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Roger Stone Testifies; Trump To Visit Puerto Rico; Steelers Address Team Absence; Trump's NFL Feud; GOP Meets on Bill. Aired 1- 1:30p ET

Aired September 26, 2017 - 13:00   ET

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


ROGER STONE, FORMER TRUMP ADVISOR: Yes. He believes as I do that it is outrageous. They not only took away two folders of documents, all of which they already had, but they photographed all of his custom Italian suits in his closet. I cannot imagine for what reason.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Who has the better tailor, you or Mr. Manafort?

STONE: It's -- English tailoring is always better than Italian tailoring, at least for my body shape.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you what (INAUDIBLE)?

STONE: I don't and neither does he, based on my brief conversation with him.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And you had said you believe he's not guilty of what he might be (INAUDIBLE.) Why is that?

STONE: Well, because I think what's happening here is that the special counsel will try to manufacture a crime and then say, look, Manafort, we won't prosecute you for this if you simply admit you were colluding with the Russians and that Donald Trump knew everything.

In other words, their false witness against the president. I've known Paul Manafort for over 40 years and I don't believe he is going to do that. He is not going to lie and that would be a lie.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You're not familiar with his finances and taxes?

STONE: Most certainly not. I'm sure that they're far more extensive and complicated than mine. But I have no idea what charge he could be indicted on or whether that charge is provable, fair, I just -- I don't know.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did they ask you to come back later (INAUDIBLE)?

STONE: There was no discussion of coming back, although I'd certainly be open to it under the right circumstances.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Have you heard any of the cases of Michael Flynn at all?

STONE: I have not. I don't know General Flynn. Anybody else?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you very much.

STONE: Thank you, all.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: All right, Roger Stone there, controversial and long-time aide, or adviser really, and friend to Donald Trump. Just stepped out of his testimony before the House Intelligence Committee, welcoming very clearly the chance to speak in public after answering questions about the investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election.

I want to bring in Jim Acosta, our Senior White House Correspondent, to talk about this. This was pretty fascinating, Jim, because, as we know, Roger Stone is someone that the committee is looking at and this is someone who knows President Trump very well.

JIM ACOSTA, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: That's right. And it was interesting. Roger Stone is known for floating some fairly strange conspiracy theories.

And you heard during his comments there to reporters that somehow the hacking at the DNC was an internal problem. That it was some kind of inside job. That was one of the remarks that he made to reporters there just in the last several minutes.

But as flamboyant as ever, he was -- he was basically telling reporters that he had done nothing wrong. That, in his view, the Trump campaign had done nothing wrong. That there was no collusion with the Russians.

But, of course, as you know, Brianna, Roger Stone is just one of many characters who are going to sailing through the halls of Congress over the coming weeks and months to testify in all of this.

KEILAR: And one of the things they would have been interested in there -- in this case, Jim, was that he had exchanged private messages on Twitter with Guccifer 2.0 who, then, intelligence officials here in the U.S. believed to be fronting for Russia.

And he said that those are communications -- I believe he said those are communications that the contents of which are now known. But there was a question about whether he had complied with releasing records that this committee was requesting.

ACOSTA: That's right. And I think that you're going to find, coming up at this press conference with the president and prime minister Mariano Rajoy, just within the next hour or so here at the White House, that some of these Russia questions could come up.

Keep in mind, it was just disclosed in the last couple of days, Brianna, that Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law and one of the top aides here at the White House, was using a private e-mail messaging to talk to people here at the White House to do some White House business.

And there were a number of other aides that were apparently also using private e-mail accounts to conduct White House business. Now, as of last night, we understand the White House has instructed staffers here to no longer do that. And if they do conduct or receive e-mails on their private accounts that have something to do with official government business, that they are to forward those e-mails to their official White House accounts.

All of this is, obviously, very interesting because, during the campaign, there were a number of people at these rallies. I remember being at these rallies. I remember watching them when you were covering the Clinton campaign, Brianna. They were shouting, lock her up, with respect to Hillary Clinton and her use of a private e-mail server.

[13:05:04] And now, it turns out, there were a number of individuals here using private e-mail accounts to do business over here at the White House.

