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Cheney, GOP'S Most Forceful Trump Critic, Loses House Seat; FBI Interviews Former White House Counsel, Deputy Over Documents. Aired 6- 6:30a ET

Aired August 17, 2022 - 06:00   ET

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

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. LIZ CHENEY (R-WY): This primary election is over. But now the real work begins.

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[05:59:10]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Congresswoman Liz Cheney loses, loses badly, but says it was worth it.

I'm John Berman with Brianna Keilar.

Cheney's defeat was by a near historic margin in a primary, in as much of a sign as we have seen that Donald Trump has a vice grip on the core of the Republican Party. Cheney, who is vice chair of the January 6th Committee, made it clear she will continue her mission to keep Trump from ever returning to office.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHENEY: Two years ago I won this primary with 73 percent of the vote. I could easily have done the same again. The path was clear. But it would have required that I go along with President Trump's lie about the 2020 election. It would have required that I enable his ongoing efforts to unravel our Democratic system and attack the foundations of our republic. That was a path I could not and would not take.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: So if she is going to continue this fight, the question this morning, how, where and in what office does she plan to do that?

This was her Trump-backed rival, Harriet Hageman, in her victory speech.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HARRIET HAGEMAN (R), WYOMING CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATE: Wyoming has spoken on behalf of everyone who is concerned that the game is becoming more and more rigged against them. And what Wyoming has shown today is that while it may not be easy, we can dislodge entrenched politicians who believe they've risen above the people they are supposed to represent and serve.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: In Alaska incumbent Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski, who voted to convict Trump during his second impeachment trial, advanced to the general election, along with Trump- backed candidate Kelly Tshibaka and Democrat Patricia Chesbro.

And former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin advancing in her comeback bid for a House seat. Palin has Trump's endorsement.

Advancing along with her, Nick Begich and Democrat Mary Peltola, a former state lawmaker.

BERMAN: All right. We'll start with the Wyoming primary and what this means for Liz Cheney. Joining us now, CNN senior data reporter, Harry Enten.

Harry, as we said, this was a historic defeat by some measures.

HARRY ENTEN, CNN SENIOR DATA CORRESPONDENT: It was, John. And I think this kind of gets at it. So I basically went back and looked at all primaries in the last 60 years, have a big data set there.

And take a look here. Her 37.4-point loss, at least at this particular point, was the second worst in the last 60 years, which just gives you an idea -- we're talking thousands upon thousands of races -- just how much Liz Cheney alienated herself from the Republican base in Wyoming.

BERMAN: She says she's going to continue this fight. It's just beginning, she says. How is she viewed nationally?

ENTEN: Yes, so, you know, she wants to take things nationally, and I'm not exactly sure what the lane is. Part of that, you can see here, her net favorability rating. That's her favorable minus her unfavorable.

Among all voters, it's at minus 10 points. It's underwater. Among Republicans, not surprisingly, it's well underwater at minus 53; independents, minus 17. Of course, that might be the group she might want to appeal to.

She does have a base within the Democrat Party, right, at plus 36. And that's not surprising, given that the two counties she won last night in Wyoming were, in fact, two counties that Joe Biden carried.

But overall here, I'm just not quite sure, given this number, what she's exactly going to do, especially to stop Donald Trump, given how far underwater she is with Republicans.

BERMAN: Well, stopping Donald Trump. She made it clear that that's her mission. It could be a tall order.

ENTEN: It could be a tall order and, you know, to get at that idea, take a look here. These are the highest polling non-incumbents in primary history, the leaders, essentially. And I'm only looking at those who ran or may run in the case of Donald Trump at this point in the midterm cycle, you know, well ahead of the presidential cycle.

Look at where Donald Trump is right now. He's at 50 percent. Fifty percent of the Republican primary vote. That is the third best in, basically, the modern primary era.

Hillary Clinton was at 65, Al Gore was at 51, George H.W. Bush 43, George W. Bush at 41. Keep in mind, all of the other folks on this list, except for Donald Trump -- we obviously don't know what will happen in 2024 -- all of them went on to win their primaries. So it's a tall order, for sure.

BERMAN: All right. We talked about Alaska, and the news this morning is what we don't know --

ENTEN: Yes.

BERMAN: -- about Alaska, and that's largely because of the rules there. Explain.

ENTEN: Yes, exactly. So we're talking here about the special, right. We're talking about the special. This is to fill the seat. Don Young, the incumbent, long-time incumbent, passed away. This is to fill the seat.

