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New Day

National Archives Asked Trump to Return Documents Throughout 2021; Today, DOJ Expected to Turn Over Redacted Mar-a-Lago Affidavit; Biden Announces Student Loan Forgiveness Plan. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired August 25, 2022 - 07:00   ET

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


PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: -- feeling the pressure from passengers.

[07:00:01]

And he says customer satisfaction scores are going up but they're not quite to where he wants them just yet.

Two big tips, if you are traveling over the Labor Day weekend, John, ditch that checked bag, carry on, it leaves you more flexibility. Also ditch the connection. If you fly nonstop, that's better, more connections, just leave you more opportunities for delays and cancelations.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: I've been shouting from the rooftops about checked bags, and every time I walk in this building, I tell everyone traveling, don't check a bag. Don't do it. Pete, you're asking all the right questions, terrific interview. Thank you so much for being with us.

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: It's literally one of my ten commandments to not check a bag ever. I go to Japan for work, anything like that. I do not check a bag.

BERMAN: First flight out. I mean, these are the things --

COLLINS: I'm wearing the same outfit twice this week because I didn't check a bag to come here.

BERMAN: Only twice. I mean, twice is low for me.

New Day continues right now.

The National Archives has been trying to get Donald Trump to return documents since the end of his presidency.

I'm John Berman. Brianna is off. CNN Chief White House Correspondent Kaitlan Collins is with us this morning.

And this timeline, we just keep getting more data points.

COLLINS: It's like every day you learn that the conversations on getting these documents back goes back further than we thought. BERMAN: It was a problem it seems from the beginning. An email from the National Archives indicates that records were not returned by Trump despite a determination by a top White House lawyer that they should be.

A source says there were about a dozen emails and calls over the course of 2021, this is last year, including a May 2021 email from the archives to Trump's lawyers that reads in part, quote, it is also our understanding that roughly two dozen boxes of original presidential records were kept in the residence of the White House over the course of President Trump's last year in office and have not been transferred to the Archives despite a determination by Pat Cipollone, that's the White House counsel, in the final days of the administration that they need to be. The Washington Post first reported on this email.

COLLINS: Also this morning, the Justice Department has about five hours left before a deadline to turn over a redacted version of the affidavit, that's what was behind the FBI's search of Mar-a-Lago. A judge will then decide whether or not to release that version that is given to him by the Justice Department or keep it entirely shielded from public view.

BERMAN: All right. We're going to get to all of these new data points, all this new information in just a moment.

First, though, we want to check in on public opinion. What is the current view among the public of what has been going on the last couple of weeks since the FBI executed that search warrant?

With me now, a man who can answer that question.

HARRY ENTEN, CNN SENIOR DATA REPORTER: I'd like to think.

BERMAN: CNN's Senior Data Reporter Harry Enten.

And there are some polling -- there are some polls out now that do show what Americans think. How do they view the FBI actions since the search?

ENTEN: Yes. So, essentially, this is a Reuters/Ipsos poll that came out recently. Overwhelmingly among those who have an opinion, they believe that the actions have, in fact, been responsible, responsible. They are sticking with the FBI and the Justice Department. Just 29 percent say irresponsible. So, at this particular point, the American public is sticking with the FBI and the Justice Department, not going the way that former president Donald Trump perhaps they wish they would.

BERMAN: Responsible so far. What do they want to see going forward?

ENTEN: Yes. So, the other question is do you want these investigations to continue, right?? Do you want to continue looking at the potential wrongdoing by the former president? 57 percent, the clear majority, say they want those investigations to continue. They want to see more evidence. Just 40 percent say they don't want to continue. 57 percent in this country, that's a large majority. BERMAN: The FBI has been acting responsibly, the public says they want the investigations to continue, a majority does. What has this done to Trump's favorability?

ENTEN: Yes. So, I think there is this idea out there that maybe these investigations are somehow helping Donald Trump. Well, at least among the American public at large, that is not the case. You can see this in his net favorability rating, that's his favorable minus unfavorable, look, we have a trend line going back since April. Minus 7 points, minus 9 points, minus 10 points, minus 13 points, minus 14 points. That is a very clear trend line.

His net favorability in the red has doubled, doubled over the past few months and, of course, we've been having during this time not just the search warrant, we also obviously had the January 6th select committee and all the press going around that. Very clear that this is actually hurting Donald Trump, not helping him.

BERMAN: Again, among the public at large, certainly not helping him. What about among Republicans?

