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New Day

Runoff in Brazil; Trump's Interview on Documents and the Riot; Kim Kardashian Charged by SEC. Aired 8:30-9a ET

Aired October 03, 2022 - 08:30   ET

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

[08:30:00]

ALEX MARQUARDT, CNN ANCHOR: Candidates. What has stood out most to you?

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Well, that it is really about the personalities. Lula, if you remember, was president for two terms. And as the world knows, the figures show that he raised 20 million Brazilians out of extreme poverty. At one point President Obama called him, I think, the most popular politician in the world. He really did have that magnetism.

Then there were accusations after his term ended of corruption. He spent time in jail. That was then. Vacated his jail sentence while he appealed. And then finally their Supreme Court overturned the convictions based on political bias they said.

On the other hand, Jair Bolsonaro has been to - to - you know, to quote a simile, has been called Latin America's Trump. In other words, very far right. Very populist. He has grown incredibly unpopular because of their botched response to Covid. And hundreds of thousands of deaths. He made fun of the disease at the beginning, called it a small flu, accused people of whining. And - and he has also - also suggested that he might not accept the results of any election. So the specters of the U.S. 2020 election, all that happened, obviously, January 6th, is very, very real according to the Bolsonaro side in Brazil.

But what's happened is, pollsters had given Lula, who's a socialist, had given Lula about a ten-point lead over Bolsonaro in the first round. That didn't materialize. So there will be a runoff at the end of the month.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: Christine, in Iran, security forces have arrested a woman after a photo - we have this photo - it's a photo of her and another woman were eating at a Tehran restaurant and they were not wearing their head scarves. And this photo was circulated online pretty widely. This is according to her family, that she was arrested after this.

What can you tell us about this and where we are at this moment of all of these protests in Iran?

AMANPOUR: Well, the incredible thing is that there are more and more women, not just in Tehran, but around the country, just appearing without their head scarves. I mean it is - I can tell you, having covered it for so many years, and we -- when we go there, to cover it, actually have to wear the head scarf because it is the law in that country. In order to be able to work, all foreigners, all Iranians are meant to wear it. That's the whole point of these - of this uprising, that the women there do not want this daily, you know, attack on their - on their liberty and on their person. They want to get rid of the headscarf.

So, the fact that those women are -- now you can see women dancing in the streets and other cities. And this is going on. And I'm hearing a lot from my sources inside Iran that this is continuing all over the place. Yes, the authorities are cracking down. They are, you know, arresting some. They're trying to, you know, give a lesson. They've gone into the university, one of the universities where there's often student protests against the regime, and they've quashed that, Sharif (ph) University, over the weekend. So, there is a pretty dire response to all of this.

But the incredible thing is that it does continue. Where it leads to is the unknown question right now. But the women are showing a resilience and a staying power that we haven't seen in previous demonstrations which tended to fizzle out under repression after, you know, the first week or ten days.

MARQUARDT: Just remarkable bravery and courage from those young women, from all these protesters and the fact that it is continuing, that security forces have not managed to put this down. As so many have said, a potential watershed moment.

Christiane Amanpour, thank you so much for your time.

AMANPOUR: Thank you.

MARQUARDT: Now, Maggie Haberman's new book details casual racism, as well as homophobia inside Donald Trump's White House and business.

KEILAR: Plus, new tapes of Maggie's interviews with Trump, including his remarks on classified documents and also about January 6th. She's going to join us live, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:37:55]

KEILAR: New, never-before-heard interviews with former President Trump where he seems to suggest, then backtracked, that he had classified material at Mar-a-Lago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAGGIE HABERMAN: Did you leave the White House with anything in particular? Are there any memento documents you took with you? Anything of note?

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: Nothing of great urgency, no. HABERMAN: OK.

TRUMP: I have great things, though. You know, the letters - the Kim Jong-un letters, I had many of them.

HABERMAN: You were able to take those with you?

TRUMP: Look at what's happening -

HABERMAN: Wow.

TRUMP: No, I - I think that has the - I think that's in the archives, but -- most of it is in the archives.

HABERMAN: OK.

