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Trump's White House Lawyer Subpoenaed to Testify; Biden to Address NATO Leaders This Morning; Russia Evacuates Snake Island in Ukraine. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired June 30, 2022 - 06:00   ET

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

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning to our viewers here in the United States and all around the world. It is Thursday, June 30th. I'm John Berman with Brianna Keilar.

[06:00:03]

And Pat Cipollone, the former top lawyer at the White House, has been subpoenaed by the January 6th Committee. The committee clearly feels he is a central figure in their investigation. Witnesses have testified that he pushed back on the fake Electoral College scheme.

Cassidy Hutchinson testified that Cipollone warned if Trump went to the Capitol, quote, "We're going to be charged with every crime imaginable."

Now, Cipollone did meet with the panel informally in April but has been reluctant to do more. Now a source tells Dana Bash he might agree to at least a limited transcribed interview.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: And first on CNN, Cassidy Hutchinson stands by her testimony in the face of pushback from the Secret Service.

The former top aide to chief of staff Mark Meadows told the committee that Trump was so determined to join his supporters at the Capitol that he tried to grab the wheel of the Beast, the presidential armored vehicle, which was an SUV that day, and lunged at an agent's throat.

Committee co-chair Liz Cheney praising Hutchinson for her candor and her courage.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. LIZ CHENEY (R-WY): Her superiors, men many years older, a number of them, are hiding behind executive privilege, anonymity and intimidation. But her bravery and her patriotism yesterday were awesome to behold.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Katelyn Polantz beginning our coverage live from Washington this morning -- Katelyn.

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Brianna, the House Select Committee has momentum coming off of this Cassidy Hutchinson interview, at the public hearing earlier this week.

Pat Cipollone, the former White House counsel, is someone that the House Select Committee has long wanted to talk to. They have been upping the pressure on him in recent public hearings.

And now we have Liz Cheney, the vice chairwoman, saying that "Cipollone had significant concerns re. Trump's January 6th activities. It's time for Mr. Cipollone to testify on the record. Any concerns he has about the institutional interests of his prior office are outweighed by the need for his testimony."

He's getting the subpoena. He had engaged formally. And now he seems responsive.

My colleagues here have this reporting that he will probably agree to a transcribed interview with some limitations. Obviously, there are secrecy concerns around the presidency.

But it does appear that this would be a major step forward. There are lots of things that the House Select Committee will want to ask Pat Cipollone about, specifically what he was telling Donald Trump before and around January 6, if he was giving Trump warnings about violence to come or the possible illegality.

Cassidy Hutchinson brought up one of these instances, where he spoke to her. That is almost certainly going to be something that they'll ask about. This is what she said recently.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CASSIDY HUTCHINSON, FORMER AIDE TO TRUMP WHITE HOUSE CHIEF OF STAFF MARK MEADOWS: Mr. Cipollone said something to the effect of, Please make sure we don't go up to the Capitol, Cassidy. Keep in touch with me. We're going to get charged with every crime imaginable if we make that movement happen.

CHENEY: And do you remember which crimes Mr. Cipollone was concerned with?

HUTCHINSON: In the days leading up to the 6th, we had conversations about potentially obstructing justice or defrauding the electoral count.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

POLANTZ: Now, I can't overstate how significant this would be if Pat Cipollone were to come in to testify. He is, of course, one of the closest people to Donald Trump. Mark Meadows, the chief of staff, has not come in to testify with the House.

And of course, the House in the past has not had success getting someone like Cipollone, the White House counsel, to testify with them. Previously, in the Mueller investigation, a criminal investigation, Don McGahn, the former White House counsel, he was willing to testify to Mueller. He was not willing to testify to the House. The House fought for years to get him. If Cipollone would come in now with political expediency, this is a

whole new ball game -- Brianna.

KEILAR: It certainly is. Katelyn Polantz, thank you.

BERMAN: All right. Joining us now, attorney George Conway. He's a contributing columnist for "The Washington Post."

George, thanks so much for being with us. If you were serving as counsel to the January 6th Committee, Pat Cipollone sits down for a transcribed interview, what do you ask him?

GEORGE CONWAY, ATTORNEY AND "WASHINGTON POST" CONTRIBUTING COLUMNIST: Well, I'd basically ask him everything that happened on January 6th. I ask him specifically about the things that -- that Cassidy Hutchinson said, including the statement by -- by Mr. Cipollone, according to Hutchinson, that he was fearful that "we would be charged with everything under the sun" if -- if they allowed Donald Trump to go up to Capitol Hill.

