Return to Transcripts main page

Inside Politics

Democrats Consider Impeachment; Trump Says Nobody Disobeys His Orders; Seth Moulton Enters 2020 Race. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired April 22, 2019 - 12:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:00:23] JOHN KING, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome to INSIDE POLITICS. I'm John King. Thank you for sharing your day with us.

Big news from the Supreme Court today. The justices say they will hear two cases exploring whether the Civil Rights Act and sex discrimination laws should be interpreted now to protect gay and transgender Americans from work place bias.

Plus, President Trump and the Trump Organization are suing Congress in an effort to keep his financial records secret. Today's lawsuit is the latest confrontation over new House investigations and comes just hours before Democrats discuss whether the Mueller report should change their go-slow approach on the impeachment question.

And Iraq War veteran Seth Moulton is candidate 19 in the Democratic race for the president. Next generation appeal is his big hope, selling more moderate, cautious views to the party's liberal base is his big challenge.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. SETH MOULTON (D-MA): I'm here to tell you and to tell America that I'm running for the president of the United States.

I don't think it's the right time to have a vote on impeachment until we get all the evidence out there.

I think our party made a mistake by waiting until there would be some smoking gun in the Mueller report, and there's not a big smoking gun like we were hoping for.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: We begin the hour with new confrontations between the president and House Democrats and with the president's public insistence he's worry-free today. That after starting a big, new legal battle with Congress amid a Democratic debate over the big question of impeachment.

Today, President Trump and the Trump Organization filing a lawsuit. That lawsuit challenges a House Oversight Committee's subpoena for financial records from the Trump Organization's accounting firm. The new legal confrontation, an important escalation. But impeachment is the big show, something the president insisting last hour he's not the least bit worried about. The president also taking the movement to remind everyone he's the boss.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Thank you.

QUESTION: Are you worried that your staff is ignoring your orders, as the Mueller report portrays?

TRUMP: Nobody disobeys my orders.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: The Mueller report would take issue with that.

But, tonight, the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, will convene a conference call. That after new progressive demands that impeachment should happen now. That current state of uncertainty produces some awkward hemming and hawing like this from a member of the House Democratic leadership.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. DAN KILDEE (D-MI): Well, this is one of the hard ones. We have to make a judgment as to what's best for the American people. I have been really disturbed by what I've read in the Mueller report, particularly the interactions between the president and his counsel, Don McGahn. We're going to have to make a hard call on this. You know, the easy ones are where we know there will be blowback, but there's no question about what we should do. We have to carve a path knowing that there's going to be some competing interests here. But I've got to tell you, this is one we're going to agonize over.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Let's go straight live to CNN's Manu Raju up on Capitol Hill.

So a new confrontation in the fight over records, and a big conference call for the Democrats tonight.

MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, they're going to lay out in the conference call what they plan to do, the Democratic leaders in the days and weeks ahead. And what the Democrats are probably going to emphasize is they are going to mount a rather aggressive investigation to look into potential obstruction of justice. They want to have significant hearings. Bill Barr being the first one, followed by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, other individuals will undoubtedly be called before the committee as well, people who are outlined in that report, like Don McGahn. He is one of five White House -- former White House officials who the committee has already authorized subpoenas for. They will soon be issued probably to those individuals to get records and testimony. But there was a faction within the Democratic caucus that is pushing the leadership to go harder, to push for articles of impeachment, to begin impeachment proceedings, and that's what Nancy Pelosi and her lieutenants at the moment are trying to tamp down.

Now, at the same time, investigations pursuing on other fronts, including into the president's finances. And you saw that lawsuit filed today by the Trump Organization to prevent a financial firm from turning over documents related to the then individual Trump's allegations that he may have inflated his net worth to purchase the Buffalo Bills football team. Those allegations was -- were raised by Michael Cohen in his public testimony. The Trump Organization says that that subpoena by Elijah Cummings to get those records exceeds constitutional limits. They're trying to prevent that firm from complying with the subpoena. So a new front in this fight between the White House and House Democrats over oversight and investigations. Now it's up to the courts to decide what the Democrats can see.

John.

KING: A new front. It's getting hard to keep track of all the legal challenges facing the administration and the question of how much power does Congress have.

