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New Day

Charles Manson Dead at 83; Trump: 'I Should Have Left UCLA Players in Chinese Jail'; Kushner's Attorney: Senate Panel is Playing 'Gotcha Games'. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired November 20, 2017 - 06:00   ET

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

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

[05:59:19] CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome to our viewers in the United States and around the world. This is NEW DAY. It's Monday, November 20, 6 a.m. here in New York. And we do begin with breaking news.

Charles Manson is dead. The notorious cult leader who masterminded a murderous rampage in Los Angeles nearly five decades ago is finally gone at the age of 83. As you'll remember, Manson's then-young followers killed seven people in the summer of 1969, including pregnant actress Sharon Tate, all at his direction.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: So these grisly murders horrified the nation and gripped the world. Manson became the face of evil and one of the most infamous killers in American history.

CNN's Stephanie Elam is live in Hollywood Hills, California, with all of the breaking details -- Stephanie.

STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Alisyn.

When you take a look at Charlie Manson and what he managed to pull off, this man, this heinous crime that he managed to get his followers to -- to murder these people during that summer. And for that he was serving nine life terms. His life now over.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

VINCENT BUGLIOSI, MANSON TRIAL PROSECUTOR: Manson may be the most famous, notorious mass murderer ever.

ELAM (voice-over): The summer of '69 was marred by gruesome murders that shook the nation. Five people killed at the home of Hollywood star Sharon Tate and another couple murdered the following night. Manson was the mastermind behind the brutal killings, the leader of the clan that carried out the unthinkable. He was convicted of conspiracy and murder in 1971 and infamously went down in history.

CHARLES MANSON, LED CULT OF MASS MURDERERS: I do a lot of things around the world that you guys don't see.

ELAM: Manson was born in Cincinnati in 1934 to a single teenage mother. MANSON: She got out of my life early. I spent the best part of my

life in boy schools, prisons and reform schools, because I had nobody.

ELAM: After marrying twice and spending half his life in prison, 32- year-old Manson made his way to Berkeley in 1967. He established himself as a guru in the Summer of Love and was quickly sharing a home with 18 women.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You get these kids, these children coming in to Haight-Ashbury, and here is Charlie Manson saying how much he loves them and he wants to take care of them. He took full advantage.

ELAM: Manson's passion for music translated into an obsession with the Beatles' 1968 song, "Helter Skelter."

BUGLIOSI: For Manson, it meant that the Beatles wanted to have a worldwide revolution, blacks against whites.

ELAM: Aiming to launch the fabricated war, Manson directed his disillusioned clan to kill. On August 9, 1969, four Manson followers invaded the Hollywood Hills home of actress Sharon Tate, where they massacred five people. The 26-year-old starlet was eight and a half months pregnant. The next night the clan brutally murdered Las Angeles couple Leno and Rosemary LaBianca. At both homes they left behind shocking murder scenes.

BUGLIOSI: When those words "Helter Skelter" were found printed in blood at the murder scene, that was tantamount to Manson's fingerprints being found at the murder scene.

ELAM: After evidence in the cases mounted, and a high-profile trial, Manson and four followers were convicted of nine murders and sentenced to death in 1971, which was downgraded to life in prison when California banned the death penalty.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ELAM: And Manson did try to get out of prison, but he was denied parole 12 times while he was in jail -- Chris and Alisyn.

CUOMO: All right, Stephanie, thank you very much. Appreciate it.

All right. Let's go and just remind people this was really the first man in modern American history who really made Americans know there's pure evil out there. There's somebody who will kill just to let you know how terrible they are.

CAMEROTA: And yet, that guy gets to live to 83 years old. He dies of natural causes. Karma is confusing sometimes.

CUOMO: Well, they wanted to kill him. Right? He got the death penalty in California. They changed the law--

CAMEROTA: But dodges it.

CUOMO: Well, they changed the law. CAMEROTA: Sure.

CUOMO: So he got a sentence that was then changed to life.

CAMEROTA: I get it. Just watching the whole -- his whole life play out and that he gets to die of natural causes. It's just -- it's just an amazing story.

CUOMO: Constant pain to the victims' families. You remember, you can go back now and look at just how many different murders there were and how the reach was.

He was always trying to do something to provoke and make people more angry about what he did. He started with the "X" on his head and then the swastika. But he's gone now.

