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Rosenstein Meets with Kelly; New York Times Story on Rosenstein; Trump Talks of Firing Rosenstein. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired September 24, 2018 - 12:00   ET

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

[12:00:00] KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: What will be happening with Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein? How much longer will he be in the job? Will he -- is he offering his resignation today? Will it be accepted? Will he be fired? All questions on the table right now.

Thank you so much for joining us. I'm going to hand you over to John King and "INSIDE POLITICS" right now.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

JOHN KING, CNN ANCHOR: Thank you, Kate.

And welcome to INSIDE POLITICS. I'm John King. Thank you for sharing this big, busy day with us.

Major breaking news with the potential giant domino effect on the special counsel investigation. The deputy attorney general is summoned to the White House. Is he being fired? Is he resigning? We're trying to clear that up right now, but a big day at the White House.

Plus, President Trump is at the United Nations General Assembly, upbeat about plans for a second summit with Kim Jong-un despite grumbling from his top advisers that North Korea is not taking steps to denuclearize.

And a second woman now alleges sexual misconduct by Brett Kavanaugh, this time at a college party. Democrats want another delay in the Supreme Court confirmation process. The president says it's time for a vote.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Judge Kavanaugh is an outstanding person and I am with him all the way. We'll see how it goes with the Senate. We'll see how it goes with the vote. People come out of the woodwork from 36 years ago and 30 years ago and never mentioned it and all of a sudden it happens. In my opinion, it's totally political. It's totally political.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Big and developing breaking news right now.

The man who oversees the Russia special counsel investigation, the deputy attorney general, Rod Rosenstein, summoned to the White House. The question, will he force President Trump to fire him or has he already resigned? Rosenstein is at the White House right now meeting with the chief of staff, John Kelly. Kelly, our reporting tells us, has told associates Rosenstein offered his resignation last week and that Kelly accepted it. But the president spent the weekend telling close associates that Rosenstein must go or that he risks looking weak.

The why is straight forward. That Friday "New York Times" story recounting how Rosenstein floated wearing a wire, to tape recording, to tape the president he viewed as erratic and some referenced by Rosenstein to pursuing the 25th Amendment, trying to remove the president from office.

CNN's Laura Jarrett, part of our reporting team. She's live at the Justice Department.

Laura, what's the latest?

LAURA JARRETT, CNN JUSTICE REPORTER: Hey there, John.

Well, there is a certain amount of confusion still at this hour about the status of the deputy attorney general and what his future holds. But what I can say is the short story is this is not over yet. The White House officials reporting, my college Kaitlan Collins, that Chief of Staff John Kelly told people that the deputy attorney general offered his resignation. But I am told that it's a little bit more complicated in terms of the timeline here and that this weekend there were a series of conversations after the fallout from that "New York Times" bombshell and that the deputy attorney general discussed resignation, but did not actually resign. Instead, rather, he discussed the timing. But the White House and the deputy attorney general could not get on the same page.

My colleague, Ariane De Vogue, reporting that the Kavanaugh situation was also at play here and everyone essentially agreed to punt this until Monday, which is why we are in the situation right now with the deputy attorney general over at the White House. Still trying to find out what exactly is going on in that meeting. We wait to see a readout from either the White House or the Justice Department, which has not happened yet, John.

But if in fact this comes to fruition and the deputy attorney general is out, there is a succession plan here at the Justice Department and Noel Francisco (ph), the man who serves as the solicitor general, arguing before the Supreme Court, would become the acting attorney general, taking the shoes of Jeff Sessions, but only for the purposes of the Mueller investigation, John.

I'm also told that the deputy attorney general, his mood is calm. He has expected this day to come for quite some time, John.

KING: Laura Jarrett at the Justice Department.

Laura, come back to us as you get new information throughout the hour.

Our Jeff Zeleny is traveling with the president. He's in New York at the United Nations General Assembly.

Jeff, the president wanting to be on the world stage, but one of his prime domestic sources of frustration front and center. What are your sources telling you?

JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, John, there's no question. And that, I believe, is contributing to some of this confusion. Simply the senior White House staff, some of them are here with the president as he begins a round of meetings with world leaders here. He is at his residence and he's watching all of this unfold.

We are going to see him in a couple of hours when he's meeting with the president of South Korea. But at this very hour, it is uncertain if Rod Rosenstein has been fired, if the resignation has been accepted. The White House simply isn't saying. All of our sources inside the White House in Washington, as well as here, say they, you know, simply aren't sure the status.