ENTEN: Among Republicans, however, something very different. This is not much of a surprise if you've been following the polls over the past few years. Republicans' views of Donald Trump, 83 percent total favorable. This number is particularly impressive. Look at that. 57 percent of Republicans hold a very favorable view of Donald Trump. They are sticking by their man.

BERMAN: Sticking by him. And one of the things that some analysts have pointed out is maybe this will freeze potential Republican primary opponents.

[07:05:05]

How is his Republican primary support?

ENTEN: Yes. So, this is his national primary support among Republicans, you have got a trend going back a year-and-a-half, 53 percent in February 2021, 54 percent in august 2021, 51 percent in February 2022, 50 percent in August of 2022, this is all within the margin of error. He is basically getting about half the Republican primary vote. This is the strongest position for any non-incumbent in any primary in the modern primary era going back since the '70s.

BERMAN: And it's more or less unchanged.

ENTEN: It's more or less unchanged. This is all within the MOE.

BERMAN: And, finally, let's just talk about Republican views and how they differ when thinking about Trump and when thinking about the FBI.

ENTE: Right. So, how have they acted since the FBI got a search warrant for Mar-a-Lago? Donald Trump's actions among Republicans, 53 percent say he has acted responsibly among Republicans, but look at their views of the FBI and the Justice Department. Just 23 percent of Republicans believe that the FBI and the Justice Department have acted responsibly. The clear majority of Republicans believe, in fact, the FBI and the Justice Department have acted irresponsibly.

John, going back in politics, the idea that Republicans would turn against law enforcement I don't think is something we would necessarily predict. But when it comes to Donald Trump, they are choosing Donald Trump over the FBI and the Justice Department.

BERMAN: It bears watching particularly as more information comes out. Harry Enten, thank you for this update. I appreciate it.

COLLINS: And joining us now to discuss all those numbers and the latest developments, CNN's Senior Legal Analyst and former Federal Prosecutor Elie Honig, Senior Political Correspondent for Puck News Tara Palmeri, and CNN Political Commentator and Political Anchor for Spectrum News Errol Louis.

Errol, I want to start with you on this that we are facing today, because the Justice Department has got less than five hours to turn over their proposed redacted version to this judge and basically the line they're straddling is showing a little but not showing too much.

ERROL LOUIS, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: That's exactly right. They have to -- and I don't envy any of the people who have to make this decision, they have to walk a line between compromising their investigation by turning over information that could lead to the destruction of evidence, witnesses vanishing and the case collapsing, they have to walk a line between doing that and hiding so much information or redacting so much information that conspiracy theories continue to spin. Republicans and other partisans continue to attack the FBI, attack the investigation as illegitimate. It's really not a great place for them to be. They don't have a lot of good choices.

I think there is a really important argument out there that they should sort of throw caution to the wind and put an unredacted version of the affidavit in the public view and let everybody see what it is they know on the assumption that it's better to have people understand what they're doing and why even if the case falls apart.

BERMAN: Tara, what's the plus/minus for Donald Trump in all of this?

TARA PALMERI, SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT, PUCK: I think for Donald Trump that he knows that this affidavit will not be released unredacted, right? That would completely demolish their case. And because it will likely have a lot of redactions, he can fill that vacuum with his own theories on what the Justice Department is up to and they will likely be nefarious theories that paint him as a political target, it's a witch-hunt. And so he knows a lot about legal battles, look at his career, right?

And so that's why they're saying release it all because they know they can't. Affidavits are such important pieces of evidence that are presented to the highly secretive grand jury. It's just a fact they just can't redact all of it. And because of that, Reinhart had actually said perhaps as many as like six pages or a great majority of it will not be available to the public. So, that leads to a vacuum.

At the same time, I would say that it's in the public interest, this is a very historical moment, you know, we have a former president who underwent a search warrant. He understands that, he's been the threat of anti-Semitic threats, the judge himself, and he understands that his -- the Justice Department is under siege in the public opinion. You just saw what Republicans think. They need to be able to get out there and also tell people this was warranted, this was -- you know, there was evidence supporting a search.

COLLINS: And, Elie, this is something that the Justice Department is obviously trying to navigate very delicately. What are you expecting?

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Well, Kaitlan, I think what DOJ prosecutors are trying to do is say is let's categorize all the evidence in this affidavit from least sensitive to most sensitive, let's disclose as much of the least sensitive stuff as possible to protect the most sensitive stuff. And let me sort of be specific, because, of course, none of us have seen this affidavit but I've done many of them in my career.