So essentially, what are the rules here? Look, right now what you essentially see is you see that all the candidates are basically bunched around 30 percent of the vote.

But here's the deal. Voters can rank up to four choices, including write-ins. A candidate with the lowest vote total after a round is eliminated. Voter choices are then re-allocated to their next highest preference if their current choice is eliminated.

But here's the key thing. In order to win, you've got to have at least 50 percent of the vote plus one. And none of the candidates are anywhere close to that at this point.

BERMAN: And there's still so much absentee vote out left. So when we say we don't know, we mean we don't know. People are just going to have to wait.

ENTEN: We're just going to have to wait. Right? You know, only the first choice of votes will be available, which is what we have right now. Reallocating of votes won't begin until all the absentees are received, and the final absentee deadline for receipt is 15 days after the election.

And you and I were talking before this segment, essentially, based on what we saw in the primary. Could the vote shift around? It could, in fact. Nick Begich right now, who's in third, could easily jump into second place. And then you get into this whole thing between the Democrat and Begich. It's just really confusing. A lot to be determined, John.

BERMAN: Too early to tell. Harry Enten, thank you --

ENTEN: Thank you, sir.

BERMAN: -- very much.

KEILAR: Also, during her impassioned concession speech, Congresswoman Liz Cheney invoked Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses Grant.

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[06:05:03]

CHENEY: The great and original champion of our party, Abraham Lincoln, was defeated in elections for the Senate and the House before he won the most important election of all.

Lincoln and Grant and all who fought in our nation's tragic Civil War, including my own great-great grandfathers, saved our union. Their courage saved freedom. And if we listen closely, they are speaking to us down the generations. We must not idly squander what so many HAVE fought and died for.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: And joining us now is CNN senior political analyst, Nia-Malika Henderson; CNN political commentator and former special assistant to former President George W. Bush, Scott Jennings; and senior political correspondent at "Puck," Tara Palmeri. Thank you all for being with us this morning.

And you know, Nia, the die was cast on this long before last night.

NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes.

KEILAR: I think we had a sense of what was going to happen, but did you learn anything from what you heard last night from Liz Cheney?

HENDERSON: Listen, she's got big plans, right? I mean, the speech was grand in its language: references to the Civil War, Lincoln, to Ulysses S. Grant. I don't know if she's Lincoln or Ulysses S. Grant or both in this speech.

But she talked about America being a house on fire in many ways, in terms of the threat to our democracy, and her being someone who wants to be part of gathering Americans to essentially put out this fire that she says is being set by Donald Trump and some of his allies. We will see.

I mean, in so many ways, Liz Cheney is a person without a party. I mean, her party, in many ways, is the beltway media. And, you know, she might get grand profiles in "The Atlantic," and maybe she gets a cable news deal.

But in terms of having actual Republicans who will follow her, we can see in the polling, we can see in the results from this race, but that she, you know, is a person on an island in her party. So we'll see where she goes.

Does she run for the presidency? Does she form a super PAC? Does she back other anti-Trump Republicans?

From what we have seen over these last many months, Trump is winning this battle to eliminate the anti-Trump people from his party. He's had a pretty good record in terms of voting the folks out who voted against him during impeachment.

BERMAN: You spoke of actual Republicans. There's one sitting next to you.

HENDERSON: Yes. Yes.

BERMAN: Scott Jennings, what lesson do you take out of this?

SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, I think getting on the wrong side of Trump is survivable if it doesn't become a crusade. I mean, for Cheney this became a crusade, and obviously, she paid the price.

It did raise an interesting question. You know, sometimes in political science circles, we talk about whether congressmen are supposed to -- supposed to act the way they think they should act or are they supposed to be mirrors of what their constituents want.

And in Wyoming, we found out that the Republicans out there would rather their congressman be more of a mirror than somebody who follows what's in her heart.

So she -- her positions aren't invalid. It's just that they're out of step with the people of Wyoming. And so I think that that question is interesting in this day and age.

The person we don't talk much about is Hageman, who won, who's been on quite a journey. I mean, I'm old enough to remember when she was on the floor of the Republican National Convention, literally plotting a coup against Donald Trump's nomination. I mean, she was -- she was part of the people who were trying to set up a vote on the floor to get rid of Donald Trump in that big dramatic Ted Cruz moment. And now, she's come all the way to being Trump's choice here, which I -- which I find extremely interesting, to say the least.

