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Kavanaughs Character in Question; Republicans Rushing The Process for Brett Kavanaugh; Trump Reportedly Frustrated with Senate Republicans Handling of Brett Kavanaugh Nomination; Democrats Want an Investigation into Kavanaugh Allegations. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired September 25, 2018 - 8:00   ET

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

[08:00:00] UNIDENTIFIED MALE: -- to appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee as well?

SARAH SANDERS, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: Certainly, we would be open to that, and that process could take place on Thursday. Again, the president has been clear. Let them speak, but let's also let Brett Kavanaugh speak, and let's let him tell his side of the story before we allow allegations to determine his entire future.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: It is notable, we think, that the president is open, as Sarah Sanders says, to having Debbie Ramirez testify on Thursday. That is not something we have heard from anyone in the Senate. Thursday is the day that Brett Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford will appear before the Judiciary Committee about Ford's claim that Kavanaugh pinned her to a bed, groped her, tried to remove her clothes, and kept her from screaming. That happened allegedly when they were in high school. Kavanaugh says it never happened, and he gave this unprecedented interview in his own defense.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Joining us now is Josh Dawsey. He's the "Washington Post" White House reporter and CNN political analyst. He has new reporting about how President Trump is managing these crises. Josh, good to see you.

JOSH DAWSEY, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Good morning. How are you?

CAMEROTA: I'm well. So here's what you wrote yesterday and it was really interesting insight. You said "Over the weekend at two of his favorite haunts, his private club in Bedminster, New Jersey, and Trump Tower in Manhattan, the president mused about wanting to inject some new chum into the news cycle to help deflect the spotlight from Kavanaugh according to a former official in frequent touch with the White House."

What's so fascinating about this, Josh, is that this is what's long been speculating to, which is that the president throws a shiny object somewhere else, or detonates a grenade somewhere when the news cycle is not to his liking, and then everyone runs off in that direction, and it seems that you are getting sort of confirmation of his thinking there. Can you expound?

DAWSEY: Think about what happened yesterday. You had the entire Rosenstein drama playing out at the White House. He comes over. Is he going to resign? Is he not going to resign? You had new allegations against Kavanaugh. You had the president of the U.N. saying he's going to meet with North Korea's Kim Jong-un again soon. You have new trade deal being signed. There is just a cascade of headlines on every front. The president has grown frustrated with his Kavanaugh nomination. It seemed like it was soaring through pretty quickly, and suddenly it wasn't. And what looked like to be a simple win for his presidency has turned out to be as simple and as quick as he wanted it to be. So this week is going to be about many things.

CAMEROTA: But just to be clear, was that high stakes Rosenstein trip to the White House, was that just a diversionary tactic? Did Rod Rosenstein think that he was going to learn his fate, but all of this was really just some sort of subterfuge?

DAWSEY: I don't want to go that far, Alisyn. There is certainly a lot of frustration at the White House about Rod Rosenstein. He came over on Friday night, met with John Kelly. Resignation was in the works all weekend. It is unclear exactly what was happening yesterday because Rod Rosenstein thought he was going to be fired. They thought the president was going to be ready to make that move. There was even a statement drafted, "Axios" reported this morning, a whole full statement that was going to go out to the media and the public explaining his firing. And then he got there and all of a sudden he was just attending a principals committee meeting after meeting with the chief of staff.

This White House is often a hall of mirrors. You don't really know what's going on until several days later because you're hearing all these conflicting accounts in real-time. And I think we are trying to sort out, frankly, what happened yesterday because you have the Department of Justice who are expecting a leadership change and thought big things were happening, and maybe not.

CAMEROTA: But is it fair to say that if what the president was hoping for was new chum in the news cycle that it didn't work? What ended up happening, yes, I suppose everybody's attention was diverted for an hour watching the Rosenstein drama, but then these dual crises seemed to be playing out at the same time, the Kavanaugh thing and the Rosenstein thing.

DAWSEY: The sources I talked to inside the White House, the Kavanaugh really is the big kahuna. The president knows that for his conservative base, for a lot of supporters who maybe didn't like a lot of his campaign, getting Supreme Court nominees and sticking to the list and picking the ones that they like are a redemption for him. I think the people around the president know that the stakes could not be higher for this Supreme Court fight. And that's why you've seen such a vociferous defense mounted even amid allegations of sexual misconduct.