Manu, appreciate the live reporting from The Hill. With me in studio to share their reporting and their insights, CNN's Abby Phillip, Heather Caygle with "Politico," Jackie Kucinich of "The Daily Beast," and Eliana Johnson with "Politico."

[12:05:04] I want to come back at the top to what the president just said there. At the end of the Easter Egg Roll, he was doing a lap around the White House lawn. He said nobody disobeys my orders. Now, if you read the Mueller report, the special counsel says the president's aides saved him from himself by repeatedly ignoring, deferring, punting, walking away, waiting a few days.

But it's not just in the Mueller report. From hour one of this administration, we have had aides telling us, pay no attention to what the president says. Watch what we do. He says and tweets a lot of things, and we massage them or ignore them.

I guess I understand it as a test of his macho, but it's just not true that nobody disobeys his orders.

ELIANA JOHNSON, WHITE HOUSE REPORTER, "POLITICO": It's definitely not true, but I think that one of the things that really drives this president crazy is the perception that he's being managed by his aides. And so -- I think -- that's what he's really pushing back against. And the president, I think -- the Mueller report paints a picture of a president who's not so much managed by his aides but simply disregarded.

I think it also raises a question about how the country is being governed. The president is duly elected, and in many cases the country is being governed by his senior aides who simply, on many important questions, are exercising their own best judgment. These people were not elected, but, you know, in a real crisis are -- is the president simply going to be disregarded by aides who are going to exercise their best judgment in this question? It's troubling.

KING: Right, and to that point --

: And --

KING: Forgive me, I just want to just get it on the record when the president says something like this. Read the Mueller report. If you don't trust the media, read the Mueller report. This is not 18 angry Democrats. This is Cory Lewandowski, in his own words, under penalty of perjury, Hope Hicks, in her own words, under penalty of perjury, Don McGahn, in his own words, under penalty of perjury, and on and on and on saying the president tells us to do things and we just don't do it.

JACKIE KUCINICH, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, the White House counsel's job is to protect the office, not necessarily the president as a man himself. And if you actually look at the Mueller report, that seemed to be what Don McGahn was doing by ignoring the man, the current occupant of the office's orders because he -- obviously Trump would have gotten himself in a lot of trouble if everyone had just said, oh, yes, sir, and done what -- and done what he wanted. So in some cases these aides were doing what their jobs actually are.

KING: Right. And so the president's team is pushing back. Again, all of these aides to the president -- their argument now essentially is that all these people the president hired lied, because if you read the Mueller report they're quoted. It's not like -- they're not summarized what they said. They're quoting what they said. And they were all under penalty of perjury when they gave these interviews. So the president's defense is, everybody I hired is now lying about what I did if you boil it all down.

This is one of the president's former lawyers, John Dowd, saying, they say -- Rudy Giuliani said this yesterday on "State of the Union" with Jake Tapper, John Dowd today on Fox News essentially saying the president's White House counsel, who through his attorney has stood by everything he said in the Mueller report, they're saying, especially the incident of the president calling Don McGahn saying fire Bob Mueller, John Dowd says it never happened.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When did President Trump say, hey, go out there and fire Mueller?

JOHN DOWD, FORMER ATTORNEY TO PRESIDENT TRUMP: He never did. Oh, it's an F, complete F. It's so poorly done. There are things missing. There are parts of it that is just -- aren't right. And I would say they had a junior writer from "The New York Times" do it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Again, it quotes people by name. We can dispute it.

But here's my question there. I get the public relations part. John Dowd and Rudy Giuliani, both veteran attorneys, making a public relations case, not a legal case, for the president. But if they're going to continue to say this, does that not open the avenue for Democrats in Congress to say, well, you say it would be excessive for us to call all these people back up. If you're going to dispute what Don McGahn says, have a seat, Mr. McGahn, raise your hand, answer questions.

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, I mean that -- that's such an important point because the difference between John Dowd sitting on a Fox News set and Don McGahn sitting in front of federal investigators is that it's a crime to lie to federal investigators.

KING: Right.