And so I think she more represents the, well, I'm just going to do what you want me to do. I mean, it's kind of a pure populist. Like, I have no views of my own, I'll just be a vessel for whatever the mob, you know, in this case Republican voters, want me to do.

KEILAR: So Tara, what does that mean for what Liz Cheney is going to do between now and when she's officially out of Congress, and also what Harriet Hageman is going to do when she comes in?

TARA PALMERI, SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT, "PUCK": I think Liz Cheney will continue the crusade against Donald Trump. We know that there'll be more hearings from January 6th. I think that this is just continuing the platform that she has.

And it's a good window of time for her if she is running as a candidate in 2024, gives her more of a platform. The question is, is there really a lane for Liz Cheney? Will she make

it on the debate stage in the Republican primary? She has a lot of money, support from the -- some of the Republican establishment that is against Donald Trump. But will that actually translate into votes?

Because so many -- There are going to be a ton of candidates. At least, that's what it appears to be. A lot of them are made by Trump, Trump sycophants. A few are trying to create wedge issues with them or kind of ignoring him, but are there really enough Republican primary voters to sustain Liz Cheney?

And I think the next few months will be about plotting, continuing to raise her profile through January 6, and figuring out how to, you know, to run for office.

JENNINGS: There may not be enough Republican primary voters to sustain Liz Cheney, but to your point, there may be enough interviews to sustain Ms. Cheney. I mean, she's going to be on a major national network this morning at 7 a.m.

[06:10:08]

I mean, this is part of the plan, is to try to just generate as much attention over time for yourself as you can and see if it, you know, eventually turns into something.

I'm dubious that it will, but I'm not dubious of the idea that she could -- you know, she is going to continue to be talked about, you know. Her coverage will far outkick her vote share, you know, in the polling for the next couple of years.

HENDERSON: And as you talked about, I mean, her cause is an important one, right? This idea that America is on the brink. She, of course, likened it to the Civil War. Some historians do the same thing. This idea that the biggest threat to America is an internal one, this sort of internal conflict that we see now.

So listen, I think that cause and that sort of language, she is not only singular in her party. She's sort of singular on the national stage in terms of saying, Listen, Americans, this is an urgent fight, and all Americans should be paying attention.

BERMAN: You used the word "dubious," Scott. Her prospects may be dubious, but I don't think you could say her commitment to this cause --

HENDERSON: Right.

BERMAN: -- at this point, is. Right?

JENNINGS: No. She clearly deeply believes this. And -- and, you know, there is something to be admired about people who are facing certain, you know, negative outcomes who keep going.

On the other hand, you know, the raw cynical political tactician in me is like you went out and you blew yourself up. You're now out of office. You have no chance of achieving the objective you probably are going to be seeking.

I mean, there's an interesting duality here. You know, admiring the commitment versus, you know, wondering, you know, when are you going to actually realize you're heading towards a cliff?

PALMERI: So what if, in four years from now, Trump loses, perhaps, in 2024? Then there's another opportunity for Liz Cheney when he's really off the stage. And this is just building the blocks to that next run. Perhaps she's -- she might be playing the long game, for all we know.

KEILAR: Before then, though, if you look at the possibility she's going to run, I mean, Donald Trump loves a foil, loves it, capitalizes on it, makes it work for him. How would she pursue something like that without the unintended consequences of actually helping him?

PALMERI: I do think that she could take votes away from him if she ran as a third-party candidate, which is something that she has not said whether she's willing to do that. She sort of steered away from that, but perhaps she throws her -- her name into the, you know, Republican primary, and then jumps out and does a third party to take away Republican votes away from Trump.

I mean, she can do a lot of political damage. I think she killed her political career to -- to, you know, perhaps rise again and really enact revenge. This might just be the first step, and she may be playing the long game right now.

HENDERSON: I mean, listen, I am still skeptical. I mean, I think there are all sorts of candidates who were sort of created in the media, people like Wes Clark; also, you know, sort of Fred Thompson. And I think she may be in that category.

You really don't hear Republicans clamoring for a Liz Cheney at this point. I think her popularity is -- is highest among Democrats, and once they find out how conservative she is, I think that will change a bit.

BERMAN: One point I just want to continue to make here is Liz Cheney isn't new to politics.

HENDERSON: Right.