All right. Big political storms going on right now. Maybe actually right now. I haven't checked the Twitter feed. I ask you not to either.

President Trump lashing out at the father of one of the three UCLA players arrested for shoplifting in Canada [SIC]. The president demanded praise, you'll remember, for getting the student athletes freed. In fact, he kind of jumped the gun and was telling us, "You didn't give me enough praise" when really the story was just unfolding.

In an interview with ESPN, the man on your screen is LaVar Ball. He is not just another parent of a UCLA basketball player. This man has got his own brand of controversy around him. And he said, "You know, I don't know how much President Trump had to do" with freeing his son Liangelo.

The president heard it and we know what he does. He fired back. "Now that the three basketball players are out of China and saved from years in jail, LaVar Ball, the father of Liangelo, is unaccepting of what I did for his son and that shoplifting is no big deal. I should have left them in jail."

CAMEROTA: "Shoplifting is a very big deal in China, as it should be. Five to ten years in jail. But not to father LaVar. Should have gotten his son out during my next trip to China instead. China told them why they were released. Very ungrateful."

[06:05:04] CUOMO: All right. The president also attacked Republican Senator Jeff Flake of Arizona. Again, of course, in a tweet. This was after an open-mike moment captured Senator Flake calling the GOP toast if President Trump and Roy Moore are allowed to define it.

CAMEROTA: President Trump writing, "Senator Jeff Flaky, who is unelectable in the great state of Arizona, quit race, anemic polls, was caught purposely on mike saying bad things about your favorite president. He'll be a no on tax cuts because his political career anyway is toast."

CUOMO: All right. Let's bring in senior -- CNN senior political analyst Ron Brownstein; and CNN political analysts David Drucker and Alex Burns.

Ron Brownstein, a little frustrating for you because there are no numbers involved here. But this is a flashpoint for people under the category of we've never seen this before. We have never seen an American president--

RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Right.

CUOMO: -- seem to spite his own citizens, saying, "I should have left you in jail in China." Your level of shock?

BROWNSTEIN: Yes. Well, no shock by this point. I mean--

CUOMO: So I just set it up that way, my voice in high dudgeon, and you say no shock?

CAMEROTA: Zero.

BROWNSTEIN: No shock. Because -- because I think -- look, I mean, maybe there is a psychological or kind of emotional reason why the president feels that he has to lash out at anybody who challenges him or, in his mind, disrespects him.

But I think we are so far beyond that and where this is so clearly a political strategy. And I think this is the weekend, or the week that really kind of gave up the game.

I mean, it was -- it's obviously so absurdly inappropriate for a president of the United States to engage in a Twitter fight with a self-aggrandizing, publicity seeing, although you know, they kind of deserve each other, as people have said, parent. It was equally inappropriate for him to tweet on Al Franken, given the -- all of the allegations that he is facing.

And the fact that he did so nonetheless, I think underscores that he views this as a conscious political strategy to constantly stir up these personal and cultural fights, often racially tinged, that dominate news cycles, keep him in the -- keep him in the mode of being seen to fight any institution or individual who's in his way, which appeals to parts of his base, and allows the Republican agenda to kind of grind forward with less attention than it would otherwise receive.

There's a price to that. His polling numbers, the share of Americans who say he's not temperamentally fit to be president is very high.

CAMEROTA: Yes.

BROWNSTEIN: And I think that ultimately endangers Republicans.

But right now, I think you have to look at this as -- as controversy by design that is explicitly created to instill what we're doing now, talk about it.

CAMEROTA: All right. So that's one view. So David, let me bring you in. Strategy or he just can't resist, just can't resist being provoked by, you know, this dad who obviously likes to provoke? DAVID DRUCKER, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, look I have to say, as a

UCLA alum and a bitter diehard UCLA sports fan for many years, part of me wondered whether the players should have been left there, just for a couple of weeks, to put a scare into them or maybe trade up players and let LaVar Ball stay there.

CAMEROTA: So you had a Trump philosophy of maybe next year when he goes to China--

DRUCKER: No.

CAMEROTA: -- he'd let the players out?

DRUCKER: I had a fan philosophy.

But I think what the president is doing is setting up another cultural flashpoint for his followers and his committed voters to, in a sense, choose Trump or choose the enemy.

CAMEROTA: Strategically.

DRUCKER: Yes, correct. And I think, yes, the president prefers chaos and prefers to be in a fight with somebody, because that is where he is most comfortable.

