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Reports Indicate President Trump Does Not Wish to Hear from Aides Negative Information on Russian Interference in U.S. Election; President Trump Tweets about Impeachment and Supreme Court; Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) is Interviewed About Top Official Warned Don't Tell Trump About Russian Efforts to Interfere in 2020 Election. Aired 8- 8:30a ET

Aired April 24, 2019 - 08:00   ET

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

[08:00:00] ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: -- report because it was stunning. We know that the president doesn't believe, I guess, that anything happened in 2016, but we've never heard as you lay out so well the people around him who are trying to stop it from happening next time. So why can't the president be told any bad information about Russia?

DAVID SANGER, NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT, "NEW YORK TIMES": Alisyn, it's not news inside the White House. The president has always viewed any discussion of Russian interference as questioning his current legitimacy as president. And so just to bring the topic up is to end up shutting down the conversation. The president ends up saying to everybody else, well, this didn't happen, it's part of the Russia hoax, so forth and so on.

So that's one thing when you look backwards. But what's happened is since the 2018 midterm elections where we saw modest Russian activities, some activities by the Iranians and others, people have been trying to put together plans about what they're going to do for 2020, because they know one thing for sure -- the Russians aren't going to play the same playbook all over again.

And everything that Ms. Nielsen and others were told was basically don't get this planning in front of the president. You can do anything you want, organize your resources, he's not going to talk about it. And you saw in the State of the Union address where he never discussed the threat even though it had been the first pages of the worldwide threat assessment that had come out just days before.

CAMEROTA: It sounds like from your reporting that Secretary Nielsen did try to do what was in her power. You talk about her convening meetings. But without the president's signoff, why couldn't these things move forward?

SANGER: Some of them are moving forward. It's a question of signoff versus coordination across the vast parts of the government where having the president state it's a top priority means everything. So I'm not sure the degree to which he is aware that the Homeland Security department has primary responsibility for civilian cyber defense. He thinks Homeland Security, of course his mind goes immediately to the southern border issues.

In this case she had to coordinate between the Defense Department, Homeland Security, the NSA, National Security Agency, U.S. Cyber Command, and other agencies, all of which have a piece of this. And that coordination only happens if the president throws his weight around it, behind it, and gets out and discusses the threat publicly.

CAMEROTA: And David, why did the White House get rid of the person who could have coordinated all of this, the cybersecurity director, coordinator?

SANGER: So there was a cybersecurity coordinator during the Obama years and into the first year-and-a-half of the Trump administration. And the job was held by Rob Joyce who was an official of the National Security Agency who had actually run the Tailored Access Operations Unit. That's the unit that breaks into foreign computer systems. It's exactly who you would want thinking about defense, somebody who has been at the spear of U.S. cyber offense.

And when John Bolton came in as the National Security Adviser, the first thing he did was eliminate the job. Maybe that was because it had direct access to the president and he didn't want the competition. Maybe it's because, as he stated, he thinks cyber is everyone's job and, therefore, it didn't need a separate coordinator. But this is a precise example of what happens when you eliminate that post.

CAMEROTA: Hey, David, big picture, what does it tell us that the White House chief of staff is trying to shield the president of the United States from important information that he doesn't like to hear?

SANGER: It tells you that he has recognized the survival tactic, that if you're going to keep these activities going, and I'm sure Mick Mulvaney wants to have the United States prevent a recurrence in 2020 of what we saw in 2016. It tells you that he knows that bringing some things up to the level the president it actually can get in the way of it being done. And he wasn't telling Nielsen not to do this. He was saying just go out and do it without making a lot of noise that's going attract the president's attention, and a big cabinet meeting on the subject would attract the president's attention.

CAMEROTA: Yes. It just sounds like it wasn't as effective for her to do it sort of in these back channels as opposed to making a big deal out of it. But David Sanger, thank you very much for all of this reporting, we really appreciate you bringing this to us.

SANGER: Great to be with you.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: And I've got to say, there's a difference when the president himself is not out there saying Russia, don't do this, we will not stand for this. And that is something we are just not hearing.

[08:05:00] Joining us now, Bianna Golodryga, CNN contributor, Chris Cillizza, CNN politics reporter and editor at large, and Margaret Talev, CNN political analyst and senior White House correspondent for "Bloomberg News." And Bianna, look, we've heard for years now the president doesn't want

to talk about Russia interferes because he thinks it delegitimizes his election. That is not a satisfying response when another country is trying to attack the United States of America. And the fact that the White House chief of staff thinks that the president isn't capable of hearing this kind of news is really stunning.