PHILLIP: And so John Dowd can say whatever he wants in public, but, if, for example, all of these individuals go over to Capitol Hill and tell their stories under the penalty of perjury, that would be a completely different story, and it has -- you have to wonder, you know, the White House is expending a lot of time right now trying to undermine the building blocks of the Mueller report, that they also claim vindicates and exonerates the president on all counts. What's left? If you're saying that all the stories that went into this amount to absolutely nothing? And it would be one thing if the Mueller report were just standing on its own, but it's building on two years of reporting in the media that basically corroborate this pattern of behavior.

Remember, the Woodward book talking about Gary Cohn taking papers off of the president's desk because -- pulling out of the South Korea free trade agreement and NAFTA would be devastating to the economy, would endanger national security. There are all these stories that have been out there for two years.

What's in the Mueller report is just building on that same patter. So that's why it's so hard to deny it.

[12:10:02] JOHNSON: Well, and one other thing too.

Rudy Giuliani was out on several Sunday shows this weekend saying -- not only questioning Don McGahn's testimony, but at the same time saying that the president would have been within his rights to fire Bob Mueller and was within his rights to fire James Comey, which raises the question, you know, why isn't the defense of the president that, yes, he did do this and he was fully within his rights to do it and he was fully within his rights to fire James Comey. So I think we're hearing the president's lawyers talk out of two sides of their mouth. No, it didn't happen, but if it happened, the president was acting lawfully.

KING: If it happened. OK.

I just want to note, and it's hard to keep track of this stuff sometimes because, number one, Democrats have a conference call tonight to debate the impeachment question.

Number two, the chairman of the House Oversight Committee has just responded to a new lawsuit filed by the president and his business, the Trump Organization, challenging a Democratic subpoena. The subpoena wants financial records from an accounting firm. They're trying to look and see whether the president has told lies about his or done anything wrong. The chairman, Elijah Cummings, saying the president has a long history of trying to use baseless lawsuits to attack his adversaries. The chairman saying there's simply no valid legal basis to interfere with a subpoena from congress. So this goes now to the courts. One of many challenges we expect to end up in the courts.

How are the Democrats dealing with this split, the leadership which says, let's deal with this lawsuit, let's try to get these records, let's have oversight hearings, let's maybe put Don McGahn in the chair, and the other ones who say, read the Mueller report, let's impeach tomorrow?

HEATHER CAYGLE, CONGRESSIONAL REPORTER, "POLITICO": Yes, I think -- getting back to your point earlier, telling folks to read the report, we've seen a shift from like some rank and file Democrats who did take the weekend and read the 400 page document and they're like, wow, this is a lot worse than we initially thought. There may not be a smoking gun, but there's a lot of really bad stuff in there and they really are agonizing over the impeachment question.

But then you have Speaker Pelosi, who's been here before. She's been in Congress for 30 years. And she does not want to go there. And so I think on the call today, we'll actually have a leadership call about 15 minutes before the broader caucus call and I think they're all going to try to get on the same page and then go to the caucus and say, hey, slow down.

KING: And so two big members here, the speaker calls the shots, number one. Her deputies will try to count the votes, if you will, and corral the sheep.

Jerry Nadler's the chairman of the Judiciary Committee. Adam Schiff, the chairman of the Intelligence Committee. Two fierce critics of President Trump in all of this. Listen to their take on the impeachment question.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you think that this is impeachable?

JERRY NADLER (D-NY): Yes, I do. I do think that this -- if proven -- if proven, which hasn't been proven yet, some of this -- if proven, some of this would be impeachable, yes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All right --

NADLER: Obstruction of justice, if proven, would be impeachable.

REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D-CA): I think without question within the realm of impeachable offenses, when Mitch McConnell will not stand up to the president either, it means that an impeachment is likely to be unsuccessful. Now it may be that we undertake an impeachment nonetheless.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: If that's the -- it's like they -- Democrats saying, sure, this is an impeachable case. The question is, is it politically worth making it when not one Republican has raised their hand to say we'll be with you, which -- meaning, the House, assuming they kept all the Democrats, could impeach. The Senate no way will convict.

CAYGLE: Yes, I mean, I think we're seeing the debate play out in real time, which is interesting because you saw Nadler really pause, which he hasn't done before, and likely clearly he, too, is agonizing over this question and his committee would be the one that would start this, right? But he's one of the senior lawmakers that's been here for a long time and they saw what happened when Republicans pursued impeachment against Clinton.

