Return to Transcripts main page

New Day

School Shooting Takes Place at Charter School in Colorado; House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-NY) Interviewed on Contempt Vote for Attorney General Barr and Requesting Unredacted Mueller Report from Justice Department. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired May 08, 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] UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Our kids are having to worry about this every day. They shouldn't have to do that.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Every year that we looked at, he lost money. His businesses were doing horribly.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He had greater losses than any other American. That's a significant and a stunning fact.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are voters going to look at tax returns that are decades old? I doubt it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Trump built this mythology about who he was. This sort of explodes that myth.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning and welcome to your NEW DAY. It's Wednesday, May 8th, it's 8:00 in the east, and for the second time in a week, for the 13th time this year, a school shooting in America. Police say two students opened fire inside a Colorado charter school just miles from Columbine where 20 years ago we were so shocked because it was so abhorrent we never thought it could happen. Now it's the 13th time this year. One parent tells "The New York Times" other students tried to stop the attackers, two of them after they shot at students inside two classrooms.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Officers say when they arrived on the scene the shooters were still firing. Investigators say the officers ran towards danger, and after a struggle with the suspects took them into custody. Police are updating the media right now on this deadly shooting, and CNN's Ryan Young is live in Highlands Ranch, Colorado. He has been following this all night. So Ryan, what's the latest?

RYAN YOUNG, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Alisyn, we are looking for that news update pretty soon here from police officials who still remain here on scene. In fact, the school still remains on lockdown. This is about as close as we can get. But when you think about the details that we are sharing, the fact that students tried to step in to stop this shooter, they tried to go as far as they could to make sure no other classmates got hurt. You think about this, only seven miles away from Columbine.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Attention all units, getting information on a shooting STEM School. We have a shooter in room 107, 107.

YOUNG: Emergency crews arriving to STEM School in Colorado after reports of a school shooting. Police say the attackers split up to target two different locations.

HOLLY NICHOLSON-KLUTH, UNDERSHERIFF, DOUGLAS COUNTY: As officers were arriving at the school they could still hear gunshots, and as they were entering the school.

YOUNG: Police arresting two suspects, identifying one as 18-year-old Devon Erickson, the other believed to be a juvenile. Authorities say both are students at the school.

TONY SPURLOCK, SHERIFF, DOUGLAS COUNTY: Our officers went in, and we engaged the suspects. We did struggle with the suspects to take them into custody.

YOUNG: One 18-year-old student was killed and eight others injured. The father of senior Brendan Bialy telling "The New York Times" Brendan and two other friends saw one gunman pull a weapon from a guitar case. The friends tried to tackle the gunman, and one of the boys was shot in the chest. As the school went on lockdown, many students say they thought it was just a drill.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Usually it wouldn't be so concerning. But we could see people running out of the building, so we immediately knew it was not a drill. So we went to I had inside of a classroom.

YOUNG: Some students running for their lives, others hiding until help arrived.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I heard two gunshots, like I was inside my classroom. Someone said, I have a gun, get down on the ground. I started crying because I was so scared.

YOUNG: Young children seen leaving with their hands on their heads.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She said, mom, I love you. It's not just a drill, it's a real lockdown, mom.

YOUNG: An agonizing wait for parents.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She said, mommy, there's gunshots at the school. I stopped what I was doing and I just ran into my car.

YOUNG: Packing into a nearby recreation center hoping for the best.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's the worst phone call or text message that you could ever get. YOUNG: Emotional reunions for families, but some like Fernando

Montoya not as fortunate, saying his daughter is safe, but his son is one of the injured.

FERNANDO MONTOYA, PARENT OF STEM SCHOOL SHOOTING VICTIM: I talked to him. Thank God he is OK. He told me that he got shot like three times. He saw shots from everywhere.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

YOUNG: So many questions here still. What was the motive of this shooting? What do they know right now? That's something that we'll hope to learn more as this news conference continues throughout the day. Hopefully we will get more updates. Of course, guys, there is really no way to explain all these shootings. And of course, really you have that feeling, especially when you hear that young girl's voice talking about being scared and tearing up. You can only imagine the pain that these young people are going through. Alisyn?

CAMEROTA: It's sickening, Ryan. It's sickening how often this happens. Thank you very much for being there for us and reporting on all of this.