There is a standard legal boilerplate part. That will come out. That, I think, will be boring. There is a part where you describe the premises that you want to search, you will give some description here of Mar-a-Lago and where within Mar-a-Lago you want to search, that will be mildly interesting.

I think there will be a part here where they will detail the sort of back and forth negotiation that we've been talking about between Archives and DOJ and the White House, a lot of that has now become public, that, I believe, can come out. I don't think that would jeopardize anything.

[07:10:00]

That I think will be interesting.

But then the real crux of it is going to be the investigation. What I know they will protect is any information relating to witnesses and relating to anything they have that's ongoing. The question I have is will they reveal some parts of that investigation. If they reveal that, that will be fascinating.

BERMAN: We'll see. We may not see today, just so people have reasonable expectation. The deadline for the submission is today but there could be some legal back and forth after that before we find out anything, like anything at all, so stay tuned.

Elie, I want your take on this new reporting from CNN initially from The Washington Post of this back-and-forth between the Archives and beginning with the Trump White House about the return of documents, some which turned out to be classified, highly classified, and the Archives' email which says that Pat Cipollone, who was the White House counsel, was saying this stuff needed to be returned. What's the significance?

HONIG: Yes, John. Here is what's new and interesting about this to me. It pushes the timeline all the way back into the end of the Trump administration. We've already known that Archives and DOJ were in various stages of negotiation with the former Trump White House going back at least a year and into the middle and early parts of 2021.

But now, we have what I see as the first indication that while Trump was in the White House during those final days, his own White House counsel, Pat Cipollone, acknowledged to Archives, okay, we understand we have documents that are sensitive and we understand that you, the Archives, want them and are entitled to them, and yet still, at some point after that, somebody at the White House physically packed up those documents and sent them down to Mar-a-Lago. So, to me, not only is it a push back of the timeline but it pushes it back over this sort of key threshold.

COLLINS: And, Errol, the pushing back of that timeline given what we saw from Trump's legal team in court on Monday, the argument that they've been making over this, what does it tell you about the fact that they knew that that correspondence had been happening? Trump has changed lawyers, to be fair, these are comments that Pat Cipollone was making when he was designated to deal with this, but what does it mean for the legal team that is making his arguments now.

LOUIS: Well, what it means for them is that they've got a whole new range of arguments that they can bring into play. It's one thing to say that a former president is entitled to X, Y or Z, and there were a lot of analogies brought up to former presidents and what they took to their libraries or what they used to write books and so forth.

Once you cross that line, you cross back past January into the Trump administration, well, what can you tell a president to do and what are the legal ramifications of him not doing it, disregarding the advice of the White House counsel, which he's entitled to do, which apparently he did do. I mean, it really gives them a whole lot more ammunition. And I think we're going to see them throw up a lot more shields, saying you cannot tell a sitting president what to do.

BERMAN: One of the questions that's interesting, and now it goes back to the final days of the Trump presidency, is who knew what was in these boxes? I mean, at this point, and you've seen different reporting in The Washington Post, The New York Times and also CNN, did anyone but Trump, at the end of the day, really know what was there?

PALMERI: It seemed extremely chaotic from the reporting. It seemed like they truly thought they weren't sure if he was ever going to hand over power to President Biden. And so it seemed like a slap dash operation. Do you blame the guy who packed it or do you blame the person who was standing over him or was there even an operation.

Like, one thing that I'm sure you and I both know from covering Trump, there weren't a lot of operations, there weren't a lot of procedures going on, it was a real slap dash kind of thing. It could have been an oversight or it could have been Trump saying, I want this, I want that, I want this. I mean, we still haven't figured that out.

BERMAN: I get the slap dash at the beginning, and, again, this is what we're talking about because the timeline has been extended to the beginning, but then there were 20 months of back-and-forth between them all. And at some point, you would think someone would have to know what was there or there would have to be some knowledge or some intent to figure out what was there.

COLLINS: I think the bottom line is Trump doesn't care what the National Archives says. It's not an important institution to him, that he lives in fear of, until when they're asking, we understand, you know, the Presidential Records Act and why these things -- they don't belong to Trump, they belong to the federal government once he's left office, but I don't think he's like particularly worried about the National Archives repeatedly requesting they get them back until, of course, now we've seen where this has ended up.

PALMERI: Right. And we know that he wanted to bring his presidential library to Mar-a-Lago, right? Those would be some really great artifacts to feature in a library. He even brought down that little model of his Air Force One remodel and put it out for everyone to see in the Mar-a-Lago, you know, dining room. So, he likes his scrapbook, he likes his tchotchkes, he likes his things.

