Return to Transcripts main page

New Day

Kavanaugh Accuser Wants FBI Probe Before Testifying; Is Trump's Legal Team Operating in the Dark? Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired September 19, 2018 - 07:00   ET

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

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Republican leaders seem focused on getting Kavanaugh on the bench whatever that takes.

[07:00:07] KELLYANNE CONWAY, COUNSELOR TO DONALD TRUMP: I've read her account. There are a lot of details missing.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There's nothing we've ever known about her to be anything but honest and straightforward.

SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY), MINORITY: How could we want to get the truth and not have Mr. Judge come to the hearing?

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R), SOUTH CAROLINA: The people she hired want to get Trump. You don't have to be that sharp to figure out there's something going on here.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The professor's trying to protect her reputation. I don't think she's playing politics at all.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY with Alisyn Camerota and John Berman.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Good morning and welcome to your NEW DAY. Major developments in just the last ten or 11 hours in the Supreme Court standoff. Professor Christine Blasey Ford, the woman who says Judge Brett Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her at a high school party, wants the FBI to investigate the incident before she agrees to appear in front of the Senate. This is what Ford's attorney told CNN just last night.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LISA BANKS, ATTORNEY FOR CHRISTINE BLASEY FORD: She will talk with the committee. She's not prepared to talk with them at a hearing on Monday. This just came out 48 hours ago.

No investigation is -- any legitimate investigation is going to happen between now and Monday. This is going to take some time. And what needs to happen is there shouldn't be a rush to a hearing here. There's no reason to do that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Ford's attorney says her client has received death threats since revealing her identity.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: So President Trump and Republican leaders already rejecting the idea of having the FBI re-open Kavanaugh's background check. Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley says Ford can tell her story at next Monday's scheduled hearing, but what about her conditions? Will lawmakers go forward with that hearing if Ford does not testify?

BERMAN: Joining us now, CNN political analyst and White House correspondent for "The New York Times," Maggie Haberman.

Maggie, as we said, it's been 11 hours where this story and, to a certain extent, has been turned completely upside-down. Where do you see things a standing this morning? What happens if this testimony doesn't go forward on Monday?

MAGGIE HABERMAN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: If it doesn't go forward on Monday, then I think that you are looking at a lot of open Republican frustration. I think you are going to have Democrats try to move this as close to the election as they can, and they are going to argue that Mrs. Ford ought to be able to tell her story and to have her allegation investigated thoroughly.

You have seen this issue bring Republicans together in a way that we don't normally see. You normally see President Trump attacking congressional Republicans. That is not what you are seeing right now.

There is a sense among GOP leaders that -- and staff members that they feel as if they are facing something that they can't address, that there are holes in the story, that they don't know how to knock this down. At the same time, they recognize this is incredibly perilous. That the climate is not favorable for Republican voters -- excuse me, for Republican elected officials or candidates with women voters.

And so the longer this plays out this way, the more potential harm can come to the party for the midterms. It's already a question as to what happens in terms of Kavanaugh, right?

The president is very dug in on his nominee by all accounts, and Mitch McConnell, who had initially been concerned about the amount of paperwork that the Senate would have to go through, because Kavanaugh had been staff secretary under President George W. Bush, Mitch McConnell, once he was selected, also has dug in. They are looking to try to bring this to a close.

I do think there is a risk for Republicans in terms of how they are starting to discuss this. You saw Lindsey Graham talk about "I'll listen to the lady, but we're going to go ahead."

Looking like you are trying to rush the process, I think, comes with risks.

I also understand people who argue that, if -- if Ms. Ford makes an allegation and then has not come forward to back it up, that does cause damage to somebody's representation. And I think that for a very long time, part of what has happened with the #MeToo movement is it has realigned the balance of power to some extent. We're going to see just how much, I think, with this case.

CAMEROTA: So Maggie, what's the feeling inside the White House this morning about this unexpected pothole that they've hit on the, you know, what was the fast track to nomination?

HABERMAN: The same feeling they have had for several days. They are frustrated by it. I think the frustrations have grown since the account emerged that this was an issue. They knew last week, I think, when the letter emerged, that there was going to be more to come. And so they have been expecting it and not really surprised.

The president has been pretty measured in his response, you know. We often talk about how he doesn't take advice. On this instance, he is; and he has been not attacking Ms. Ford. He went a little further in defending Brett Kavanaugh yesterday, but generally speaking, the White House is happy with how they have been able to be, sort of, again, comparatively, measured in going forward on this.