And so, that is, obviously, going to be something that's going to be of interest to these investigators up on Capitol Hill. Bringing in Roger Stone is, obviously, of interest to those investigators. But they also want to talk to Paul Manafort. They also want to talk to members of the president's family, potentially, and so on.

And they probably want to get their hands on some of these e-mails, I imagine, that were exchanged through some of these private accounts.

And so, as we see one person is coming up to Capitol Hill to talk to investigators up there, it seems the scope of this investigation is only widening.

KEILAR: That's right. Jim Acosta at the White House. Thank you, sir. Stand by for us.

President Trump is facing backlash over his administration's response to the devastation in Puerto Rico. We're going to hear from the president about that and more in his news conference that is coming up shortly.

Just a little while ago, he announced he's going to visit Puerto Rico next Tuesday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Puerto Rico is very important to me and Puerto Rico and the people are fantastic people. I grew up in New York so I know many people from Puerto Rico. I know many Puerto Ricans. And these are great people and we have to help them.

The island is devastated. It's -- I mean, some people say, I read this morning, it's literally destroyed. The infrastructure was in bad shape, as you know, in Puerto Rico before the storm. And now, in many cases, it has no infrastructure. So, it's -- you're really starting from almost scratch.

But these are great people. They're wonderful people. They're hearty people. They'll be back. But we're helping them. I mean, I think we're really getting really good marks for the work we're doing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: And Jim Acosta, the president is giving his administration some high marks for its response there to the catastrophic damage in Puerto Rico. Not everyone agrees with that, though.

ACOSTA: That's right, Brianna. If you talk to officials down on the ground in Puerto Rico, some of the local officials there, they say the help is not coming quickly enough.

We do know that the Homeland Security adviser to the president, Tom Bossert, was on the ground in Puerto Rico yesterday, was briefing the president earlier today on all of this. And the president made the surprise announcement that he'll be visiting the island come Tuesday. That's going to be a herculean task for this administration for the secret service and so on to get the president onto that island with everything that's going on there.

I imagine he could be asked about this at this press conference that's coming up with the Spanish prime minister here within the hour. The president may want to talk about this himself.

Obviously, Brianna, the president, from a political standpoint, wants to talk about how his administration is responding to Puerto Rico, how he's responding to Puerto Rico, because there have been critics, as you know, since last Friday night who have raised this question.

Why is the president so interested in the NFL and players protesting and taking a knee during football games and not spending as much time focusing in on this devastation in Puerto Rico? The number of tweets that the president has put out there on his comments on the NFL and players and patriotism, those tweets dwarf the number of tweets that he's put out about Puerto Rico.

And so, the president trying to make it very clear this morning in talking with reporters and with this trip coming up on Tuesday, that he is focused on what's happening there.

KEILAR: Yes, a lot of criticism there. Jim Acosta at the White House, thank you.

And news of the president's planned visit to Puerto Rico on Tuesday is coming as this humanitarian crisis in this U.S. territory is really deepening. Millions of Americans there are begging for help and survivors on the ground are describing what is, really, an apocalyptic scene. Hospitals are at capacity, communication lost, many homes are destroyed, almost the entire island is off of the grid.

This is a satellite picture before Maria ripped through Puerto Rico. And then, here is a picture of what was taken just yesterday. You can see the majority of the island has gone dark there.

CNN' Rafael Romo is joining us now from Ponce, Puerto Rico. What are you seeing, Rafael? RAFAEL ROMO, CNN SENIOR LATIN AMERICAN AFFAIRS EDITOR: Brianna, there

are many angles to this natural disaster and this tragedy. You can talk about the fact that people have no power, no water. They are uncommunicated. But we've been also hearing a lot of reports from different people about the medical tragedy that is unfolding here in Puerto Rico.

Just a few moments ago, I was talking to the director of a children's hospital here in San Juan, and he tells me that they only have enough diesel for two days. What's the problem there? Well, they have 12 children who rely on ventilators to stay alive.

And he says, at this point, I'm looking desperately for anybody who can give me assurances that I may be able to get more diesel. They burn about 2,000 gallons of diesel a day. This is the (INAUDIBLE) children's hospital in Puerto Rico. And it's the largest children's facility, not only here on the island, but all of the Caribbean.