BERMAN: I think the person who would have been most surprised on earth, had she done well in Wyoming yesterday, would have been Liz Cheney.

KEILAR: Yes.

BERMAN: She knew what was coming. She thinks this is worth it. She thinks this is not about winning; it's about being right.

HENDERSON: And it's about the country. It's about American democracy. I mean, that speech which, you know, she worked on clearly for weeks and weeks and weeks; and she knew that she was going to lose, this was her big moment to really, I think, grab the lapels of Americans and say, We are at an inflection point in terms of this democracy being fragile, and something must be done.

KEILAR: Yes. Maybe she is playing the long game, and the long game -- look, there's no longer game than history. That's for sure.

PALMERI: True.

KEILAR: Everyone, thank you, guys, for your commentary this morning.

So coming up, two top White House lawyers under President Trump interviewed by the FBI in the Mar-a-Lago investigation, the documents investigation. Now we're learning that DOJ officials were alarmed by something they saw on subpoenaed surveillance video.

BERMAN: And this morning, Rudy Giuliani appears before a special grand jury in Georgia as a target of an election interference investigation.

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[06:18:27]

KEILAR: New details this morning in the investigation into former President Trump's storage of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago.

We're learning the FBI interviewed his former top lawyers, Pat Cipollone and Patrick Philbin, earlier this year, after which the Justice Department noticed something alarming on subpoenaed Mar-a-Lago surveillance tape.

CNN's Katelyn Polantz joins us now with the latest on this -- Katelyn.

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Brianna, everything we are learning here is showing how the Justice Department arrived to the point where they felt it was absolutely necessary to go into Mar-a-Lago a week ago and seize documents that were being kept there.

This new information now is filling out a little bit about how we got to that point.

Our Evan Perez and Gabby Orr were able to confirm yesterday that Pat Cipollone and Patrick Philbin were interviewed by the FBI earlier this year.

So Pat Cipollone, Pat Philbin, they were the two -- they were both in the White House counsel's office. Cipollone was the White House counsel itself, and Philbin was a deputy to him. After the presidency, they became the liaisons for Donald Trump to the National Archives dealing with his presidential records.

And so whenever this was happening, this was around the time earlier this year where the investigation was really robust. There were a lot of things that investigators were doing. They were interviewing witnesses such as them. They were subpoenaing the documents to try and get them back.

"The New York Times" has said that this -- that Philbin and Cipollone were trying to help get those documents retrieved for the National Archives.

We also know from "The New York Times" reporting, which first broke this story, that the Justice Department was subpoenaing surveillance footage, and on that surveillance footage at Mar-a-Lago, saw something that concerned them that then precipitated this search, ultimately, this month.

And all of this put together, all of this, would be outlined in that secret affidavit that is in the court record that backed up the probable cause that the Justice Department needed to convince a judge that they should take this unusual step of going into the former president's home in Florida.

KEILAR: And about that affidavit. There's a hearing tomorrow about it, the precursor to the search warrant, and whether the public is going to see it. What can you tell us?

POLANTZ: That's right. So this hearing tomorrow, it is before the judge that signed the search warrant, approved it. The judge would have seen this affidavit before.

And this hearing that we're going to have tomorrow in Florida, it is about secrecy. Right now, the media and others, potentially, have been asking to see this affidavit, as is our right to ask for. And the Justice Department is arguing very strongly that they can't let that out there, because there are such sensitive details in there, such a sensitive ongoing investigation involving highly-classified material, that they do not want additional information out there.

At this point in time, Donald Trump and his legal team, they have not seen this affidavit. It would have a narrative of a lot of the investigative steps taken.

And this morning -- or I'm sorry, tomorrow morning we are waiting to see if Trump's team speaks up in court and says whether or not they want this to be released or not. Ultimately, it will be up to the judge.

KEILAR: All right. Katelyn, thank you for that new reporting. We appreciate it.

BERMAN: All right. With us now, former deputy assistant general, Elliot Williams; and former deputy director of the FBI, Andrew McCabe.

There's a hell of a quote from our friend Maggie Haberman in "The New York Times" and her reporting about Philbin and Cipollone being questioned by the Department of Justice. It says, quote, "Mr. Philbin tried to help the National Archives retrieve the material, two of the people familiar with the discussion said, but the former president repeatedly resisted entreaties from his advisers. Quote, 'It's not theirs. It's mine,' several advisers say Mr. Trump told them."