But they are anxious, and they have to be anxious. There's no set outcome for what this could look like. There's no guarantee that Brett Kavanaugh gets through. Once this kind of thing begins, once a process like this starts, you don't know where it ends.

[07:05:12] BERMAN: Let's hear from the president yesterday, again, doing what he has done in the past, which is when there is a he said- she said over an issue like sexual assault, his sympathies seem to go with the "he." Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Honestly, I feel terribly for him, for his wife, who is an incredible, lovely woman, and for his beautiful young daughters. I feel terribly for them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Again, not surprising. A little more surprising how measured, as you say, he has been the last two days.

Maggie, just to clear one thing up, because you've been talking about this in your reporting and on Twitter. It's not clear Kavanaugh -- that the president was ever a giant Kavanaugh guy, right? He was Don McGahn's pick, or Don McGahn really pushed him through. Seen as a Bush figure. But once the president nominated him, the president was all in and still is, as far as you know, all in on Brett Kavanaugh.

HABERMAN: Yes, I see no evidence that he is personally waning, and I think that the White House recognizes that there is a -- there is greater political peril in having Brett Kavanaugh withdraw, or at least this is what I have heard from people I've spoken to there. There's greater peril in having him withdraw -- and right now they don't see a reason for him to -- than there is in going forward.

You are correct. This president has a very long history of when there is an accusation of this kind, his sympathies tend to go toward the man who is accused, and I think some of that, his aides have always said, is because he identifies with people who are attacked and who are accused of impropriety. As we know, he has been accused of impropriety by a number of women over a long period of time.

But what he has done is the second half of his sentence has been to say, "But there should be a process," and that is different than what we've heard him say before.

CAMEROTA: Maggie, why is he so measured? What's the back story there? I mean, as we've heard so often with things that are controversial -- I'm thinking of Charlottesville, he'll be measured for a minute. But then his own impulses kick in, and we hear something different. So how has he been able to sustain this relative silence about what's going on?

HABERMAN: Because if you look at is as he examines these things, in terms of how the inputs flow towards him, in terms of Charlottesville, he was doubling down, in his mind, in defense of his voters, and people who supported him and who he felt like like were getting an unfair shake.

To be clear, I'm not validating that's a legitimate way to feel. But that is how he sees it, and/or validating that in terms of this. His support from a lot of Republican voters, which are clearly evangelicals, has been what he has done with the courts and for people who supported the president.

He has done exactly what he said he would do. He has tried to remake the courts across the landscape, the federal courts, with conservative justices. And so in this instance, he recognizes the danger to himself in not being more measured, in not being careful, in not trying to push this through. That's usually the bar through which this gets viewed.

BERMAN: I don't want to use the word "game." This isn't a game, but there is political gamesmanship that has been going on over the last several days over this Senate hearing.

We heard from attorney for Professor Blasey the other day saying that, yes, Professor Blasey is willing to testify, wants to. The Senate said, "OK, come on Monday." She now says she doesn't want to go on Monday. She wants the FBI to investigate first.

At this point, there just doesn't seem to be any chance, no percentage chance that Mitch McConnell or the president will say, "Yes, you know what? Let's let the FBI go check this out. The FBI can go do interviews." They seem dug in on that point. They also seem dug in on the idea that there will be no other witnesses at this hearing.

HABERMAN: Right, I think it would take a new piece of information for either one of them to move off of it, or some kind of -- and that new piece of information could be a change in poll numbers.

In terms of why they are not allowing the other person who was supposedly present for this, according to Ms. Ford, to testify, I think that is going to ring as problematic for people who are open to her account. To your point, this is not a game. These are very serious

allegations. There's always political fallout, and we are facing very volatile midterm elections in less than seven weeks, so it's impossible to ignore the atmosphere and the landscape this is taking place in.

I don't see a change coming. I do think that, for Ms. Ford, I think it is unfortunate for her the way this was handled by Democrats in terms of the delay, the not moving forward, the --the letter emerging when it did.

I think that, if you are somebody who has gone through what Ms. Ford says she has gone through and this is the way it plays out, it is going to add to the suspicion that people have about the allegations; and that's really unfortunate, given that there is a moment in time where people are listening more attentively to women about what they say has taken place.

BERMAN: All right. And this is her life, and this is his life. But just in terms of the back and forth here, it does seem to me this morning as if the final choice that she will have, unless something changes over the next day, the final choice she will have is to go and tell her story on the Senate Republicans' terms, and that's it.