So for the Supreme Court fight, the White House's entire attention is really on this this week, even as the president maybe is doing different diversionary tactics.

CAMEROTA: So here's what you and your colleagues write about the Kavanaugh stuff. "The president has said the Republicans are too easily manipulated by Democrats, that he is sick of Ford's attorneys getting their way, and that he does not believe her accusations are credible." Josh, that is quite different, it seems, than the tone that Kellyanne Conway first set when these accusations first came out. Do you have any reporting that the president is regretting his reticence at the beginning of the week last week where he did not seem to be going after the accuser?

[08:05:00] DAWSEY: Well, the president was convinced last week by Kellyanne Conway and others that going after the accuser would be deleterious to a Supreme Court nominee, so he didn't do it. Then by Friday you obviously saw he was questioning her account on Twitter and wondering if it ever happened.

And then you had an interesting confluence of events, Alisyn. You had Mitch McConnell call the president and basically said could you please stop tweeting, you are not helping us. And by this weekend while he was at his golf course, the president did not like Chuck Grassley's tweets moving back the deadline. He didn't like the sense that Republicans were continuing to negotiate with her instead of setting a firmer deadline and sticking to it.

And then he called McConnell on Saturday and was pretty frustrated himself saying we need to call the vote. We need to jam this through. We need to vote for Brett Kavanaugh. They have had enough time and they're not doing anything.

So we have seen the president grow increasingly impatient by this process. In the beginning, he seemed willing to let others take the lead, let Don McGahn, his White House council, Mitch McConnell, and the people around him helm this process. But as the days have ticked on, he's gotten increasingly trigger fingered and ready to get involved himself.

CAMEROTA: Josh Dawsey, thank you very much for sharing your reporting with us.

DAWSEY: Thank you.

BERMAN: There are too many plot developments for just one chapter.

CAMEROTA: For just one show.

BERMAN: For just one show, let alone one week's worth of shows. We want to bring in Jeffrey Toobin, staff writer for the "New Yorker" and CNN chief legal analyst, CNN chief political correspondent Dana Bash, and CNN political analyst Carl Bernstein. And Carl, not to put this in too stark of a perspective here, but you think the fate of Rod Rosenstein plays into what you see as a constitutional crisis.

CARL BERNSTEIN, JOURNALIST AND AUTHOR: I think there is a crisis of truth. You set this section of the broadcast up by talking about two crises. There is a single crisis, and that is a president of the United States who demonstrably has known no indication throughout his presidency that he has any interest in determining the truth about great matters that are important to everyone in this country, particularly the Mueller investigation, and now the appointment of a Supreme Court justice, an appointment which is in trouble.

There are mechanisms to get to the truth. One is Mueller's investigation itself, which the president is determined to undermine and shut down, and we know that from people closest to the president that that is his objective, that he's going to wait until after the midterms to try and do everything he can to shut it down. And the second is to have the FBI, which is the right organization, do some investigating here to determine the truth, or certainly provide information that would help a Senate committee decide on what is the truth about these allegations.

The president has no interest in this. And interestingly enough, it would seem that the nominee himself, Mr. Kavanaugh, the judge who in the White House knows just how good the FBI is at getting facts in these kinds of matters. He worked at the White House. He's been a judge on the court of appeals and understands what the FBI does and how good they are at helping in this kind of process. He, nor the president, seems to want these institutions to be involved in helping determine the truth. So we have a crisis of truth here. And it's caused by the president of the United States.

CAMEROTA: Jeffrey Toobin, let's start there. Let's split these in half. Why wouldn't Brett Kavanaugh want the FBI to investigate to prove his claim of innocence?

JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN CHIEF LEGAL ANALYST: Well, I think that the tact he took is not to get involved in who is doing the investigation, but simply to say, I'll cooperate with anybody. I'll tell anybody who wants to hear that I didn't do what these women said I did, and so sort of stay out of the weeds of who is actually doing the investigation. That appears to be his approach.