TRUMP: But the Kim Jong-un letters. We have incredible things. I have incredible letters with other leaders.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: That was Maggie Haberman interviewing Trump. She is the author of the new book "Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America."

CNN political analyst Maggie Haberman, also senior political correspondent at "The New York Times" with us now on this.

That is so interesting because he kind of answers it both ways. An incredibly evasive answer. What did you make of this?

MAGGIE HABERMAN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Exactly what you just said, Brianna. It was a very vague statement. And I asked the question on a lark, just knowing how much he liked items like those Kim Jong-un letters. And he - his initial instinct was to say, no, no. Then he sort of seemed to want to brag about having something. And then when he registered my surprise, took it back. And, you know, he - he - it's a - it was a classic moment in interviewing him. We obviously learned much later -- we didn't know that from that interview -- learned it several months later when "The Washington Post" broke the story, that he, in fact, had many, many classified documents that he had taken to Mar-a-Lago. And that wasn't the last of what was retrieved.

But I did find it to be a revealing moment and I wanted people just to hear it for themselves.

KEILAR: Yes, it's really, really something.

I also want to play another part of another interview that you did with him, which was about what he was doing on January 6th as the riot was happening.

Here it is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HABERMAN: But what were you doing when - when -- how did you find out that - that there were people storming the Capitol?

[08:40:01]

TRUMP: I had heard that afterwards. And, actually, on the late side. I was - I was having meetings. I was also with Mark Meadows and others. I was not watching television. I didn't have the television on.

HABERMAN: You weren't. OK.

TRUMP: I didn't usually have that -- the television on. I'd have it on if there was something. I then later turned it on and I saw what was happening.

I also had confidence that the Capitol, who didn't want these 10,000 people --

HABERMAN: The Capitol Police you mean? OK.

TRUMP: That they'd be able to control this thing. And you don't realize that, you know, they - they did lose control.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: So much testimony since then, Maggie, that he was watching TV.

HABERMAN: Brianna, we've reported in real time, CNN reported in real time, "The New York Times" and I reported in real time that he was watching television. We were told it that day. We were told it in the days after. The public hearing held by the House Select Committee investigating the January 6th attack has since established and documented that he was watching television. And, again, it was another very interesting moment because my question was, what were you doing - which, at that time, Brianna, was a - was a huge mystery, even with all of our reporting. There was nothing certain about it or said under oath. And his impulse was to insist that he wasn't doing what he has widely been reported to do.

KEILAR: When you said that to him, when he said he wasn't watching TV and you said, you weren't, OK, did you know at that time that he was lying to you?

HABERMAN: I assumed that this did not necessarily comport with reality. It certainly did not comport with my understanding of it. But, again, because we did not have House testimony, we did not have any of the items that we now have in terms of people being under oath, it was less clear exactly. And it was still unclear exactly what he was claiming, when he learned about it or how. But we have since heard testimony that he was very clear on what was happening throughout.

KEILAR: I'm also curious what he told you and what you learned about how he related to Mitch McConnell, which I think is especially pertinent right now in light of what he recently put out on social media about Mitch McConnell, saying that he has a death wish and with this racist insult of his wife, who is former President Trump's former transportation secretary. HABERMAN: So, among other things, Donald Trump has been leaning into

overt racism more than I think that we have seen him in some time. And certainly making this statement about McConnell having a death wish, it's the kind of statement that Donald Trump makes and then claims people are taking him out of context. It's very hard to read that in any other way, especially in the post-January 6th moment and especially when there are so many lawmakers who are facing threats and threats of violence.

What I make of it is that Trump is looking for a target. I think that he is very angry at McConnell for a variety of reasons. Trump has never acknowledged that Mitch McConnell protected him as president over and over and shepherded, you know, his agenda items through the Senate. And he has just made him a focus of his ire. And I expect that will continue, Brianna, after we leave the midterms.

KEILAR: Why is that? Is that because he would prefer a full embrace, a full rhetorical embrace?

HABERMAN: I think it's a couple of reasons. I think, one, he would prefer a full rhetorical embrace. I think one is that McConnell was very, very critical of Donald Trump's role in the January 6th riot at the Capitol.

KEILAR: Yes.

