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Stone Associate In Negotiations With Mueller; President Trump Wants It To Include $5 Billion For His Border Wall, A Major Sticking Point For Democrats; Some Democrats In The House Problem Solver's Caucus Say They Are Not Ready To Support Nancy Pelosi For Speaker. Aired: 12:30-1p ET
Aired November 23, 2018 - 12:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
NIA MALIKA HENDERSON, ANCHOR, CNN: Thanks for that. And Jeff, talk about what this means for this White House and the President.
JEFF ZELENY, SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, CNN: Well, Nia, there is no question that is that we head into the holiday season near the end of the year, there are so many signs that this Russia investigation is inching towards a conclusion, certainly a new phase or a chapter. And this new plea deal should it happen as Josh was just explaining would be one more very interesting piece to the puzzle that Bob Mueller is trying to piece together.
I would put this in the ranks of Paul Manafort and others. He was not as central to at the Trump campaign, but he is central to Roger Stone who provides that link to. Was there Russian collusion or was there not?
In terms of the WikiLeaks dump and investigation here. So should there be a plea deal so should there be a plea deal? And this could still fall apart. This is still very much a work in progress. Should there be a plea deal, it just means that one more witness is potentially cooperating and perhaps testifying against the President or the Trump campaign.
So we will see how this all unfolds, but this really is another sign that for all the President's arguments that this is a witch hunt. This is over. There is no collusion, we do not know the answer to that question idea yet and this could provide an interesting piece of evidence that may or may not prove that there was or there wasn't. We don't know, but it's very interesting if he accepts a plea deal.
HENDERSON: And Matt, the President obviously, just turning in answers to questions that Mueller had for him so this comes just as he has completed one phase, but other phases obviously on the horizon with this Mueller investigation.
MATT VISER, NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER, "THE WASHINGTON POST": Yes, and you can imagine them sort of trying to figure out what Trump's answers say versus what Jerome Corsi is telling them versus what Roger Stone is telling them. It's just this cast of characters that we have in this whole investigation and sort of Jerome Corsi entering that again. And I think the bigger thing is Mueller is back. Mueller is back in
the news after several months leading up to the midterm sort of laying low and not wanting to impact the elections. This is an indication that he has not gone away and probably won't be going away unless some changes happen that Trump can orchestrate.
HENDERSON: And David, your reaction to this Jerome Corsi kind of fringe figure in many ways, but here he is in some way central at this point to the Mueller investigation.
DAVID DRUCKER, SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT, "WASHINGTON EXAMINER": Right, well it wouldn't be shocking given how the hacking and release of the e-mails unfolded in 2016, but I think it's another reminder, Nia that we don't know really what we think we know about the special counsel's investigation.
I interviewed Ken Starr just after the midterm elections and I asked him as someone who had done this job whether you are on the right and you think it's a witch hunt or you're on the left and you're convinced President Trump colluded and is in a lot of deep trouble, does anybody really know what Bob Mueller knows and how long the investigation is going to last or not and where he is headed.
And he cautioned everybody. You don't know what you think you know. If you think it's almost over, you don't actually know that. He said, Bob Mueller has kept everything very close to the vest and it's not going to be until this thing is concluded whenever it is and the details are released, if they are and everything is publicized that we are going to find out where all of these pieces fit and what he has and what he doesn't have. But he was very impressed when I asked him with how delicate he has actually handled this investigation and how under wraps he has kept almost all of the information.
HENDERSON: All right, thanks for that, David. Next news, the President may not like about the Senate's investigation into Russian campaign meddling.
[12:35:57]
HENDERSON: Topping our political radar today, a timeline from the Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman, Republican Richard Burr tells Bloomberg News that his committee's final report on Russian interference in the 2016 campaign could take six months to write and declassify. That means that Senate's Russia probe would stretch well into 2019.
The department of Health and Human Services says about 14,000 unaccompanied children are still in its custody, that's up from the number of children in custody in September and compared to 2016 when the monthly average of the number of children in care ranged from just over 4,000 to over 9,000.
The Women's March founder, Theresa Shook is calling on its current co- chairs to step down because of their association with Louis Farrakhan. She says Farrakhan, the leader of the Black Nationalist Group, Nation of Islam has made numerous anti-Semitic and homophobic comments, but the current co-chairs say Shook is not working to support the Women's March Movement's ongoing growth and this morning, Shook fired back. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
THERESA SHOOK, FOUNDER, WOMEN'S MARCH: We are still a disparate group of Women's March organizations and we will march in all the cities and across the world. I still believe that we can come together, but we need to address the issues that have been festering and had been sort of not dealt with and we need to resolve it because a lot of women in the community are hurt.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HENDERSON: And a quick programming note for our viewers, in a few hours, make sure to watch Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson's big 18-hole showdown.