[07:10:13] HABERMAN: I think that's right. The Senate Republican are in charge of this body, and I think that they are likely to set the calendar. And I think have made pretty clear that they are willing to get Kavanaugh through with a vote of 50, and you know, Vice President Pence serving as the tie breaker if necessary. And I think that could very well be where this heads.

But it is also important to remember, John, that there is a lot of time between now and Monday. And they are worried about -- the White House is worried and Senate Republicans are worried about any other information that could emerge as one person close to this process said to me yesterday, nature abhors a vacuum. And very true. So we don't know what the next five to six days will look like.

CAMEROTA: So Maggie, let's move on, because we've all been so consumed with the Kavanaugh confirmation that we haven't spoken as much about where Robert Mueller's investigation is at the moment, but you have new reporting on what the White House is thinking behind the scenes in terms of this. So they seem to be as sort of mystified, I guess, or flummoxed as other people in terms of what Mueller's next move is.

HABERMAN: Well, what's happened is, Mike Schmidt and I, my colleague, went back and we looked at what has taken place over the last year. And essentially, what's taken place is you had a lead lawyer for the president in John Dowd who did not handle things, as one person said to us, as if this was a presidential issue. He handled it as if this was a routine case, a routine, potentially criminal case, where he didn't do thorough prep ahead of time with the lawyers for a number of West Wing and senior administration official witnesses and people close to the president. He didn't do a particularly thorough debrief with those lawyers afterwards, if he did any. He did not keep their own notes.

The president's new legal team found themselves having to reconstruct a ton of this. What essentially was a road map for Mueller by a bunch of witnesses as to where to look and what to look at. And they have been playing catchup. They believe they are relatively caught up now. I don't know that that is true, but that's how they feel. They also know that real-time conversations are much better than doing this months later after the fact.

And they don't know where this all goes now. In part, they are flying partially blind, partly because of the errors by John Dowd. And to be clear, some of these errors are contributed to by the fact that the president is a very difficult client --

BERMAN: Yes.

HABERMAN: -- in a lot of ways. And that can't be underestimated in terms of why he is having trouble attracting a more top-shelf legal team in D.C. But they don't know where this goes. All of their predictions about when this should end, they've set all these public false deadlines for Robert Mueller. Robert Mueller is not abiding by their false deadlines and seems very likely to push this through past the midterms.

BERMAN: It's a good point. There were two really big things that I think came out of your fantastic article yesterday.

HABERMAN: Thank you.

BERMAN: One was the questions raised about how Dowd handled his time there, but the point that you kept on making was part of the real issue here is the client.

HABERMAN: Right.

BERMAN: Is just how problematic the client is.

HABERMAN: Well, there was -- there was a window in time last summer where they had an opportunity to get a fully-stocked legal team. And there were a couple of people who seemed interested, some more interested than others. A bunch of lawyers would have had to get permission from their firms in order to do this. And many major law firms don't want their lawyers working for this president, so that has become an issue.

Then you have the controversy surrounding the -- the Don -- Donald Trump Jr. meeting with a Russian lawyer and the fallout from the statement that the president essentially dictated. And then the legal team was basically left in flames, and nobody wanted to come and work for him.

The president has a habit of not just lying in terms of, you know, things he says on Twitter or things he says to reporters, but he -- there's no expectation among his lawyers that he's necessarily telling all the truth either. And that puts them in a -- in a tough spot. They spent 20 hours this spring trying to get his recollection of

events, but I think if you -- if you strap them all to a polygraph, they would acknowledge that this doesn't necessarily mean that's the full story.

CAMEROTA: Maggie Haberman, thank you very much for sharing your interesting reporting with us.

All right. During his confirmation hearing, Brett Kavanaugh was asked pointblank if he had ever committed sexual assault.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. MAZIE HIRONO (D), HAWAII: Since you became a legal adult, have you ever made unwanted requests for sexual favors or committed any verbal or physical harassment or assault of a sexual nature?

KAVANAUGH: No.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: All right. We will talk with that senator who posed the question and why she posed that question, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAMEROTA: OK. At this hour, we do not know if next Monday's hearing on the allegations facing Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh will go forward. Attorneys for his accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, say their client wants the FBI to investigate her claim of sexual assault before she agrees to testify to Congress.