YOUNG: Now to important news from Capitol Hill. This morning the Justice Department is in a showdown with Democrats in Congress. Late last night the assistant attorney general sent a letter to House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler warning that if Nadler has a vote to hold the Attorney General, William Barr, in contempt, then President Trump will assert executive privilege on everything related to the Mueller report.

Joining us now is House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler in his first interview since receiving that letter. Good morning, Congressman.

JERROLD NADLER, (D-NY) HOUSE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN: Good morning.

CAMEROTA: Can you tell us your response to getting that warning from the Department of Justice?

[08:05:04] NADLER: Well, my response is that Attorney General Barr has turned himself -- well, has gone from being a personal attorney to the president instead of the attorney general of the United States, and he's now gone a step further and made the entire Justice Department an agency for enabling the president to defy the law, to defy any kind of accountability, and to act as a monarch, to say that Congress can have no role in accountability. This is just another instance of lawlessness by this administration.

CAMEROTA: So will your committee move forward with a contempt vote?

NADLER: Absolutely. We have no choice.

CAMEROTA: So it did not give you pause --

NADLER: No. CAMEROTA: -- let me just clarify for the viewers. They say that they

will make everything that you're looking for, the documents, records, underlying paperwork, all of it will be basically denied to you through executive privilege. So did that give you pause?

NADLER: No, they were -- first of all, they were going to deny most of it to us anyway. But second of all, they have no right to do that. There is no executive privilege here, and any executive privilege was waived when they gave that information to Mueller and when it was published in the Mueller report, even in the redacted versions. They made it twice as necessary to proceed with this contempt because you cannot have a government in which the president can conceal all information about his own wrongdoing and about anything else. Congress, he wants to make himself a king, and Congress cannot permit that, nor can the American people abide that.

CAMEROTA: You say they have no right to do that, but of course this will now be decided in the courts which could take a while.

NADLER: It could take a while, that's the problem, but the fact is I have no doubt as to the outcome. This is not new law, this is well established old law.

CAMEROTA: So as we understand it there were negotiations going on throughout the day yesterday. Did those break down?

NADLER: Well, they simply cut them off. They were willing to have a total of 12 members of the Congress see unredacted information, certain unredacted information, and we insisted that all the members of the Judiciary Committee and the Intelligence Committee at a minimum should see that information. And we were offering counteroffer, but when we -- all of a sudden, they told us at about 11:00 last night, no, and you saw the letter.

CAMEROTA: Well, the Department of Justice, I mean, if I can just represent their side for a second, says that you're being unreasonable. That they have made all sorts of accommodations for you. So let's go through them.

NADLER: They have made no reasonable accommodations. They will not -- first of all, the extent of what they were willing to do is that I and the ranking member of the committee and Senate committee and a couple other House committees could see the information, but we couldn't tell anybody about it, we couldn't tell other members of the committee about it. So what good is that information? What use can we make of it if we can't tell anybody even on the committee or other members of Congress about it?

We insisted that the members of the committee should be able to see that information, and they said absolutely unacceptable. So I don't think that's a good faith attempt. And in any event, all of this should be available, all of the material that we asked for should be available to every member of Congress. That's the precedent. That's what's happened in the previous cases.

CAMEROTA: They say that the only thing that the rules said is that it was supposed to be confidential -- confidentially provided to the --

NADLER: The intent of the rules was that -- when you are talking about wrongdoing by the president, Congress has to know about it. I don't think the people who wrote the rules, and Neil Calcutt (ph) who wrote the rules has said this many times publicly, contemplated an attorney general who would be such a toady for a president and would represent him in lawless actions, and try to keep evidence of wrongdoing secret from the Congress.

CAMEROTA: One the other things they say in terms of you not being willing to bend is that legally the Attorney General, Bill Barr, cannot show you grand jury info without a court order.

NADLER: That is true.

CAMEROTA: Why don't you go for a court order?

NADLER: We asked the Attorney General to go to court with us to request that court order, as has been done in every previous case. He declined to do that. We plan to go to court anyway, but he has never given a reason to decline to join us in court asking that information, as every previous attorney general in a similar case has done.

CAMEROTA: Does he have to join you in court or can you go on your own?

