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Erin Burnett Outfront
Inside Trump's 2020 Re-Election Strategy; Rep. Stephen Lynch (D) Massachusetts is Interviewed About the House's Investigation of Deutsche Bank's ties to President Trump. Aired on 7-8p ET
Aired March 19, 2019 - 19:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ERIN BURNETT, ANCHOR, CNN: OutFront next breaking news, the Deputy Attorney General staying on the job longer to absorb the punches and deal with the fallout for the Mueller report. This is Mueller's team signals it is too busy to meet a crucial deadline. Busy with what, more indictments? And George Conway fighting back after the President calls him a loser and his own wife contradicts him. Plus, the bank that would loan Trump billions when no one else would. New questions tonight about the President's mega lender. Let's go OutFront.
And good evening, I'm Erin Burnett. OutFront tonight, the breaking news, absorbing the punches. That's what the Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein says. He is staying at the Justice Department to do. Rosenstein has long said that he will stay in his job until Bob Mueller's report is released. But today Justice Department sources tell CNN it appears Rosenstein is staying longer than planned and staying on to act as "heat shield," should there be fallout from the Mueller report.
So what is that fallout that he anticipates so likely, that is the big question tonight and it comes as we are learning more about what Trump could be facing. Some of those clues that we are getting. OK, hold on. I'm sorry, I got it all here. We recycle around here.
Actually, when it comes to these things we save them and have them because we keep needing them. Hundreds of pages, in this case, of unsealed federal warrants targeting Michael Cohen. We just got these today. They reveal that Cohen was being investigated for a laundry list of possible crimes, including, and we go to page 38, this is page 38. All right, the header here, The Illegal Contribution Campaign Scheme. And then, look what happens, I'm sorry, yes, look what happens here, see? Things get very, very dark.
A scheme that prosecutors say Cohen claimed he acted in coordination with and at the direction of individual one, remember that, to silence two women who claimed to have had sex with the President. Individual one, of course, Donald Trump and it is 18 and a half pages of this, I just want to be clear, 18 and a half pages goes on, and on and on.
So what's in here? Well that's a crucial question and we're also learning that Mueller had eyes on the President's fixer, Michael Cohen long before anyone knew. In fact these dates that we're getting today really impact the timeline. July 2017 was just two months after the Special Counsel's investigation started, July 2017. By that time, Mueller had obtained a warrant for Cohen's emails
already and then in August of that same year, 2017, he got a warrant on Cohen's iCloud account. November then tracking Cohen's phone calls. Investigators also looking at Cohen's foreign contacts, specifically with Russians, including a company linked to Viktor Vekselberg who, of course, was a close ally of Vladimir Putin.
Now, Mueller is far from the only probe the White House is facing tonight, because the team Trump missed a deadline today to turn over records to the House Judiciary Committee. The Judiciary Committee remember has those 81 requests out, that sweeping investigation into whether Trump has abused power.
Two key people are cooperating with the committee though, former Senior Adviser Steve Bannon and longtime Trump friend and ahead of his inaugural committee Tom Barrack, more than 8,000 documents have been provided so far. I just want to emphasize, it sounds like a lot. Well, it's really probably - it's a de minimis amount in a sense because it's only two people cooperating out of so many, but it is Barrack and Bannon.
Of the 8,000 that have been submitted, 6,000 come from Tom Barrack and Steve Bannon. Evan Perez is OutFront live in Washington to begin our coverage. And Evan, what do these documents tell us about where the investigation is headed, these documents that we are getting from Mueller?
EVAN PEREZ, SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT, CNN: Well, I think, Erin, one of the big questions is what's behind those 18 and a half pages that you were highlighting just a few minutes ago. We know that this has to do with the ongoing investigation that the Southern District of New York, that Manhattan prosecutors still have ongoing. They're still digging into, in particular, the campaign finance violation regarding the hush payments to those women that happened right before the 2016 election.
One of the big questions that remains is did anyone else know about the hush payments, did anyone know about the campaign finance violations, was anyone else part of the effort to try to cover that up and did anyone else lie about it when they were asked about it by prosecutors, perhaps, when they appeared before the Grand Jury. Those are among the open questions.
And look people close to the President, I believe, that this is an investigation the prosecutors there in Manhattan is - this is an investigation that's going to go on probably for the rest of Donald Trump's presidency. As you know the President cannot be indicted. Under the Justice Department guidelines, the President cannot be indicted while he is sitting in office.