But we do know this, that Rod Rosenstein is not going to be around for very long. The president, in a weekend interview with Geraldo Rivera, on his radio show, he made very clear that Rod Rosenstein is a Jeff Sessions man, hired by Jeff Sessions. And we know what the president thinks of Jeff Sessions, obviously his attorney general.

[12:05:17] So, John, I'm sorry I can't clear up any more of the confusion here in -- at the U.N. The president, you know, we'll see -- probably get a read from him in a couple hours. So he may have to be the one to say if Rod Rosenstein is still on the job or not. But by the end of the day, we certainly think he probably will not be.

John.

KING: Jeff Zeleny in New York. Jeff, same advice, same request to Laura, if you get anything during the hour, just raise your hand, we'll bring you back in.

With me in studio to share their reporting and their insights, Julie Pace with "The Associated Press," CNN's Manu Raju, CNN's Shimon Prokupecz, and CNN's Kaitlan Collins.

I want to start with you, Kaitlan.

Some confusion. Has he gone to the White House to say, I resign, or has he gone to the White House to say, fire me? But will the sun set with Rod Rosenstein as the deputy attorney general I think is the big question.

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, it's pretty safe to say we don't think Rod -- that he's going to walk out of that meeting with John Kelly and still have whatever semblance of a job that he has right now, what we're discussing. They're essentially there to hash things out and decide what they're going to say publically, what they're going to say going forward. But we do know that they had a conversation last week where Rod Rosenstein offered to resign. Now, it's unclear what transpired after that, what happened over the weekend. We know that President Trump was much more focused on the drama surrounding Brett Kavanaugh than he was on that bombshell "New York Times" story about the wire, the 25th Amendment.

But, clearly, this has been a big discussion for people like John Kelly, who are trying to figure out where they are going forward in this and that's why we're seeing two different storylines come out of the White House and out of the Justice Department right now. But -- so we'll see what comes -- happens going forward. But right now we know that the president, during that interview, which was pre-taped I believe Saturday or Sunday with Geraldo Rivera said he wouldn't really answer if Rod Rosenstein was going to be fired. He just called the whole situation a sad situation. And as Jeff pointed out -- pointed out that he was someone that was recommended to him by the attorney general, Jeff Sessions.

KING: Right. This relationship at times he's praised Rod Rosenstein but mostly the president's been harshly critical of Rod Rosenstein, for the same reasons he's so angry at Jeff Sessions all the time, because Robert Mueller exists as the special counsel.

Let's go into how this would matters. If Rod Rosenstein is no longer the attorney general -- well let's -- let's -- let me start here. One of the issues appears to be, he's offered to resign, but the question is, will the White House accept his conditions for resigning. Is it that he resign effectively immediately, resign effective down the road? Wants to put it in writing somehow? Noel Francisco (ph) and the Russia investigation? What are we fighting about?

SHIMON PROKUPECZ, CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE REPORTER: I think it's important to keep in mind that according to our reporting certainly that Rod Rosenstein had wanted to see this investigation through, the Russia investigation. We are, it seems, coming to an end in this investigation and the big thing is whether or not the president submits to an interview with Robert Mueller. And Rod Rosenstein has been part of any of those decisions and would have to green light any subpoena, let's say, that Robert Mueller would want to issue the president. So it seems perhaps maybe that's one of the conditions, I'll resign, but I'll wait until the Russia investigation is over.

The other thing -- what's important, optics perhaps in some ways, is whether or not -- whether he's fired or whether he resigns. But it's also important for the Mueller investigation because if he is fired by the president, could that be viewed as an act of obstruction, another obstruction perhaps act by the president here that Robert Mueller would then investigate. So think that's probably what the White House is also worried about.

There's memos about these meetings that "The New York Times" reported on. Robert Mueller has those memos. Whether or not he believes Rod Rosenstein was serious about wiretapping the president or not, we'll see. But all of this could impact the Russia investigation in many, many ways.

KING: And the question has been, I know from talking to some of my sources, that the president's being told by some of his more combative friends, you look weak. If you let Rod Rosenstein stay on, you look weak. And the president agrees with that, but has had these questions about when. Not what but about when. Why would it matter now? JULIE PACE, WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF, "ASSOCIATED PRESS": Well, I

think, you're right to your initial point, the president's hearing from people who say, why would you let him stay on at this point. And that "New York Times" story only furthered that assertion from those people. We know that the president was at his golf club, he's at Trump Tower right now. He has time at the U.N. right now where he's talking to people.

