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Sources: White House Controlling Scope of FBI Probe; U.S. and Canada Reach Last-Minute NAFTA Deal. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired October 01, 2018 - 06:00   ET

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

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The White House should not be allowed to micromanage an FBI investigation.

[05:59:18] KELLYANNE CONWAY, COUNSELOR TO DONALD TRUMP: It will be limited in scope. It's not meant to be a fishing expedition.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's still supposed to behave as a judge. You don't come out with attacks on a partisan basis.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They don't want the results; they just want delay.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Nobody's asking for delay. People are asking for justice.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If Judge Kavanaugh is shown to have lied to the committee, the nomination is over?

SEN. JEFF FLAKE (R), ARIZONA: Oh, yes, I would think so.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Welcome to our viewers in the United States and all around the world. This is NEW DAY. It's Monday. It's October all of a sudden, October 1, 6 a.m. here in New York.

Hope you had a nice weekend.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: I had a great weekend, but conversations about the Kavanaugh hearings throughout the weekend.

BERMAN: Everywhere. Every person. And the big question this morning is, is it real? Is the FBI investigation real?

The entire political world was turned upside-down when Senator Jeff Flake demanded a new FBI background check into Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. Flake got that background check. The FBI is investigating this morning, but investigating what and how much?

The president insists the bureau has free reign to look into sexual misconduct allegations against Kavanaugh, but that is not what sources tell CNN. They claim the White House is narrowing the focus and controlling the scope of the investigation with the help of Senate Republicans.

There are reports this morning that witnesses with stories to tell about Kavanaugh's behavior are not even able to reach FBI agents to talk. And according to two sources, Christine Blasey Ford and Brett Kavanaugh, they're not on the witness list given to the FBI.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: So top Democrats are demanding to see all written orders from the White House to the FBI related to the Kavanaugh investigation, and they're suggesting the time and scope limits are turning the probe into a, quote, "farce."

Two new developments to watch this morning. Senator Flake telling "60 Minutes" that Kavanaugh's nomination is, quote, done if it turns out he lied in any way to the Judiciary Committee. And a Kavanaugh classmate at Yale claiming the Supreme Court nominee was not truthful about his drinking in college, and there's more than just one.

A lot to get to. Let's begin with CNN's Abby Phillip. She is live at the White House.

What's the latest, Abby?

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Alisyn. This FBI investigation is supposed to help bring some more clarity to this national debate sparked by Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation process, but instead, it's really brought some new questions as the White House and Senate Republicans are under fire now for how they're handling that probe.

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PHILLIP (voice-over): The FBI investigation into Judge Brett Kavanaugh under scrutiny, with sources telling CNN that the White House is controlling the scope of the probe, despite President Trump insisting otherwise.

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: They have free reign. They're going to do whatever they have to do, whatever it is they do.

PHILLIP: Sources tell CNN that the administration's lead advocate for Kavanaugh, White House counsel Don McGahn, is working with Senate Republicans to make the review as narrow as possible.

CONWAY: It will be limited in scope. It's meant to last one week, not meant to be a fishing expedition.

PHILLIP: The top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, Senator Dianne Feinstein, requesting a copy of the White House's directive laying out the parameters of the investigation in a letter to McGahn and FBI director Christopher Wray last night.

SEN. MAZIE HIRONO (D), HAWAII: To limit the FBI as to the scope and who they're going to question, that -- that really -- I wanted to use the word "farce," but that's not the kind of investigation that all of us are expecting the FBI to conduct.

PHILLIP: President Trump pushing back, charging that nothing will ever be enough for Democrats.

SARAH SANDERS, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: The White House counsel allowed the Senate to dictate what these terms look like and what the scope of the investigation is.

SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR (D), MINNESOTA: You can't interview this morning. You can't look at this time period. You can only look at these people from this side of the street from when they were growing up. I mean, come on.

PHILLIP: A source tells CNN that Kavanaugh's drinking history, a key point of contention at last week's hearing, is not part of the probe.