HABERMAN: While he did not vote to convict him in a Senate impeachment trial, he gave a pretty blistering speech. And I think that Trump reacted to that pretty aggressively.

But these were never people, Brianna, who had much in common. McConnell clearly did not think much of Donald Trump but did accept that he was the leader of the Republican Party and tried to get what policy initiatives that he believed in through. Donald Trump, I think, knew that Mitch McConnell did not think very highly of him and reacted to that.

KEILAR: You also have some really interesting reporting in the book about what is, I guess, sort of casual racism and homophobia and instances even where Donald Trump assumes people of color are there for a certain role when they are not.

HABERMAN: It was a group - so, number one, yes, I think one of the throughlines of the book, and this book, I just want to make clear, is a look at a life, and it is a look at how we got to this moment in this country, how Donald Trump ended up in the White House and what he exported from New York City to national politics, which continues to this day. And so that is the - that is the point of all of this reporting.

It's also the point of the reporting about the casual homophobia, the casual racism, which, you know, we got to see over and over again when he was president. It also existed behind closed doors. It also existed decades earlier.

KEILAR: So, how do you see him fitting into causal, sort of, someone who uses partisanship? How do you see him fitting into partisanship as it is today?

HABERMAN: That's such a good question. Donald Trump did not create this partisan moment that we are in. He didn't create it, you know, 11 years ago, 12 years ago when the Tea Party was really at its zenith, you know, in the 2010 midterms.

[08:45:03]

But he certainly took advantage of that moment and fueled it and benefited from it. You know, I write that Donald Trump, decades ago, came to see hate as a civic good. And if there is a defining ethos that he has, that is it. And he has helped reshape politics in such terms that they are defined by who you hate and who hates you back.

KEILAR: We know that Donald Trump had expected the DOJ to be sort of an instrument of his, even though, of course, the Department of Justice is supposed to be independent. And in your book you talk about his attempt to get them to interfere in the 2020 elections. You have reporting on Trump's anger when he learned earlier that the DOJ wouldn't charge James Comey over the handling of memos with confidential information in them. You said Trump learned that Barr's department was not charging Comey, infuriating Trump. He met that day with McDaniel in the dining room, off the Oval Office, for a prescheduled meeting during which a foul humored Trump called one person after another demanding to know if they agreed with him that Comey should have been charged. Trump paused for a moment, then he reached for a remote control sitting on the table before him, picked it up and threw it at the credenza along the wall.

This is a pretty revealing moment.

HABERMAN: I point out that the remote control was there because, in fact, he often watched television and watched television in the White House, despite what he said.

But, yes, it was a very jarring scene. You know, he takes this remote, he throws it against the wall. He has a pension for throwing things. You know, we heard testimony about this in the House Select Committee from Cassidy Hutchinson, that I have had other sources tell me was true, about an incident where he threw food. I have a scene in the book from decades ago where an employee quit, and he threw something at the employee when the employee quit the Trump Organization. One friend recalled it being a shoe.

This is a pattern with him. And this is something that comes up over and over.

KEILAR: So, looking to 2024, what are you seeing?

HABERMAN: At the moment, I'm seeing somebody who has backed himself into a corner and who I think has to run for president. Now, whether he does and whether he announces and stays in or whether he just continues running and becomes the nominee again is, obviously, an open question. He is clearly a formidable presence within the Republican Party. I think that people underestimate that at their own peril. And he has a way of coming back when people think that he is done. That is also one of the narrative arcs through this book.

But, right now, he does not seem, by all accounts, of everyone I talk to who is in touch with him, his heart doesn't seem into politics the way it once was.

KEILAR: He doesn't have that sort of fire in his belly, right? Does he have the energy? Does he have the stamina?

HABERMAN: I mean, we've seen the rallies. He certainly seems to have the stamina to go through the rallies still. What isn't clear to me, Brianna, is that he really has the desire anymore. I just think that when you have been a president and you are going back to doing rallies, you know, that was not actually the only thing that he liked about being president. He liked the power and he liked the trappings of the office. And when you are reduced to playing rallies over and over again, I think that that - that, you know, gets in your head.

KEILAR: Yes. No, it's - well, look, fascinating moments from your book, and I really appreciate you being with us to go through them.