But I also think that this is how he keeps his base close to him, by in a sense, telling him "There is us and then there are people against us. Because if you're against Trump, you're against the country."

And so while it is not a shock anymore that the president would do this, we see him do this every few weeks or every couple of months. And in a sense, this is how he keeps his base connected to him and how he keeps a political dynamic in play that he believes benefits him and his agenda.

CUOMO: Well, but look, as always true by definition, Alisyn is right, Alex, which is that--

CAMEROTA: Repeat that, Alex.

CUOMO: We all know it. It's a mantra here. Really, we're going to put it as the second line of the name of the show.

He can't resist. But one of the reasons that we often opine that he is maybe the luckiest man in the history of presidential politics is that his own personal exercises happens to echo a cultural vein of division in this country that suits his purpose.

So Alisyn is right. Someone takes a shot at him. He dispositionally cannot avoid going back at them, no matter who they are, no matter how petty. But it plays into a dual-edged advantage.

One, galvanizes the base. Culture: who are we, what are we about, what is all this? Nobody respects anything anymore. It works.

[06:10:00] And then it also works on the second edge of distraction. You're going to talk about Roy Moore and how he said nothing about him but went after Franken like he was some kind of monster? No. Because we're talking about LaVar Ball.

Jeff Flake, you going to talk about taxes and how it's not a middle- class tax cut and how the mandate in there is going to destroy the ACA? No. We're going to talk about the politics of him and Jeff Flake. And I'm going to make the same mistake right now. Put the tweet up there.

"Jeff Flaky," he says up there "would have left America" -- this is the. This is Adam Schiff talking about the president. I don't care. "Senator Jeff Flake, who is unelectable in the great state of Arizona, quit the race, anemic polls" -- Actually, kind of true there -- "was caught purposely on mike." We don't know that at all. It's supposedly an open mike moment, but let's put the facts to the side, as always. "Saying bad things about your favorite president." That statement stands for itself. "He'll be on a no on tax cuts because his political career anyway is toast."

A distraction from what's going on. Gets into the internecine strife. But it works for him unless the policies run away from him and the people that he's playing to with the cultural division don't see more in their pocket and turn on him.

ALEX BURNS, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Look, I think that's totally right. And I think that we spend a lot of time in the media parsing what's part of the plan and what's just Trump being Trump. And at the end of the day I'm not sure it's a hugely important distinction, because this is how he operates in office. It's how he operates every single day.

Whether it's him and his advisers getting up in the morning and mapping out their plan to pick a fight with LaVar Ball or whether this is just him, as you say, sort of instinctively going to the grievances that his political base shares, this is the effect that it has.

I do think the Jeff Flake tweet is a little bit different than the LaVar Ball tweet. Because that is -- he has this sort of long-running fixation on Flake. And Flake's comment over the weekend was candidly, I think, so not newsy, that we've heard Jeff Flake say that kind of thing so many times. It would have been incredibly easy for the president to let this one slide, rather than not just engaging the senator in in this way but raising the specter of him not voting for the tax bill, which has not really been a major part of the conversation.

That just seems more directly self-defeating than anything else that he has done in terms of attacking. Athletes attacking celebrities, which is sort of self-undermining in a long-term sense but not in a day to day, tactical way.

DRUCKER: And I think, look, as far as Jeff Flake, he said in a hot mike what he has said in open mikes, very candidly, very happily over and over again. So there's really nothing new here.

CAMEROTA: Let's tell people. So basically, it was just that, if Roy Moore wins, the Republican Party is toast.

DRUCKER: Right. And he has said that to us all the time. This is nothing. And I laughed. I said, finally, a politician who says in private what he's willing to say in public. And by the way, he has never been one of those troubling senators for the tax bill. He wasn't for the Obamacare repeal bill, which he voted for. He is not considered--

CUOMO: True. Trump has got bigger problems when it comes to the Senate than him. Ron, go ahead.

BROWNSTEIN: Guys, on one point. I think the occasion, the calculus on the president's use of this strategy is more complex. Because on the one hand, it clearly does what you say. He would not be doing it this often with an ever-shifting cast of targets if he did not believe there was a benefit in appearing to his base as taking on any -- you know, "There are no sacred cows. I will fight anyone to defend your interests."

