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Inside Politics
Trump Trade Threats Could Jeopardize Strong Economy; Michael Cohen Begins 3-Year Prison Sentence; Harris Continues 2-Day Swing in Michigan; Biden Tries to Woo Black Voters in South Carolina; Prince Harry and Duchess Meghan Welcome A Son. Aired 12:30-1p ET
Aired May 06, 2019 - 12:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[12:30:00] MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: The GDP numbers very positive so if he believes that it can sustain a short term fight and that could lead to markets tumbling for a short term, it could just rebound, he could something to run on the China deal and listen to those concerns by the Chuck Grassleys and Joni Ernsts of the world and say, listen, you can be concern now but then later, you'll be fine. Look what happened months ago.
ELIANA JOHNSON, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: But many of the president's economic advisers are telling him that the goal is not a deal. The goal is to have the right deal, and that's why I think this has gone on for so long. And in a somewhat revealing comment I think at the White House on Friday, the president's economic adviser Larry Kudlow said the president views tariffs as a negotiating tactic. They're not simply a matter of principle for him but he uses them in negotiations to get the other party to where he wants them to go. And that's why I think you're seeing the threat you see right now as we near what is supposed to be the end of negotiations of this China deal.
JOHN KING, CNN ANCHOR: And you see this happening, it just -- help me because I've been at this awhile and so sometimes you get a little nervous when you look at the headlines. "Amid trade tensions, U.S. warships challenge Chinese claims in the South China Sea", Citing Iranian Threat, U.S. Sends Carrier Group and Bombers to the Persian Gulf", U.S. Warns China, Russia against aggression in the Arctic region". We seem to beginning the week with sort of a muscular front on several -- muscular approach on several fronts.
JOHNSON: Well, what I think is so interesting about those headlines is that this is a president who is, you know, on the more isolationist side of the ledger who doesn't like these sorts of muscular use of American forces. Certainly not the deployment of troops overseas, but he's got a raft of advisers who really like those sorts of things. And so, I think these sorts of moves which fall short of the deployment of American troops and that tend to fly under the radar, they're not the subject of tons of news headlines that reach the president at least are OK by him. But, we know that when there were lots of tough talks last week about Venezuela, lots of threats of military intervention, the president got frustrated because he ultimately doesn't want to deploy troops. He doesn't want have a war to his name the way the past several presidents have had to theirs.
KING: All right, interesting break.
Up next for us, Michael Cohen had a message for the president just before heading to start a three-year prison sentence today.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[12:36:48] KING: Topping our political radar today, an afternoon focusing on sports for the president. Right now he's presenting the commander-in-chief trophy to the United States Military Academy football team. Tiger Woods then heads to the White House a bit later to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Woods played golf with the president back in February before winning the Masters in April for the fifth time. After that win, the president tweeted he'd be honoring Tiger Woods with the nation's highest civilian honor for his, quote, incredible success and comeback in golf and life.
After missing two previous deadlines, the Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin scheduled to tell House Democrats later today whether he'll hand over the president's tax returns. A source tells CNN, you won't be surprised by this, the Treasury expected to reject the request from the Democratic chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, most likely that will lead to a court fight.
New Jersey senator and 2020 Democratic presidential hopeful Cory Booker unveiling a plan to address to gun violence in America. Highlights include banning assault weapons and high capacity magazines. The Booker plan would also expand background checks and make gun licenses the federal standard similar to a driver's license. Booker says he's driven by his own experience dealing with gun violence while the mayor of Newark.
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SEN. CORY BOOKER (D-NJ), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I'm the guy who's helped deal with this issue on a very personal level, people I've lived within my buildings, people from my neighborhood, an assault rifle killing Shahad Smith on my block last year. Enough is enough. We're going to bring a fight like the NRA and the gun lobby and those people who don't stand with the majority of Republicans who believe we should be taking steps to end the carnage in America. I will not only lead this fight but we will win this fight.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: President's longtime lawyer and fixer reporting to prison last hour in Upstate New York. Michael Cohen now starting a three-year sentence for several crimes including campaign finance violations related to hush money payments paid he says on the president's behalf. Before leaving Manhattan, Cohen had some parting shots for the man he once said he'd take a bullet for.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MICHAEL COHEN, PRESIDENT TRUMP'S FORMER LAWYER: I hope that when I rejoin my family and friends that the country will be in a place without xenophobia, injustice, and lies at the helm of our country. There still remains much to be told, and I look forward to the day that I can share the truth.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: CNN's Kara Scannell joins us now from New York. Kara, Michael Cohen was critical to some of the investigations, specifically the southern district of New York. Where do those investigations go from here?
KARA SCANNELL, CNN REPORTER: That's right, John. I mean, that's a big question here where does the southern district of New York investigation go because Michael Cohen did not sign a traditional cooperation deal but he did offer up several bits of information to them including some which have launched into this investigation of the inaugural committee. But the big question of what does that mean for the Trump Organization is still one that's unanswered. Prosecutors could still interview Michael Cohen while he's in prison, and that's always on the table for them.