Also, personally, I was at the medical center in San Juan, and I ran into people with different kinds of injuries caused by the hurricane. I spoke with an 86-year-old woman whose kitchen exploded because the hurricane broke a gas line. And that created not only the explosion but also a fire. And she got severe burns to her legs.

There was also a young man who had an almost broken arm because the hurricane blew open the front door of his house. And so, you start to see injuries pop up here and there around the island, but there's no official number of injuries. Officially, Brianna, the death toll right now as a result of Hurricane Maria stands at 16.

KEILAR: All right, Rafael, we're seeing those images of the people that you're describing there, the young man as well as the woman with the burns. Tough folks there in Puerto Rico. We're thinking of them, of course.

Rafael, thank you.

And joining us now to talk more about this is former U.S. foreign disasters chief assistance chief, Jeremy Konyndyc. So, we just saw this devastation on the ground. I mean, this is -- it's this -- it's apocalyptic and this is a U.S. territory.

JEREMY KONYNDYC, FORMER DIRECTOR, U.S. OFFICE OF FOREIGN DISASTER ASSISTANCE: This is the worst catastrophe on U.S. soil since probably Hurricane Katrina. It's worse than Texas and Florida because these people had nowhere to go. So, with Texas and Florida, we had ample warning and people were able to get out of the way.

And after the storm, if they didn't have power, if they didn't services, they could go somewhere where those were available. That's not an option for people there in Puerto Rico.

KEILAR: And if you compare this, Puerto Rico as a U.S. territory just in population, and we actually have a map just so we can show our viewers this, the population is considerable. I mean, there are a number of states, I think 21 states, over 20 states that have the same population or less than Puerto Rico. One being Mississippi which is a place that would obviously evacuate during a storm like this.

What are the challenges right now that the U.S. government needs to tackle that so far have not been tackled?

KONYNDYC: So, any time you have a disaster like this on an island, it makes it much more difficult than on an inland location because the logistics are so tough. You have to clear the ports. You have to clear the airports. They're working on getting that done but it's been a bit slow.

They need to get the power back up. The need to get the hospitals back fully online. It's a little bit amazing that day six into this response there is still not diesel in hospitals. So, I hope they're on top of that soon.

KEILAR: And to that point, I mean, we have this reporter out of a hospital there in San Juan that two patients died in the ICU because they ran out of diesel. It's almost -- it is very hard to wrap one's mind around that -- in the U.S., because a hospital ran out of diesel, you had two people who died. Why has it been so slow?

KONYNDYC: I don't want to do too much second guessing of FEMA here because they're working hard, they're working full out. And this is -- you know, I've been in their shoes. I've responded to the Philippines typhoon, the Haiti earthquake in 2016. It's tough to respond in such a remote location as it takes time and there's always lag time.

What I'm concerned about is, so we're seeing the government ramp up today. Elaine Duke was on the acting secretary Homeland Security was on just a few minutes ago, talking about the meeting that the president had today. That's good. I'm glad to see they're ramping up. I do wonder why they weren't having that meeting on Saturday.

KEILAR: Well, even if there is a lag time, which I think is understandable as you talk about some of the logistical considerations of the island, it's important for an administration to get out ahead of time. And even if they say, right, we haven't done this yet but this is where we're going, which at least would give the people of Puerto Rico some assurances.

KONYNDYC: Absolutely. And that's where I think, you know, I don't want to do too much of the tweet counting.

But, you know, the fact that the president's head space was clearly focused on the NFL and health care over the weekend and not on Puerto Rico, how much that affected the substantively affected the response I think is open to question. And we'll see more of that when after action reports are done. But it certainly didn't send much of a positive message to the people suffering.

KEILAR: All right, Jeremy Konyndyc, thank you so much for lending your expertise here. We do appreciate it.

KONYNDYC: Thanks, Brianna. KEILAR: President Trump is not backing down in the feud against the NFL and neither is the league. In fact, the president told a group of conservatives that he's, quote, "satisfied with the fight." And moments ago, Pittsburgh Steelers coach, Mike Tomlin, defended his decision not to take the field during "The National Anthem."

