staff. The committee interviewed hundreds of people getting all different kinds of perspectives, flushing out what was happening.

We knew that the campaign was trying to spread this lie of election fraud. And Christina Bobb, a lawyer for Trump, says to the committee that in this meeting before January 6th, Senator Graham was saying, just give me five dead voters, give me an example of illegals voting, just give me a very small snapshot that I can take and champion. I mean, Graham obviously was looking for even any hint of election fraud that they then could spread as Trump wanted to do after the election.

The lawyers did send him a memo about dead voters apparently. That was in the subject line. Graham's team apparently didn't find it plausible enough, he did nothing with it, ultimately. But there was interest in trying to help.

DEAN: Yes, give me fight dead voters. It's is quite a quote there.

There are also these revelations about the former first lady, Melania Trump. What are we learning about that?

POLANTZ: Right. So, another perspective we got was from the former chief of staff to Melania Trump when she was first lady. This was from Stephanie Grisham. She spoke to the committee at length, recalled a lot of juicy conversations she was overhearing and a lot of what she believed the perspective of Melania was at the time.

She said that Melania Trump was not always trusting of some members of her own family, Donald Trump Jr., his fiancee, Kimberly Guilfoyle, that there was skepticism on Melania's Trump that did these people have the best interest of Donald Trump at heart. She also had some concerns about the campaign and lawyers that were working for Trump.

But then we also get some perspective from Donald Trump Jr. himself. His transcript was released yesterday and in a hundred pages over and over and over again, he doesn't recall, he doesn't remember, he doesn't know the answers to many of the questions the committee asked about specific instances, including he has asked why his father did not stay for his birthday party at Mar-a-Lago or New Year's Eve there. He doesn't know the answer to that either.

DEAN: And a hundred pages, I do not know, I do not recall. Yes, very interesting, very telling.

Katelyn Polantz, thanks so much for that information. I appreciate it.

This afternoon, House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy will convene a conference call with different factions of his party as he works to secure enough votes to be House speaker. Sources say, McCarthy will discuss a key concession he is offering to his critics, to lower the threshold required to force a floor vote that would potentially oust a sitting speaker.

Here with me now is CNN Senior Political Commentator Scott Jennings.

[10:20:01]

Scott, good morning, great to see you.

This is very interesting. So, currently, just to give people context, the rule right now on what is called the motion to vacate, but, essentially, it is just a vote to oust the speaker, is the majority of the caucus or the conference would have to vote on that. He's saying lower it to potentially five. Our reporting indicates that's a number that has been floated out there. What do you make of this potential deal? Good idea, bad idea?

SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: First of all, sorry for the picture here. The sun is coming through my window here in my office.

DEAN: You look very angelic.

JENNINGS: I look like an angel coming down to --

DEAN: You're going to bless us with some analyst here.

JENNINGS: Yes. Well, this motion to vacate, essentially, if you put the power of this in one person's hand or in five people's hand, McCarthy would be putting his own head in a guillotine and handing a string to the people who hate him the most. I mean, it would make the speakership unworkable, because anything he does, you know you're going to have a couple of people who don't like it and then run down to the floor and vacate the chair and really make his life miserable on a daily or weekly basis.

So, the people who support McCarthy the most I don't think want him to do this. Because, essentially, you're saying, even though 85 percent of the conference wants McCarthy to be speaker and to operate as speaker, we're going to put all of the power in the hands of one, two, three, four or five people. So, it seems like an unworkable thing for the people who are out there saying that they're committed to McCarthy's speakership. So, it is a real puzzle for him because he doesn't yet have the votes. He wants to get the votes. But the way he has to get the votes may ultimately doom his speakership.

DEAN: Right. It is quite the quandary that he finds himself then. And, again, just to remind people, that vote is Tuesday. It's Friday. And we have a holiday over the weekend. The members are not here. They will all be coming in on Tuesday, so it is hard to gauge kind of where people are.

But what we know, Scott, is that there are these five hardliners that have said they're voting en bloc together against him and that they will either vote all yes or all no, and that they, so far, have been unswayed. The fact that you and I are even having this conversation this close and that we're talking about potentially lowering this threshold, what does that mean? Let's say that McCarthy makes it, that he does become House speaker. Does that make him very, very weak from the outset?

JENNINGS: Yes, of course, it does. If he were to have to lower this threshold and put this power in the hands of just a very small number of people, it would put him on constant thin ice. I mean, essentially, it would give him no maneuvering room. And you could get, say, virtually everyone in the Republican conference that wanted to do something. But if you have just a couple of folks who didn't want to do it, they could throw his entire speakership into jeopardy.

So, it's really antithetical to the idea of majority rules. The House is kind of a majority body, right? The party that has the most seats gets to pick the speaker. And in the conference meeting, 85-plus percent of the Republicans voted for McCarthy to be speaker. So, a majority of Republicans want McCarthy. But what the people who are holdouts here are saying is, we think the entire 435 body chamber should be put in the hands of five people, which is sort of antithetical to the way the House normally operates.

DEAN: Right. It's going to be really interesting to see how this plays out on Tuesday.

Before I let you go, I also want to ask you about the former president's newly released tax returns. We've been talking about them in this hour. How do you see this impacting the future presidential oversight and how this plays out as we look forward?

JENNINGS: Yes. I largely agree with the Republican criticism of this today. And I think it was inevitable that these were going to come out at some point. But it feels to most Republicans like it's vindictive, like that's just sort of liberal Trump hate porn basically on the way out here as the Republicans are about to take over.

And so what I suspect you'll see a lot of Republicans will say is what is good for the goose is good for the gander. So, someday down the road, there will be some information that some Democrat doesn't want it published or a Republican will publish and say, you guys started this. So, I get the feeling it is going to set off one of these tit- for-tat battles between the parties.

So, I don't love it, it feels vindictive. But, ultimately, it always felt inevitable to me anyway that it would eventually come out. I'm candidly surprised that it took this long.

DEAN: It took this long. And it is true, though, that everyone has followed that precedent except for Trump in releasing them. So, we'll see how it plays out in the future.

Scott Jennings, it is always great to see you. Have a great New Year. Thanks so much for being here.

JENNINGS: Good to see you as well. Happy New Year.

DEAN: Thanks.

More strikes overnight in Ukraine. We're there live as the fighting intensifies in the east, that is next.

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[10:25:00]

DEAN: New signs of Chinese and Russian cooperation this morning, Vladimir Putin publicly inviting Chinese President Xi Jinping to visit Moscow in the coming months. Xi says China is ready to increase political cooperation with Russia. And it is all coming as Ukrainian officials acknowledge heavy losses in the east as Russia ramps up its attacks. Still, they claim the number of Russian's death is even higher.

CNN's Ben Wedeman is joining us now live from Kyiv. Ben, there were drone strikes in the capital today as well. Tell us what you've been seeing and experiencing.

BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, overnight, 16 drones were launched from Russian territory into Ukraine. However, for instance, here in Kyiv, none of them actually hit any target.

[10:30:00]

Two of their seven drones that were headed toward the capital, two of them were shot down before they even reached the outskirts of the city. The other five were shot down.