JUDGE BRETT KAVANAUGH, SUPREME COURT NOMINEE: You're asking about, you know, blackouts. I don't know, have you?

PHILLIP: One of Kavanaugh's Yale classmates accusing Kavanaugh of being a frequent and heavy drinker in a statement Sunday, stating, "In downplaying the degree and frequency of his drinking, Brett has not told the truth."

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If Judge Kavanaugh is shown to have lied to the committee, the nomination is over?

FLAKE: Oh, yes.

SEN. CHRIS COONS (D), DELAWARE: I would think so.

PHILLIP: CNN has learned the FBI has spoken to Deborah Ramirez Sunday, who accused Kavanaugh of exposing himself to her at a party while they were students at Yale, a claim Kavanaugh has denied. There is no indication that the FBI intends to speak with the third accuser, Julie Swetnick, who has also accused Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct.

And Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell releasing a statement on Sunday attacking Swetnick's credibility.

KAVANAUGH: The Swetnick thing is a joke. That is a farce.

PHILLIP: Two sources tell CNN that Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford were not on the official witness list given by Senate Republicans to the White House, but that agents were expected to interview several people who Ford says were present at the party where she says she was assaulted.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIP: And President Trump has told reporters this weekend that there is no backup plan for Brett Kavanaugh if this nomination fails. The stakes here for this FBI probe higher and higher by the day.

Meanwhile, President Trump today is going to have a campaign rally in Tennessee -- Alisyn and John.

CAMEROTA: OK, thank you very much, Abby.

Joining us now, CNN senior political reporter, Nia-Malika Henderson; CNN legal and national security analyst Asha Rangappa, who is a former FBI special agent; and CNN political analyst John Avlon.

BERMAN: He is not a former FBI special agent.

CAMEROTA: That he's told us, at least.

Asha, let's start with you, because of your FBI connections. So what do you think of the scope and the parameters of this? Is this investigation a sham, as some Democrats worry?

ASHA RANGAPPA, CNN LEGAL AND NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Well, Alisyn, it's definitely not going to get to the truth or anything close to the truth if the FBI does not have the latitude to interview the relevant people that come up in the course of their investigation.

In my opinion, you would start, actually, with Christine Blasey Ford and Judge Kavanaugh to get their accounts, to be able to ask follow-up questions, ask for details. And then you would move outwards, looking at the immediate witnesses or alleged witnesses and then even going from there to get another set of references beyond that and maybe look at the context of people who knew these people at the time.

So this limited witness list, definitely, and possibly even the limited time period, I think, are problems in terms of conducting a true investigation.

BERMAN: I suppose the thinking is that, because Kavanaugh and Ford testified before the Senate, the whole world saw it --

CAMEROTA: For hours.

BERMAN: -- for hours, they don't need to get more, that they have their sworn, written -- or their sworn statements that they made publicly so they don't need more.

I don't know why not go beyond these four witnesses, right? I mean, everyone I was talking to this weekend who heard this testimony has questions about the honesty of Brett Kavanaugh, even if they're supportive of the fact that this happened 36 years ago, even if they're not convinced the sexual assault took place.

CAMEROTA: Because there are all sorts of other people who have came forward to talk about his drinking. It's not just one person. We have at least half a dozen, maybe more people who have all sorts of examples of how he drank too much, how he was staggeringly drunk, how he had memory lapses. And so it does strain credulity, what he was claiming about he only drank beer and that never happened.

BERMAN: Would you like to read from the works of Charles Ludington here, to make that point? CAMEROTA: This was a Yale classmate, OK, who says he drank with him. "Brett was a frequent drinker and a heavy drinker. I know, because especially in our first two years of college, I often drank with him. On many occasions, I saw Brett slur his words and saw him staggering from alcohol consumption, not all of which was beer. When Brett got drunk, he was often belligerent and aggressive. On one of the last occasions that I purposely socialized with Brett, I witnessed him respond to a semi-hostile remark not by defusing the situation, but by throwing his beer in the man's face and starting a fight that ended with one of our mutual friends in jail."