What's interesting is though CNN reported first in February that the prosecutors wanted to interview several executives at the Trump Organization. Now multiple sources tell us they have not followed through on that so that's been three months where there's been no followup. And now next week is the deadline for prosecutors to reveal to a judge the status of the investigation into the campaign finance case.
[12:40:03] That's relating to the media request to unseal the documents from Michael Cohen's search warrant. So we could learn some new information next week or it's possible prosecutors just tell the judge that it's ongoing and we might not have an answer on that for quite a while, John.
KING: Kara Scannell, appreciate the reporting from New York. Michael Cohen begins his sentence today.
When we come back, the 2020 Democratic field. Joe Biden has a big swing in, in South Carolina, Kamala Harris in Michigan today with her take on the electability question.
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[12:45:12] SEN. KAMALA HARRIS (D-CA), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I have met more teachers as I've traveled this country who are working two, sometimes three jobs to help pay the bills. Teachers are helping to raise the next generation of leaders, and we are not paying them their value.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: That was Senator Kamala Harris last night at an NAACP dinner in Detroit. Her plan to boost teacher pay as the centerpiece of her campaign and her focus this afternoon in Dearborn, Michigan. Senator Harris is in that midwest battleground in what you might call an interesting early moment in the Democratic race. The field now has a frontrunner in the former Vice President Joe Biden and the other candidates like Senator Harris trying now to get a sense of Biden's strength, just how deep is it, and a sense of their own paths now that he's in the race.
CNN's Nia-Malika Henderson joins us live from Dearborn. Nia, Harris doesn't criticize Biden but she is there to try to offer her own take on the electability question. Let's listen.
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HARRIS: There has been a lot of conversation by pundits about the electability and who can speak to the Midwest. The conversation too often suggests certain voters will only vote for certain candidates regardless of whether their ideas will lift up all our families, and it is short-sighted. It's wrong, and the voters deserve better.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: What's -- what exactly point is she trying to make there?
NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER: You know, pointed remarks and we can guess who they are directed at. It's basically the folks who are on top of the polls at this point, Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, people like Pete Buttigieg also seeing something of a surge. And it's all about this question of electability and who can actually win the Midwest.
And her notion is that there's too narrow a framing when we think about the Midwest, right? She talked to those African-American voters, there's about 5,000 folks there and she said people like you are also in the Midwest. People like you built the Midwest so she wants to expand not only pundits, the idea about electability and who's in the Midwest and who can connect with those voters but also voters who also have their own ideas about electability.
I talked to folks in that audience who like Kamala Harris, feel like they want to vote for her but also have questions about whether or not other people want to vote for her, whether or not she is electable against a candidate like Trump who has a certain resonance certainly with voters in the Midwest who are white working-class voters. So you have a Kamala Harris there going directly at that question that everyone is talking about, who's the most electable. And certain candidates certainly at this point seem to be benefiting from that question more than other candidates.
KING: Nia-Malika Henderson, enjoy your time out on the trail. Mark me down as jealous. She's in Michigan which is so important in so many ways. A, for the Democratic primary nomination, a place where Bernie Sanders beat Hillary Clinton last time around, one of the blue states that President Trump flipped red so we'll be watching it the entire cycle as we go through.
For the moment I mentioned here, Biden gets in, gets a bigger bounce than I think even most people expected. We know he'd get a bounce. The question for the other candidates now is, you know, do they believe that's real, that that support is deep, to is just name recognition and familiarity. And what do you do in the meantime? How do you find your place when at the moment Biden and Bernie Sanders are taking up a lot of the oxygen?
MATT VISER, NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER, THE WASHINGTON POST: I think Harris is cutting the sort of the core argument for the party which is, how much is this about energizing black voters that Hillary Clinton did not, and how much of it is about converting the white working class voters that Trump won over. And I think Joe Biden is making the argument that the latter is very important and he is making that case. I think he comes in with a lot of structural advantages. And I was in South Carolina with him over the weekend where he mentioned Barack Obama almost every minute, you know. My buddy Barack, you know, and I think that's an effort to, you know, sort of get at those black voters that have a lingering acceptance and love for Obama. But voters also expect Joe Biden to start talking about what he wants to do, and he's not really doing that yet.
So how fragile is this support that he has and the built-in advantages --
KING: Let me read -- you mentioned that. And he said it in several of his speeches, he said my friend Barack, he's the one guy who doesn't have to say President Obama or even Barack Obama, he just says his friend Barack, and he can do that, he was his vice president. This is an interview with the Post and Courier journal, "When Barack and I worked together, we spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to change the systemic racism that exists and continue to work on that. So I think the African-American community nationwide knows who I am. I'm not saying the others aren't qualified, I'm just saying I've been there."
[12:50:00] Early institutional support helps a great deal. Biden rolled out some endorsements in South Carolina today, helps a great deal. I'm reminded in 2007 when Hillary Clinton, especially in the African-American community, even with Obama running had a lot of early institutional support. Once he proved he was viable, most of it went poof.