ELLIOT WILLIAMS, FORMER DEPUTY ASSISTANT GENERAL: So you know, a couple things. One, John, there's this question of whether Cipollone and Philbin are in trouble based on their role on this. I've been asked that question before. No. These were the people standing between the president and some of his worst impulses.

And this whole idea of they're not mine -- it's mine, it's not -- that's just fundamentally incorrect. They're the American people's documents. Even if they'd been declassified, they're government documents that should have been stored properly in a different way, other than at the president's private residence.

KEILAR: What does it tell you, though, in the issue of intent here: "they're not theirs, they're mine"?

ANDREW MCCABE, CNN SENIOR LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Well, it tells you a lot. And any of us who have raised children have heard that same response in a number of contexts. It doesn't really indicate a high degree of understanding of the Presidential Records Act or property law, for that matter.

But I think that's been clear from the very beginning. There is an intentionality here. The simple fact that this -- these discussions began with the National Archives, continued for about seven months. And in January, of course, the Trump team turned over a third of what they had to the National Archives, rather than going through everything. They gave over 15 boxes. We know that the FBI was able to recover an additional 33.

So there is intentionality here in that sort, and that's something they'll have to explain.

BERMAN: Let's stick on that word, "intentionality," here. It's not theirs, it's mine. That seems to preclude the possibility that these documents were there by accident. If he's saying they're mine --

MCCABE: That's right.

BERMAN: Right?

WILLIAMS: Absolutely.

BERMAN: Doesn't that put it in a different legal category, potentially?

WILLIAMS: Right. No, he actually might believe that they are his and took them out of the White House, intending to take them out of the White House.

The problem is, you've been a senior government official. I've been a senior government official. You are warned from the day you get in, multiple times throughout, and on the day you leave, that these are not your documents, and you have to turn them over.

And, as a president, there's an additional layer under the Presidential Records Act. So this whole idea -- Look, we tried having unaccountable leaders in the United States for probably the first half of American history. It didn't work out well, and I think you're seeing some of that here. KEILAR: Andy, how much -- sorry, go on. You were going to say

something.

MCCABE: No, I just -- I mean, I think we have to put it in the context of at least one of the many defenses we've heard so far, which was, oh, this was GSA's fault. It was all just thrown into the wrong boxes, and they took the things to Mar-a-Lago. I think that "it's mine" comment really undermines that defense.

KEILAR: How much insight, Andy, can they provide, knowing that they're steering away from stuff that they -- attorney/client privilege. This issue has not been resolved yet. How much insight can they provide into how these documents were handled without going into some of that?

MCCABE: Well, that's going to be tough. Obviously, that will bump up against what we've seen as a series of claims of privilege and all kinds of different issues regarding the former president and his staffers.

[06:25:02]

However, the revelation -- and I'm sure it was a revelation for the FBI agents who attended that meeting at Mar-a-Lago in June, that there was apparently surveillance coverage outside the room that would indicate who was having access to that room, how often people were going in there, what that traffic looked like, that became a very important point for them. And that would explain why they subpoenaed that coverage --

BERMAN: Let me read another quote from Maggie Haberman's reporting that deals with surveillance footage and the fact that they were alarmed with what they saw.

"At that point at least one Trump lawyer signed a statement saying material with the classified markings had been returned, according to four people familiar with the document. But officials then used a subpoena to obtain surveillance footage of the hallway outside a storage room at Mar-a-Lago and saw something that alarmed them. They also received information from at least one witness who indicated that more material might remain at the residence, people familiar with the investigation said."

WILLIAMS: Oh, my lord, it's like a law school exam question, where you have to count all of the crimes. I'm dead serious here.

Because No. 1, signing that document could itself be a crime, because it's a false statement to the government. No. 2, not complying with the subpoena is itself -- it's a misdemeanor, but it's still a crime.

No. 3, what you're seeing are potentially crimes, or at least gross abuses in judgment happening on camera.

And this happens all the time when building investigations. They had evidence and testimony and a background of what was going on, and then were triggered by something they saw on camera that said, wait a second. Something doesn't look right here. BERMAN: All right. Elliot Williams, Andrew McCabe, great to see you

both this morning. Thanks so much for coming in.

WILLIAMS: Thank you.

BERMAN: So he is a target of Georgia's election interference probe. Now Rudy Giuliani about to appear before a special grand jury.

KEILAR: And the state attorney who was suspended by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis for his stance on abortion is fighting back.

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