But the topic of sexual misconduct did come up at Kavanaugh's confirmation hearing.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HIRONO: Since you became a legal adult, have you ever made unwanted requests for sexual favors or committed any verbal or physical harassment or assault of a sexual nature?

KAVANAUGH: No.

HIRONO: Have you ever faced discipline or entered into a settlement related to this kind of conduct?

KAVANAUGH: No.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Joining us now is that senator, Mazie Hirono, one of the 21 members of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Good morning, Senator.

HIRONO: Good morning. CAMEROTA: When you asked that question did you have some sort of

special background information?

HIRONO: No, I ask that question of every nominee who comes before the five committees that I sit on. And I ask those questions because it's really important that the #MeToo movement, which is so critical to supporting women who have suffered this kind of trauma, that this not be swept under the rug. So I've asked this of, I would say at this point, about 100 nominees.

CAMEROTA: So during that -- those confirmation hearings, did you know that Senator Dianne Feinstein had a letter from an accuser?

[07:20:06] HIRONO: No.

CAMEROTA: Do you wish you had known that?

HIRONO: You know what? I think our focus should be that Dr. Ford has come forward very courageously, and what our committee is to do is what do we do about it?

Going back and saying, "Well, this that and the other thing," the fact is she has come forward with information that ought to be investigated by the FBI. And when Dr. Ford said she would testify, I think she expected a modicum of a fair kind of a situation.

You know what happened right after she came forward on Sunday? I think that's when most of us read about it. That the committee said, "Oh, hey, we want to have a hearing with you. How about this coming Tuesday? Oh, if that's not good, how about Thursday?" The callousness with which she was treated.

You know, for any of us to have dealt at all with the experience of sexual trauma knows that this is a very particularly damaging kind of experience. And you do not treat a person who has gone through this like, "Oh, well, hey, how about this?" You know, I think it's appalling.

And I am totally disappointed that all these people who have come forward to say we should hear from her, and now that she's expecting a modicum of fairness that she's not re-victimized, are now saying, "Well, if she doesn't want to testify, we should just go ahead." That is additional callousness from my colleagues that I am totally appalled by.

CAMEROTA: I understand what you're saying, that you have the information now and what do you do with it now?

HIRONO: Exactly.

CAMEROTA: However, she did call the tip line back in June. She did reach out to her local representative in July. She did, I believe, send a letter to Senator Feinstein in July, and so the timing is inopportune, which I think that you would agree. There was a way to -- there was a way that this could have happened in a more timely fashion. HIRONO: Do you think that she wanted all of this to be out in the open? She asked for anonymity. She asked for confidentiality.

I think those of us who have any kind of a modicum of understanding of this kind of trauma, would expect that maybe you don't want to talk about it. So this is what I meant. She has come forward. She has nothing to gain from coming forward. She hardly expects to be revictimized and retraumatized, but this is exactly what's happening. And it happens way too often.

And one of the things that happened after some comments I made yesterday is that my office has been getting tweets, and these tweets are out in the open, but I personally have heard from three women that I have known for an extended period of time. And they very personally talked to me. Two of them had been raped. One had been -- almost had an attempted rape when she was 15. The trauma continues, and they never talked about it.

This is why I said yesterday not only do these women need to be heard, they need to be believed. And you know what? We're setting up -- we're setting up on Monday a situation where there's not even a modicum of fairness extended to her through an appropriate FBI investigation. So there can be, at least, some attempt at corroboration. She's not even going to get that. And now she's being faulted for not coming forward? Just give me a break here.

CAMEROTA: When you asked your question of Brett Kavanaugh, you started with "Since you've become a legal adult."

HIRONO: Yes.

CAMEROTA: Do you think it changes, the fact that this allegation is allegedly when he was 17 years old? Did that change your calculus in terms of whether or not this -- he should be seated?

HIRONO: A 17-year-old is not a baby. And it's bad enough that we have one person on the Supreme Court who got there under this kind of cloud. We should not be sending another person under this kind of cloud.

I have many other reasons for being against Judge Kavanaugh's nomination, but this is yet another area where, you know, what can we expect him to say except to deny the whole thing, because for him to say anything else would totally deep-six his nomination.

This is an administration that is totally intent, with the help of Mitch McConnell and others in the Senate, to push this through. Why? Because the Supreme Court session is going to start in October. The president wants his guy there to, he hopes, will help him evade criminal or civil proceedings. That's what's going on.