Were there more nefarious reasons to hold on to top secret documents? I mean, top secret documents usually on them classified top secrets. So, even the guy who was packing it probably thought, I wonder if this should be handled differently.

LOUIS: It would surprise no one if it ended up being a commercial hustle that was behind all of this rather than something really nefarious, like selling secrets to a foreign power. But it doesn't change whether or not he's violated the law.

BERMAN: You invented the new classification of secret or sensitive compartmented tchotchke, right?

COLLINS: I don't know if that counts.

[07:15:00]

BERMAN: No, I don't the intelligence community would love that.

COLLINS: I do have one other question for you, Elie, though, speaking of unredacted and what's redacted. We did get this unredacted look yesterday at a memo from 2019 that was commissioned by then-Attorney General Bill Barr basically why they declined to prosecute Trump when it came to the Russia investigation. What were your takeaways from that?

HONIG: Well, Kaitlan, this is really a dark chapter in DOJ's history. I think the tag line is Bill Barr lied to us about Mueller's investigation, Bill Barr lied to a court about those lies and then Merrick Garland appealed to try to bail out Bill Barr and it all collapsed yesterday.

We've now seen this internal memo. And what Bill Barr tried to tell a judge was, well, judge, that was a memo with deep legal analysis that I was really studying and relying on when I reached my conclusion that Trump had not committed obstruction of justice. The trial judge said basically nonsense. This is a memo that was completed after the fact, it's essentially a CYA, a cover your blank memo that you did to just paper the file after the fact. Merrick Garland then appealed that, and then just yesterday or a couple days ago, the court of appeals said, no, this was a CYA memo, this was not actually something Bill Barr was considering, it was a predetermined conclusion that he would let Donald Trump walk. Garland chose not to try to bring that to the Supreme Court wisely.

Now, we've seen the memo and it is just that, it is trying to paper over the file after the fact to cover up for the fact that Bill Barr really was wrong on obstruction and I think distorted Mueller's report in the first place.

COLLINS: Yes.

BERMAN: Elie Honig has written a book about Bill Barr. So, it's not a lot about this update.

COLLINS: But it was true. It's Barr never even considered charging Trump in the memo, we have made no difference on that.

Elie, Tara, Errol, thank you both and all so much for being here.

HONIG: Thanks, guys.

COLLINS: Meanwhile, President Biden is now set to cancel student loan debt for tens of millions of Americans. We've got all the answers to your questions about how it is going to work, whether or not it's going to have an impact on the economy. And we will be joined by Education Secretary Miguel Cardona, next.

We also have more on the fallout this morning after a whistleblower called Twitter a threat to national security and democracy. Plus, what Elon Musk's legal team is now saying in court.

BERMAN: And how did two powerful incumbent House Democrats end up facing each other in a primary? We're going to ask the head of the Democrats' campaign committee who just survived his own primary challenge.

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[07:20:00]

BERMAN: President Biden announced he will cancel up to $20,000 in student loan debt and take steps to reduce the payment burden for future borrowers. Under the president's new plan, those earning less than $125,000 a year are eligible for $10,000 in loan forgiveness with up to $20,000 for Pell Grant recipients. The plan also extends the pandemic payment freeze on loans one final time until the end of this year and places an income cap on undergraduate loan repayments.

Joining me now is the secretary of education, Miguel Cardona. Mr. Secretary, thank you so much for being with us this morning.

Explain who this helps and also, if you would, who this doesn't.

MIGUEL CARDONA, SECRETARY OF EDUCATION: Well, look, you know, this announcement yesterday, historic announcement, helps 43 million Americans who are saddled in debt right now. And we know that this pandemic had an impact on all of us, but it had a stronger impact on some folks.

So, what this does is provide $10,000 of relief to folks making under $125,000. If folks qualified for the Pell Grant, which means that maybe they have financial difficulty even before, they were struggling to make ends meet to afford college, these folks qualify for $20,000 in loan relief. Again, under $125,000, meaning people that make over $125,000 will not benefit from this part of the announcement yesterday.

We're also improving income-driven repayment. What that means is when people do resume loan payments, it's not going to be the number that they were used to. The numbers were so high that so many people were afraid of even thinking about higher education. So, we capped the income level to 5 percent from 10 percent, meaning only 5 percent of your income should be used for returning -- you know, paying off the loans, the college loans.