[12:40:10]
HENDERSON: The only place to see it, "Bleacher Report Live" in pay per view at 3:00 p.m. Eastern. Up next, Congress has a busy lame duck agenda, but can they actually get anything done with the President threatening to shut down the government?
With the midterms in the rear view mirror, Congress is now in full on lame duck mode and it's shaping up to be a packed agenda. Take a look. First, there is must pass legislation to fund the government before money runs out on December 7th. President Trump wants it to include $5 billion for his border wall, a major sticking point for Democrats. Other big ticket items, passing a farm bill, criminal justice reform, sexual harassment legislation and ramming through conservative judges through the Senate.
[12:45:06]
HENDERSON: The President, he chimed of course on Twitter this morning calling for bipartisan action on border security and criminal justice reform. But one thing that could stand in the way of any bipartisan achievements, his continued threats to shut down the government if the border wall is not funded.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It could happen, over border security. The wall is just a part of border security. A very important part, probably the most important part. But could there be a shut down? There certainly could and it will be about border security, if which the wall is a part.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HENDERSON: So Jackie, how productive do you think this lame duck session will be for this Congress and this President?
JACKIE KUCINICH, WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF, "THE DAILY BEAST": I don't know that it is going to be very productive at all. Because I mean, look at -- the pre-lame duck Congress, it wasn't terribly productive in terms of things that were actually signed into law. But here's what the President is leaving out there.
Republicans don't want to fund the wall. There is a version in his own caucus and those members are most of the ones that disagree are not coming back. So perhaps they can take one for the team, you've already lost and there will be a lot of pressure on those lame duck members. But we can't forget -- this is not an issue that the Republicans even agree on.
HENDERSON: And the President clearly trying to keep it front and center. His supporters as well. Here's a Trump pack ad buy on border security.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I want the American people to see what devastation illegal aliens cause. I want to see that wall built. I do not want what happened to our family to happen to another person.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HENDERSON: Matt, that's a $500,000.00 ad buy there, but as Jackie points out, this has been a conditioned push from this President. The push back often coming from Republicans.
VISER: Yes, and I think President Trump always returns to immigration. It was the thing that he started his campaign on. It was the issue he ran in 2016 on and it's the issue that he tried to drum up support in the midterms on. And he didn't win the midterms. They kept the Senate, but the House was a landslide for Democrats.
And I think House Republicans have received that message, but President Trump really hasn't recalibrated anything in the aftermath of that. So we are seeing a renewed push on immigration that is going to change. I mean, House Democrats are not going to go for this. He sees this last gasp effort to try and get the border wall.
KUCINICH: And I am going to add this really quick, it puts Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan on the spot again because it is going to be up to them to talk him back over the ledge so they can get the government funded.
HENDERSON: Yes, and deja vu all over again in many ways. David, I am going to bring you in on this. Speaking sort of last gasp, it looks like the House GOP, these subpoenas for Comey as well as Lynch, why is this happening now? Is it likely that they will actually be before Congress at some point?
DRUCKER: I mean, look, I think can end up before Congress at some point, but the idea that Republicans can get James Comey or anybody else in during the lame duck period, when he can just wait them out and then there is going to be a whole new regime in the House that is going to conduct things very differently. I just don't think House Republicans have a lot of leverage here, and
even though the Senate Republicans are still holding their majority going forward. I mean, this has been a House exercise. This hasn't been something that McConnell has been too interested in and so look, I think House Republicans are trying to squeeze every last once of power out of this, but as Jackie, mentioned, a lot of these guys are on their way out the door and there is just not going to be appetite either for Democrats to play ball or for a lot of Republicans to engage in things that they weren't big fans of anyway and they are in places where the President's brand of politicking didn't work for them.
And if they have designs on a comeback or if they just want to leave in good stead and leave their political options open in the future, I don't see them sort of jumping off a cliff to do their buddies a favor.
Everything is going to be changing in January and that's one of the reasons why it is curious the President would exert his leverage now putting enormous pressure on him when he could wait until next year, have a big reelection fight, try and brand Democrats as responsible for not funding his border security initiatives.
