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Inside Politics

Tensions Flare Between U.S. and Iran; House Votes on Disaster Relief Bill; Giuliani Defends Ukraine Trip for Biden Investigations; Marianne Williamson Qualifies for DNC Debates. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired May 10, 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] JOHN KING, CNN ANCHOR: Why is this happening? And some people traced it to the big changes. Now it takes place a while ago but Rex Tillerson leaves, Mike Pompeo more hawkish goes to the State Department and John Bolton becomes the national security adviser, and on this particular issue he has a history.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN BOLTON, NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: The Ayatollah Khomenei's 1979 revolution will not last until its 40th birthday.

There's a lot of question do and we should do it. And our goal should be regime change in Iran.

So Ayatollah Khomenei, I don't think you'll have many more anniversaries.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Now they insist that the policy now that it's in the White House, that that's his policy maybe but it's not the president's policy, its administration policy. But that adds to the where is this coming from.

MARGARET TALEV, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: It does in the minute that John Bolton was named the -- his position as a national security adviser, everybody thought, oh well, look out, here comes Iran and North Korea, whatever else. And to a large extent, that's been true in terms of posture, in terms of recommending to the president a more aggressive approach. The question is, is there -- is John Bolton leading the president to the next step, or is John Bolton advising the president on how to accomplish what the president wants to do?

The president himself earlier this week very interestingly was kind of shouted a question on Bolton, does he still support Bolton and offered up the fact that the president feels that he moderates John Bolton which kind of everybody was like, whoa, you know. But, you know -- so when the statement came out issued in Bolton's name about the decision to move that carrier group, there were a lot of questions about what that meant, and as the administration officials have explained it to us, it was something that the Pentagon had wanted. They say something the Defense Department wanted, and they wanted the announcement to be made that way to show that it was, you know, that it had a certain level and height of importance but that it was not John Bolton driving the train.

From every briefing that we have had, the administration suggests that they are not trying to be the aggressors. They're just trying to act responsibly, that the president still wants to talk to Iran, that they are doing these sorts of methodical steps with sanctions, the metal sanctions, and that this carrier decision was real and was based on something. But because they don't talk about it --

KING: But because they've done this now, what's the off ramp? I mean, what are they looking for where they can say, oh OK. You know, you're de-escalating, we'll pull back a little bit. What is it?

KYLIE ATWOOD, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY REPORTER: And one interesting element here is that there are U.S. prisoners in Iran who are wrongfully detained and Iran says that that's the same for Iranians in the U.S. Now Zarif just a few weeks ago, he was visiting New York and threw out the idea of a prisoner swap.

TALEV: Yes.

ATWOOD: Well, the U.S. essentially said that's not a -- it's not a real offer because the U.S. has wanted to engage on that front for a long time. And I just reported that Robert O'Brien, who is the special enjoy for hostage affairs for the Trump administration actually sent a letter to the Iranians just a few weeks ago and said, if you release Baquer Namazi, he is an 82-year-old ailing American, he's not doing well health-wise, if you release him on humanitarian grounds then we will engage with you on a conversation about prisoner swaps and prisoner releases. The Iranians turned that down. They don't want to have any pre-conditions for talks, and so there's no real on-ramp right now --

RET. REAR ADMIRAL JOHN KIRBY, CNN MILITARY AND DIPLOMATIC ANALYST: There's very little decision -- the problem is there's no decision space. The White House keeps closing down their own decision space here. Now, militarily, you get those forces into the region, the carrier, the bombers and Iran seems to back off, Intel suggests that they back off, then you can moderate that force presence.

I'm not worried about that off-ramp. There's no diplomatic off-ramp here. There's no -- there's nothing to encourage them to sit down at the table with the Trump administration who they honestly believe is into regime change.

TALEV: It's just the economy, it's the administration's stated belief that they can ultimately crush the Iranian economy and force them to capitulate but so far that hasn't totally panned out.

