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Safety Precautions against COVID-19 for Celebrating Fourth of July Examined; U.S. Troops Give Control of Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan to Afghan Forces; Trump Organization Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg Faces Criminal Tax Charges; Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-CA) is Interviewed About the January 6 Select Committee. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired July 02, 2021 - 08:00   ET

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

[08:00:00]

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Overall viral transmission is lower. Where I am, lower vaccination rates, and higher transmission.

So outdoors, if you're watching the fireworks outdoors, I think you're fine. We know now that the virus doesn't spread very well outdoors. But if you're in one of these areas, again, with low vaccination rates, and you can find this data yourself, low vaccination rates and high viral transmission, carry a mask. If you're going to be in a situation where you just don't know the people around you, you're not sure, you may be having a lot of unvaccinated people around you, you're going to be at higher risk. If you're at vaccinated, you're at really low risk of getting sick. You're at really low risk of getting infected. You're at very low risk of spreading it. But as more and more virus surrounds you, even those small risks start to get amplified a bit.

So this is the situation we're dealing with. It's kind of like, do I carry an umbrella when I think it might rain outside. I think it's best to be prepared. I don't know that we need to start blanket recommending everyone wear masks indoors because that's not what the data suggests. We have to be data driven here.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Sanjay, important reminders. Thank you so much. Have a terrific holiday weekend.

GUPTA: You, too.

BERMAN: NEW DAY continues right now.

I'm John Berman with Poppy Harlow today. On this NEW DAY, breaking news from Afghanistan. The final U.S. troops who were based at Bagram's largest air base there are now leaving, and the rest of U.S. troops not far behind.

Plus, the criminal case against the Trump Organization. Are tax crimes just the tip of the iceberg? George Conway joins us live. POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Most House Republicans want no part in the

committee investigating the capitol attack. What are they afraid of? We'll talk to someone who is on it ahead.

And Olympic dreams could be dashed for an American athlete who failed the drug test, not for steroids, but for marijuana.

BERMAN: All right, good morning to our viewers here in the United States and around the world. It is Friday, July 2nd, and breaking overnight, the U.S. military handover at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. All U.S. forces have now left Bagram. That is a huge airfield that was the heart of the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan for 20 years. It is now in the hands of Afghan security forces. This is a new sign that the full withdrawal of U.S. troops is in its final stages and will be completed very shortly.

HARLOW: The Bagram exit was without pomp and ceremony. It is seen as a symbolic victory for the Taliban, who have been gaining significant ground in Afghanistan as the United States leaves. Our Anna Coren is on the ground live in Kabul. And this is, as John said, enormously significant, and leaves enormous question marks and danger for those who remain on the ground in Afghanistan. We're talking about Afghans.

ANNA COREN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, and a huge vacuum, too. There's no guarantee, Poppy, that Afghanistan won't become a safe haven for terrorists again like it did in 2001, which is the whole reason why America invaded Afghanistan. So much blood and treasure has been spent here in this country, $2 trillion. More than 2,400 U.S. lives, more than 100,000 Afghan lives, tens of thousands of Afghan soldiers have died on the battlefield and continue to die. We know the security situation is deteriorating as the Taliban launches its offensive across the country, particularly in the north, gaining ground every day.

But it had to come to an end. And U.S. President Joe Biden, he brought forward the date. It was September 11. And now, as of today and overnight, three planeloads flew out with U.S. and NATO forces. We know that General Austin Scott Miller met with Ashraf Ghani, the president of Afghanistan, today to discuss America's ongoing assistance. And we know that America is not abandoning Afghanistan. They pledged $3.3 billion to provide security assistance in the coming year. And they are going to need it. We spoke to Dr. Abdullah Abdullah, who is head of the peace talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban, and he says if it was up to the Afghans, the Americans would not have left, that now is not the right time because of the insurgency, because of the gains that the Taliban are making. But this is the reality. And it's time for Afghan forces to step up.

[08:05:01]

Bagram airfield was passed over to the Afghans today. There are 4,000 Afghan national security forces in place at Bagram airfield. But there is no denying, Poppy, that America leaves Afghanistan not strong, prosperous, and stable, but rather in a very precarious situation after 20 years in country. HARLOW: So many questions remain, and especially what will it mean

for all the women and girls there as the Taliban grips more and more control. Anna Coren, we appreciate your reporting on the ground in Kabul very much this morning.

Meantime, the Trump Organization and the company's chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg, have been charged with an alleged scheme stretching back to 2005 to, quote, "Compensate Weisselberg and other Trump organization executives in a manner that was off the books." And the indictment carries a lot more than that. Joining us to talk about this and more, Attorney George Conway, contributing columnist at "The Washington Post." It's nice to have you.