BIANNA GOLODRYGA, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: And you're right, it is important symbolically to have the president of the United States out there day in, day out, saying Russia did this, they will be punished. We have issued sanctions against the country, which, to be fair to the administration, they have upheld sanctions. But that is not enough, because what does Vladimir Putin see? He sees the president continue to want to strive for closer relations between the two countries. Clearly you recall the debacle that came out of Helsinki, and a lot of people are comparing what we're seeing now to another Helsinki. You have Jared Kushner saying just it's just a few Facebook fads. You have Giuliani suggesting there's nothing wrong with it. That's a big problem.

CAMEROTA: Basically, Margaret, as you know, they framed it as a hoax. Now, as everybody will tell you, it doesn't matter what they think, it doesn't matter in terms of stopping Russia. Russia will continue to do this. That's what the Mueller report is finding, that's what our intel agencies say. It doesn't matter whether you think it's a hoax or not, it's still happening for 2020. And it sounds like Secretary Nielsen is in some way trying to sound the alarm about that.

MARGARET TALEV, SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, BLOOMBERG NEWS: Yes, Alisyn, I think that's right. And there are two things to kind of keep your eye on. One is Cyber Command's activities, U.S. Cyber Command is going to continue to do its job. And the other is inside the Department of Homeland Security. There was through 2018 and there is now an effort. But they fact that they are strategically discouraged from raising this with the president or raising it in the public setting tells you about the machinations that advisers to the president think need to be gone through in order to keep things running smoothly.

There is a little nugget buried deep in David Sanger's story about how there was a 2018 after-action report that was expected to be declassified and released by now and has not been released. But I think it's entirely possible it's going to end up in some committee chairman's inbox or perhaps reporter's sometime soon. There will be a lot of interest in seeing what that found.

And I think the other thing to watch is how Kirstjen Nielsen's legacy emerges in the coming weeks or months. The fact is while she was under a lot of pressure, took a lot of heat for family separation, she was also involved in a number of other activities including this as part of her job. And as more emerges in the picture about what she was seeking to do, some of the pressure she faced, I think there's going to be a possibility lawmakers are going to want to hear more about that.

BERMAN: Chris Cillizza, is it a fair question to ask, given that the president doesn't want to hear about attacks on the U.S. election system, or certainly condemn them or speak about them publicly out loud that much, is it fair question to ask whether he is OK with these efforts? And I pose this because of what we saw in the Mueller report about the 2016 election. Let me just read you two quotes from the Mueller report. The campaign expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen or released through Russian efforts. Also, the Presidential campaign of Donald J. Trump showed interest in WikiLeaks releases of documents and welcomed their potential to damage candidate Clinton. Mueller found no coordination or conspiracy, but he did finds receptiveness. Is it fair to ask whether there is receptiveness now?

CHRIS CILLIZZA, CNN POLITICS REPORTER: I think it's fair to ask. I don't know the answer to that. I tend to attribute all of this -- and this is of a piece of what we know about Donald Trump. I tend to attribute it to his inability, and he's unique in this, I think, to separate these two -- to carry ideas in his mind. One, Russia actively interfered in the 2016 election in order to help him and hurt Hillary Clinton because Russia thought Donald Trump would be a better president. That's point one.

And point two, Donald Trump won anyway. He can't separate those two things out, and the inability to understand that those two things can both be true, they're not mutually exclusive, that inability leads to a blindness, whether it's willful or not, John. And that's to your question. I don't know. But it leads to a blindness. It leads to an underestimation of the threat we pose.

Even as Donald Trump was saying on the campaign trail, are there any Russians in the crowd, when he was in Wisconsin or Michigan in 2018, to the point of this didn't have anything to do with the election, we had people like Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, testifying before Congress saying there's an active and ongoing threat to the elections. And I think that's what is missed in all of this. It's what Donald Trump is saying no collusion, no obstruction, total exoneration misses.

[08:10:00] What was proven beyond a shadow of a doubt by the Mueller report was Russia engaged in a deep, broad, and strategic attempt to influence our presidential election, and they're going to do it again, and they and other foreign powers.

GOLODRYGA: And what's most mind-boggling about this, if you think back two years ago, President Trump came back from Germany with this great idea that he and Vladimir Putin would form a joint U.S. cybersecurity unit, remember? And the intelligence community here said, you've got to be kidding me. So the fact that repeatedly the president despite being presented mounds of evidence of what Russia had done, it's one of the few areas where you're seeing bipartisan support that there clearly was interference by the Russians, the president either doesn't want to accept it and just wants to ignore it. It is a huge problem. And I think it's one of the issues as to why the Democrats feel they're in a position of having to debate impeachment, because if this president had said, listen, that was terrible what Russia did, we are punishing them, this will never happen again, maybe a different situation. CAMEROTA: That's why, Margaret, just very quickly to wrap up on this,

I find these conversations so frustrating after all of these years, because are we tackling the problem? Are people in the White House circumnavigating around the president quietly so that he doesn't think they're doing anything to fight Russia because that would upset him, and combating this, or are we as vulnerable or close to being as vulnerable as we were the last time around?