An alternative approach might have been, yes, I want the FBI to investigate. Yes, I want the most scrupulous, detailed investigation possible because the more facts come out, the more my position will be helped. He chose the former approach, rather than the latter.

BERMAN: Dana, we heard from Mitch McConnell yesterday on the Senate floor. And it felt to me like a marker in this drama here, where he was saying, this is going to end, and it's going to end soon. Explain the urgency here. Explain why they're not going to delay past Thursday. Explain why this vote will happen in the days immediately after. Why couldn't they wait a few days?

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: You talked about a marker. There is another marker today, six weeks until the midterms today. And the Republicans in the Senate and certainly the one in the White House are getting more and more anxious. And it is because, I am hearing, and frankly also seeing, the pressure on them is mounting in a big way from conservatives, who are saying what are you doing?

[08:10:05] And it really is fascinating to see the evolution of this in the last week. A week ago, it was from the president on down, let's hear everybody's side. Let's -- she's believable. Very careful. And since then it has turned into a more traditional, unfortunately, very, very partisan fight. And Republicans are insisting that they are seeing not just Republican voters but in their internal polling, and we have no way to back this up, but I'm just telling you this because this is what's driving their strategy, that independent voters are going to be so key in this election in six weeks are getting more fed up with the Democrats tactics because they think the Democrats are overplaying their hand, and that is driving the shift in strategy.

TOOBIN: And there is also the fact that there is an outside chance, but a real chance, that the Democrats retake the Senate in the midterm elections, in which case I don't think any nominee for the Supreme Court is going to get through. The payback for Merrick Garland will be swift and total. So it may be that this is it for the president. He gets this appointment. There probably is no time to get a nominee through in the lame duck. So it's Brett Kavanaugh or bust for the Republicans on the Supreme Court, possibly.

CAMEROTA: Here's -- just one last point on what's going to happen on Thursday in terms of the Brett Kavanaugh thing and the Christine Ford testifying. Here is what the president tweeted yesterday, "The Democrats are working hard to destroy a wonderful man and a man who has the potential to be one of our greatest Supreme Court justices ever, with an array of false accusations the likes of which have never been see before!"

Carl, I don't know how he can know they're false accusations when the hearings haven't happened yet. And to your point about truth, if it's really just truly he said, she said at that point because the FBI isn't investigating and no other witnesses are called, how will we get to the truth?

BERNSTEIN: I don't know, quite honestly. But I think one thing we need to understand is the larger context of all of this, and that is that we are in a cold civil war in this country, that these two events, both the Mueller investigation and the Brett Kavanaugh nomination, are almost the Gettysburg and Antietam, the absolutely essential battles of this cold civil war. And both the Democrats and the Republicans, unfortunately, understand that and are exploiting that.

Instead of having two parties committed to finding out the truth in these two important matters, we are now into serious tribalism here. I think it is disproportionate because the president of the United States through his own lying has shown he has no interest in the truth. But whatever the case, the mechanisms of government, our system is not working right now, and as a result we have a constitutional crisis.

And one of the things I think that what Dana is referring to is I think anecdotally there is some real evidence that Senator Feinstein's handling of this matter from the beginning has played into the hands of the Republicans, for whatever reasons. Her reasons might have been genuine, to protect Professor Ford, but some of this, I think, has backfired by her handling of the situation to begin with, and makes it look to some people as if the Democrats wanted to drag their feet and bring this up to the last minute.

BERMAN: Dana, one quick question.

BERNSTEIN: So we have a terrible situation.

BERMAN: Sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt. I want to ask one quick question of Dana on Rod Rosenstein because I think as we get closer to Thursday, there does remain to be this possibility that maybe is growing that Rosenstein sticks around. What does that look like for a guy who has been through what he's been through? Forget the last several months, but the last few days.

BASH: It would look like his tenure, frankly, over the past year, just a little bit more tender when you're talking about the wounds that he's having to deal with and having to tend to, because Rod Rosenstein has been a man under fire since the day he appointed Robert Mueller. And he understands that it is an incredibly difficult position that he is in.

And, remember, go back in time to when Mueller was appointed. Part of the reason was that James Comey leaked some of his memos in hopes that there is a special counsel, and that happened, but also because he wrote a memo about Comey that was used as a basis for him to be fired.