So there's a lot to ask him. There's going to be a lot to ask whether or not he had given Donald Trump warnings about his potential criminal liability and a full accounting of that day is absolutely -- absolutely requires Cipollone.

KEILAR: And then what's the impact of that, George, depending on what he says and how far he goes?

[06:05:05]

CONWAY: Well, I mean, the impact could be to reinforce Cassidy Hutchinson's testimony, because that -- that went up -- that testimony went a long way to establishing Donald Trump's criminal intent.

And let me give you an example that explains why. You remember the O.J. Simpson case? Not the first one, not the murder case, but the one he actually went to jail for nine years in Nevada state prison for, which was an armed robbery case.

He lured a memorabilia dealer into a hotel, because he thought the guy had stolen his stuff. He had stolen his stuff, so he wanted to take it back, and he took it back at gunpoint.

But it didn't matter that O.J. Simpson thought that the stuff belonged to him, no more than it matters that Donald Trump might have thought that the election was won by him. He still used illegal means and intended to use illegal means to -- to steal the stuff back. And that's the thing that's happening with Trump.

What happened with Cassidy Hutchinson's testimony is that it showed that Donald Trump intended to use illegal means, force, to take back the presidency, by marching with these people he knew couldn't cross through magnetometers, because they were armed. And he didn't care. He wanted them to go up to the Hill.

And that's the devastating testimony that we learned, along with the fact that Cipollone, according to Hutchinson, said that there were potential criminal conduct here if Trump was allowed to go up to Capitol Hill.

BERMAN: Of course, Cipollone central not just in this episode but in so many others where, according to other witnesses, he told the president or told others, what you are doing is not legal. A fake elector keep is not legal. This would be wrong.

It gets to the counsel that he gave, which does get to the issue of privilege here, George, because even in Dana's reporting -- Dana's reporting is that Cipollone might be cooperative in a limited, transcribed interview. Where could he claim executive privilege or even attorney/client privilege?

CONWAY: Well, I don't -- I don't know that there are really -- there's really much left of an executive privilege claim after what the Supreme Court -- D.C. Circuit and the Supreme Court did in the case that Trump brought against the National Archives, where they basically said that the importance of the January 6th investigation outweighs any concern about executive privilege.

And the important thing to remember about the attorney/client privilege is that Cipollone's client was not Donald Trump personally. He was -- he got his salary, Cipollone got his salary from us, the taxpayers. He was a lawyer for the United States of America, who was representing the institution of the presidency and not the president himself. So his -- his legal advice actually belongs to all of us.

KEILAR: You tweeted after this hearing that Chairman Thompson, in essence, was sending a message to uncooperative and untruthful Trumpers: Call us now at 1-800-SAVE-YOUR-A-S-S.

Who else besides Cipollone?

CONWAY: I apologize for the language.

KEILAR: I didn't say it, right? You did.

CONWAY: I did.

KEILAR: Who else besides Cipollone do you think might come out of the woodwork here?

CONWAY: I don't know, but there are other people who are at the White House that day. I mean, Mark Meadows ought to come out and come clean and testify. For some reason he won't.

But there are other people at the White House that day. There were other people who -- who tried to speak to the president that day. And obviously -- I mean, we don't know exactly the list of people that -- all the people that the January 6th Committee has talked to or interviewed, but it -- there has to be more out there.

And also, he's also saying, I think, that he's trying to tell people that if you weren't fully forthcoming the first time you talked to us, here's your chance to come back and fill in the gaps of things you might have left out of the story.

BERMAN: George, this is the first time we've had a chance to talk to you since Cassidy Hutchinson gave her testimony. Other former federal prosecutors, lawyers, have come up and said that they do think it increases former President Trump's legal jeopardy and the likelihood that he would come under specific investigation by the Justice Department.

We learned overnight, "The New York Times" is reporting, though, that the DOJ and this committee not necessarily on the same page on how they're conducting the investigations. The "Times" reports DOJ was surprised by Cassidy Hutchinson's reporting [SIC]. They're still irked that the committee hasn't turned over videos and transcriptions of their depositions yet.

What do you make of these parallel tracks? And why hasn't the committee shared with DOJ?

CONWAY: Well, I can't answer as to why the committee hasn't shared all things with DOJ. I mean, that's -- the question is really for the committee and for the DOJ as to what conversations they have had about how they're sharing materials.