On the other hand, he -- he has not shown the ability to drive public -- he has shown the ability to control the news cycle but not to drive public opinion around an agenda. The health care bill faced greater than two to one position by the time they voted for it in polling, that the tax bill is now underwater at 2-1 opposition. And while this does help with the base, I think this kind of Twitter fight is the core reason why his numbers are so low relative to other Republicans among those white, college-educated voters, a majority of which say he does not display the temperament for the presidency, and who showed earlier this month, really for the first time, that they would take out those sentiments on other Republicans.

You know, what we saw in Virginia was historic. In the five counties outside of D.C., Ralph Northam won by twice as many votes as Terry McAuliffe did just four years earlier.

So Republicans on Capitol Hill may say, "OK, this division of responsibility is working. He's drawing the media spotlight. We are quietly advancing our agenda. This -- this, you know, enormous tax cut that is -- should be much more in the center of things."

On the other hand, there is evidence as recently as three weeks ago that there may be ultimately a price in this for them, as well, and it kind of calls into question whether more should be raising the kind of questions that Jeff Flake has done.

CAMEROTA: Alex, here's Adam Schiff's comments on the Twitter fight that he had with the UCLA -- LaVar Ball, dad. "The president would have left American students in a foreign jail because their families didn't lavish sufficient praise on him. How can someone in such a big office be so small?"

So when Ron talks about how the tone may be starting to erode the -- some of his support in independents, I have a panel of Trump voters coming up at the end of this hour. I asked them to grade the president. You'll be fascinated to see how they feel. His supporters like when he calls out people and like when he says what they're feeling.

[06:15:18] BURNS: So in my experience talking to Trump voters, and I'll be curious what your panel says, whether it lines up with this. People will say they like that he is a counterpuncher. They like that he fights back. They like that he takes on Hollywood and the elites. "I wish he'd lay off the Twitter." Right? That that's sort of the thing in my experience. The people who say they love him in every other respect kind of give themselves permission to break with him.

CAMEROTA: I've heard that too.

BURNS: And to me, it reads as code for "I just wish he'd look -- act a little bit more, you know, like a president."

CUOMO: But it's also a hedge, right? Because the statements are almost incongruous. I don't like what I -- "I like that he's a fighter, but I don't like what he says on the Twitter." No. It's the same thing. Don't let the form start being some kind of cover for the function. Whether it's on Twitter or anywhere, this is who he is.

And I think net-net, we see it with your panel. We see it echoed all over the country in so many different manifestations. People are willing to forgive who he is as a person in favor of getting things that they need out of government.

DRUCKER: And by the way, that's the key, is there are really -- I mean, to simplify two elements of the Trump voter that helped him win in 2016, there's the Trump voter that feels like he is their avatar. So all of this is behavior is cathartic for them. And this is what they've always wanted.

The other half are the sort of traditional Republican that says, "Look, between Trump and Hillary, between a liberal Supreme Court justice and a conservative justice, I will take Trump, as long as he can get these things done."

CUOMO: That's right. And that's why Ron, pointing to the numbers down there in Virginia. If that's not a one-off, if that's not an outlier, then either he's going to have to change or he's going to drag that party down the way Flake's saying he will.

CAMEROTA: David, Alex, Ron, thank you all very much.

So Jared Kushner, he is a key figure now in the Russia investigation. But his lawyer says he's actually a hero. What makes the lawyer say that? We look into it next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:20:41] CUOMO: All right. So as we start off the week what the president is saying reveals a pettiness that might be a problem for him politically down the line. Now we turn to what was done or not done by those closest to him during the campaign that could be an even bigger problem for him down the line.

An attorney for President Trump's son-in-law and top aide Jared Kushner said the Senate Judiciary Committee is playing political "gotcha" games. He's pushing back against claims that Kushner failed to turn over documents related to its Russia investigation, including withholding e-mails on WikiLeaks.

We've got CNN's Evan Perez. He interviewed Kushner's attorney and joins us from Washington.

What did you know?

EVAN PEREZ, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Chris.

So when it comes to contacts involving Russians during the 2016 campaign, Jared Kushner has been forgetful. He's been slow to acknowledge over the past few months, from his failure to list them on his security clearance application earlier this year to this past week when the Senate Judiciary Committee sent him a bipartisan and public letter saying he hadn't turned over documents that the committee knew existed.