[19:05:04]
Obviously, when he leaves office that's another question. So as long as this investigation is ongoing, there are still very much a lot of concern for the President and for those around him. Anyone else who may have known about those hush payments. BURNETT: All right, thank you very much, Evan. And I want to go now
to former Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District here in New York Harry Sandick, our Chief Political Analyst Gloria Borger, and Author of The Threat Matrix: Inside Bob Mueller's FBI and the War on Global Terror, Garrett Graff is back with us.
So Harry, all right, there's a lot happening here moving pretty quickly tonight because you got Rod Rosenstein, he could have been gone by now, right?
HARRY SANDICK, FORMER ASSISTANT U.S. ATTORNEY FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK: Yes.
BURNETT: Bill Barr is going to come in and maybe he would leave very soon thereafter, could be mid March. Here we are, he's not gone and now a source is saying he's going to stay even longer to absorb the punches and be a "heat shield" for Mueller's report. What does that say to you?
SANDICK: I think it's a sensible thing. I mean there is a new Deputy Attorney General who's been lined up. His name is Jeffrey Rosen. He's a very experienced attorney and I think well-regarded. But he doesn't have a career prosecutor background. In fact, he's never worked for the Department of Justice.
So to the extent that there are going to be some unexpected twists and turns coming out of the Mueller report, which I think the one thing we can expect is that there'll be something surprising to somebody, and we know he's been sharply criticized by the White House. So it makes sense for Rosenstein who's leaving anyway to stick around and oversee this process.
BURNETT: All right, so Garrett, Mueller's office today asked to extend the deadline. Basically, they had a deadline to provide information to the Washington Post about Paul Manafort and they basically said, "We can't do it. We can't make it." And the reason they gave was "the press of other work." So when you hear that, Garrett, the press of other work, they're too busy because they're doing something else, what do you think that is?
GARRETT GRAFF, AUTHOR, THE THREAT MATRIX: INSIDE ROBERT MUELLER'S FBI AND THE WAR ON GLOBAL TERROR: Yes. So there are two things that we can imagine it is. One is this continuing legal battle with this mystery subpoena of a foreign corporation that Mueller is sort of continuing to push forward in the courts presumably in parallel to the second thing which is wrapping up this investigation.
I mean we've seen this exodus of prosecutors and agents from the case over the last couple of weeks. All signs pointing to this wrapping up relatively soon perhaps not in the next couple of hours, maybe more in the weeks category which is what Rod Rosenstein appears to be saying. I mean, remember Rod Rosenstein has been the protector of this investigation for nearly two years now and has endured frankly what is probably the world's most hostile work environment during that time.
It's clear that he believes very strongly in protecting this investigation right through to the end even though his boss is out there tweeting pictures of him behind prison bars for treason. I mean sort of something that is unprecedented and shocking to imagine Rod Rosenstein has already been that heat shield for the last two years.
BURNETT: So Gloria what do you think this means? I mean look we all know it's been weeks where we've been told it could be any day that we're going to get the Mueller report. So when you put all of this together, still in the same situation or do you think this pushes out the deadline or the opposite?
GLORIA BORGER, CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST, CNN: It's hard to predict. I mean we don't know. Just look at what we know about the timeline that you put up before. We didn't know that the surveillance started on Michael Cohen in July of 2017. We knew about the raid the next April and so you had nine months.
BURNETT: April of 2018, yes.
BORGER: You had nine months and we had no idea what was going on. I will tell you though what we've learned from the documents today, we did learn some things. And one of the things we learn from the documents is that what Mueller was looking at Cohen for was that he was a potentially an unregistered foreign lobbyist. And however, we also know that he wasn't charged with any FARA violation.
So that's what we know from these documents. We have the 18 and a half pages of redacted information that we don't know what that will tell you about hush money, et cetera, et cetera. But we did pick up snippets, but all I can say is - all we know is snippets.
BURNETT: Right. All we know is snippets and again, Harry, the Michael Cohen documents were released. I mean, OK, we got a lot of stuff.
SANDICK: Yes.
BURNETT: And as Gloria said, there's a lot in here and then there's - I mean there's just - there's pages of this stuff that are blanked out and then, of course, you have the 18 and a half pages particularly about campaign finance irregularities or illegal campaign contributions scheme. When you put all of this together and they're still giving us nothing to see, we all know individual one is Donald Trump, they haven't said that, but we - why still empty or blank?
SANDICK: And not only blank, but they could have done sort of limited redactions.
[19:10:04]
You could imagine where they redact out a couple of names or a couple of details. They're redacted everything about this.
BURNETT: Or if you keep his name out of it, right?
SANDICK: Exactly.
BURNETT: I mean just like every time it says a name or a sentence, but that's not what they've done.