NADLER: We can go on our own. It would be stronger if he went with us, but again, he has given no reason other than he doesn't feel like it for saying he won't join us in court. And again, with the Ken Starr situation, with various other situations, the Attorney General went to court with the committee and asked for the information to be made available to the Congress.

[08:10:04] CAMEROTA: I understand, but, I mean, obviously precedents are being broken right and left.

NADLER: Well, no, precedents are being broken only by the president and his team who are seeking to be lawless and to hide all the information from the American people and from the Congress. We're not breaking precedents.

CAMEROTA: Will you go to court on your own to get that court order?

NADLER: Absolutely.

CAMEROTA: What about Don McGahn, what's your plan with Don McGahn? Will you try to hold him in contempt?

NADLER: Well, I hope that won't be necessary. He should come in and testify on May 21st, as has been tentatively agreed to. And he now has instructions from the president not to do so. The president had no business giving those instructions, there is no privileged information since everything he has said has been waived, or the privilege has been waived by his going to Mueller and testifying to that. If he doesn't appear as requested, then, yes, we will have to hold him in contempt, as we would anybody who doesn't adhere to lawful subpoenas.

CAMEROTA: How about the $64,000 question -- Robert Mueller, has he agreed to come before your committee?

NADLER: We were talking to him, and I do anticipate he will come.

CAMEROTA: What's taking so long?

NADLER: I can't comment on that.

CAMEROTA: Is he still a Department of Justice employee?

NADLER: He is still a Department of Justice employee and will be for a matter of weeks yet, I think.

CAMEROTA: Why? Just help us understand. Why can't he --

NADLER: Why is he still a department employee?

CAMEROTA: Can't he say I'm a private citizen now?

NADLER: Because he is not a private citizen at the moment. He is still on the payroll of the Department of Justice. I'm not sure what he's doing, but I presume he's wrapping things up. But that's only the question of a few weeks.

CAMEROTA: But I guess my larger question is you are confident that, is it fair to say, this month Robert Mueller will appear before your committee?

NADLER: Well, now that the president has said what he said, I'm less confident than I was.

CAMEROTA: Meaning you think that the president could stop Robert Mueller?

NADLER: I think the president will try to stop Robert Mueller. Whether he will succeed is another question.

The president is taking, as I said, an absolutely lawless attitude that he wants to deny the American people and the Congress all information about his own wrongdoing, about his own breaking of the law. He has broken the law six ways from Sunday, and he doesn't want any information about that. And that, again, he's taking the -- I mean, for him to come out and say he's going to oppose all subpoenas, that's a direct challenge to having a Congress that can function. It's a direct assertion that he wants to be a monarch. We rebelled against George III for that, we are not going to take it now.

CAMEROTA: Robert Mueller doesn't think the president broke the law six ways from Sunday. That wasn't his conclusion.

NADLER: I think if you read it carefully, what he says is there is a lot of evidence that he broke the law six ways from Sunday, but because of the Office of Legal Counsel opinion that a sitting president cannot be indicted no matter how much evidence there is, we're not going to indict him.

CAMEROTA: If Robert Mueller is a private citizen do you still think that President Trump could stop him from coming before your committee?

NADLER: No, I don't think there is any legal way that the president could stop him.

CAMEROTA: And you feel that Robert Mueller is inclined to come before your committee?

NADLER: I'm not going to comment on his inclination.

CAMEROTA: Have you read "The New York Times" piece about President Trump -- Donald Trump's taxes before he was president?

NADLER: I read it in part, and I saw a lot of TV coverage of it last night. I haven't read the whole article. But, again, this shows a propensity to lie out -- complete lie to the American people. And it may provide one of the answers to why the president is disobeying the law and is instructing the Treasury Department to disobey the law and not supply the Ways and Means Committee with a copy of his tax returns, which the law says -- and this is not a question of subpoenas or anything -- the law says that when the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee asks for the tax returns of any citizen the IRS must supply that. Shall supply it, is the words.

CAMEROTA: Shall furnish.

NADLER: Shall furnish it. And the president has directed the Treasury -- the president has just said don't obey the law.

CAMEROTA: OK.

NADLER: Again.