Here's what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MIKE TOMLIN, COACH, PITTSBURGH STELLERS: There were guys within our group that felt strongly because of the comments made a week ago. We've always had 100 percent participation so that created an issue for us.

In the past, those that maybe would wanted to participate have not. They felt a little differently. I thought it created an opportunity for the team to discuss on Saturday night. I told the team, you know, whatever it is that you do, you do it together 100 percent participation or you do nothing. We do business as usual. Because we won't let divisive times divide us.

[13:15:08] So, the team met. They couldn't come to a decision about how to, you know, express displeasure with comments while at the same time respecting the anthem. So they decided to remove themselves from it all together. They weren't going to be goaded into a demonstration of disrespect towards the anthem. They weren't going to be pressured into it by those who were opposed, those that goad.

We just decided that we were going to sit it out. That we weren't going to play politics. We were going to come play that game. That decision was come to. And in the means of doing that was to stay in the tunnel and to not have a demonstration of any kind when the anthem was playing and then take the field and go play.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: Now, earlier, President Trump tweeted this. He said, the NFL has all sorts of rules and regulations. The only way out for them is to set a rule that you can't kneel during our national anthem.

The cover of "Sports Illustrated" really sums up the feud this way. It says a nation divided, sports united.

And David Aldridge with us now. He's an NBA TV and nba.com contributor.

Thank you so much for joining us.

The Steelers in particular are just such an interesting case study in this debate right now because you have Alejandro Villanueva, who is an Army Ranger, West Point grad, bronze star recipient, and he did go out and, you know, stand for the anthem. And now he's saying that he is sorry he did that. That he made the team, he made his coach look bad. What do you make of this? DAVID ALDRIDGE, NBA TV & NBA.COM CONTRIBUTOR: Well, in that case,

there was a person who understandably has a very strong opinion and was trying to express his respect for country and flag and for his fellow Rangers. And I think we all understand the need to do that.

The issue was whether the Steelers would do everything as one team together or not. And I think the visual image of him standing by himself, whether he meant that to happen or not, created the illusion of him being against his team. I'm sure that's not what he meant and I'm sure that's not what his teammates took from that. They respect the fact that he wanted to do that and they said so. And so in that particular case, I think the optics probably overwhelmed the message that both of them were trying to send.

KEILAR: All right, David, stay with me. We're going to talk more about how the NBA is going to be handling this. We'll be back in just a moment with more on that after a quick break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:21:44] KEILAR: David Aldridge with NBA TV and nba.com back with me now.

When you look at how the NBA is going to -- well, they're already, you know, obviously, sort of handling this debate with President Trump. But now you're going to see something more visual. They're going into training camps this weekend. The season is starting soon. Is this going to be different than the back and forth we see with the NFL?

ALDRIDGE: Oh, I -- certainly. Look, the teams are much smaller. You're talking about 15 teams as opposed to 53. So it's much easier to achieve unity, frankly. The superstars in the NBA drive a lot of the discussion in the NBA. So someone like LeBron James has an awful lot of sway around the league. A lot of players are going to follow his lead. Now, will they take knees? Will they protest in some other way? That remains to be seen. But the NBA tends to be more proactive in these types of things than the NFL or Major League Baseball certainly.

KEILAR: How do you see this all playing out?

ALDRIDGE: Well, I mean, in the case of the NBA, I'm sure they'll make gestures and things like that. But --

KEILAR: Or just in general? With the NFL and with President Trump, what sort of -- where -- where does this go considering he's still tweet about it today. This doesn't seem to be going away today or even tomorrow.

ALDRIDGE: Well, it's not going away. And the issue that set this off, of course, was Colin Kaepernick trying to call attention to what he perceived as police brutality. And, you know, killing of unarmed African-Americans. That is not going to go away with some players. Whether that issue gets conflated by others into a discussion about the flag and the military and patriotism, as most discussions about the NFL tend to get conflated when it comes to political issues, that is still out there. But I think there will be players that will try to get back to the origin story of this, which was, they want to call attention to what they believe is police brutality.