[08:15:00]

So, since that moment he has been a man in a very uncomfortable, frankly, untenable position which is, probably, why he was telling people, as CNN reported yesterday, that he expected to be fired when he got to the White House yesterday which it turns out, didn't happen.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN HOST: All right. Dana, Carl, Jeffrey, thank you all very much. So, Republican leadership calling the allegations, now, against Brett Kavanaugh a Democratic smear campaign. A Democratic member of the Judiciary Committee joins us with her thoughts next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAMEROTA: Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell took to the Senate floor Monday, delivering a fiery speech to save Brett Kavanaugh's nomination, blaming Democrats for what he's calling a smear campaign.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. MITCH MCCONELL (R), KENTUCKY: Senate Democrats, and their allies, are trying to destroy a man's personal and professional life on the basis of decades old allegations that are unsubstantiated, and uncorroborated. This is what the, so-called, resistance has become a smear campaign, pure and simple.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Joining us now is Democratic Senator, Mazie Hirono. She serves on the Judiciary Committee. Senator, thanks for being here.

SEN. MAZIE HIRONO (D), HAWAII: Good morning.

CAMEROTA: Would you like to respond to Senator McConnell saying that this is, pure and simple, a smear campaign from Democrats like yourself?

[08:20:00]

HIRONO: Well, this whole process is very rushed, and is a stonewalling campaign by the Republicans to make sure that we didn't get all of the documents that we needed to evaluate Judge Kavanaugh. And now, there's not even a call for an FBI investigation.

So, when he talks about there's no corroboration, et cetera, this is why all of the Democrats on the Judiciary Committee have been, totally, consistent and asking for an FBI investigation. And they have been, totally, stonewalling the whole thing. And you have to ask, why is that?

CAMEROTA: There is.

HIRONO: I can tell you why. They don't want us to find out anything more about all of this.

CAMEROTA: Well, there is - it sounds like you're going to find out more on Thursday. They are allowing Christine Blasey Ford to come, and to speak her story, to tell her side. So, would you like to.

HIRONO: Well, if this sounds (ph) - it is withstanding (ph) in the basics of an independent FBI investigation.

CAMEROTA: Would you?

HIRONO: Yes, they had it happen in the Anita Hill matter. So, the fact that they're rushing this so much, they need to get this person on the court, lickety-split, so that when the October term begins, that they - people who are supporting him know that he'll be a reliable fifth (ph) vote on the issues that they care about.

CAMEROTA: There's a second woman who has come forward named Debbie Ramirez who talks about...

HIRONO: Yes.

CAMEROTA: ...and incident that she remembers at a drunken party, freshman year, in college. Here is what Sarah Sanders said, this morning, about that woman possibly being able to testify. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS, ABC NEWS ANCHOR: You've said that everybody's voices should be heard. So, does the President want Ms. Ramirez to appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee as well? SARAH SANDERS, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: Certainly, we would be open to that. And that process could take place on Thursday. Again, the President's been clear, let them speak, but let's also let Brett Kavanaugh speak, and let's let him tell his side of the story before we allow allegations to determine his entire future.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Senator, are there plans to hear from Debbie Ramirez on Thursday?

HIRONO: I don't know, but what I really want to hear from this administration, and Sarah Huckabee Sanders is, there will be an FBI investigation. That is what we need. And I think most people who look at this process, and want some monochrome (ph) of fairness, would agree that we should have an FBI investigation.

But they continue to stonewall. And I think that they're doing a tremendous disservice to the public - American people, as well as, should he get on the court, there will always be an asterisk, and a cloud, over his name, and on his name. And I think that is not what we want to do to the Supreme Court.

CAMEROTA: Did you watch Brett Kavanaugh's interview on Fox last night?

HIRONO: No, I was not able to. I saw snippets of it...

CAMEROTA: Yes.

HIRONO: ...this morning.

CAMEROTA: Let me play a snippet, for people who may have missed it, where he talks about his own - he denies the accusations, and he talks about his own sexual history.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BRETT KAVANAUGH, SUPREME COURT JUSTICE NOMINEE: I have never had any sexual or physical activity with Dr. Ford. I've never sexually assaulted anyone in high school or otherwise.