CAMEROTA: OK, so back to what we'll see today. Today you believe that your committee -- you plan this morning for your committee to hold a vote of contempt against the Attorney General, Bill Barr?

NADLER: That's right.

CAMEROTA: And then what happens?

NADLER: Well, technically the committee recommends to the House a contempt citation, it then has to go to the House floor, it will have to be scheduled, and then the House will vote it.

CAMEROTA: And do you believe right now that the House will vote to hold the attorney general in contempt?

NADLER: Yes, I do. The House has no choice any more than we on the committee do. The House must protect the right of the public and through Congress to get information about how the government is running, about possible wrongdoing.

[08:15:00] Otherwise, we have monarchy and we do not intend to have monarchy in this country, whether it's -- whether it's a President Donald Trump or whoever, we cannot have a monarch.

CAMEROTA: Do you think Bill Barr cares if he is held in contempt by the House?

NADLER: I don't know. It doesn't matter. He either has to comply with the subpoena or he will be held in contempt.

CAMEROTA: OK. And then what happens? Let's say the House does hold the attorney general in contempt, then what?

NADLER: Well, then the House counsel goes to court to enforce the contempt citation and whatever penalties the court may invoke on the attorney general.

CAMEROTA: Meaning jail time?

NADLER: No, it's a civil proceeding, so it would be fines or whatever else.

CAMEROTA: And how long do you think all of that would take?

NADLER: I don't know. Hopefully -- I mean, we will certainly -- our attorneys will certainly ask the courts to expedite the procedure.

And, as I said, the law is very, very clear. There are no complex legal issues here. It doesn't take that long unless there are dilatory tactics, but the law is very clear.

CAMEROTA: I mean, Chairman, you have since Robert Mueller handed over the Mueller report to the Department of Justice, you have wanted to interview various witnesses, you have wanted to see the unredacted report, you have been denied by the Department of Justice at every turn. And I'm just wondering if today, you're feeling outmaneuvered somehow by Bill Barr.

NADLER: Well, we're still maneuvering so it's not a question of being outmaneuvered, but the fact of the matter is the report was released in redacted form, the attorney general, Bill Barr, lied about what was in the report twice, and then lied again to the Senate committee, misrepresented what was the in the report. It is very important for the American people and certainly for the members of the Congress to see the unredacted version of the report so they can journal for themselves.

As I said, the Attorney General Barr has first -- has been acting throughout as a personal attorney for the president, distorting what's in the report, lying about it, frankly, and trying to hold it back so that no one can see the exact magnitude of his lies.

CAMEROTA: I'm sensing frustration. On a scale of one to 10, how frustrated are you this morning?

NADLER: Well, it's not a question of frustration. The law must be vindicated. The American people must know what's going on. Appropriate action whatever that may be must be taken and the president must not be permitted to operate a lawless administration and become a king.

CAMEROTA: The term constitutional --

NADLER: And we will have to insist on that no matter how long it takes. We cannot allow Donald Trump and his minions to convert a Democratic government into what amounts to a monarchy where Congress elected by the people has no real role.

CAMEROTA: Look, it sounds like what you're saying a monarchy but by another name it's a constitutional crisis. Where do you think --

NADLER: Well, the phrase constitutional crisis has been overused, but certainly.

CAMEROTA: Certainly what?

NADLER: Certainly it's a constitutional crisis, although I don't like to use that phrase because it's been used for far less dangerous situations. The phrase has been overused.

CAMEROTA: I hear you, but you feel that we are currently in a constitutional crisis or headed for one?

NADLER: No. No. We are in one. We are in one because the president is disobeying the law, is refusing all information to Congress, which means that -- I mean, when -- when he told the -- his nominee for the head of Homeland Security close the border and he said, well, that's illegal, he said, don't worry, I will protect you. That's a lawless administration. We cannot have a lawless administration.

CAMEROTA: Chairman Jerry Nadler, thank you very much for coming on NEW DAY and explaining to us what is going to happen on Capitol Hill this morning.

NADLER: Thank you.

CAMEROTA: John?

BERMAN: All right. Two big pieces of news right there, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee just told you absolutely we have no choice, they will hold a contempt vote in the Judiciary Committee about two hours from now, that is a major marker in this fight between Congress and the constitute testify.