I think that the president is heading into a midterm election where he recognizes that his party is vulnerable, is trying to figure out how to put himself in the strongest position possible. He is hearing from people who say that that means firing Rosenstein, but he also significantly is hearing from people who are warning him against doing that. Some of the same people who have been quite combative. And I think that shows that the he actually is at risk if he does take this step.

MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, it's actually been pretty remarkable to see the conflicting advice the president has gotten from some of his closest allies. People like Sean Hannity, suggesting that he should not fire Rod Rosenstein in the wake of that "New York Times" report suggesting there's part -- some sort of deep state conspiracy, a trap to set up for the president, that he would fire Rosenstein and that would be viewed as more evidence of obstruction.

But you talk to most Republicans on Capitol Hill, they do not want Rosenstein to go anywhere because if he does go somewhere, that feeds that narrative of chaos within this administration, it feeds the narrative of meddling in the Russia investigation. Those are not the issues they want to be running on heading into the midterm elections. That's a big distraction for them. So not coming at a good time for them.

[12:10:16] PACE: In part because Republicans have been resisting Democratic efforts to pass legislation to protect the Mueller investigation. Mitch McConnell has said, well, he supports the administration. He doesn't think that kind of legislation is necessary. And a lot of Republicans have said privately that's because they didn't think Trump would actually go through with firing either Jeff Sessions or Rod Rosenstein or trying to push Mueller out himself. But certainly this lends more credibility to the Democratic argument that Trump is willing to take this kind of (INAUDIBLE).

KING: And Kirsten Gillibrand among the Democrats, Democratic senator from New York, in her case already now saying, see, we told you so. Let's move to protect Robert Mueller.

Here's my question, though. To your point about, by all indications the investigation is winding down. And the best question is, what about an interview with the president? Mueller, with Rosenstein's assistance and sometimes advice, has also been very smart. Even if Mueller die, Mueller lives, in the sense that he has passed off so many of the most sensitive investigations to the Southern District of New York. So are we at a point where maybe this is not as significant in terms

of the investigative impact than it would have been six months ago before the Southern District of New York took over the Michael Cohen investigation. Cut an immunity deal with the chief financial officer of the Trump Organization. If Robert Mueller quit or was fired today, those investigations continue in the Southern District of New York.

PROKUPECZ: I think that's a great point, John. You're right about that. And also you have to think the FBI is the FBI. If there is -- there are investigations that are ongoing, they're going to continue investigating. They're going to find prosecutors across the country, somewhere. If they want to prosecute, they're going to find prosecutors to do those cases.

The only other thing that I will say to you that I think, because we don't know how much Noel Francisco, who would ultimately -- the solicitor general who would take over this case, how much he has known about this investigation. We don't know if he's been in on any of the briefings. So what would essentially have to happen is that Robert Mueller would have to meet with him and have to brief him on everything. And Noel could say, no, I don't like -- you know, I don't like what you're doing here. This is -- you shouldn't be doing this. So stop what you're doing here. Let's go in this direction. Or, no, we need to -- he could say to him, we need to wrap this up. And one of --

KING: Now in that -- in that case, my understanding of the special counsel law (ph), please, correct me if I'm wrong, and we're going to talk later in the program to some people who know the law better than the non-lawyers at the table do, but is that if the supervisor at the Justice Department says no to the special counsel, I believe the law requires notice to go to the relevant committees on Capitol Hill, which would be the Judiciary Committee, so that the president can't put somebody in who just says shut it down.

PACE: Right.

KING: IF those decisions would have to be relayed up. I --

PROKUPECZ: I don't think anyone expects anyone to shut down this investigation, but there are actions and activities that we don't know about, investigative steps, subpoenas, warrants, grand jury activity that Rod Rosenstein was signing off on. So if a new person comes in and may have a totally new viewpoint on this entire investigation, what will that mean?

KING: And you have a president now who is either -- there's a meeting going on -- if you joined us after the top of the hour, the deputy attorney general, Rod Rosenstein, at the White House right now meeting with the chief of staff who, important to note, did not go with the president to the United Nations General Assembly to stay back to deal with this. There's some reporting that he's -- Rosenstein has offered to resign. There's other reporting that he said this because -- after "The New York Times" story, but he really says, if you want to get rid of me, you have to fire me. We're going to try to sort this out. We think it could happen this hour. The president has already made clear, and the expectation in

Washington is, after the midterms, the attorney general goes because the president's (INAUDIBLE). Now the number two at the Justice Department. So in addition to all of our questions about the Russia investigation and the Mueller investigation, the Justice Department does a whole lot more and its top two officials now on the outs with the president and perhaps soon on the outs, period.