TALEV: Yes, to some extent we don't know because so much of what the U.S. military and defense and intelligence agencies do is outside of the public eye by design and must be that way. The behind-the-scenes component we believe is going on on two fronts, both the defense intel front and the homeland security front. The part where the public is informed and educated about it and understands themselves how to deal with social media, how to understand efforts to influence them, we know that part is not particularly part of the public discourse at this point because the president is not talking about it. And we know that if you want to work behind the scenes to connect around agencies and turf warfare and policy debates, you're on your own right now. The president and national security council are not going to help you do that right now.

BERMAN: Chris, I'm loathe to read presidential tweets here, but there is one interesting one today. The president just wrote, "The Mueller report, despite being written by angry Democrats, did not lay a glove on me. I did nothing," and then he says if Democrats try to impeach me, I would first head to the U.S. Supreme Court. You know, exactly. He didn't take the civics class that the rest of us took in fourth or fifth grade. It doesn't quite work like that. So let's just leave that there.

We are getting a sense of how the president and the White House intend to deal with Congress and their willingness and desire to hold hearings. The president is telling his people not to go testify. In an interview with the "Washington Post" overnight he told Josh Dawsey and Robert Costa, I'm telling my people not to comply with subpoenas. That's interesting.

CILLIZZA: Yes. Look, to thread-weave the two points you made, the Trump -- I'll touch on this lightly -- the Trump Supreme Court tweet and then the not cooperating with Congress, it's all of a piece in my opinion, John, which is he has no -- I always say he doesn't know or doesn't care about how balance of power, checks and balances, our three bodies of government work, right. It's like, oh, well, I'm going to go to the Supreme Court. It's a political process. I don't know that the Supreme Court is involved as it relates to impeachment.

And then on this, look, Congress -- don't ask me, don't take my word for it, take the Constitution's word for it. Congress is a coequal branch of government, right? And so their oversight, you cannot like it, but it is part of the -- I guarantee you Barack Obama and Bill Clinton didn't like it when Republicans did oversight on them. But it is part of our process. And Donald Trump has never really understood or cared about that. Part of that is because he never dealt in this world. He is a business guy, what he said went. He's never understood that you can't do that in this White House. But this is more of the same stuff. It's just a fundamental misunderstanding of the way in which the government is structured so that each of our pieces checks on the other piece.

GOLODRYGA: It also shows that he's got, in his mind, two factors on his side. One is just buying time. Let's fight this out. It not as if Congress is very popular with constituents at this point either. The other, and maybe thanks in large part to Don McGahn, is he thinks at this point the Supreme Court's on his side, too --

BERMAN: I think you're right. He thinks he's got a court now in his favor.

GOLODRYGA: And you saw what happened with the census decision and where the Supreme Court is headed in that direction. So the president thinks that this is working for him. And now he's got a Supreme Court. He's been railing against judges, as we know, for years. This may be an area where he finally feels that he's got the upper hand.

CAMEROTA: Bianna, Margaret, Chris, thank you very much.

So "The New York Times" says that this top Trump official tried to bring up the Russian attempts to interfere in the upcoming election with the president.

[08:15:00]

But she was told not to mention that. We'll get reaction from both sides in Congress to this and more.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Really interesting new story out in "The New York Times" just this morning. It says that Acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney told now ousted Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen not to bring up the Russian attempts to interfere in 2020 election with the president. The president didn't want to hear it.

Joining me now is Democratic Congressman Ro Khanna. He serves on the House Oversight Committee.

Congressman, this story just crossing within the last hour or so. And it's really interesting that the chief of staff of the White House wanted to keep information about new Russian attacks on the U.S. election away from the president. What do you make of it?

REP. RO KHANNA (D-CA): Well, it's highly concerning. I read "The Times" piece and the White House is dismissing this as a couple of Facebook ads. Well, that's not the face.

Let me be very clear, Bob Mueller concluded that the Russian interference was sweeping and systemic. This was more than Facebook ads. They were trying to hack in not just to the Clinton campaign but into our elections, into state governments, into former secretaries of state.

You have the president of the United States unintentionally re- tweeting Russian agents, our own Russian ambassador is retweeting Russian agents.

[08:20:02] We need to on a bipartisan basis many sure they or China or Iran never interfere in our elections again and we need a concrete plan of action.

BERMAN: So, Kirstjen Nielsen, who is former homeland security secretary, she's the one apparently who wanted to go to the president with this information, is she someone that you would want to see before the House Oversight Committee to ask questions about what went on here?

KHANNA: Absolutely. I never thought I would be defending Kirstjen Nielsen's judgment because of her role in the border, but in this case, she was raising the issue of interference, not just in elections but cyberattack. She went to the White House and said, look, our power grids are potentially vulnerable.