KING: We'll watch as it plays out. A quick note for us before the break, Rod Rosenstein's roller tenure as the number two at the Trump Justice Department is in its final hours. It's his last day of the office, no need to feel bad, he's finding humor in all of it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROD ROSENSTEIN, DEPUTY ATTORNEY GENERAL: My daughters cheerfully tolerated the disruptions that arise when a parent is in the arena. In fact, congressional hearings are now one of Julie's favorite forms of entertainment. And I kid you not. And Ali enjoys reminding me that I was mistaken when I told her that deputy AG was a low-profile job.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:38:53] KING: Topping our political radar today, Stacey Abrams says she's still thinking about a possible 2020 White House run. Abrams made fighting voter suppression a focal point of her unsuccessful campaign for governor of Georgia last year and she told the political podcast Pod Save America if the current 2020 presidential candidates don't make her cause a priority, quote, I'll probably jump in myself.

2020 candidate Kamala Harris sharing what it's like to be a stepmom this Mother's Day weekend. In an Elle magazine op-ed essay, the Democratic senator opens up about her relationship with her stepchildren, Ella and Cole. She writes, quote, they are my endless sorts of love and pure joy. And as our family embarks together on this new journey, my heart wouldn't be whole nor my life full without them.

And looking beyond 2020 to 2024, that's the Trump administration's deadline to return to the moon. To meet that goal, the world's richest man showing off a new moon lander. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos says his blue moon craft is designed to ferry Americans back and forth to the moon to begin colonizing the solar system which he says is necessary because resources here on earth are finite.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEFF BEZOS, FOUNDER OF AMAZON AND BLUE ORIGIN: Vice President Pence just recently said it's the stated policy of this administration and the United States of America to return American astronauts to the moon within the next five years.

[12:40:09] I love this. It's the right thing to do. And we can help meet that timeline but only because we started three years ago. It's time to go back to the moon, this time to stay.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: The House of Representatives just passed its version of a disaster relief bill. Let's go live for CNN's Phil Mattingly on Capitol Hill. Phil, an important vote in the House, but there's a big but.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, the big but is that this bill that the House passed ended up being about $19 billion in disaster relief for hurricanes, for wildfires, for significant flooding in the south and the Midwest has no future at least on its own. And that's because Senate Republicans are working on their own proposal. They have made clear they won't accept the House version and perhaps, more importantly, the president has made clear he would veto the House version.

I think kind of what was most interesting about this vote, if you just want to take the vote as it was, 34 Republicans crossed over to join Democrats to vote for this package, and what that underscores despite the president tweeting last night that Republicans should not support this bill is that a pain threshold has been hit. There are members -- Republican members, Republican senators who are hearing from their constituents the really awful flooding throughout the Midwest and parts of the south, they need help now. And the fact this has gone on for months, you include Puerto Rico which is obviously a significant issue, you include the wildfires out west. The fact this has gone on for months and they haven't been able to figure out a way to thread the needle just underscores almost, to be frank, how dysfunctional things are at the moment.

Here's kind of the baseline of where things stand. Senate Republicans floated their own offer last night, Puerto Rico serving kind of at the crux of that issue. They're trying to plus-up funding to Puerto Rico in the wake of those hurricanes but add some financial controls to it to try and assuage the president's concerns. There's hope that might be a starting point to perhaps a deal in the next couple of days, but we're still kind of at a standstill. And, John, as you know as well as anybody when you have a bill, particularly in a partisan split Congress that's actually going to move when there aren't that many of them. People try and cram a bunch of stuff in and so there's been a bunch of smallish skirmishes going on as well.

In other words, they think they can get there, they've been planning to get there for months. They hope they can get there next week because, to be frank, people really need the help right now, John.

KING: You think the train is going to make it to the White House, you try to add things to the train. That's the way that these things work nowadays.

Phil Mattingly live on Capitol Hill. We'll keep an eye on that one.

Up next for us here, Rudy Giuliani looking ahead to the 2020 campaign says he wants help from Ukraine.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:47:11] KING: A new defense from Rudy Giuliani this hour after Democrats accused the president's personal lawyer of publicly planning to meddle in the 2020 election by pursuing help from a foreign power. Giuliani wants Ukraine to investigate Hunter Biden, the former vice president's son and whether the younger Biden -- the Ukrainian natural gas company, excuse me he worked for broke the law. He also wants an investigation into the vice president himself and whether Biden the elder used his political power to make a previous investigation into that company go away.