The documents we're talking about include Kushner's communications with fired national security adviser Michael Flynn, Kushner's security clearance forms, campaign contacts with WikiLeaks, and a Russian back door proposal to connect Russian President Vladimir Putin with the campaign, an idea, by the way, that Kushner rejected.

In an interview with me, Abbe Lowell, Kushner's attorney, pushes back against those accusations.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ABBE LOWELL, JARED KUSHNER'S ATTORNEY: In my communications with the Senate Judiciary Committee I said, "Take these documents. Let's talk about what else is relevant." They jumped the gun to make a media (UNINTELLIGIBLE) that Mr. Kushner's been anything but not only cooperative.

But if you look at the contents of these e-mails, he's the hero. He's the one who's saying, "There shouldn't be any contacts with foreign officials or foreign entities." That's what the Senate Judiciary Committee should pay attention to and not create some sort of partisan "gotcha" game.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PEREZ: But the bottom line here is that Kushner's not promising to provide an interview to the Senate Judiciary Committee. And while his attorney says that he is cooperating with Congress, Kushner has another investigation, of course, to keep in mind. That's the criminal investigation being led by special counsel Robert Mueller.

And right now, Mueller is still working through the roster of White House officials who are coming in for interviews. And Chris and Alisyn, that includes Jared Kushner.

CAMEROTA: OK, Evan, thank you very much for all of that reporting. We're back now with David Drucker and Ron Brownstein. David Drucker,

this shouldn't be open to interpretation. Has he turned over the right documents or not? This is -- this should be a fact-based answer. What do we know about Jared Kushner's level of cooperation?

DRUCKER: Well, what we -- what I found very fascinating about that was that Abbe Lowell was talking about them turning over documents they believed were relevant. And he didn't exactly answer the question about would you disclose all documents?

CAMEROTA: Not what the committee thought was relevant. What Jared Kushner thought was relevant.

DRUCKER: Correct. And so, I -- look, I think this, in a sense, works for Jared Kushner from the perspective of the White House, where you're going to -- where the president is going to want him to fight back, and be aggressive and not simply act as though he did something wrong.

I think on the other hand, this will feed the beast of people skeptical of what the campaign did during the -- during 2016 and whether or not there were connections or any sort of collusion-type activities with Russian officials.

CUOMO: But With good reason where Kushner is involved. In truth, you can really easy -- easily argue that he's kind of skated up to this point, just in terms of public scrutiny. And the irony that his attorney, Ron Brownstein, is Abbe Lowell, so famous--

BROWNSTEIN: Yes, right.

CUOMO: -- for representing all of these Democrats, such an enemy of the right, now representing Kushner. And everybody is, you know, holding him to his word, as if--

DRUCKER: Also a Democrat.

CUOMO: That's exactly true. Kushner, you know, by political disposition. But obviously, now he's playing a different role.

The answer to Alisyn's question is, no, he has not turned over all the documents--

BROWNSTEIN: Absolutely.

CUOMO: -- that the Senate Judiciary Committee wants. But it is up to his discretion. That's the way this kind of discovery works.

CAMEROTA: Is it? But when they ask you for a specific document--

CUOMO: They don't ask for a specific one. They say, "Give us all the things that meet this criteria."

CAMEROTA: Whatever you think was relevant.

CUOMO: So there's a little bit of a vetting. Then they come back and say, "Hey, you overlooked some things that we think are important."

But Ron, when you look at Kushner and the things that they want to know from him, they have a lot of different angles on Kushner that he's going to account for. I wouldn't put the label "hero" on him so soon.

BROWNSTEIN: Well, first of all, it would be easier to give him the benefit of the doubt if you didn't have the history of treating the entire disclosure process with something between kind of casual indifference and active disdain. Right?

[06:25:09] I mean, you have his financial disclosure forms, his contacts with foreign governments for his security clearance, all of which he's had to repeatedly amend and add, you know, previously undisclosed information to.

In this case it's not only the documents; it's the testimony. He said -- he testified that he was unaware of any contacts between the campaign and WikiLeaks. And he forwarded an e-mail in which, you know, Donald Trump Jr. discussed a contact with WikiLeaks. So that raises obvious questions.

I think this also kind of is -- I hear this as kind of distant footfalls that are going to land in the rotunda at some point. Because the closer this gets to Jared Kushner and Donald Trump Jr., who are both implicated by this latest dispute, I think the greater the threat that the president will do something dramatic to try to short circuit this inquiry.