COLLINS: And this is a great time to keep in mind that Kellyanne Conway's husband, George Conway, was almost the solicitor general. So just keep that in perspective with all these tweets that he has negative about the administration.

But the question here is, does the president have political coverage to fire Rod Rosenstein or to ask him to resign in light of this "New York Times" reporting? And a lot of people would say that he does because his deputy attorney general talked about wearing a wire to go meet with him or talked about having candidates who are being interviewed to be the FBI director to wear a wire. A lot of people would say that that's a pretty good reason for a president to fire a deputy attorney general, which is unusual. It's hard to see how that's a win. It shows what strange times we're living in, that it -- it's considered a win. That it's revealed at the deputy attorney general was talking about invoking the 25th Amendment with the president, which he denies. But the question is, would that give the president more cover to fire him because Trump has talked about firing Rod Rosenstein for a year now, openly, and will say it to anyone who is in a few feet of him.

PROKUPECZ: And that's the issue, though, because the president has been talking about doing this for so long. If the Mueller team, who has reviewed this information and has seen these memos, can -- from their opinion, and sort of their evidence, decide that this was all a joke and Rod Rosenstein wasn't really serious about this, and that the president is just using this as an excuse, well, then, we may have a whole new part of this investigation.

KING: Right, a whole new part of the investigation. And, remember, six weeks away from the midterm elections. The timing of any Mueller report -- we're told the meeting is over between the chief of staff, John Kelly, and the deputy attorney general, Rod Rosenstein. Rod Rosenstein is still at the White House.

[12:15:06] We're showing you there, if you're unfamiliar with the shot, we're not just showing you some landscaping there, that's the driveway between the West Wing of the White House and the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. It's where most people from other departments pull up into the driveway. So the cameras focus there to see if Rod Rosenstein leaves the White House.

The meeting is over. Our Kaitlan Collins immediately picked up the phone when she learned that. That's what we do. Reporters try to report out of the view. Our hands are beneath the table here.

Let's take a very quick break. We're going to continue to track this breaking news story. Again, the deputy attorney general, Rod Rosenstein, at the White House, meeting with the chief of staff, John Kelly, just concluded. Was he fired? Did he resign? We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: Welcome back to our breaking news.

A shot of the White House driveway there between the West Wing and the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. Why are we showing you that? Rod Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general, at the White House for a meeting that just concluded moments ago with the chief of staff, John Kelly. Here's what gets curious. The reporting is that Rosenstein having this meeting with the question on the table, will he be fired or will he resign? But our reporting from Laura Jarrett is that he stayed at the White House after this meeting to attend a previously scheduled principals meeting.

[12:20:14] Confused? Join the party.

Jackie Kucinich with "The Daily Beast" joins us now.

Forgive me, but only in the Trump administration does somebody get summoned to a meeting with the chief of staff, who's not traveling with the president, to stay at home to deal with this crisis and then you go to a principals meeting? Huh?

PACE: Yes, I don't think we know what is going on here. It's pretty wild. I think that, you know, any scenario is possible right now. We obviously don't know what happened this this meeting with John Kelly. So I think the thing that we do know for certain is that this relationship between Rod Rosenstein and the -- and the president and John Kelly has become untenable in its current situation. If Rod Rosenstein is going to stay in his job, something is going to have to be resolved because he can't keep living in this situation the same way that Jeff Sessions is, expecting to be fired, expecting to have to resign at any moment because of the uncertainty that it creates around this -- around this Russia investigation. So it does seem like at the very least there was an effort to get a handle on things. We don't know, obviously, what the end result of it is, but the current situation has just been untenable.

KING: Untenable. And we know from our reporting that when "The New York Times" story came out Friday, again, Rod Rosenstein, talking to officials at the Justice Department about the possibility -- he says this didn't happen -- but about the possibility of wearing a wire because he said he's in these meetings with the president. The president is erratic. The president's not temperamentally fit to be president. I'm going to wear a wire and then we'll have a conversation about removing the president using the 25th Amendment.

That was "The Times" reporting. There's other reporting that he was being more facetious or tongue in cheek.

We're watching cars leaving the White House driveway. Don't know who was in that car, but we're just keeping track to watch the deputy attorney general. Then, Friday he issues a statement. John Kelly tells him, your

statement's not strong enough. Issue a firmer denial. He does that. And then apparently, over the weekend, there are these conversations about the possibility of resigning or should I resign and if you want me to I'll resign. Now he's at the White House. High drama.