Giuliani plans to personally deliver this request to the incoming Ukrainian president. On a trip to Kiev, he's making specifically for that purpose. He hyped his plans on Fox News last night.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RUDY GIULIANI, PRESIDENT TRUMP'S ATTORNEY: All I want the Ukrainian Government to do is investigate and don't let these people buffalo you and it will be a massive scandal. You can't escape the facts. I've seen them. I've seen the corroboration. I've seen tapes, this is a very, very --

LAURA INGRAHAM, FOX NEWS HOST: All right, Rudy, we've got to go.

Giuliani: -- big case and a disgraceful --

INGRAHAM: All right, Rudy, call us from Ukraine.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: You see, even Laura Ingraham is trying to cut him off. Giuliani says none of this counts as election meddling. His explanation to CNN, how could it be election meddling because the election is a year and a half away.

CNN's Michael Warren joins our conversation. Number one, if he says he's seen all the facts and they're damning and they're horrible, why does he need an investigation, but this is Rudy being Rudy.

MICHAEL WARREN, CNN REPORTER: Yes, and he's obviously saying well, I can't reveal everything, but I'm trying to go to Ukraine, I'm trying to find out all this information to help my client, to sort of clear his name even now in this post-Mueller investigation effort. And he says he happened to stumble on this juicy Biden story but he claims, look, Biden may not be the nominee for the Democratic Party so this is really about making sure not just the Ukrainians investigate it, he's also said that the Justice Department should investigate it.

When I asked him if he's talked to the Justice Department and even referred it, he said -- he told me last week that's not his job. He actually told me last week he was done with this whole Biden story. It sounds though based on our conversation this morning that that's changed.

KING: Let me read from this -- from the piece you wrote on cnnpolitics.com. While there's never evidence that Biden acted improperly, to Giuliani the story was a political gift too good to pass up, especially as Biden prepared to run for the White House. I said holy (INAUDIBLE), what's all this about.

Number one, the New York Times has reported extensively on this, the CNN has done some reporting on this, and more reporting will be done because Joe Biden is running for president and every candidate is going to have their family out there scrubbed into the grave. But in the context of the Mueller report, just free of the Mueller report, you have the president's personal lawyer saying I'm going to go to a foreign government and ask to you do something to help me plainly for political purposes. That's OK?

MELANIE ZANONA, CONGRESSIONAL REPORTER, POLITICO: Well, this is the president's personal lawyer. He's a little bit more a free agent, so he can go out and do these things.

[12:50:01] But look, this is part of the Giuliani playbook. He's not trying to dig up some smoking gun that's going to stand up in a court of law. He's just trying to muddy the political waters enough, and I think he's trying to win in the court of public opinion.

JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: I'm not sure he wins in the court of public opinion though as anyone paying attention the fact that he's asking a foreign government to intervene in an American election? Again, like that was one of the whole issues, never mind the obstruction, et cetera. That was, you know, the one thing that was so alarming should have been alarming to everyone in both parties.

You know, the Russian involvement in 2016, so Ukraine involvement in 2019-2020, shiny object that he's trying to obfuscate from what's really going on.

KING: That is not the first time that team Trump does something or now is planning to do something way outside the norms, like invite the Russians into Trump Tower, like a direct message with WikiLeaks, like a whole bunch of other issues that have nothing to do with 2016 election and the Russians. They do all the stuff outside of the norm then they try to tell you, what, it's normal, everybody does this. What are you so upset about. Democrats say, bad idea.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D-CA): Did you hear Rudy Giuliani is inviting a different foreign nation, Ukraine, to involve itself in our campaign by conducting an investigation of a family member of the rival the president apparently fears most Joe Biden? So they, again, are taking us down that destructive path.

REP. JERRY NADLER (D-NY): We've come to a very sorry state when it's considered OK for an American politician, never mind an attorney for the president, to go and seek foreign intervention in American politics.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Again, Hunter Biden did work for an international company, he made a lot of money. That's all fair game. Public scrutiny of how he did that, whether anything -- whether the vice president did anything improper, that's all fair game. But how you do it is important, isn't it?