MAGGIE HABERMAN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: But once he proved he was viable was after Iowa and New Hampshire.
KING: Right.
HABERMAN: I mean, it's like once he proved he was viable was not May of 2007. And so I do think that what Kamala Harris is getting at is two things. One is that the degree to which this can be sort of self- fueling that we all at these tables decide that somebody is not doing well because they're not in the polls, therefore, they're not doing well. And we don't really don't know. This is such a big field.
Polls that I've seen, and please correct me if I'm wrong but do show that Joe Biden's bump came in part because of black voters, and so I think that some of it is name recognition. I do think he's got a point that some of it is that this is a community he's worked with for a long time. He has to be careful I think not to take it for granted, and there is something in that statement that sound a little like he's trying toward that. But that -- this is the big unanswered question of this primary is where are black voters going to go in terms of candidates and Kamala Harris is essentially saying nobody should assume anything.
RAJU: And it was interesting hearing Harris point out -- make the case that electability means one thing but where do you stand on these issues. And that's another dig at Biden because he has not clearly laid out exactly what he wants to do if he were to become president. You're seeing more and more candidates try to roll out specific policy platforms to break out from the middle of the path. Biden will eventually have to do that in order to counter that kind of criticism.
JOHNSON: Well, the other thing I think Harris is getting at there is that often the candidates of the political elite or the party elites think are electable are simply not the actually electable candidate. So in 2004, you know, the Democratic Party thought oh, we need somebody who is anti-war but has military credentials to go up against George W Bush in the middle of the Iraq War so they tapped John Kerry, he proved not to be really the right candidate for that moment. After the 2012 election, Republicans thought oh we need somebody who's good on immigration and supporter of comprehension immigration reform, also a minority and Marco Rubio was sort of the golden boy. It turns out we got Donald Trump who did not fit that profile at all and he was electable.
And so I think Harris is getting at that when she says well, what is electability, you know, kind of poking fun at that notion, and that's something Trump really shattered. And I think Harris is appropriating that sort of phony notion of electability or the, you know, the debatable notion of what that means for the Dems.
KING: Let me connect both of these points. Six in 10 -- more than six in 10 Democrats say they're still open to changing their mind. And so Biden has a good lead right now, we'll see if he can keep it. It's very early in May, and anyone who's watching it tells you they know how this is going to play out is lying to you because nobody has a clue.
JOHNSON: Thank you.
KING: It's wide open. It's wide open.
RAJU: But you still can watch.
KING: You can still watch. We're going to -- well, we're going to watch it. It's a lot of fun and it's interesting. Great policy debates, interesting people, watch. It's interesting but nobody has a clue.
Up next, a new addition to the royal family.
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PRINCE HARRY, DUKE OF SUSSEX: As every father and parent would ever say, you know, your baby is absolutely amazing, but this little thing is absolutely to die for, so I'm just over the moon. (END VIDEO CLIP)
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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
[12:57:44] PRINCE HARRY: Meghan and myself had a baby boy early this morning, a very healthy boy. Mother and baby are doing incredibly well. It's been the most amazing experience I could ever have possibly imagined.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: The Duke, Prince Harry, smiling there announcing the happy news today. A new baby boy for Meghan, Duchess of Sussex and Prince Harry of course. The couple's first child now seventh in line for the British throne. Our Royal Correspondent Max Foster joins us now live from Windsor with the latest on this royal baby and unique royal baby at that, Max.
MAX FOSTER, CNN ROYAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, this is the first American royal baby, may well be a prince as well. We're waiting on titles. They'll be announced in the coming days as soon as the Duke and Duchess of Sussex have committed to a name. They're still working on it, we understand.
We won't get any images either for a couple of days because they're due to come out on Wednesday. The couple very carefully balancing what they see as a private celebration with the huge media and public interest in this newborn. But the good news is the baby is healthy, the mother is healthy as well. And Prince Harry, you know, that clip that you just played, he wasn't planning to come out today, that was never part of the operational note, but he decided to come out and speak to the public and just show his elation. So it shows how well things have gone for them, John.
KING: Seven pounds, three ounces and that's about all we know, right? This is -- take us inside that. They have deliberately decided to take it slow here in terms of the public release.
FOSTER: Yes, they talk about wanting to keep things private because they see it as a private event, so we didn't have this big appearance on the hospital steps that we got used to in recent decades with the royal family. Meghan clearly deciding that that isn't the way to go. She doesn't want to appear in front of the public and a bunk of cameras a couple of hours after giving birth which is fair enough but also saying no to that tradition as well.
This is a couple that wants to do things in their own way. They're a modern couple but also these nods to tradition as well so we did see the formal announcement as well on the easel on the full court at Buckingham Palace which is very traditional. So they're trying to balance things. Lots of excitement about the pictures when they come out. That won't be in front of a big bunk of a camera, just a stills camera, a video camera and a reporter keeping things tight and allowing this new family to get to know each other before the public gets to see them properly.
KING: Come back and see us Wednesday, we'll see those pictures.
Thanks for joining us in the INSIDE POLITICS.
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