MARTHA MACCALLUM, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: So, where do you think this is coming from? Why would she make this up?

KAVANAUGH: What I know is the truth. And the truth is, I've never sexually assaulted anyone in high school, or otherwise. I'm not questioning, and have not questioned that, perhaps, Dr. Ford, at some point, in her life was sexually assaulted by someone in some place.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: You, of course, famously, asked him that at the beginning of your questioning of him at his confirmation hearing. And he said that no, he had no history of sexual misconduct as an adult. Well, that was your question. Whatsoever, what did you think of his response there?

HIRONO: Well, of course, he said no, but are you talking about his response last night? Of course he's going to maintain is innocence, but this is why we need to have him go before the FBI. If he's not afraid of the truth, why is he not, himself, as Dr. Ford as done, called for an FBI investigation?

And, by the way, this is not a criminal proceeding. People keep talking about presumption of innocence that is a (INAUDIBLE) uses in a criminal proceeding. This is a hearing to determine whether or not Judge Kavanaugh has the credibility and character to serve on the Supreme Court.

It is a interview. Nobody is entitled to sit on the Supreme Court. People talk about this is a promotion. Geez, that sounds like a job interview setting to me. So, credibility, his character, are all the kinds of things that any job interviewer would want to know. Based on the research that I've done, his credibility is not - is very questionable because, one, he misapplies cases - he miss - he misinterprets cases.

He - there's some cases that I'm very familiar with, relating to Hawaii, and he misstated the holding of the case, he misapplies the case. And so, his credibility is very questionable. And that is, very much, on the line when we are talking about a job interview for a lifetime position to the Supreme Court. Where this person will be the fifth vote on so many...

CAMEROTA: Yes.

[08:25:00]

HIRONO: ...issues that concern us and will, basically, run our lives on - on women's right to choose, on unions, on everything.

CAMEROTA: Yes. I know that you - you're very interested, obviously as you've said, in an FBI investigation. That's not going to happen. That's not what the President is calling for.

But what we have heard is the lawyer representing Christine Blasey Ford has sent a letter to your chairman, Chuck Grassley, expressing concern over the Republicans having hired an experienced sex crime prosecutor to help - I guess, help them craft their questions for Thursday's hearing. Are you comfortable with that? Do you think that it would be helpful?

HIRONO: I think this is an example of the Republicans on the committee not wanting to reveal themselves to the American public because what should be happening is that we should be asking the questions.

And I think it's, perfectly, reasonable for Dr. Ford's attorneys to want to know who this prosecutor is. And, by the way, this is not a court of law. This is not a criminal proceeding. But it should be very obvious to the people of our country, by now, that the Republicans do not want to question Dr. Ford directly because it will reveal who they are. And I think they're afraid of that.

CAMEROTA: Very quickly while I have you, how much of this, would you say, is connected to the treatment that Merrick Garland got?

HIRONO: You know, to me that is - you talk about that in the context of this, all-fired (ph), rush to get this person on the court. But really, I'm looking at Dr. Ford and hoping that she'll get a fair, which she isn't.

But I'm looking at Brett Kavanaugh for himself, and whether his credibility, and the way he approaches cases is something that reassures me that he can be fair and impartial as a justice. And I have concluded that he cannot do that.

CAMEROTA: But, I mean, is it also fair to say that the Democrats, given the treatment that Merrick Garland got, the Democrats are not inclined to give this nominee the benefit of the doubt now?

HIRONO: That's not - you know, as I said, we can talk all day about the total unfair treatment that Merrick Garland got. But at the same time, we are confronted with whether or not we're going to approve this person. And I think that we're not doing our jobs if we're not focusing on his own credibility, his own credentials, his own ability to be open with us. And that's what that issue, at least for me. And I have come to the conclusion he cannot be the impartial justice that I would want on the Supreme Court.

CAMEROTA: Senator Mazie Hirono, we really appreciate you coming on...

HIRONO: Thank you.

CAMEROTA: ...today. Thank you. John.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein meets with the President on Thursday. If the President fires him, what happens next? We're joined by the former Special Prosecutor for Watergate. Stick around.

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