[06:10:09]

That said, this split, if you want to call it that, between the DOJ and the January 6th Committee does not help Donald Trump. I mean, what DOJ is essentially saying there, if the reports are correct, is that, Holy -- holy cow, look at all this stuff that they had, we didn't know, that's really relevant to proving that Donald Trump committed crimes.

KEILAR: We learned from Cassidy Hutchinson that Mark Meadows was initially trying to go to the Willard Hotel the night before the insurrection.

If you were asking Pat Cipollone about that, presumably he would know more, right, about what kind of connection there would be between Mark Meadows and Giuliani and Roger Stone and the folks who were at that Willard Hotel war room. What would you ask? What would you want to know?

CONWAY: I'd ask him about any conversations he had with anybody about Meadows going over there, about the war room. Anything he knew, anything he learned about that, any and all testimony.

And, you know, we don't know what he was told. I mean, I don't know that if -- that it would have been such a great idea for Meadows to tell the lawyers that -- that he's going over to the -- to the Willard, but maybe he did. Maybe -- maybe it did get through to -- to Cipollone.

I mean, Cipollone was probably on all, you know, red alert the entire time, because he clearly was terrified that somebody was going to commit a crime.

BERMAN: George Conway, great to see you this morning. Thank you so much for joining us.

CONWAY: Thank you.

BERMAN: So we are waiting to hear from President Biden this morning. He will hold a news conference at the NATO summit. He will face a number of questions. He will no doubt face questions about what they're talking about the war in Ukraine, also the Roe v. Wade decision by the Supreme Court, also potentially, the January 6th hearings. A whole lot of news possible. We're live in Madrid.

KEILAR: Plus, a just chilling assessment of the economy from Fed chairman Jerome Powell. He says it may never be the same because of COVID.

And a big win in Ukraine. Why a special operation on Snake Island left Russian forces evacuating on speed boats.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:16:30]

KEILAR: Here in a few hours, President Biden is going to be speaking at a major news conference in Madrid, where he'll likely address several domestic issues here at home, as well, from the economy to abortion rights to the January 6th hearings.

BERMAN: Obviously, the war in Ukraine will also be a central issue. He's there at the NATO meetings talking largely about Ukraine.

NATO has expanded, or is moving to expand, its membership and also to strengthen its forces in Europe.

Overnight, a pretty significant development in the war around Ukraine. Ukrainian officials there say they have pushed the Russians out of Snake Island.

You will remember Snake Island in the Black Sea. It's a key strategic point. The Russians have held it since the start of the war. We're told the Russians were forced to evacuate on speed boats.

This was the same island, Snake Island, where Ukrainian forces told the Russians at the very beginning, "Go 'F' yourself" as they approached. The Russians say they left the island as a gesture of good will.

Let's go straight to CNN's Kaitlan Collins, live in Madrid for us this morning with what we are expecting to hear from the president this morning, Kaitlan.

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, John and Brianna, well, they're wrapping up these two days of the summit here, this NATO summit that's been happening in Madrid. And it's really been this fundamental shift in how NATO operates.

Because remember, this was an alliance that, for four years, when Trump was in office, was constantly under attack by the U.S. president. It led the French leader to say that NATO is basically brain dead as an alliance.

And now you have seen a total reinvigoration of this alliance ever since Russia invaded Ukraine four months ago, which was not really a given, not something that the White House was fully expecting to see, although obviously, it is something that they have certainly rallied around. And they have used this summit to do the same.

And I think the question here is these NATO leaders are preparing to leave the summit, is whether or not their actions here can match their actions at home and how long they can continue their support for Ukraine or whether or not their domestic audiences are going to experience any kind of fatigue.

That's been a concern that you've hear d from some Ukrainian experts as they've talked about what these leaders are pledging, as you saw the NATO secretary general said that they will continue to support Ukraine for as long as it takes.

A big question here has been centered around, Well, how long will it take? Because President Zelenskyy, when he was speaking to the G-7 leaders a few days ago, as they were meeting in Germany, he said he wants to see this war end by the end of this year, which of course, is just six months away.

And so if you look at what the DNI, the director of national intelligence, back in the United States is saying, she is saying that the situation on the ground, despite what's happened in Snake Island and these other victories, it's still a pretty grim situation. And she does expect the fighting to continue for an extended period of time.

So I think that will be a big question here, as well. Because you've seen the way that NATO has changed here, the rapid acceptance and invitation for Finland and Sweden to join NATO. That hasn't been completed yet.