So, we're simplifying the process, we're providing loan relief for millions of Americans, and it's really important, John, 90 percent of the money -- 90 percent of the money are going to go to people making less than $75,000 a year. We're helping folks be better off after the pandemic than they were before the pandemic, and that's our responsibility to help people get out of this hole that they're in.

BERMAN: There are two classes of people that critics say are not helped here, obviously, one, people who have already paid off their student loan debt. What do you say to people who worked hard to pay off their debt and may have finished paying it off two years ago?

CARDONA: Right. Well, look, the pandemic created a really tough situation for so many people. So, to those people who are saying, well, look, I paid off my loan or I didn't go to college, why are we doing this? We're trying to help Americans. We're reinvesting in Americans. And let me tell you for those people whose loans are paid off, for those people that didn't go to college, if people default out of their loans, it's going to hurt the local economy, it's going to hurt them.

We're trying to help people that need help right. It's target relief. And I think we're trying to help Americans. That's what we're supposed to be doing. And at the end of the day, we did something similar with small businesses. We made sure that they didn't close during the pandemic. So, what we're trying to do is address the impact of the pandemic.

BERMAN: And, again, you have support among many Democrats and many younger people who are saddled with this debt, but there's also been some criticism from Republicans, which I imagine you expected, but also Democrats. Tim Ryan, who is a member of Congress and running for Senate in Ohio, said, while there is no doubt that a college education should be about opening opportunities, waiving debt for those already on a trajectory to financial security sends the wrong message to the millions of Ohioans without a degree working just as hard to make ends meet.

[07:25:04]

CARDONA: What I would say to him is, well, look, look a little bit deeper. We're also improving income-driven repayment, public service loan repayment for those veterans, teachers, police officers that are serving the public and are looking for loan forgiveness. And we're also, for those who are not even thinking about college, improving career pathways, because a four-year college degree isn't for everyone. We're trying to make more options available for more Americans to succeed to get those high-skilled, high-paying jobs that we know are there.

So, look deeper into our plan and you will see that loan forgiveness is a part of it, an important part of it, but it's not all.

BERMAN: How much does this cost?

CARDONA: You know, the projections are still coming out depending on how many people take advantage of it. But let me remind folks --

BERMAN: Well, what's the range? Mr. Secretary, what's the range of possibilities?

CARDONA: Well, like I said, those projections are still coming out based on how many people take advantage of it, but what we're finding is when the loan payments restart, $4 billion a month is going to go back into it because people are going to start paying. Anyone making over $125,000 will resume payment into their loans and it does offset whatever funds are being placed to help those who are most severely in need to get on their feet again.

BERMAN: Well, okay, it won't offset the total cost of this overtime. I mean, how will this be paid for?

CARDONA: Look, the president has been very clear about reducing the deficit and there are projections, not just from our department but Moody's, for example, are saying that whatever funds go to this loan forgiveness will be offset by the increase in what we're seeing in loan payment restart for those making over $125,000. So, concerns about inflation should really be tampered because it does offset.

BERMAN: And then, finally, everyone knows that the cost of college is a real issue right now. In over the past 40 years, the cost of tuition at a four-year college has nearly tripled.

CARDONA: Yes.

BERMAN: What does this do to address that, the supply problem, as it were?

CARDONA: Yes, I appreciate you asking that because, really, the last thing I want to do as secretary of education is provide this relief and then five years from now be in the same situation. We are increasing accountability on colleges, higher education institutions, for-profit institutions and making sure that the return on investment in higher education is there.

We're not afraid of naming and shaming places that are going after students in a predatory way. We've gone after the Corinthians, the ITTs, we've taken away accreditation authority from organizations that are giving schools freedom to go after students and, you know, get them in debt without providing them a good education.

So, we are going to raise the bar in higher education, making sure that there is a good return on investment. If you look at our college score card system, we have improved that. We're giving credit to colleges that are helping with completion rates, that are bringing more students in from diverse backgrounds.

So, look, there is a lot of work to do to fix a broken system. Look in the details of our plan. We're working really hard not only on loan forgiveness but fixing a broken system.

BERMAN: Education Secretary Miguel Cardona, nice to talk to you this morning. Thanks for coming in.

CARDONA: Great to be with you.

BERMAN: Ahead, we will speak to Congressman Sean Patrick Maloney, chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, why he is defending the Democratic funding, roughly, of extreme right-wing Republican candidates in the primaries indirectly.

COLLINS: And a verdict was just reached in Vanessa Bryant's case against Los Angeles County. How much she and another family have been awarded over pictures that were taken of their loved ones at that deadly helicopter crash site.

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