SANDICK: There's a whole story here and we're not privy to it yet. The only explanation I can think of is that this is an active ongoing investigation with lots of uncharged individual individuals whose culpability is still being assessed by the United States Attorney's Office.
BURNETT: So you think there could be indictments coming?
SANDICK: I do. I do think that it's possible there are more charges coming and it's a certainty that there are people who are named in here that the government either hasn't charged, maybe can't charge either due to the DOJ rules or because of the absence of evidence, sufficient, let's say, for proof beyond a reasonable doubt, but they're part of the Michael Cohen story.
Everything else in here has been revealed and the investigation has gone on for almost two years now or a year and a half by now. So there would be no reason not to just put it all out there unless something was still ongoing.
BURNETT: Right. I mean, that's the thing. When you're done, you're done. I mean, I guess that's a big question here, Garrett, when the Cohen raids took place, we finally got to the raid as Gloria points out, nine months after they'd already started the surveillance which we didn't know was going on at the time. But at that time, the President was asked about it and theoretically I guess all he knew about at the time was the raid. Here's how he answered the question.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Any concerns about what the FBI might find, Mr. President? Do you have any concerns?
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: No. No, I'm not.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: So Garrett, do you think this is - where are we in the process here? As Harry points out, there could be a lot more indictments, where do you think we are?
GRAFF: I think we are absolutely going to see, at least, one more big round of indictments from Bob Mueller before this investigation is over. And remember, one of the things we do know, if this campaign finance conspiracy is the one involving Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal, one of the things we do know is that there are a number of people who have already been granted immunity in that case. The Trump CFO, Allen Weisselberg, David Pecker from the National Enquirer or the parent company AMI.
So there aren't that many people left in this conspiracy whose name doesn't end with Trump and that is one of the things that we can sort of imagine. Potentially, it might be one of the things that takes a little bit longer to work through at the end of this big investigation as you're weighing charges against the President's own family. That's kind of the type of thing that you might expect prosecutors to spend a couple of extra weeks working on, which might explain some of how we have seen this delay unfold.
BURNETT: Which is pretty incredible thing to even think about what the reaction would be from the White House even if he himself is not, as you point out, Justice Department protocol but other members of the family. I mean, Gloria, it also comes as you have this broadening set of investigations which could lead to other paths and other big problems going on in the Congress, right?
BORGER: Right.
BURNETT: House Judiciary Committee, they ask for a heck of a lot of information and they're getting it from - specifically to people, Tom Barrack and Steve Bannon.
BORGER: Two out of 81, yes.
BURNETT: OK, so 6,000 pages that they're submitting, a lot of other people are fighting it. Those guys are saying, "Hey," maybe doing what the Trump could have done at the beginning if there was nothing there, "Here, take it all."
BORGER: Yes, I think they want to cooperate, Erin. I mean, I think the question is what will the White House do. Will the White House stonewall? Will the White House say try and work out some kind of deal? Will they refuse? I mean we don't know the answer to that. We know that at this point, they've missed the deadline.
So that's the big question here. And don't forget, Congress' role is oversight, is investigation. I think the issue here is that they don't want to conflict with Bob Mueller's investigation or with the Southern District of New York's investigation. So they want all of this incoming information but what they do with it remains to be seen, because they're on a different timetable than the SDNY for example or Mueller.
BURNETT: All right, thank you all very much. A segment to highlight how little we still know in the entire Mueller probe in Southern District of New York and who knows what else. OutFront next, Trump shifting into campaign mode while standing next to a world leader.
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TRUMP: The last thing we want in the United States is socialism.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: Plus, George Conway speaking out after the President called him a loser. So what does Kellyanne Conway's reaction? A reporter who spoke to her is OutFront. And an exclusive interview with the President's campaign manager.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BRAD PARSCALE: I wake up every day and I believe that I'm the right guys for this situation.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[19:15:00]
BURNETT: Tonight, President Trump while standing on the world stage next to the Brazilian President taking a shot at his 2020 rivals.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: The last thing we want in the United States is socialism.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: OutFront now Catherine Rampell, Columnist at The Washington Post and Stephen Moore Informal White House Adviser. So Steve, he loves this socialist line and he thinks it's working for him.
STEPHEN MOORE, INFORMAL WHITE HOUSE ADVISER: Well, look I don't think that there's anything unusual about Trump saying that there's a socialist danger in the United States, because there is. I mean, you've got polls that show that half of kids who graduate from college now think that socialism is superior to free-market capitalism and you've got a number of the Democratic candidates who embrace some elements of socialist policies. You've got Bernie Sanders who's one of the frontrunners who's refuses to condemn the leadership in Venezuela, who's praised the socialism and in a tragedy of Cuba and so on.