GEORGE CONWAY, ATTORNEY: Thanks for having me.

HARLOW: I think the way that John put it this morning that I thought was very appropriate was a smoking spreadsheet, because there is a lot here, and there are two books, and there is a pattern, and there's 15 years. What's your takeaway?

CONWAY: Right, that's absolutely correct. We saw the Trump Organization lawyer going out in front of the courthouse yesterday, saying, oh, well, fringe benefits, it's complicated, it's not clear, taxes, it's not clear. This is way over the line, and that spreadsheet is absolutely a smoking spreadsheet.

Keeping two sets of books -- the spreadsheet was basically keeping track of how much compensation he was receiving off the books so that he wouldn't be overpaid, but not reporting it to the IRS or to New York state tax authorities. And two sets of books is actually what the overall investigation is about as well. The overall investigation, which is much larger than this issue, is apparently looking into questions about whether or not the Trump Organization was sending one set of valuations for its properties to tax authorities, and yet another set of more inflated valuations to insurance companies and to banks for lending and insurance purposes.

So this is a very serious allegation of corruption. And it brings to mind the case of Leona Helmsley back in 1989. And maybe people may not be old enough to remember that like I am, but what happens there was that she was renovating her house out in Connecticut. And she basically was using company money to do it and creating false invoices to do it, and she stiffed the contractors. And the contractors got mad, so they sent a pile of the invoices to "The New York Post." And, well, there was a low and behold a story of how she is invading taxes, and Rudy Giuliani ended up prosecuting her. And there's another real estate mogul, Donald J. Trump went out and said Leona Helmsley was a disgrace to humanity.

BERMAN: He danced all over the indictments.

CONWAY: Absolutely.

BERMAN: As it were in this case, no small irony there. The Trump Organization is a family business.

CONWAY: Right.

BERMAN: And the Trump Organization also named in this indictment, this is the president's, former president's family business being hauled before the courts and charged with crimes. And I don't think that should be lost on people. But based on what you saw, I think this is worse for Allen Weisselberg than everyone was expecting.

CONWAY: Absolutely.

BERMAN: The question, though, is could it or can it be tied to Donald Trump? What are the chances -- you have got some personal experience with this, that Donald Trump was completely oblivious to this alleged tax scheme going on in his company.

CONWAY: My personal experience is limited to the fact that I bought an apartment from the Trump Organization on the east side. And one of the things that happened when I signed the contract, I sent them multiple copies of the contract over to the lawyers, and the lawyers sent them back to me. And lo and behold, Donald J. Trump's signature was on it. As we later learned through press reports, he paid attention, very close attention to what went on in his business. He paid attention to these contracts. He paid attention to what checks were being written. And in fact, the indictment says he actually cut a couple of the checks that went to paying off Weisselberg's expenses.

And the thing to remember about the Trump Organization, which everyone knows and it's been well reported, it really was a small -- it still is a small organization. And not too many people actually are involved in the serious, major aspects of the business. And so that's the question, is whether or not the prosecutors could prove criminal intent to something that may have been misreported. And for that they probably would need an insider since he doesn't use email or he doesn't -- and so that's where Weisselberg comes in.

HARLOW: And even then, given, as you rightly point out, the lack of documentation, emails, ripped up calendars, et cetera, even if you were to have that person, may it be Weisselberg or someone else, to say there was intentionality here, a pattern of it over years, even then it's still difficult, is it not?

[08:10:03]

CONWAY: Yes, it's still difficult, because, again, prosecution has to prove in any case evidence beyond a reasonable doubt, and here you're proving criminal intent. What's going on in somebody's mind? So that's why, again, documents can play a big role here. The documents, as for Weisselberg, they seem to have him dead to rights. And they also apparently may have testimony of the controller who worked for Weisselberg. And in the case of Trump, you need somebody -- you probably need somebody who has talked to Trump about these matters and can say, yes, he knew exactly what was going on. And that would be Allen Weisselberg, which explains the focus on him.

BERMAN: How uncomfortable will this be for the former president, the children, the Trump children, by the way, who are running the company, how uncomfortable will this be for them the next 12 months? CONWAY: If I owned a small family business with a small number of

people and I and the business were under criminal investigation, I'd be very, very worried. And then there are questions about whether or not these practices of keeping two sets of books for purposes of paying people were extended to other people. There's apparently suggestion that it was, and the question is whether they extended to the family. There were reports about, I think in "The New York Times," that Ivanka Trump received consulting fees for matters that it wasn't clear she was actually involved in. Maybe that was an attempt to avoid gift tax. Who knows?

BERMAN: I want to move on to another subject. Before I do, I want to play one final game of what if. What if it was the Clinton Foundation?