But it is certainly a massive step forward for the alliance to expand from 30 members to 32. And so those are going to be big questions facing President Biden. He is about to take questions at this press conference.

I should note, it's his first press conference of this trip, so there are certainly a lot of questions for him.

BERMAN: We know you will be in the room, trying to get some of those questions in. Kaitlan Collins, looking forward to it. Thank you very much.

KEILAR: And joining us now, the anchor of CNN's "EARLY START," Laura Jarrett; CNN political commentator and "New York" magazine columnist, Errol Louis; and CNN political analyst and "Washington Post" columnist, Josh Rogin.

So some deliverables, Josh. Some disagreements, as well. What do you think we're going to be hearing from the president? [06:20:05]

JOSH ROGIN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Right. I think it's been a really good week for NATO, a good week for Finland, good week for Sweden. Ukraine, not so much.

And I think what the president is going to do is he's going to focus on the plus side. NATO is stronger. Russia doesn't like that. You know, the NATO countries are committed to the fight.

He's not going to want to talk about the negative side, which is the fact that there's no new sanctions on Russia. They couldn't agree to it, not even at the G-7.

Zelenskyy is asking for heavy weapons, the long-range artillery. They're still not giving it to him.

And also, winter is coming, and when the energy crisis gets -- meets that winter, all these European countries are going to change their calculations. There's no plan for that.

How do we break the siege of Odessa and get the grain out so that there's not a food crisis to add to all of this other stuff?

So some good points, some bad points. Biden's going to focus on the good points. Hopefully, the reporters will press him for answers on the rest.

BERMAN: Errol, it's a news conference from a president who doesn't give a lot of news conferences at a time when his approval rating, the average is about 38 percent. What image -- what kind of image does he need to project?

LOUIS: He needs to project the image of the -- as the leader of the free world, something that really, he has not been able to do but is one of his stronger points. It's one of the areas where he can claim some successes.

I mean, the fact that you do now have an expansion of NATO on the table; the fact that they even sort of brought in their lens (ph) to a certain extend and unmistakably are sending messages to China about this is sort of the, you know, the armed democracies. This is the strong arm of democracy, with the president sort of leading it.

It couldn't be a greater contrast with what we saw as "America first" or some would have said "America alone" during the Trump years.

And so he gets to relive some of the stronger points. It also partly makes up for the debacle of the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, which really started the slide of his popularity. So I think he's going to sort of maybe try and turn things around and roll back the clock to when his approval ratings were quite a bit higher than they are right now.

KEILAR: I think his trip has certainly been overshadowed by what has happened with Roe v. Wade and the fallout from that. I bet there's a lot of Americans who don't even know that Biden is in Madrid. Right? They don't. So what does he need to say? What does he need to speak to?

LAURA JARRETT, CNN ANCHOR: Well, I think he's going to have to, at least, address that as the elephant in the room. I'm sure reporters are going to ask him a lot about it.

And I think he needs to say here's the game plan. I mean, we know from our reporting -- CNN and Kevin Liptak has been doing great reporting about sort of they had this whole thing predicted, because we saw the draft opinion. And so they knew Roe was likely to fall.

So now what? What's the plan? I mean, the Democrats in Congress, Elizabeth Warren, has been quite outspoken about a lot of suggestions. You know, making abortion services available on federal lands. And the White House has been pushing back on some of those things.

All right. So then what is the plan? And I would ask him, if I was there, Are you prepared to blow up the filibuster or make some change, at least in a limited way, to the filibuster to protect abortion rights the way you were for voting rights?

BERMAN: Brianna brings up a good point. I mean, Roe versus Wade overshadowed this trip. So has the January 6th Committee and the hearings.

Can we roleplay for a second here? You play the president. I'll play a reporter in the room. Mr. President, you know --

JARRETT: Mr. Berman, nice to see you again.

BERMAN: Mr. President, the attorney general, Merrick Garland, based on what has been heard by the January 6th Committee, should DOJ be investigating Donald Trump?

JARRETT: Well, as you know, that is up to the attorney general. I put him there.

I mean, he's got to -- he's got to deflect in a way that makes it clear that he defers to Merrick Garland; that this is important for history; that he wants to see some accountability.

But, look, he's been very clear that he wants the DOJ to operate independently, because he knows what has happened in the Trump administration.