The good news is I have spoken to Kevin McCarthy, leader on the Republican side, and he understands that we need to do something to prevent future intervention, we need better coordination between the law enforcement agencies and many technology companies. I represent Silicon Valley, and many these platforms are still vulnerable. So I heap in Congress we can take some bipartisan steps and Kirstjen Nielsen, we'd welcome her testimony in congress.

BERMAN: Let me ask you this, and I know it's sensitive and provocative, but the Mueller report did find that president -- then- candidate Donald J. Trump in the campaign showed interests in the WikiLeaks releases and welcomed their potential to the damage on Hillary Clinton.

Do you think it is fair to ask since he doesn't want to hear about Russian interference whether he welcomes it?

KHANNA: Well, the Mueller report concluded that the Trump campaign expected to benefit from the Russian interference, and the Russians wanted him to win. I mean, that's Mueller's conclusion. Now he finds that that's not a criminal conspiracy, but it should concern every American that the Russians wanted a particular do end win and that the campaign was fine with that.

And we should articulate late a new standard going forward. I think it's common sense that no American presidential candidate should welcome or want support from a foreign power.

BERMAN: So, your committee is one of the committees that the White House is now urging non-cooperation with, with subpoenas and calls to testify. How far will you fight this?

KHANNA: Well, John, I saw your earlier segment. And you're right, I think the president and the White House need a civics lesson. We have separation of powers for a reason. Congress has a role, a duty to find information, to hold the executive branch accountable. It goes back to Federalist 51.

So this is unprecedented what the White House is saying, that they don't want to give a single document to our committee, that they don't want to have anyone testify in front of our committee. We will go to court, the courts will rule for us, but the Trump administration is just engaging in a delay tactic to kick the can down the road.

BERMAN: Well, delays sometimes have the effect of delaying things. Not to be redundant there, but it could work. It could push this off for months if not years in some cases.

I want to get you on the campaign if I can --

KHANNA: Sure.

BERMAN: -- because you were a big supporter of Senator Bernie Sanders.

And at the CNN town hall on Sunday night, Senator Sanders says he supports the right of felons in prison, the worst of the worst, including Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the Boston marathon bomber, he supports their right to vote.

Well, just moments ago, I had Roseann Sdoia, who is a Boston marathon survivor, on the show. And here's what he said about Sanders' statement.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROSEANN SDOIA, BOSTON MARATHON BOMBING SURVIVOR: These people have taken away the rights of those who have passed, that were involved in the bombing, and we're more worried about these people that are incarcerated rights to vote. I just think it's crazy. I would be less inclined, yes, to vote for someone who would be in favor of having those incarcerated to vote.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Do you believe of the right of the incarcerated to vote, Congressman? And what's the response to the survivor who is disappointed in Senator Sanders?

KHANNA: I saw Roseann's statement on your show. And she's very inspiring, and my heart goes out to her.

Let's start with some basic facts, and I think my state, California, shows the way forward. Senator Sanders is talking about this because mass incarceration is an issue of racial disparity. One out of every black men are in jail or find themselves convicted of a felony.

We have a country which has gone from incarcerating 500,000 people to 2.2 million people, and this is disenfranchising for many people of color. I think that California has a compromise where a felony conviction, those who are nonviolent in county jails, have the right to vote. But those who have committed violent felonies like the Boston marathon don't have the right to vote.

And to me, that seems like a reasonable way forward where you're enfranchising people but not give the Boston marathon bombers the right to vote.

BERMAN: To be clear, that's a different position than Senator Bernie Sanders, do you acknowledge that, correct?

KHANNA: It is a different position than the one he articulated. I think that's a compromise position going forward and one that has worked in my home state of California.

BERMAN: You do think that he's wrong that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev should have the right to vote?

KHANNA: You know, I think that I wouldn't go that far.

[08:25:01] I mean, obviously, he should have the right to be treated if he has treatment for cancer for cancer and human rights, but I wouldn't go that far in terms of giving him a right to vote.

BERMAN: Congressman Ro Khanna, great to have you on NEW DAY. Thanks for being with us. Please come back soon.

KHANNA: Thank you, John.

BERMAN: Alisyn?

CAMEROTA: All right, John.

What do Republicans make of the White House officials being told not to talk about Russian interference with the president, what do they make of the findings that they read in the Mueller report? We ask a GOP senator next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAMEROTA: "The New York Times" reports this morning that acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney warned now-ousted Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen not to bring up Russia or its plans to interfere in the 2020 election around President Trump.

"The Times" reports that Mulvaney made it clear, quote, this was not a great subject for the president so it should be kept below his level, end quote.

The president's own director of national intelligence told Congress in January why the U.S. needs all hands on deck to avoid another attack.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAN COATS, DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE: We assess that foreign actors will view the 2020 U.S. elections as an opportunity to advance their interests. We expect them to refine their capabilities and add new tactics as they learn from each other's experiences.

END