CONWAY: Oh, my gosh. If it were the Clinton Foundation, could you imagine? The Republicans and Donald J. Trump in particular would say she's a disgrace to humanity, and lock her up, lock her up, lock her up. There's no question. And it's not a question of politics here. This stuff is clearly illegal. If the facts that are specifically -- very specifically pleaded in this indictment are proven, somebody's got to go to jail.

BERMAN: All right, Kevin McCarthy, the House Minority Leader, CNN reported, threatened to pull committee assignments from any Republican who accepted Nancy Pelosi naming them on this select committee to investigate the January 6th insurrection. This is the same Kevin McCarthy who has not stripped committee assignment from Paul Gosar who cozies up to holocaust deniers, or Marjorie Taylor Greene, he didn't want to pull her committee assignment for Jewish space laser conspiracies. But if you join the select committee, I'm going to pull your committee assignment. What is he afraid of here?

CONWAY: The truth. He's afraid of the truth. He doesn't want to get to the truth. The said when they refused to vote for impeachment of Donald Trump for inciting an insurrection, as we saw on television, they said we have to have an investigation. Then there is a bill that goes through Congress for a bipartisan investigation where half the members would be Republican and half the members Democrat, they voted against that, because they didn't want an investigation. And now they say we can't have a select committee because we have to have a bipartisan investigation, which, of course, they voted down.

The answer is they don't want the truth. And the reason they don't want the truth is because they are themselves implicated. They are implicated because they perpetuated and acceded to the big lie. And they basically created a situation where a large portion of the Republican electorate believes in the big lie, and it's because of them for not standing up to the big lie. And as a result, they want this to go away. The problem is it can't go away. It's not going to go away. As long as these people are out there believing these lies, we're stuck with this. I know some 20, 30 percent, I don't know, some percentage of the population believes this. And they even believe, for example, that Donald Trump will be reinstated in August. There is still the potential for violence, as I think you were probably discussing earlier. HARLOW: With Jeh Johnson. It is a very, very real present continuing

threat to America, yet Kevin McCarthy's paid adviser told me last night on the program, Americans don't care about this anymore. I mean that is scary --

CONWAY: They do care about it.

HARLOW: A scary point of view.

CONWAY: It may not be the Americans that they are trying to please.

HARLOW: You wrote a really interesting opinion piece in the "Post," the headline is "America owes thanks the Trump's lawyers, even William Barr." Let me read people part of it, if they haven't read it yet. "To be sure, Barr's rectitude that day doesn't excuse his earlier kowtowing to Trump or his politicization of the Justice Department." But then you go on to say "Not attempting to destroy constitutional democracy would seem to be a low standard for members of the bar, and it is, but the importance of these lawyers' refusal to behave lawlessly in the waning days of the Trump presidency can't be over overstated." So he finally did write here.

CONWAY: He did right. And I think it has to do with -- the point I was trying to make in the piece was it has to do with the nature of being a lawyer. Lawyers can be tendentious. They can be argumentative. They can push -- a lot of them may push the boundaries of what is reasonably arguable. And I think that's what William Barr did on a number of circumstances where he particularly shouldn't have because he owed a duty to the public to tell the truth.

HARLOW: I was just going to say, isn't there a difference between a corporate lawyer and an A.G.?

CONWAY: Yes, there is. But in this one case they did something that mattered. Not just him, but the people he left behind in the Justice Department. They refused to go along with the big lie.

[08:15:00]

And, you know, there are consequence, for lawyers in an environment where they have to prove things. They have to cite cases. And at the end of the day, they didn't want to litigate this because they knew it was all made up. And if you make stuff up and you like about facts and litigation, you know, you get your license pulled.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: See, Rudy Giuliani.

CONWAY: Exactly. And that's the point I was making. The culture, legal culture at its best puts us -- draws some bright lines here. I mean, there are gray areas when you get up to the bright line, but absolutely making up facts is something that will get your license pulled and will disgrace you and will ruin your career as a lawyer.

BERMAN: See, I thought you were sticking up for Bill Barr because you were worried you were becoming too popular for the left. You want to remind people you're a conservative lawyer. (LAUGHTER)

CONWAY: No, I've had my -- I've said some things about Bill Barr in the past.

BERMAN: Very interesting. George, it's great to have you here.

CONWAY: Thanks for having me.

BERMAN: Thanks so much for joining us. We really appreciate it.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Thanks. Have a good 4th.

BERMAN: So, House Republicans not exactly lining up to get on the new January 6 committee. We're going to have reaction from a Democrat who is on it next.

HARLOW: Also ahead, the deleted tweets that could come back to haunt a Republican Senate hopeful.