JACKIE KUCINICH, WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF, "THE DAILY BEAST": Well, right. It's high drama. But, again, we don't -- there have been so many different conflicting reports and now he's at another meeting. I mean really -- and then in this sort of village of this is not normal you have my colleague Sam Stein (ph) is reporting that you have Jay Sekulow on his radio show saying that the Mueller probe should be paused if Rosenstein is fired. OK, thank you, president's lawyer, who is involved in this whole thing. I mean it really is -- we seem to till new ground of unprecedented every day.

RAJU: But that's why this is so significant. If he were to step aside or get fired, is the impact that we don't know it's going to have on the Mueller investigation. We mentioned some of the issues that could be in play in the last segment about subpoenas and where the investigation goes from here.

KING: Right.

RAJU: But, ultimately, when Mueller writes his report, he's going to send his report to the person overseeing the investigation, either deputy attorney general or the acting deputy attorney general or perhaps Noel Francisco, who's the solicitor general, who would take over in that case.

KUCINICH: Right.

RAJU: And at that point I talked to Democrats who are following this issue very closely. The one thing that they have been fearful of in the firing of Rosenstein is that whoever replaces him will just take that report and put it in a safe and actually not publically release it. We'll see if that actually happens., But that's going to a source of discussion and debate going forward. What will this new person, who's in charge of this investigation, ultimately allow the public to see, you know, how will they let Mueller do his own investigation.

KUCINICH: Well, and forgive me if this was mentioned in the last segment, but you also have Democrats now coming out and calling for that bill to be taken up to protect Mueller. And I -- you're going to hear that on The Hill all day today. I saw Harris, I saw Senator Markey. That is going to be yet another thing that they're going to be pushing. Very hard, especially ahead of the midterms.

KING: And take us inside what you know from inside the White House on the president's reaction when he heard "The New York Times" story, people telling him, we know you hate Rod Rosenstein. Don't do it now. The midterms are out there. You're trying to get Kavanaugh confirmed. Stay calm, Mr. President, to this bubbling up to where the deputy attorney general felt compelled to go have this mono-o-mono (ph) with the chief of staff. COLLINS: It's interesting because the reaction wasn't what people

thought it was going to be. Everyone thinks President Trump is pretty predictable. In most instances he is. And when that story dropped, I had multiple senior White House officials texting me saying some expletives. We can't believe this. The president's reaction to this is going to be explosive. This is someone who has long thought people were working to undermine him and this is exactly what they thought was going to set him off.

But his reaction was a little bit calmer than they thought it would be and we saw that Friday night at the rally. President Trump in Missouri. I was there. He only made one illusion to the story, saying that there was lingering stench at the Department of Justice and they were going to have to get rid of it.

But what we know is that a lot of people were actually working to tell the president that this is a set up. That people wanted him to fire Rod Rosenstein. They were goading him into doing this. And that he shouldn't buy -- he shouldn't take the bait here. That he should keep Rod Rosenstein around. Why should he trust Andy McCabe, who these memos were based off of and what his recollection of those conversations with Rod Rosenstein were.

And I think the president bought into that a little bit. He doesn't trust Andy McCabe at all, and that was like the main source of this information. So -- from his memos. So that was a lot of the confusion there.

[12:25:05] And also we've seen the relationship between President Trump and Rod Rosenstein really change over the last few months. It went from back in April we reported that he was still publicly considering firing Rod Rosenstein. He was mentioning it with him and Jeff Sessions multiple times a day to pretty much anyone who would listen.

But then we saw things kind of change. The president stopped tweeting about him, stopped saying he had all these conflicts of interest. A lot of people said maybe that was because he knew that he was going to be the person who was making a decision about what to do with the Mueller report when it came out. But what we do know is that it changed a little bit. So -- but, still, the president had gone from telling people Rod Rosenstein is no friend of mine, to this, to then that bombshell story coming out. But over the weekend he was much more focused on Kavanaugh than he was this story, which is not what people were expecting.

KING: Not what people were expecting. The question is, we're trying to get the exact details of just what played out. The deputy attorney general, Rod Rosenstein, meeting with the White House chief of staff, John Kelly, talk of resignation, talk of a possible firing. We're trying to get the details. The deputy attorney general still at the White House.

Up next, when we come back, what a Rosenstein resignation could mean for the future of Robert Mueller's special counsel's investigation.

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