So John, how can the FBI not investigate his drinking? That seems part and parcel of this entire story.

JOHN AVLON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: It certainly is if the standard is did he lie about anything, and that's the standard that Flake and Coons, the bipartisan group of senators who brought this about, essentially, set out last night on "60 Minutes."

Now, there is nothing criminal about drinking too much in college. There's no allegation we've seen that drinking affects his demeanor and behavior as an adult, as a judge or as a White House staffer.

But this is the problem with the standard that he embraced of "I was basically a football-playing choirboy, and while I loved beer, all these allegations are false about -- about being out of control in a -- in a statement that was out of control at times itself.

I think it is important, though, for folks to understand that this is -- was agreed to as a one week. It's appropriate the White House should turn over the -- the document that gives its directive to the FBI. But it could be that Judge Kavanaugh set a trap for himself by -- by giving an artificially wholesome standard to his behavior in high school and college.

BERMAN: I don't -- I am not sure that the standard that Flake laid out there is to go find out whether Kavanaugh was lying. I think what he said last night is, if it is discovered that he was lying, perhaps by accident as they're talking to these four witnesses, then that would be disqualifying. And I think these two things are separate, because I do not think, from what we know, that the investigation is going to go probe whether or not he was telling the truth exactly. They're going to go ask these four witnesses what they know about these alleged incidents. And Nia, a part of this to me that's infuriating, is that this is a controversy that does not need to exist.

We don't need to sit here at 6:09 a.m. wondering whether or not this is a thorough investigation. Someone should just tell us exactly what's being investigated. We deserve to know. Then people can argue whether or not it's enough or not enough, but the idea that it's uncertain is the most ridiculous aspect of it this morning.

NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, one would think that the White House and the Judiciary Committee, controlled by Republicans, obviously, would want to be completely transparent about this. I mean, that's what got us here to begin with.

Some of the frustrations that folks on that committee had about whether or not they were during -- doing their due diligence by asking the FBI to be involved.

At this point the FBI is involved, but there's still a lack of clarity in terms of what is the scope of this investigation. You hear, on the one hand, the president saying one thing and you hear his aides saying something very different.

[06:10:06] One of the things that Senator Jeff Flake said initially in his Senate testimony even before Blasey Ford and Kavanaugh testified, was that this will be a nomination, perhaps a confirmation always shrouded in doubt, and it looks like, no matter what the outcome is here of this FBI investigation, that is likely to happen. Even the FBI investigation that, again, was supposed to provide some sort of clarity and certainty to those senators and particularly, it looks like it's going to be shrouded in partisan politics.

CAMEROTA: Asha, there's another thing that I'm quite confused about that we need your FBI help with. So the very person who suggested and supported and groomed Brett Kavanaugh for this nomination, Don McGahn, White House counsel, is the person overseeing the FBI investigation of Brett Kavanaugh? How does that work

RANGAPPA: Well, there's clearly a conflict there. He has an interest in making sure that no derogatory information is uncovered. So beyond simply authoring a reopening of a supplemental investigation for a limited scope, that should be the end of it and not, you know, micromanage the list of witnesses.

And to go back to something earlier that John said, I just want to clarify, yes, the judge testified in front of the committee. I don't think that testimony is sufficient in terms of what the FBI would be interested in. Those were partisan questions from both sides. There weren't adequate follow-up questions. There were relevant details that were not explored, for example, the details about a particular party on a certain date on the calendar.

I mean, you know, an FBI interview would allow for a more in-depth, uninterrupted interview to get all of those details of his narrative that were not captured then.

BERMAN: Yes, I'm not arguing whether it should or should not happen. I was merely suggesting I can see the reasoning or I can imagine what they will tell us about why they were not being investigated in that case.