The other thing I was frankly surprised by, Chairman Nadler told you I'm a little less confident now that Robert Mueller will come testify before his committee soon. Fascinating to me, perhaps the White House actions have slowed that process.

I want to bring in Maggie Haberman, White House correspondent for "The New York Times" and CNN political analyst.

Let's start with both those issues, number one, this contempt vote is going to happen in less than two hours, Maggie. To me, that seems like game on -- an important moment in this battle between the White House and Congress over the larger Mueller investigation. [08:20:07] MAGGIE HABERMAN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: It's going to be a

moment that is really hard to come back from. It guarantees, I think -- although I think it was headed there any way -- a court fight over exactly what congressional Democrats are going to be able to see over this report.

The two sides have been talking for, you know, many, many days now, going forward. Neither side was moving as best as we can tell. I think that each side had discussed some form of a concession. I don't think either side thought it was enough.

I think what you heard the chairman say just now in your interview is that essentially Bill Barr does not have the right to do what he is talking about and that you can't really put the genie back in the bottle in terms of executive privilege. This is, again, why I think it goes to a court fight.

CAMEROTA: The other point that John was making is the Robert Mueller question. I mean, people have had confidence, at least the lawmakers that we have spoken to, that Robert Mueller will appear and we have heard the attorney general say he didn't have any objection for a while, as you know, President Trump said he didn't have any objection. To hear Jerry Nadler this morning say that he now suddenly feels as though the brakes may be put on.

What is that about?

HABERMAN: I mean, here is the problem, we don't know and Jerry Nadler was very clear that he couldn't talk about why that was. So I'm loath to speculate because there has been a lot of speculation around Robert Mueller for two and a half years and a lot of it was wrong.

BERMAN: Yes.

HABERMAN: So, I don't know what this is about. Mueller is still a DOJ employee and that could end up being part of what would slow it down, but we'll see.

BERMAN: But, Maggie, you have noted that when the president melted (ph) off, for lack of a better phrase, on whether or not Mueller should testify, you didn't think that was just venting, you read that --

HABERMAN: No, I know it wasn't just venting. It's a reporting (ph). Yes.

(CROSSTALK)

BERMAN: Explain that to me.

HABERMAN: Sure.

BERMAN: It's more than just venting, that he actually does want to keep or at least gum up the works to have Mueller from testifying.

HABERMAN: Or at least wanted to try to -- I think gum up the works is a good way of putting it, at least slow this down. The president before those tweets you are referring to before the weekend had said to a number of advisers that he didn't think that Mueller should be testifying. He was yoking it in these conversations to how he felt like Bill Barr had been treated by congressional Democrats, congressional Democrats obviously believe they have a right to try to seek this information, but the contempt vote discussion was already in play when Trump said this and it shouldn't be a surprise to anyone.

You know, this is also the president -- there's a bit of a lack of value in having him say a certain thing in a certain moment because he will often say something different, you know, the next day. Sure, on Friday, he said it's up to Bill Barr, and over the weekend, he said no more.

BERMAN: But it does seem -- it does seem based on what Jerry Nadler just told you that there is something now in the way of the process. This was supposed to happen next Wednesday, May 15th. Jerry Nadler said I'm a little less confident of that now.

CAMEROTA: He wouldn't even say this month. When I gave you -- I said do you think he will appear this month and he wouldn't answer.

HABERMAN: I think it's important to note that a member of his committee who was on another program on Sunday I think got ahead of everybody and said, yes, this is happening on May 15th and my colleague Nick Fandos who covers Capitol Hill very well and very thoroughly pretty quickly warned people on Twitter that this might be, you know, cart before horse because there were a lot of people warning caution about that, even before the member of this committee said that.

So I'm not so sure how much has actually changed and how far along that process was, but clearly, it's not -- it's not about to happen.

BERMAN: Can I ask you about Don McGahn, Maggie, because you have reporting on ten different things this morning, but Don McGahn and Alisyn did ask about Don McGahn scheduled for May 21st, we will see if that happens, I wouldn't hold your breath on that. But I want to read you something deep in your story.

In the days after the report was released, Mr. Trump's defense lawyer Rudy Giuliani sought to discredit Mr. McGahn and question his attacks as a witness. The attacks irritated McGahn and Mr. Burck, McGahn's lawyer, privately warned the White House that Mr. Giuliani's gambit would boomerang on the president and only enhance the House's argument that McGahn needed to testify. Since then the attacks have been curtailed.