KUCINICH: And you alluded to this a little bit there, John, but that's assuming all the Democrats vote for impeachment, which is an assumption because there will -- there -- it is very possible there will be Democrats, probably not from -- from -- probably from districts that Trump won in 2016 that would not vote for impeachment. So there's -- there's a lot of factors here. Not only what it would do to the country, all of that, but just internal factors that House Democrats, like Nancy Pelosi, Jerry Nadler and the like will have to weigh.

KING: Her case, the speaker's case, is let's keep having these hearings, let's keep demanding information, let's keep laying out the facts and let voters be the jury in 2020.

KUCINICH: Right.

KING: Let's not deal. We'll see if she can hold that together on tonight's call.

We're going to shift now for a moment to Sunday's devastating bomb attack that killed at least 290 people in Sri Lanka, including several Americans.

The FBI now joining that investigation as Sri Lankan authorities are still finding and detonating explosives 24 hours later.

Again, to be clear, that was a controlled detonation that took place earlier in Colombo.

Meanwhile, we're learning more about the Americans killed in Sunday's bombings targeting churches and hotels popular with western tourists. Dieter Kowalski worked for an education publishing company. He was from Colorado. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo acknowledging the global scale of these horrific attacks.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MIKE POMPEO, SECRETARY OF STATE: This is America's fight, too. We urge that any evil-doers be brought to justice expeditiously.

(END VIDEO CLIP) [12:15:06] KING: Sri Lankan authorities think a local Islamist group with international backing carried out the attacks. They acknowledge receiving advanced warning and they're now apologizing for not acting on that intelligence in time.

Up next for us here, back to domestic politics.

Then there were 19. The newest member of the Democratic presidential field, Seth Moulton, says he's different, by promising he'll get it right on health care.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: Nineteen Democrats now contending for the 2020 Democratic nomination with Massachusetts Congressman Seth Moulton's announcement today. The 40-year-old veteran of the Iraq War officially announcing his bid for the presidency on "Good Morning America." Moulton did four tours in Iraq as a Marine, making him the third veteran in the race, the second Massachusetts Democrat to join the fray following Senator Elizabeth Warren. Moulton, though, quick to point out he's different.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. SETH MOULTON (D-MA): I'm not a socialist. I'm a Democrat. And I want to make that clear. And maybe that's a differentiator for me in this race. You know, people -- we talk a lot about health care, for example. I think I'm the only candidate who actually gets single-payer health care. So I think health care is a right. I think every American should have access to good, affordable health care. But I made a commitment to continue getting my own health care at the VA when I was elected to Congress. That's single payer. And I'll tell you, it's not perfect. So if I'm elected, I'm not going to force you off your private health care plan.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[12:20:31] KING: Welcome to the fray, Seth Moulton. What's the lane?

KUCINICH: It's unclear. I mean it's kind of the -- assuming Biden gets in, it's sort of the Biden lane, the Klobuchar lane, the -- you know, I -- not going full bore into the liberal abyss vein.

But right now it is sort of -- it seems more like he's doing it to raise his public profile.

JOHNSON: The lane is the next election.

KUCINICH: Right.

KING: Right.

KUCINICH: Right.

PHILLIP: The lane is, why not.

KUCINICH: Yes, right. Right. KING: In part that could well be true because you don't pay a price -- when I first started in the business, you ran for -- you ran for president, you lost, you were considered a loser. Now people run for president in the digital age, you build an e-mail list, you build a fundraising machine. But, in a wide-open field, I also think we just don't know, to some degree. But is it, he wants to be next generation. That's a little bit of the Pete Buttigieg thing right now. He wants to be the more centrist. That would be Klobuchar, Biden, you're right, as you lay that out.

KUCINICH: You know, it is notable, though, we should it really quick, that -- that this next generation of Democrats that are kind of trying to fill that void, three of them are veterans.

KING: Right.

KUCINICH: I mean that -- that's really saying something in this field and --

KING: Buttigieg, Gabbard and now Moulton.

KUCINICH: Exactly, because these wars have been going on for so long that you do have -- you have three candidates that are actually veterans.

PHILLIP: Yes, and he wants to make that the linchpin of his potential -- of his candidacy.

KUCINICH: That's what I think is -- yes.