You look at the witnesses, John, that are being talked to, Mark Judge jumps out more than any other. Obviously, he is the person that -- that Christine Blasey Ford said was in the room when this assault happened, and he's the one we know the least about, about whether or not or when he's going to be talked to and what he might say and how hard they'll press there.

AVLON: Well, we certainly can't know this last bit. The thing about -- about Mark Judge is not only is he the crucial third person in the room when the alleged incident with Dr. Ford occurred, but he wrote an entire memoire about, you know, getting blackout drunk in high school and has a character who could be a thinly-veiled reference to Judge Kavanaugh.

CAMEROTA: You think Bart O'Kavanaugh is a thinly-veiled reference?

AVLON: I don't want to go too far out on a limb here. But I'm thinking that his powers of conjuring up a new character might have -- you know, those synapses might have connected.

Look, but I think, you know, that's one of the obvious complaints during that entire hearing. How can you not call Mark Judge?

So -- but I think it's also important we're fair here. A lot of the complaints of senators, particularly on the Democratic side of the aisle were, why not have an FBI investigation?

There were 72 hours under the Bush administration when George H.W. Bush got the FBI to look into the allegations on Clarence Thomas and Anita Hill. Parallels, thy were adults. They worked for the federal government. But this was invoked as the standard. And this was the thing recommended by the ABA and the option taken by largely GOP senators to try to de-escalate this and get to search the truth.

I think while transparency from the White House is paramount to preserve the integrity of this process, I think we also need to be careful about -- about Democrats sort of moving the goal post here and saying, "Well, actually, this isn't enough," because then it all of a sudden appears -- God forbid this to be so -- that it really is about blocking the Kavanaugh -- Kavanaugh appointment outright rather than getting to the truth.

CAMEROTA: Asha, just one last question. Debbie Ramirez is on this witness list, so as an FBI agent, as you were for years, if you go to Debbie Ramirez, she's the one who says that he dropped his pants and exposed his genitals to her, and she was forced to push him away and actually have contact with his body that he [SIC] didn't want. If she says, "Well, I remember so-and-so being in the room."

Can the FBI agents, even though these -- nobody else is on this list, go and talk to the person that could corroborate it?

RANGAPPA: It's not clear to me what has been instructed to them, but in the normal course of the investigation, absolutely any immediate witnesses that would be given to the FBI in the course of interviewing Debbie Ramirez, would be the next people that the FBI would talk to in order to either corroborate or, you know, not corroborate her story.

BERMAN: And just, Nia, one last point here. This is all for an audience of four people at this point. Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Jeff Flake and Joe Manchin. We haven't heard from them about what they want or need in terms of the FBI investigation, and I supposed that might matter most of all?

[06:15:02] HENDERSON: That's right. I mean, is this, essentially, what they wanted to happen? I mean, Jeff Flake was the driving force with this. He seemed to suggest this timeframe was what he wanted. Is this also true that he wanted it to be limited in scope, as well? We'll have to see.

The other person to think about is Heidi Heitkamp, as well, who also is one of those senators who could be on the fence here is in a red state and could be crucial here in terms of what -- what comes out of this investigation, whether or not she's going to give an up or down vote to Judge Kavanaugh. So we'll see.

And the other, I think, sort of "X" factor here is the press. Right? If you think about how he got here, it was "The Washington Post" and "The New Yorker," stories that came out of those publications. So look to that over the next couple of days and see if anything comes out from those outlets.

CAMEROTA: Sounds like it might, since we know there's lots of reporters on the ground, trying to talk to people.

Panel, thank you very much. So it is time now for CNN Money, and we have some breaking news.

The U.S. And Canada reaching a last-minute deal to revise NAFTA. It's a big win for President Trump's trade agenda, and chief business correspondent Christine Romans is in our money center with more. Tell us everything.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Hi, there.