So I don't think that Trump is stretching here when he says that there is a real risk of socialism invading the United States.
BURNETT: All right, Catherine, on that point, what the President is trying to seize on is how people think about are some of the comments coming out of the Democratic roster, no question about it. Comments like perhaps these.
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BERNIE SANDERS, UNITED STATES SENATOR: We will make public colleges and universities tuition-free.
KAMALA HARRIS, SENATOR OF THE UNITED STATES: Healthcare should be a right and not a privilege for only those who can pay for it, which is why I support Medicare for all.
[19:20:04]
BETO O'ROURKE, 2020 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I like the way the green new deal has been laid out. The framework for that incredibly ambitious proposal, it does not attempt to disengage our action on climate with the need to rebuild this economy so that it works for everyone.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: OK. He is trying to make comments like those, the boogeyman.
CATHERINE RAMPELL, COLUMNIST, THE WASHINGTON POST: Yes. I mean, look, at some point - well, first of all let's back up. Nobody really knows what is meant by socialism. That's part of the problem here. It's this boogeyman. We know we're supposed to be afraid of it. The GOP has been calling that America is going to go down the socialist toilet for the last 60 years. Ronald Reagan said that Medicare was leading us into a socialist dystopia and, of course, nobody thinks that anymore.
In reality, all countries are a mix of socialism and capitalism, including the socialist terrorist states of like Scandinavia. And all we know is that Trump likes to say this, Stephen Moore likes to say this, because they think it's an effective boogeyman and it's going to scare old people who think of the Soviet Union.
Whether that actually reflects any of the debate that we're having right now including about expanding healthcare, I think is completely unrelated.
BURNETT: And Steve, here's the thing to Catherine's point, Democrats are favoring right now in early polls, some of the people who are saying the most "socialist" things. Now, you got Biden at the top, OK, and obviously Biden was a Democratic Vice President, so perhaps not although we'll see where he starts to come down on things. Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris, Beto O'Rourke were all right there in those sound bites we just played.
Clearly there is an appetite for the policies that they are putting out there. So you put the policies out there, they're popular. You put out the word socialist, maybe not so much. Could the President be wrong on this?
MOORE: Well, look, I think that all of these policies have the same kind of political appeal that it's all going to be free, childcare is going to be free, we're going to provide you an income whether you work or not, we're going to provide you with free healthcare or free college and so on.
I mean, look that would bankrupt the country. I mean, I'm not saying that Medicare and programs like Social Security are socialist, but I would say, I mean, we all know that they are ...
RAMPELL: You hear what Ronald Reagan did. I mean --
MOORE: Well, no, hold on - I'm not, but what I'm saying is that we all know that those programs are going bankrupt. According to their own actuaries and trustees that the systems are going bankrupt, why would we want to continue to expand them when we can't even afford them for the people that are on the program already.
BURNETT: Catherine, I want to run this moment by you, the President obviously say on socialism today, but in State of the Union he did as well. He said, "We'll never be a socialist country." Slamming, again, the Democrats run for President. Democratic Senator Michael Bennet who is considering running, obviously, says he was the first Democrat to stand up and applaud what Trump said.
And the way he said it is, "When he said we're never going to be a socialist country, I was the first Democrat out of their chair, Bernie is sitting right behind me and he's sitting in his chair scowling while I'm standing up and applauding. The reason I was on my feet is that I'm not going to let him disqualify us that way. I know what he's trying to do. It's not because I'm applauding him. It's because I want to show that Democrats don't feel that way. Most Democrats don't."
RAMPELL: And that's true, that's exactly what my point is. The United States like all other countries is a mix of socialist and capitalist policies. We have public roads. We have public schools. Does the government control the means of production are any Democrats actually proposing that Democrats - excuse me, that the government control means of production?
No. I mean, it's silly to play into Trump's hands and Stephen Moore's hands and all these other people who are trying to paint the Democratic Party as this entity that's trying to turn us into the Soviet Union. That's not the argument, that's not the debate that we're having. The debate that we're having is what kind of rules are appropriate in various kinds of markets including healthcare, including education.
MOORE: The two industries that are most dominated by government in America today are education and healthcare and they are both financially in chaos. The education system stinks, our health care system cost are out of control. I mean, it's curious to me that the two industries most dominated by the government are the ones that are in the worst financial shape and also providing some pretty lousy service.