SEUNG MIN KIM, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Exactly, and I think we'll wait to see if the president or someone already kind of reels back Giuliani a bit. But it's just fascinating how his role as kind of the president's chief attack dog continues even after the Mueller report had concluded. Because while he was brought on as the president's personal attorney while he was navigating all these all of these issues, he was really more of a public relations person and really try to, as Melanie said earlier really muddy the public view around the Mueller investigation. Obviously, he's gotten himself into trouble a few times but that I think none of us will forget like truth isn't truth when he was going out there and saying those things. But clearly, that role that he's going to do is going continue for some time.

KING: And the -- I wouldn't bet more than a penny on the president reining him in, he loves this stuff.

Up next for us, another Democrat reaches the qualification for the debate stage and becomes the first to do so purely on fundraising.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:57:08] KING: President Trump having a little fun today suggesting the 2020 Democratic race is down to two. "Looks like it's going to be sleepy creepy Joe over crazy Bernie", the president says in a tweet. Everyone else he says is fading fast.

Well, everyone else begs to differ, and at least 18 of them right now could get a chance to prove it. The first Democratic debates are in seven weeks, and 20-plus candidates, 20-plus candidates, are battling for a spot on the stage or stages in Miami.

Best-selling author Marianne Williamson became the 18th candidate to meet at least one of the requirements. The Democratic National Committee set two initial qualification standards for the field. Either register at least one percent support in three reputable polls or receive campaign donations from 65,000 unique donors, including 200 donors from 20 different states. If you're thinking about getting in, write all that down.

It is remarkable Marianne Williamson, Oprah's spiritual adviser, a best-selling author, she has made it and she's also qualified on this fundraising. She's done it quicker than six other people in the race including John Delaney, Kirsten Gillibrand, John Hickenlooper, Jay Inslee, Tim Ryan, and Eric Swalwell. So you might say who are these people? She made it.

ZELENY: She has on that grounds, but if the others are higher than her in polling, she won't necessarily make it. So we'll find out. But at the end of the day here, if you do not make this debate stage, the first of which is the end of June in Miami, very hard to be able to break out of that point.

Governor Steve Bullock of Montana is likely to jump in as well between now and then. We'll see if he makes it. Others are really trying to get at least one percent in the polls. But the idea that this is over, that the president sort of sees two frontrunners, others -- you know, the voters have not reached that conclusion yet, and, of course, it's up to them, not his tweets.

KING: Yes. And when he first got in, no one thought he was going to go anywhere and he's president of the United States. So we'll see. To your point, we don't know how many of them are going to make this debate stage. Here's how it goes. First, if you have more than 20 candidates, the first candidates have met both thresholds, polling, and fundraising then candidates' average poll performance. So even if you make one percent you could still get bumped. And then the candidates' number of unique donors. So you have to feel for the Democratic National Committee here when you have 20-plus candidates, how do you figure out who gets on the stage?

ZANONA: Right. And now they're only two away from meeting to go to this tiebreaker, so this could get really messy. And you have to imagine that someone like a Kirsten Gillibrand is looking at Marianne Williamson who made the 65,000 unique donors and Gillibrand hasn't done that yet. You have to think that the heat is on for a lot of these candidates to up their game.

KING: Right. She was playing beer pong to try to get -- Kirsten Gillibrand to try to get --

ZELENY: With water.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think it was with water so I don't know if --

KING: That should be unconstitutional.

TALEV: I'm pretty sure it is.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: To qualifying in the debate.

TALEV: In New York.

KING: Beer pong with water is not beer pong. It's water pong.

KIM: And water pong is not a thing.

KING: It shouldn't be. If it shouldn't be. I'll say that right now.

All right, thanks for joining us today in the INSIDE POLITICS. We're back here 8 a.m. Sunday morning. If you want a wake-up call, let us know.

Don't go anywhere. Busy news day. Brianna Keilar starts right now. Have a great day.

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