At the same time, he doesn't want to look sort of tone deaf. Right? America has been hooked on these hearings and all of the revelations. And in fact, I think the reporting was that he was going to watch the hearings and that he was -- you know, he was enthused about what was going to come out, whether in fact, he's been following all the developments while he has been abroad, he's been a little bit busy.

But I think I think he's going to deflect to Merrick Garland and not weigh in on whether the president is going to be indicted or investigated. KEILAR: What do you think, Errol?

LOUIS: On the -- I think on the question of Roe v. Wade and the response, where he is getting quite a lot of political criticism, he can, if he wishes to, point to the fact that he's appointed more judges to the federal bench than any president since Kennedy in the first year.

So he got 80 nominations moved. He got 42 of them approved. He's got Ketanji Brown Jackson, who's going to be sort of, you know, sworn in. I mean, he can say, Look, we are responding. We don't have to blow up the filibuster. We don't have to expand the size of the court or somehow put term limits in place. I'm doing what I can do, and I'm doing it better than most of the presidents, you know, before me. That's a pretty good place to start.

I think also, of course, he's got a theme that's just waiting there for him. It's like sort of a slow pitch over the plate to hit out of the park and say, I defend democracy abroad, and I defend democracy at home. That's what we do. That's what presidents do.

ROGIN: The other side of that coin is that when we have democratic dysfunction at home, it undermines our leadership on the world stage, makes us look like we don't know what we're doing, and feeds the propaganda of our enemies who say that democracy is too messy, and authoritarianism is better.

[06:25:09]

So when Europeans look back to the Trump administration, they see that America treated Europe like garbage; and they look at what's going on now and say, Oh, that could come back in a year or three years.

So, you know, Biden is trying to say America is back as a leader of democracies, but he can't promise that that lasts any longer than his administration.

BERMAN: That's so interesting, because I was going to ask you, Josh, how does -- I guess we're talking about Europe here -- how does Europe at this point look at President Biden? And is it similar or different than how Ukraine, which is part of Europe, look at President Biden?

ROGIN: Right. I mean, they're behind him to a point, but they're suffering from the same thing he's suffering from: high gas prices and inflation. And they know that Putin will take more pain than their populations will.

So they want an end game for this. They want to know how does this -- how do we get out of this without losing power? And Biden doesn't have an answer for that.

So they're still behind him, but I'm telling you that Zelenskyy is saying the same thing. We've got months, not years. Time is not on Ukraine's side. It's not on Europe's side. Time is on the side of the dictators who are willing to subject their people to this kind of suffering forever. So Biden is on the -- on the -- he's got a timeline. And he's got to

act fast. And I don't see what the solution are. And I'm sure that will be a big part of the press conference today.

How do you solve inflation? How do you solve the food crisis? How do you get gas prices down? Well, one way is to win the war against Putin. That would -- some people would say give Zelenskyy the weapons he needs to win the war. If you're not willing to do that, and we're getting in for the long slog, well, eventually, the Europeans are going to jump off ship, because they have to respond to the politics, just like everybody else.

KEILAR: Because winter is coming.

ROGIN: Exactly.

BERMAN: Thank you, Ned Stark.

KEILAR: As you put it. I know. Well, that's exactly what we thought, of course. But if winter is coming -- and that is the question here, and this will also speak to American leadership, the leadership of Joe Biden. Who is willing to go further, Vladimir Putin with the pain, or Joe Biden and Europe with the pain? What do you say?

ROGIN: I say the Ukrainians have the most will of all. They're fighting for their homes, their families, their lives. They're not going to stop.

The least we could do, in my opinion, is give them the weapons that they're asking for. Right now, we're playing this game of not escalating, so we're giving them enough weapons to fight to a tie, and that means that the war could go on forever.

So we can either give them the weapons that they need to win this year, or we can settle in for a really, really long slog. So in the end, I think the Ukrainians have the most will of all. But they can't do it without our support, and they need more of it, and they need it fast.

KEILAR: Josh, thank you so much. Errol, Laura, we do appreciate it.

BERMAN: Madam President.

KEILAR: That was lovely.

BERMAN: She's good.

KEILAR: You stole that from Elie Honing --

BERMAN: You know.

KEILAR: It's because it worked, just to be clear.

BERMAN: Roleplay always does.

KEILAR: Always does. A sober assessment from Fed chair Jerome Powell. He says that the U.S. economy has never return to its pre-pandemic form.

BERMAN: Plus, CVS reversing course after first deciding to limit purchases of emergency contraception following the Supreme Court's abortion rule.

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[06:30:00]