PHILLIP: He wants to make it about, I actually served. I don't just talk about patriotism, I am a patriot. He said that repeatedly in his rollout this morning.

And I think that is also a critique of the president. He -- he made is pretty explicit that this is a lane that Democrats don't really take Trump on on.

KING: Right.

PHILLIP: You know, Trump is talking, make America great again. He's hugging flags wherever he goes. And there's no one really sort of going up against him on the patriotism thing. And that's what Moulton wants to do. You know, it's a question though, will that actually work because I'm not sure that, you know, Trump's appeal to patriotism is the -- is the same way that Seth Moulton is wanting to appeal to people.

You know, Trump's is kind of more of like a guttural thing. It's sort of like what people feel that he -- that -- people feel that he's just sort of like -- you know, he is -- he loves America so much he's willing to do anything, whether that's backed up by fact or not.

And so, you know, he -- Moulton's trying to make a kind of rational appeal to voters on that. And we'll see how that works. But that is the difference between, you know, Gabbard isn't running really on her service in that sense, and neither is Pete Buttigieg. So, you know, maybe that is a differentiator.

KING: And to that point, let's just listen to a little more. This is Seth Moulton trying to get at how he differentiates himself.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. SETH MOULTON (D-MA): Greatest (ph) generation saved our country from tyranny. It's time for our generation to step up and do the same.

It starts with growing our economy, with the new jobs, the green jobs, the tech jobs, the advanced manufacturing jobs that are going to make us the world leader in the next century. It starts with tackling climate change and making sure that we have a planet without an expiration date. As a veteran of combat and of the armed services committee in Washington, I will cut the massive weapons programs we don't need so that we have the money to invest in the future.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: He's interesting in that he doesn't fit an easy ideological box, if you will, I'll cut military spending and I'm a veteran, I know how to do it. Liberals will like that. Let's fight climate change. Progressive and liberals will like that. But Bernie Sanders is wrong, we're not going to go to Medicare for all.

CAYGLE: Right. This is a guy who -- there's no downside to him running and running in this lane. He trying to carve out a path for himself. But he openly rebelled against Nancy Pelosi, tried to oust her, failed. So it's not like he's going to move up in the House any time soon. Even if he doesn't, like, catch fire and, you know, become president, he raises his name recognition and could run for Senate in Massachusetts, which is what we all thought he wanted to do last year anyway.

KING: One of the interesting pieces of his announcement video was the role his wife plays and, you know, good for her and good for him for putting her in the video, but listen to the message, it's interesting.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LIZ BOARDMAN, SETH MOULTON'S WIFE: The person that takes on Donald Trump needs to be a tank. And they need to be a tank that no matter what is thrown their way, what fire, what lies, what wittol, that tank just keeps moving. And that's Seth.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Tank.

PHILLIP: Fascinating.

CAYGLE: Yes. Yes.

PHILLIP: I mean it's a toughness argument that he's making against Trump, that he's sort of a bulldozer. And I think that's how people see Trump, too. So, in a lot of ways, all of these ways in which people describe themselves in this race, a lot of them are such implicit contrasts with the president. And I see that as -- I think that's exactly what she's trying to say there, that, you know, this is a -- this guy is a veteran. He can take on the president.

KUCINICH: But he also had his wife, his sister and his mother speaking in that interview, and that's not an accident either.

PHILLIP: Yes.

[12:25:03] KING: Right. That's not an accident for a guy running in a Democratic primary where at least 50 percent, close to 60 percent in some states of the voters will be women. Yes, he's -- he gets the demographic part of it.

I want to bring in a little bit of breaking news as we go to break.

The president of the United States just tweeting this, quote, my friend Herman Cain, a truly wonderful man, has asked me not to nominate him for a seat on the Federal Reserve board. I will respect his wishes. Herman Cain is a great American who truly loves our country. The president sending that tweet out today saying he will now not go ahead with that nomination, that after a lot of Republican senators, not just Democrats, a lot of Republicans raising questions about whether Herman Cain, a, was worthy of the job, and, b, whether he could have been confirmed.

We'll come back to that story a little bit later.

It's getting awfully crowded in here. We'll talk next about what Democratic candidates are doing to try to stay fresh or even get the attention of voters with a field so crowded.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:30:00]