Just hours before midnight Canada said it will join a U.S./Mexico deal made in August, keeping the 24-year-old trade pact a three-country deal. That was looking unlikely last week. The U.S. warned Canada it was ready to move ahead with just Mexico. Negotiators worked all weekend to strike a deal. This a milestone for President Trump. He had vowed to renegotiate NAFTA. He blames it for killing American jobs.

Both the U.S. And Canada say this new deal will create good, well- paying jobs for all North Americans. The president also dislikes the name NAFTA, you know, so it's now the United States-Mexico-Canada agreement, USMC. It updates the original 1994 trade pact.

It introduces some rules for digital businesses. I mean, companies that have emerged, technologies that have emerged since '94. It gives U.S. farmers more access to Canada's dairy markets. That's what President Trump really wanted. It was a huge sticking point during the talks.

In return, the U.S. will keep a mechanism for resolving disputes. That was something that Canada wanted. It also promises higher wages and labor standards for auto workers, but it keeps tariffs on Canada's steel and aluminum. That will raise costs for auto makers.

The U.S. says tariffs will be negotiated separately. The deal now faces Congress. Congress has to approve this. Many lawmakers said they would not support a NAFTA without Canada. So the three amigos continues to be the three amigos for now, at least in North America, John.

BERMAN: Canada being -- that is a big development overnight. We will find out much about some of those details over the course of the day.

So the FBI's investigation into Brett Kavanaugh hasn't done much to ease political tensions. What will it do to impact the mid-term elections? What are the new signs this morning? We'll discuss next.

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[06:21:30] BERMAN: As we sit here this morning, the FBI is investigating Brett Kavanaugh. The big question is how much for real.

One other big question is what will this do to impact the mid-term elections, and what sides are we beginning to see already?

Back with us, Nia-Malika Henderson, Asha Rangappa, and John Avlon.

And Nia, the conventional wisdom, because we haven't seen a ton of polling on this and, really, no reliable polling, the conventional wisdom is that Democrats, this may help them even more in the House, and Republicans are telling you, well, this actually helps us maintain the Senate. Not sure I get that reasoning, but I have heard that now multiple times from insiders on both sides.

HENDERSON: Yes, I mean, I guess the Republicans, obviously, have a better shot at keeping the Senate than they do the House, and they feel like, in some of those key races, particularly a race like Joe Manchin's race, or Heidi Heitkamp's race. This will put those Democrats in a tough spot and energize the Republicans and help them flip those seats.

I guess that's one way to look at it.

Another way to look at it is, if you look at what the Democrats are trying to do in the Senate, last week they basically blasted out a list that said these 11 men in the Senate just voted for -- to advance Judge Kavanaugh. Help elect these 15 women to the Senate to turn this the Senate over.

Because if you look at the way they're running, it's basically they're hoping that women, obviously, turn out and vote for Democrats. And the people who they would vote for to flip the Senate are, by and large, women. You think about that Arizona seat, for instance. You think about if Heidi Heitkamp is able to stay in that seat, as well.

So listen, we don't know. I mean, the other thing is the -- the midterms are still a little ways away. Is this something that's still going to be energizing folks going forward? Another thing to look at is money, right? Or are Democratic progressive groups going to pull money from some of these candidates if they vote for Kavanaugh? So those are those red-state Democrats, as well.

So they're all sorts of moving parts here. And of course, we don't even yet know what's going to happen with Judge Kavanaugh.

CAMEROTA: So John, Axios had some reporting, from a senior source involved in the --

BERMAN: That's a good quote. Where'd you get this quote?

CAMEROTA: Very smart man identified this for us, named John Berman. Here is the passage. "'He's too big to fail now,' said a senior source involved in the confirmation process. 'Our base, our voters, our side, people are so mad,' the course continued. 'There's nowhere to go. We're going to make them blanking vote. Joe Manchin in West Virginia in those red states. Joe Donnelly? He said he's a no? Fine, we'll see how that goes. There will be a vote on him. It will be a slugfest of a week.'"