CAMEROTA: I hear you. If Christine Blasey Ford does not want to come on Monday, do you still want to ask questions of Brett Kavanaugh on Monday?

HIRONO: You know what? I think we should all be focused on why the heck does she not want to come? She doesn't want to be part of a railroad job.

CAMEROTA: Understood.

HIRONO: Now, if I go on Monday, it will be because by not going, this is going to disadvantage and victimize Dr. Ford even more. So I haven't quite decided, but that would be my impetus for going forward.

But there are already some Republican members, leaders who are saying if she's not coming forward, why even have this? So I say why even have this if you're not going to have the, at this point to me, the decency and the fairness of requiring an FBI investigation?

[07:25:15] And the other thing is I think is really telling, that the third person who was in that room when this happened refuses to testify, and we need to hear from Mark Judge. Apparently, they --

CAMEROTA: Are you calling for him to be subpoenaed?

HIRONO: Pardon?

CAMEROTA: Are you calling for Mark Judge to be subpoenaed by your committee?

HIRONO: I would -- I would like that to happen, and in fact, some of us already have sent a letter to the chairman, Chairman Grassley, that if we're going to have this kind of hearing, there should be, at a minimum, three witnesses: Judge Kavanaugh, Dr. Ford and Mark Judge.

CAMEROTA: But again, do you think it's valuable for you to, on Monday, ask questions of Brett Kavanaugh?

HIRONO: The reason that I would do it, again, is that by not being there and not asking him particular questions, this is going to add to the further victimization for Dr. Ford.

But I would be there. Adjusting to the fact that we're going ahead without affording her the -- the fairness that we would accord everybody else.

I asked all my colleagues who are so happy to say, "Well, if she's not willing to testify, we should just go ahead." I want to say to them, "What if this was your daughter? How would you want her to be treated? Do you not have a sense of empathy or fair play? I think we all know when a situation is stacked and this is a situation that is stacked.

This rush to get Judge Kavanaugh on this court has been the case since this hearing first began. We have thousands of documents we don't have. I don't need to go into all that.

CAMEROTA: Yes.

HIRONO: But this is a very personal trauma. We -- I certainly understand from all my years in elected office how sexual assault, rape, is a very different kind of crime. Very few women come forward. This is another example of why. She's already being attacked. She's had to move out of her house.

CAMEROTA: Yes.

HIRONO: Do you think she needs any of this? No.

CAMEROTA: Anita Hill knows a thing or two --

HIRONO: Exactly.

CAMEROTA: -- about a process that she felt was not fair and rushed forward. So here she is this morning talking about it. Here she is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANITA HILL, ACCUSED JUSTICE CLARENCE THOMAS OF SEXUAL HARASSMENT: Absolutely it's the right move. The hearing questions need to have a frame, and investigation is the best frame for that, a neutral investigation that can pull together the facts and create a record, so that the senators can draw on the information they receive to develop their questions.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: So Senator, how do you get the FBI to re-open their background check of Brett Kavanaugh?

HIRONO: Frankly, I don't know how we can force them to, because we were following the appropriate process, which was to ask the president to go forward.

But this is the kind of investigation that the FBI is supposed to be doing. This is new information that they got. T hey should be able to do their jobs, and who's stopping them right now is the president. It's the administration. Not surprising but shocking.

CAMEROTA: Yesterday you said, "I just want the men in this country to shut up and step up and do the right thing for a change." Can you expound on that, what you meant?

HIRONO: This kind of behavior, sexual harassment, sexual assault has been going on for, as I've said for the past time immemorial, it's not just something for the women in this country to care about. It's for all of us.

That's why I said to the men, just shut up and step up. And you know what? For the men who are offended by this, you should ask yourself, why are you offended about this? Why don't you ask yourself, what about this that offends you?

We should all be holding together. We should all be treating each other like human beings. It's about time. It's not just for the women to bear this burden continuously.

And guess what? The people who are usually perpetuating this kind of behavior, who are acting this way are the men. That's why I said, you know what? Face up, step up. CAMEROTA: Senator Mazie Hirono, we appreciate you coming on NEW DAY.

Thank you.

HIRONO: Thank you.

CAMEROTA: John.

BERMAN: Great discussion. Interesting to hear where Democrats sit this morning.

In the meantime, President Trump has declassified documents connected to the Russia probe while the investigation is ongoing, an investigation where he is a subject. Is this an abuse of power? We will hear from former CIA chief, Michael Hayden, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)