And then we are back to this question we've asked all year. If it comes to that, are Republicans in Congress willing to defend this investigation, reappointing Robert Mueller or so forth? Because these are the kinds of questions that really implicate that issue.

CUOMO: Right. And look, it's not to ascribe any kind of illegality. Because you know, in truth, we keep ignoring the fact that this is a high bar, legally. You would have to show that someone involved, whether it's Kushner or somebody else not just had dealings with, not just coordinated, even, but that it was to advance an illegal purpose. You know, that they helped them break a specific law. It's a very high bar.

But he just has more to answer for, to explain than most. You know, he brought in the analytics company that wound up reaching out to WikiLeaks. He was at that meeting, he said he left early that Don Jr. went to with the Russian lawyer. He has familiarity with this Belarussian man who was fundamental in the dossier allegations. He just has more stuff to explain.

DRUCKER: So much of this is about disclosure. We have found out--

CUOMO: And he won't turn over his FS-86, which was his early intel clearance for him. He hasn't turned that over. That's a big question also.

DRUCKER: Right. And I think that, from a political standpoint, had the campaign, then the transition and the administration, been more open and disclosed voluntarily, whether -- whether or not they made mistakes or forgot or not, I think this would look a lot different.

But when you have the insistence of top officials and the president, saying there's absolutely nothing to see here, and then we find out about a meeting in Trump Tower. And then Jared Kushner -- and of course, I'm going in reverse order here. Jared Kushner has to amend his disclosure forms. And there are things he left out. And then the attorney general realizes he had meetings that he didn't remember having before.

All of this adds to an air that there is something to investigate here. Even if it's nothing more than a Keystone Kop situation, where they just simply were not prepared to win and all that goes along with that.

CAMEROTA: All right, in our last minute I'm going to segue, Ron, unless you have something pressing you'd like to add to that.

BROWNSTEIN: No. Segue.

CAMEROTA: All right. We're moving on. Elephants in Zimbabwe. So the president has announced that he will be making an announcement next week -- we don't know if that means this week or next -- about elephant hunting trophies? And he's given mixed messages about this?

BROWNSTEIN: Yes.

CAMEROTA: What -- where -- what do you see happening here?

BROWNSTEIN: Look, I think this is something that is just easy to grasp and thus, I think, becomes very difficult to defend.

I think the -- it's such a clear symbolic issue, in which you also have the president's sons, as I recall, have been big game hunters. That I think it's very -- the idea of reversing this ban, I think, becomes very difficult to defend. It's a hill that I don't think the administration is want -- shed a lot of, you know, political capital on. And I would not be surprised to see him reversing the reversal.

CUOMO: Let's put up the tweets, Ron. Let's put up the tweet that he put up about this, I think, last night. The president's tweet about this. "Big game trophy decision will be announced next week."

Look, this is very simple. It's just about protecting elephants, not just the GOP symbol.

BROWNSTEIN: Yes, right.

CUOMO: But obviously, something of acute concern. They are threatened or endangered on different people's lists.

BROWNSTEIN: Sure.

CUOMO: Depending on the variety and their country.

"Will be very hard place -- pressed to change my mind that this horror show--"

BROWNSTEIN: It's confusing, yes.

CUOMO: "-- in any way helps conservation of elephants or any other animal."

What is he talking about, this horror show?

BROWNSTEIN: Yes. It's hard to know whether the horror show is the repeal or the original ban from the -- from the Obama administration.

CUOMO: How could protecting elephants be a horror show?

BROWNSTEIN: Be a horror show, yes.

CUOMO: Advance his theory, though.

CAMEROTA: Maybe he means a horror show of killing elephants.

BROWNSTEIN: That's what I -- yes, exactly. That would be the logical explanation.

Can I just -- from David's point from before, it's not only the disclosure. It's the sheer volume of contacts. That is just unprecedented. All the different ways, all the different figures in this campaign who are in contact with different emissaries of the Russian government.

This is my ninth presidential campaign, and I don't think anyone has ever seen anything like this.

CAMEROTA: All right. Well-played, Ron. You got it in there as our kicker. Thank you very much, Ron Brownstein, David Drucker.

BROWNSTEIN: Yes, there you go.

CUOMO: All right. We have breaking news out of Zimbabwe. A change in leadership after 37 years of President Mugabe's brutality. So now what?