One of the big questions here is, does McGahn really want to testify or not? In this reporting from you and that was the first time I had read that explicitly seems to get to that.

HABERMAN: I think it's complicated for Don McGahn. That I think that he in conversations that I've had with conversations with people close to him he sees the White House as the client and executive privilege is something that the White House gets to invoke, although I think there is a clear argument about what they're actually invoking with regard to the documents because the letter they sent to Congress didn't assert privilege, it just referenced privilege.

But I think that McGahn believes that unless he is told by the president, yes, you can go ahead and provide documents and or testify that it has to be settled by a court and that if a court orders him to do it as an officer of the court he has to abide by what they say, but he also has to abide by his client.

So, I think he's torn because I also think that McGahn has been, as you know, roughed up verbally by the president and a lot of people who end up in that position who have worked for him feel like they want to come out and defend themselves. I think that McGahn, as you know, was a central figure in the obstruction portion of the Mueller report.

[08:25:05] Without McGahn's memories and notes from his chief of staff, it would have been a lot harder for Mueller to compile this back story.

So I think that there is a part of Don McGahn that would like to at least come forward and present himself, but I think that was -- that comment about, you know, the reporting about what was taking place weeks ago, as I said, I think that it is uncomfortable for people who are on the receiving end of blows from the president, a lot of people heading into the release of the report privately expressed concern, people who had been Mueller witnesses, that the president was going to hate tweet them and I don't think anybody wanted to have that happen.

CAMEROTA: It's not that bad when it happens. I mean, that's my advice to them.

But in any event, the idea -- you know, the big picture is that a lot of people around president Trump do not have government experience. So the idea of precedent, the idea of convention doesn't hold that much sway with them. But are there people, Maggie, around the president today that when they hear Jerry Nadler say that we are in a constitutional crisis, when they know that they are headed for contempt votes, are there people for whom that will be an uncomfortable position?

HABERMAN: I mean, there might be people who find it uncomfortable, but for the most part, I think one of the key factors of people who work for the White House and the administration is when it comes to what they are seeing on the media, you know, I'm sure as they're watching -- if any of them are watching us right now, they're going to hear us and they're going to hear us as being oppositional to them. It's not oppositional to them, it's just describing what is happening, but people who work for the president tend to feel like they have to make a him or them choice, and they will choose him.

So I think that it is not going to make most of them feel that uncomfortable because I think that they have rationalized why it's not a problem.

BERMAN: It's interesting, we have the quote from Jerry Nadler who said we are now in a constitutional crisis. When you pressed him on it he actually was loath to do it only because he says the phrase is overused.

CAMEROTA: About lesser things.

BERMAN: And this is more serious than all the other things we have talked about or have been talked about when people refer to constitutional crises.

Maggie, I want to get your -- you are also a contributor to this fascinating investigative report over the president's taxes over a 10- year period in the late '80s and early '90s. The president lost according to "The New York Times" more than a billion dollars, lost more money than almost anyone else in America.

Look at that. You can see the sea of red right there. The president has reacted on Twitter to this, this morning saying, hey, it was just real estate. Your colleague Sue Craig (ph) basically told us, no, it's more than that, he really lost a lot of money.

How do you think this is landing inside the White House this morning?

HABERMAN: To be clear, I contributed very minimally on this story, this really was Sue and Russ. And I don't want to take anything away from their incredible reporting.

Look, I think that people who work in the White House actually like to try to pretend this doesn't exist and follow the president's cues, his tweeting, I suspect they will feel as if maybe that handled it. I don't think most want to deal with this topic.

When it comes to issues related to the president's finances or things related to, you know, Trump Organization and so forth, the president is obviously very consumed by these things, but the staff at the White House is less interested in getting involved in this, but they experience it, I would characterize it with a sense of dread because they know stories like this would bother him.

CAMEROTA: Maggie Haberman, thank you very much for helping us sort through all of the big news from this morning. Talk to you soon.

We do have some breaking news right now. There has been a big development in that deadly school shooting in Colorado. Police have announced the details of who the second shooter is.

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:30:00]