RAMPELL: Well, if you look at what people actually want. They are hoping that the government will intercede to get costs down, not to increase costs. I mean if you look at the actual polling out there, what people care about is can they get access to affordable healthcare and can we bring down cost. And to pretend that like unleashing some - like taking all rules off of the system and that would somehow suddenly bring down costs and get everybody healthy again or healthier is just absurd.
BURNETT: All right. You got the last word, Steve got the first. Thank you both. And next, Kellyanne Conway's husband revealing conversations he had with Trump about a job at the Justice Department, firing a U.S. Attorney, and John Bolton.
[19:25:08]
So why does team Trump insist that the President has no idea who George Conway is? That's just blatantly false. Plus, one of the only banks willing to do business with Trump reportedly telling employees not to say Trump's name after he won, why not?
Tonight, George Conway fighting back, telling the New York Times that it's a "badge of honor" that President Trump called him a total loser on Twitter this morning. You see there, the President did. The husband of Kellyanne Conway, you see in there, Kellyanne Conway of course is one of the President's most senior advisors. So her husband, George, tells The Times that he speaks out against the President in part because of guilt for helping him get elected, because he supported his wife who played such a crucial role in Trump's victory.
George Conway also telling The Washington Post today that he's using Twitter to call out President Trump, because the mendacity, the incompetence, it's just maddening to watch. The tweeting is just the way to get it out of the way, so that I can get it off my chest and move on with my life that day. That's basically it. Frankly, it's so I don't end up screaming at her about it." Obviously, referring to his wife. OutFront now Sally Quinn, Washington Post Contributor and Michael Isikoff Chief Investigative Correspondent for Yahoo News and Host of the podcast Skullduggery.
Michael, let me start with you. Look, George Conway today describing at times to the Washington Post where the President spoke to him about firing up Preet Bharara, the former U.S. Attorney, how the President complained about Jeff Sessions, the Attorney General to him, the President sought advice about the Mueller investigation.
[19:30:06]
Despite all of this, though, Trump is now saying he barely knows who George Conway is. I mean, that's false. They've known each other for decades. That is just blatantly untrue.
Have you phone George Conway for many years, would he be making this up for revenge, any of these detailed stories?
MICHAEL ISIKOFF, CHIEF INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT, YAHOO NEWS: No, that's not who George Conway is. He's a top flight litigator in New York for a major law firm. And he's a guy who's had pretty consistent conservative principles.
I mean, I got to know him back in the 1990s when he was a key behind- the-scenes player in the events that led to Bill Clinton's impeachment. He felt very strongly that no man or woman, including presidents, are above the law. That's what motivated him to play a key role in drafting the briefs to the Supreme Court in the Paula Jones sexual harassment lawsuit.
And, you know, he saw a president in Donald Trump who his wife happens to work for as being very much in the same image of Bill Clinton in terms of disrespect for the rule of law in believing he's above the legal process. And I think that, plus the nature of Trump's behavior on Twitter and elsewhere is what has motivated to him speak out.
BURNETT: And so, he is speaking out. And now, of course, Sally, it takes such a strange turn. "The Washington Post" is writing about a conversation which Kellyanne Conway recently had with a group of women and you were among those women. The way "The Washington Post" writes the conversation, quote, Conway told the group that she and the president think her husband is jealous of her, and that the president has kept her at a prominent place in the administration because he trusts her and wants to, quote, protect her, the attendees said.
She and the president think George is jealous?
SALLY QUINN, CONTRIBUTOR, THE WASHINGTON POST: Well, I think that actually the president has said several times that George is jealous of her and I think, what I think is that -- I may be wrong about this, but this is, this whole relationship has really reached a sort of tipping point. I mean, especially in the last two weeks. And it seemed to me that this conversation that I was standing there at the British embassy, a party for the congressional women, with Andrea Mitchell and Maureen Dowd for the "New York Times," we were having a conversation, Kellyanne walked up to us.
We started talking and somehow George's tweets came up and she got very upset, wondered why we were writing this, why was this a story? And these days of feminism and #metoo and women have the right to work and have their own identities, what does that have to do with her marriage?
I said, Kellyanne, it's a story. It's a really good story. She didn't seem to buy into that.
She would go on to say a few things that were off the record. So I can't report them. But I know they were in "The Washington Post" today. And I cannot say that they were not true.
But my feeling about this is that in some way because I think it is a tipping point, this may be her way of -- because I think she doesn't have any choice. At some point, she's going to have to decide between Donald Trump and her husband. This is not working out. And at some point, she's either going to have to leave the White House or leave her husband.