It may not work, but they would share a broader responsibility for any shut down that occurred certainly by doing it now. It's still all on the Republican shoulders. That hasn't worked up until now. And as Jeff mentioned earlier, the President has had a year and a half, almost two years to shepherd to the floor or at least the Capitol Hill an immigration package changing a host of laws that he has complained about and he hasn't done it. All of a sudden, now, he is going to work on it. It may work next year, but I just think, going into the holiday season after what happened in the midterm elections, he's just not in a good place to pull anything off.
[12:50:04 ]
HENDERSON: Jackie, I want to quickly get you in here on other moves that are happening on the Hill. Nancy Pelosi. It looks like 24 House Democrats say they can't support Nancy Pelosi. They are part of the problem solvers caucus. It seems like she had been peeling away some of those folks on that original letter. Is this a serious blow to her or is it just a temporary setback for Nancy Pelosi?
KUCINICH: You know, she has a math problem. We know that. That said, I would never bet against Nancy Pelosi because she finds a way to gut these things out. She knows where the pressure points are. She knows how to carrot and stick a lot of these members. We'll have to see, maybe just want something.
HENDERSON: Yes, yes, so we'll see. Maybe they provided sort of the road map for what they need to get, so we will see. Up next, it seems the White House is hiring and President Trump is reviewing resumes this week and one name keeps coming to the top of the stack.
[12:55:00] HENDERSON: President Trump spending at least part of his holiday
working. He tells reports he loves his Cabinet, but he is also conducting interviews this week.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Are you interviewing people this week for new jobs in your administration?
TRUMP: Yes, we'll have a few. I'm very happy with my Cabinet and people that work for me and for us, we work for the country. We have a great Cabinet. We have absolute stars. There's always a lot of change. Yes, I'll probably be changing a couple, maybe a few, but very little. Overall, we're very happy.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HENDERSON: It seems the President is keeping a close eye on his Vice President's Chief of Staff, Nick Ayers. Multiple sources tell CNN, President Trump has become envious of the smooth operations over in Mike Pence's office. And Ayers has emerged as a top contender to replace President Trump's Chief of Staff, John Kelly. That's of course if Kelly's job should actually open up.
And Jeff, that's been the big question here, how long John Kelly has in this job. One of the things that we've said about Nick Ayers is smooth operations over in the Vice President's office. But could he actually translate that to the President's office?
ZELENY: Nia, well, that's a great question, I mean, obviously the job is totally different. The leaders, the men are totally different. Vice President Pence of course served in Congress, has been a governor, is more used to a rigorous traditional system of running things, if you will. Very different from Donald Trump over in the Oval Office.
So entirely different job. But Nick Ayers, we do believe the President is considering him among another small list of others, potentially to be the White House Chief of Staff. But we do not believe the President has made the decision yet to move on beyond John Kelly. He of course said earlier this summer that he plans to keep John Kelly on board through 2020, unclear if that will be the case or not.
But Nia, the first Cabinet secretary we are looking at, we do believe the President has made the decision that he wants to replace Kirstjen Nielsen, the Secretary of Homeland Security at some point, but he needs to find a replacement for that position before he announces that. So we expect her, if everything goes according to the President's discussions to maybe transition out in December. She hits the one year mark period I believe, December 6th or so. So look for that possibility and if she would leave, would John Kelly leave as well? They are very close.
We do know the President at least was planning to interview or talk with Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi here down in Florida while the President is here. Unclear if that has happened yet or if it still on the schedule. She is someone who maybe is considered to be the Homeland Security Secretary.
But again, all of this is up to the President's own determination of when he wants to fill or positions or change positions. You'll remember, he said almost two months ago now, he wants the a new UN Ambassador in place in the next couple of weeks. Well, that not yet happened. So all the timing is his timing and as of now, he's at the golf course today. We assume playing golf. Maybe he is doing interviews there on the back nine. We do not know. But we'll keep an eye on the staffing because he decides this alone, not all the chattering clash in Washington.
HENDERSON: And thanks for that, Jeff, and Jackie, I will just go to you quickly. Mr. President often seems to be wary of hiring people. So this could go on a while.
KUCINICH: Yes, absolutely, he doesn't like to fire people himself.
HENDERSON; Yes, Kelly usually does the firing.
KUCINICH; And if Kelly is gone --
HENDERSON: Who knows? This could get complicated. And a quick update on a story we did just a few minutes ago, some Democrats in the House problem solver's caucus say they are not ready to support Nancy Pelosi for speaker. That number is nine. The members want Pelosi to change the rules that they say would help break gridlock in Washington. We'll keep an eye on that. Thanks for joining us on "Inside Politics." Brianna Keilar starts now.