I get it. You always want your horse to win, but at what cost? At what cost, if it's proven that he lied to the Senate Judiciary Committee?

AVLON: This was a really revealing quote, because it shows that Trump really have found a too-big-to-fail plan. They finally came back. Except his name is Judge Kavanaugh and that is a very, very loaded, flawed vessel.

They're all in. Among the implications are not just we'll target the red-state senators who vote against him, but Donnelly's already out. Manchin's on the fence.

But also that there is no Plan B. If this goes down for whatever reason, that scramble to get a replacement is going to be, according to this quote, a genuine scramble.

That's going to be tough to execute, even in a lame duck. Not impossible but tough.

CAMEROTA: We already heard news. I don't get that. Why is there no Plan B? We already heard the names, the list of names that the president was interested in. The narrowed it down to two.

[06:20:00] BERMAN: What the other parts of that quote said is there is no Plan B. He is too big to fail. We are all in on Kavanaugh, come hell or high water. Both parties are betting that this is going to really motivate their base.

And remember, one of the big things that helped Trump in 2016, all the "Access Hollywood" stuff aside, folks, particularly evangelicals, said "The Supreme Court. I'm going to vote for Trump because of the Supreme Court. All the other stuff is just noise."

BERMAN: There is some evidence in the polling that we're seen that you were looking at over the weekend. And true that the Supreme Court has elevated as a cause for concern among Democrats --

AVLON: Yes.

BERMAN: -- and liberal voters, which is unusual. We don't normally see that.

Asha, we usually lean on you for law and national security. I would like to lean on you now as a witness to humanity and people around you.

CAMEROTA: She's also qualified for that.

BERMAN: You live up in New Haven, obviously, you know, at Yale, and there's been a lot of activity, a lot of protests there. And Republicans have been claiming, again, to me that this will energize their base and get them out. But I know, around you and other places, there have been a lot of women taking to the streets, a lot of women who have become energized by what they've seen over the last week. And it seems to me that that is energy that's not going to go away in the next 49 days.

RANGAPPA: No, and I think it's compounded in a couple of ways. So I think definitely, on campus in this university setting and at Yale Law School, which is Judge Kavanaugh's alma mater, woman were already energized, because so many of the issues that may come before the court may involve reproductive rights and issues affecting women.

I think the sexual misconduct allegations have only kind of heightened and added context to that and made the urgency of it be felt even more broadly. So yes, I think that there could be a countervailing affect among some constituencies, for sure.

CAMEROTA: Enter Elizabeth Warren. Yes. And so she this weekend spoke out for the -- not the first time, but she gave some hint for tea leaf readers of what her thinking is. Here's what she said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN (D), MASSACHUSETTS: For women to go to Washington and fix our broken government, and that includes a woman at the top. After November 6, I will take a hard look at running for president.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: What did you hear there, Nia?

HENDERSON: You know, my guess is she's already taking a hard look at running for president. I mean, sort of an arbitrary, November 6 date. It's something she's doing. She's been traveling around the country.

You know, I think she, in some ways, is going to have the same problem that Bernie Sanders had. How does she sort of expand her footprint outside of sort of boutique liberal circles in -- sort of on the coast, right? Can she play in Mississippi? Can she win voters in South Carolina, in Georgia, in the way that Hillary Clinton was able to do.

So if you are Elizabeth Warren, you need to get out of Massachusetts. You probably better be in Mississippi pretty soon if this is something you want to do and you feel like you can get a coalition that looks like the coalition that Hillary Clinton was able to put together.

BERMAN: Well, she's already got people in New Hampshire. What was most interesting to me about Elizabeth Warren is she felt the need to talk much more openly about running for president now, now, because the moment is now that people are energized about this subject. So she clearly wanted a piece of that energy.

CAMEROTA: All right. Nia, Asha, John, thank you very much.

Now to this news. Indonesia is reeling from a catastrophic earthquake and a tsunami. More than 800 people are dead. So we have the latest on the aftermath in a live report for you, next.

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