And I think that what she was saying when she was talking about that, the president protecting her and not firing her when anybody else would have fired her and the president saying that he was -- George was jealous of her, is her way of getting her side of the story out, so that if they do split up, she can say, well, it didn't work, I did everything I could.
But what can I do when he is jealous of me and my prominence and the fact that she's got all this power because she is so close to the president and she's on air all the time.
BURNETT: So, I mean, Michael, you have known George Conway for decades, one of the important things here is obviously there is a personal side to this, which is, I think on some level hard to watch, but also compelling for people to watch. But this is also -- it speaks to how strongly he feels, right?
He does not feel that he can remain silent about this president, even with all of this at stake, this Shakespearian personal drama that is a part of this.
ISIKOFF: Right. No, he is clearly very passionate on the subject. You can see in his tweets. We also, my colleague and I did the only interview on camera that he's done for our podcast and he comes through.
[19:35:07] I mean, he laid out, you know, his disillusionment with the president and the Republican Party for standing behind him. You know, this guy is a life long Republican and he said I no longer feel I can be a part of the Republican Party anymore. He expressed concerns that it had become essentially a cult revolving around Donald Trump.
And I think, you know, if you listen to the podcast, interview, it's very clear he's very passionate on this subject, feels strongly about it and, you know, doesn't want to contain it anymore.
BURNETT: Although, I think it's just, you know, my feeling is certainly that obviously he still has this great pride in the role that his wife played in electing Donald Trump.
ISIKOFF: Yes, he expressed that when we interviewed him. Yes.
BURNETT: Yes, the one thing that they've taken, sally this White House has taken is to try to denigrate him is to call him Mr. Kellyanne Conway. Brad Parscale, communications -- campaign manager now, right, is calling George Conway "Mr. Kellyanne Conway".
And here's the president of the United States.
QUIINN: Well, isn't that --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REPORTER: Is Kellyanne's husband wrong?
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Who?
REPORTER: Kellyanne's husband wrote that the appointment was unconstitutional.
TRUMP: You mean, you mean Mr. Kellyanne Conway?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: Again, a guy he's known for three decades, Sally. But they think this is a winning line, Mr. Kellyanne Conway.
QUINN: Well, it couldn't be more sexist. It's exactly the opposite of what Kellyanne was saying.
But, you know, so many people are comparing them to Mary Matalin and James Carville, who I know very well, they're close friends of mine, because they wrote this book "All is Fair in War and Politics, and Love and War."
But there's nothing similar about these two cases, because James and Mary, although she was a Republican, he was a Democrat, only disagreed on policy. You know, how much money we should spend or should we cut taxes or should we give this to the Defense Department? Or should -- welfare, whatever, they both really cared about the country. They just had different views about how things should be done. With Kellyanne and George, it's a difference of ethics and morals and
values. They totally disagree on those two things, and so I don't see how they can ever stay together given that they can't seem to come up with the same idea in terms of how they want to live their lives ethically.
BURNETT: All right. Thank you both very much. I appreciate it.
And next, lawmakers stepping up their investigation into one of the only banks willing to do business with Trump. What could the president's mega lender have on him?
Plus, President Trump slams Facebook and Twitter for colluding, yet his campaign manager tells our Dana Bash exclusively that social media is their key to victory.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BRAD PARSCALE, TRUMP CAMPAIGN MANAGER: He will communicate with you where you can't turn away.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:41:45]B URNETT: New details tonight: Trump and Deutsche Bank. "The New York Times" reports Deutsche Bank loaned Trump $2 million over decades. The bank is still doing business with Trump despite red flags and warnings.
And now, two powerful House committees are looking into Deutsche Bank's ties to the president. But the bank is expected to hand over extensive documents and communications about the president.
OUTFRONT now, Democratic Congressman Stephen Lynch of Massachusetts, member of the Financial Services Committee.
Excuse me, Congressman, which is investigating Deutsche Bank and the president and the relationship. And it looks like -- blue skies just came up. OK. We're deciding what to do here, everybody. OK.
Don't worry, we're going to get that back. We have something else, excellent. Dana Bash exclusive. President Trump lashing out today against Facebook and Twitter for what he says is collusion against him and other Republicans. We play how he put it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: It seems to be they're conservative if they're Republicans if they're in a certain group, there is discrimination and big discrimination. I see it absolutely on Twitter and Facebook, and I will tell you there is collusion with respect to that, because something has to be going on.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: But it is Facebook and Twitter that his re-election campaign is depending on for another win.