Maggie Haberman, great to have you.

HABERMAN: Thank you.

KEILAR: So, just in, Kim Kardashian charged by the Securities and Exchange Commission for her role in promoting a crypto asset. We'll have all the details ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:52:33]

MARQUARDT: New this morning, reality star Kim Kardashian has been charged by the Securities and Exchange Commission, the SEC, for the way that she promoted a cryptocurrency asset on Instagram.

CNN's Christine Romans is back with us now.

Christine, break this down for us. What is the SEC accusing her of?

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Yes, and she has settled this charge with the SEC. The SEC say that she unlawfully used her Instagram account to promote a currency token, a cryptocurrency token, and did not disclose to her many, many followers that she was being paid $250,000 to do that. Now, the SEC, of course, it's job is to protect investors. And the SEC going out there and saying, hey, just because a celebrity or an influencer saying something about a potential financial product, don't necessarily believe it.

This case is a reminder, according to the SEC, that when celebrities or influencers endorse investment opportunities, including crypto asset securities, it doesn't mean that those investment products are right for all investors. That's from the SEC Chair Gary Gensler, who has said in the past he is very keen on protecting investors from the cyber -- from crypto kind of promotions that you're seeing. You've seen a lot of investors - or a lot of influencers and celebrities get into this space. Remember when you saw the ads on the Super Bowl, all of these celebrities promoting crypto. But in this case, Kim Kardashian did not disclose to her followers that she was being paid.

She will pay $1.26 million to settle these charges and she has promised the government she will not promote any crypto assets for the next three years.

Guys.

MARQUARDT: Yes, I remember that ad, the Matt Damon ad, very, very well. $1.26 million. Hefty fine.

Christine Romans, thank you so much.

ROMANS: She's got the cash to cover it.

MARQUARDT: She does, absolutely.

Well, never seen before pictures of The Beatles performing before they were famous. The images and the story behind those pictures, that's coming up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:58:39]

KEILAR: Fascinating, new images this morning show The Beatles playing at The Cavern Club in Liverpool back in 1961, shortly before they shot to fame. These are photos that were taken just after the band had returned from a long stint of gigs in Germany. A U.K.-based music memorabilia dealer says the pictures are being released to mark the 60th anniversary of the band's first single "Love Me Like You Do." And what we're told here is that a fan actually took these pictures. The photographer, though, who's still alive, does not want his name revealed.

I love those photos, right?

MARQUARDT: So young. So young.

KEILAR: You just also get -- it's such an animated Paul McCartney in that one photo, right?

MARQUARDT: And, you know, it just makes you appreciate how long they've been around and how much we still listen to their music. And I was just saying, you know, if you haven't seen the Peter Jackson documentary, it is well, well worth it for more of this sort of behind the scenes early, early footage. Just incredible.

KEILAR: You see that in that first one, the sort of like head twist.

MARQUARDT: Yes.

KEILAR: Even then you get a sense of him, right? You recognize that guy.

MARQUARDT: And he still does that. He still does that to the day - to this day.

KEILAR: Exactly. Exactly.

MARQUARDT: Yes.

KEILAR: There he is. So funny. You almost don't recognize the face, but the posture, you completely see it there.

MARQUARDT: I love stuff like, you know, the modest beginnings. And to think, obviously, how far they've come. That's (INAUDIBLE).

KEILAR: That is a divvy, divvy - divvy room that they're playing in there.

MARQUARDT: That's what you call a Cavernous Club.

[09:00:00]

KEILAR: It sure is.

MARQUARDT: And it is called - sorry - the Cavernous Club.

KEILAR: Well, it all makes sense now, doesn't it?

MARQUARDT: It makes a lot of sense.

Oh, man. I'm a little slow this morning.

KEILAR: All right, it's time for our naps. Time for our naps here (INAUDIBLE).

MARQUARDT: Yes, exactly. Close show now.

KEILAR: All right, Alex, it's been lovely having you this morning.

MARQUARDT: Great to be with you. Really fun. Thank you.

KEILAR: Thank you.

CNN's coverage continues now.

MARQUARDT: Take care.