Plus -- Billy Ray Cyrus is live in studio. Berman can't wait. I can't wait, with a preview of CNN's big 4th of July event.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:20:22]

BERMAN: Breaking overnight, new police body cam video from January 6th. Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

POLICE OFFICER: Sir, le got of the door and leave the Capitol. Back up. Stop, stop, stop!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Look at the blood on the hands there, the bloodied hands of an officer caught in the violent stand-off with rioters trying to enter the Capitol. It comes after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi officially named the members of the select committee to investigate the insurrection. Seven Democrats and, as of now, just one Republican have been picked.

Joining me now, one of the members of the January 6th Select Committee, Democratic Congressman Pete Aguilar.

Congressman, thank you for being with us. What do you think the most important thing to discover here is?

REP. PETE AGUILAR (D-CA): The most important thing for us to do is to seek and find the truth on what happened January 6th. What happened was, you know, an assault on our democracy, and the cause of it and what the focus was is to prevent a peaceful transfer of power, which is a hallmark of our democracy. And so, the most important thing we can do is to seek the truth where

(AUDIO GAP) for the American people on what transpired on January 6, what we can do better, how we can learn from this, and what was the root cause of this leading up to January 6th.

BERMAN: As of now, Liz Cheney is the only Republican on the Select Committee. And she was appointed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

There was question -- is question whether Kevin McCarthy will appoint anyone. There is reporting this morning in "Punch Bowl" and other places they think he likely will.

What if it's someone like Jim Jordan, you know? I mean, people said Marjorie Taylor Greene. Forget her for a second. But even Jim Jordan, you know, he's been a thorn in Democrats' sides.

I mean, do you think he will take the investigation seriously?

AGUILAR: Well, I hope that Kevin McCarthy will appoint people who will take this commission and treat it with the seriousness that it deserves. But, you know, we will be guided by the facts, and we will carry on either way.

We have a quorum of the committee already, and so, we will -- we will press forward. But it's our hope that we can do so in a collaborative way and our Republican colleagues will work with us to find out what happened on January 6 and to follow the facts and the evidence.

BERMAN: I'll ask you the same question we just asked George Conway a second ago. Kevin McCarthy has fought against this tooth and nail. What do you think he's afraid of?

AGUILAR: Well, that it's quite interesting and, you know, I'm not going to comment on what he is or isn't afraid of. I think, you know, the unfortunate part about, you know, the House Republican leader is, you know, he wanted a commission that was evenly split. He sent ranking member John Katko to negotiate the point and then he couldn't take yes for an answer.

And so, you know, now, this is where we are. This is the commission that will investigate January 6th. And so, we will press forward, and we will follow the evidence and follow the facts and we'll be guided by our oath to the Constitution.

And we will do right by those 140 Capitol police officers who were injured, five who lost their life, and, you know, we're going to do the people's business and to make sure we do this right.

BERMAN: Congressman Pete Aguilar, appreciate your time this morning. Hope you have a wonderful 4th of July weekend.

AGUILAR: Thanks so much, John.

BERMAN: So, are more Americans getting back to work? How many Americans are getting back to work? We get a key measure of the U.S. economic recovery next. HARLOW: Also a sight to see, rare moment in today's politics.

Florida's Governor Ron DeSantis pays President Biden a compliment. It's an important mark.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:28:22]

BERMAN: "Hillbilly Elegy" author J.D. Vance is joining the scrum to replace retiring Senator Rob Portman in Ohio. Vance is one of five competing in the Republican primary there and the race is all about Trump loyalty.

So, the same day as his announcement, a series of since deleted tweets reappear, reminding all those of Ohio he was not always a fan of the former president.

With us, CNN's chief political correspondent Dana Bash.

I have to say, the evolution of J.D. Vance is fascinating because in so many ways, you know, he explained part of the movement that brought Trump to power in 2016, disaffected Americans, but he wasn't a fan himself. In fact, these tweets revealed he voted, I think, for Evan McMullin or he said he was going to vote for Evan McMullin in 2016.

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yeah.

BERMAN: Now, you know, Vance going to Mar-a-Lago, taking pictures of himself at Trump rallies, wrapping himself as much as he can in Trumpism. It's interesting to see, Dana.

BASH: It's fascinating to see. And it's an example of how that primary race in Ohio amongst Republicans to replace retiring Senator Rob Portman is going to be one of the test cases of Trumpism, the viability of Trumpism, even in especially among classic typical Trump supporters, the kind as you said that J.D. Vance explained to the world outside of the Trump base who they are, what they stand for after the 2016 election.

And, you know, the fact of the matter is this is a state, John and Poppy, I don't need to tell you. And, John, especially, I know you traveled there a lot as I did, that used to be very swingy. That used to go to Republicans.