Our Dana Bash, as I said, sat down for an exclusive interview with Trump campaign manager, Brad Parscale.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Across the Potomac River in this sleek Virginia office space, Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale is quietly rebuilding a massive re-election campaign far different from the insurgent 2016 operation.
(on camera): This is a real, as traditional as Donald Trump gets, operation, versus 2016?
PARSCALE: Yes. It's traditional but not traditional. There is traditional senses to it that we now have an operation in time to build out a building that has proper destiny and proper things. Last time, it was not from any fault of some of the people that ran it, but it was fly by night sometimes because it was going to fast.
This time, we already know. We have the president of the United States. We have the incumbency. We know where we're going.
BASH (voice-over): The Trump campaign never really ended.
TRUMP: I'm Donald John Trump --
BASH: In a highly unprecedented move, the president filed for reelection the day he was inaugurated. A year later, he hired Parscale, who long worked with the Trump Organization but never in politics as digital media director.
PARSCALE: I think maybe for other candidates it wouldn't be right. Maybe I'd never be here sitting in a chair in any situation. I wake up every day believing I'm the right guy for this situation.
BASH: In 2016, Parscale along with Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, bought unprecedented number of digital ads on Facebook, targeting their message thanks to a massive voter data vault Reince Priebus started at the RNC, which is still growing and a big part of the 2020 plan.
PARSCALE: It now has hundreds of millions of records and voter history, consumer data and when we put polling data into this machine, say this is hang. It can spit out models. This is the messages you should talk to him about. Imagine it's a country before with no roads, no maps, no direction.
[19:45:01] And all of a sudden, you can layer another piece of paper of it. It tells you where everything is.
BASH (on camera): How is it different now?
PARSCALE: I think you see a massive injection directly into your devices, into places we can communicate with you where you can't turn away. BASH: What do you mean by that?
PARSCALE: Text messaging, other technologies and other things. There's other --
BASH: Obama used that in 2008.
PARSCALE: Not to this scale. There's few -- look, Facebook can be used also, the only difference is the scale we used it, the precision we used it. We can continue to scale position.
BASH: Like stepping up tech knowledge, turning rally-goers into volunteers.
TRUMP: We had one election. We won. Now, we're going to be two for all and everything is going to be perfect.
PARSCALE: Ten thousand people might watch in each rally. Those 10,000 people might know ten people, they might, they are the army that wants to work for the president.
And so, we need to get them digital technology on their phone, while they're waiting for the president, standing outside, a couple days before, they're excited. They have interests, they're peaking, we want to go to the president. Here's some activities we'd like you to do, who are your ten friends?
It's much more efficient two years out to find a possible donor. It's just a considerable advantage, the other side won't have, you continue replace time.
BASH (voice-over): It's still a family affair, Kushner has a leading role, as do son Eric and his wife Laura, who has an official senior adviser title, but they all know who is really in charge.
(on camera): How involved is the president in this?
PARSCALE: The president stays involved, when I show him the direction we're going, the things we're building, he's excited, and he gives me input. This is what we should be doing. He's always said, he's a campaign manager, the communications director, the finance director. He is the master of the Trump train, and I'm the conductor on it.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BASH: And Trump sources tell us that in 2016, the candidate was angry when he learned that 50 percent of his campaign ad budget went to digital ads. But then after he won, Erin, he got it.
Now, we are told to emphasize, expect Trump 2020 to focus even more on Facebook and other online platforms. And this is really key. They are going to use continue to rely on detailed information about voters that are kept in a voter vault at the RNC in order to really target voters with messages based on where they stand and what they care about -- Erin. BURNETT: Let's hope no one's tapped into that. There is a lot of
other people out there who would want to know where people stand on issues to send them false information.
All right. Dana, thank you very much.
And next, Congressman Lynch is back with us. We got him back. He's next. And we'll talk about the only bank willing to loan Trump billions and why a committee is digging in.
Plus, Trump admits, he's bad with gifts. But he may have scored with this one.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:50:47] BURNETT: And now Trump and Deutsche Bank, the story we started to tell you about before the break. The "New York Times" reporting Deutsche Bank loaned Trump $2 billion. The bank doing business with Trump despite red flags.
OUTFRONT now, the Democratic Congressman Stephen Lynch of Massachusetts, who as I mentioned is a member of the Financial Services Committee, which is investigating Deutsche Bank's relationship with the president.
Thank you very much, Congressman. I appreciate your time.
So, "The New York Times" is now going into great lengths on the reporting here with Deutsche Bank saying, Deutsche Bank did anything it could do to keep the then Donald Trump happy. The story says, quote, Mr. Trump told Deutsche Bank his net worth was about $3 billion, but when the bank employees reviewed his finances, they concluded he was worth $788 million.
Nonetheless, Deutsche Bank agreed in 2005 to lend Mr. Trump more than half a billion dollars for the project.
First of all, that's crazy, right, somebody will lie to you by that much, when they're starting to do business with them. Why was Deutsche Bank so intent to doing business with Trump when no other banks would?
REP. STEPHEN LYNCH (D-MA), FINANCIAL SERVICES COMMITTEE: Well, at least part of that story in "The Times" alleges, they were trying to get into the investment banking business, but some of these loans were made far after, as you know, Erin, most of these investment banks had already converted into holding companies and so that really wasn't a motivation at the time.
The thing that really gets me is that they knew that before they made the loan that President Trump had overstated some of his assets by as much as 70 percent. Yet they continued to make the loan. So as you mentioned at the outset, we're waiting for documents from Deutsche Bank to see if we can figure that out.
BURNETT: To understand why. I mean, yes. So, you know, then the "Times" goes on in the story today, Congressman, as you noted, there were concerns after the election internally. The quote from the article, on Deutsche Bank's trading floor, managers began warning employees not to use the word "Trump" in communications with people outside the bank.
Why would that be? What would they be afraid of?
LYNCH: Well, you know, I think at this point of that statement, President Trump was in his campaign and was making some very outlandish statements. I think there was some blowback. And so -- and there was also probably the fear that these loans were not, you know, according to usual banking lending standard. So I don't think they wanted the additional scrutiny.
BURNETT: So, Deutsche Bank, of course, in 2017 was fined more than $600 million, and they were fined related to a Russian money laundering scheme. OK, $10 billion Russian money laundering scheme, which involved various Deutsche Bank branches.
I want to play for you what the House Intel Committee Chairman Adam Schiff and the chairwoman of your committee, Maxine Water, have said about this particular issue.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D), CALIFORNIA: We'll need to talk to some of the banks that have been doing business with Mr. Trump, like Deutsche Bank which has a history of laundering Russian money.
REP. MAXINE WATERS (D), CALIFORNIA: We know Deutsche Bank has had a reputation of money laundering for a long time. And it's the only bank that would really deal with the president.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: So, obviously, paying $630 million fine for laundering Russia money is a really big issue. Doing president -- doing business with then Donald Trump, who other banks didn't want to do business with can have its own issues. But do you have any reason to think those two things are related?
LYNCH: Not at this point. Not without getting the documents. Not without really understanding fully what is happening here.
One interesting angle on this is that the only way to verify what the president alleged in his application for the loan would be to really compare it to his tax returns. So this may at some point give a judge reason to compel the president to produce his tax returns.
BURNETT: All right. And that, obviously, could be very crucial. As I know there has been a lot of debate over how and if that would happen. Since obviously, the treasury secretary will fight it.
[19:55:00] Thank you very much, Congressman Lynch. I appreciate your time.
LYNCH: Thank you, Erin.
BURNETT: All right. And next, Jeanne Moos on the gifts the president got today.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BURNETT: Tonight, Trump got a gift from the Trump of the Tropics.
Here's Jeanne.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JEANNE MOOS, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Oh, great.
TRUMP: So, that's an honor to give that to you.
MOOS: A soccer jersey, just what a pair of presidents need.
But there have been way more exciting presidential gifts, like the pair of Komodo dragons Indonesia presented to President George W. Bush. The president regifted the lizards to the Cincinnati Zoo.
Most things worth more than $390 bucks, up at the National Archives. President Reagan received 372 belt buckles and a bunch of saddles, including this ornate one from Algeria's president.
Britain's prime minister and President Obama once got memorably whipped at ping pong, so David Cameron gave Obama a ping pong table.
And remember the soccer ball President Putin gave president Trump?
TRUMP: It will go to my son Baron. We have no question, in fact, Melania, here you go.
MOOS: A reporter at the summit noted: I just saw a U.S. Secret Service agent put the soccer ball through a security scanner. But they didn't try that with the Komodo dragons.
Even if it's a bowl of shamrocks from the Irish prime minister, a president has to look pleased if not bulled over. Artists tend to send one of a kind items look like this Barbara Bush chair, a portrait of Reagan made out of 10,000 jelly beans and a portrait of JFK carved into a peach pit.
President Clinton received a picture of himself playing the sax. When Azerbaijan's leader gave the Clintons their portraits on a rug, this may well have been the look on Bill's face, faced with this gift. Just peachy.
Jeanne Moos, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BURNETT: All right. Thank you very much for joining us.
Anderson starts now.