KEILAR: Has it already gotten away from them, though?

ALDRIDGE: Sure. Yes.

KEILAR: That this is now about the flag.

ALDRIDGE: Yes.

KEILAR: And it's not -- it's not about trying to use that moment?

ALDRIDGE: No question. No question. That has been overwhelmed over the last week or so, both by what the president said and the reaction both by players and team's owners. And, again, that tends to get conflated when you talk about the National Football League and political issues because the NFL has done a very good job the last few years, I think they would say, of really making the flag and patriotism part of their parcel that they send out to people every Sunday.

KEILAR: Yes, it's a really good point.

David Aldridge, thank you so much. We really appreciate you being with us, with your expertise.

And happening right now on Capitol Hill, Senate Republicans are having a meeting, their normal weekly meeting, talking about their -- what is really now a doomed effort to repeal and replace Obamacare. Shortly after those talks wrap up, Senate Leader Mitch McConnell is expected to make a final decision on whether to put that newest Obamacare repeal, the Graham-Cassidy bill, up for a vote. And right now McConnell really doesn't appear to have the vote after Maine Senator Susan Collins confirmed she's going to be voting no. In last night's CNN's health care debate, Senator Lindsey Graham, the bill's co- sponsor, said that holding a vote was the right thing to do.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R), SOUTH CAROLINA: So we're going to press on. And it's OK to vote. It's OK to fall short, if you do, for an idea you believe in.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[13:25:05] KEILAR: One of the bill's most passionate critics has ben late night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel, whose son was born with a heart defect that needed surgery. He is declaring victory.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JIMMY KIMMEL, LATE NIGHT TALK SHOW HOST: We may have stopped Cassidy- Graham. I still can't believe we pulled it off, but we did. It's amazing, isn't it?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: CNN congressional correspondent Phil Mattingly joining me now to talk about this.

Phil, it seemed that -- it seemed that when Senator McCain came out, the writing was sort of on the wall for this bill. But now --

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It -- yes, look, that started to spiral. There's no question about it.

KEILAR: Yes.

MATTINGLY: I will note that Senate Majority Leader McConnell, even though he wasn't necessarily enthused about trying health care again, was certainly all in over the weekend. They were trying to figure out new ways, new pathways. They revised the bill to make Alaska look a little bit better, make Maine a little bit better. But Susan Collins becoming a third hard no. Rand Paul making very clear he was never going to come back across the line.

They -- they -- it's a math problem. They don't have the numbers. And I think they're facing what has been the case for the last nine months. Ideologically, 50 senators in the Republican Party don't agree on what should happen next on health care.

KEILAR: Will they tackle this again, do you think?

MATTINGLY: Look, this is never dead. I think anybody whose paid attention over the last night months, it continues to --

KEILAR: It's like a zombie sort of piece of legislation.

MATTINGLY: Its ability to glom on to phoenix-like properties and rise from the ashes at various points. I think everybody has made clear, look, it was the worst kept secret in Washington yesterday that this was going to go down. Whether or not they have a vote is still up in the air. I can tell you that a lot more senators than Lindsey Graham would prefer not to have one. They don't want another public floor failure. But that will be decided during the lunch.

KEILAR: Why does he want one? Why does he say it's OK to vote and let it fail? Is that to put pressure on other senators?

MATTINGLY: Yes. And this has actually happened before where it's -- look, let's put everybody on the record. You know, if we want -- if we campaigned on this for the last seven years and you disagree on the policy, then come vote no for this. And I think the issue right now -- and this has been something that leaders have been dealing with for the last 24 hours is, there are a lot of members -- not a lot -- there's about a half dozen members, I've been told, that are not publicly out against this bill, haven't said anything about this bill at all, but don't want any part of voting for this or voting against this. They're uncomfortable with the policy and they recognize, why are we going to put ourselves out there for a vote that's going to fail.

Protecting those members, keeping his conference in a good place, making sure they don't put themselves in bad political positions, is why Mitch McConnell is currently the majority leader of the U.S. Senate. And so I think he's keenly aware that he's cognizant of that.

But you have somebody like Lindsey Graham, who really went all in, he and Bill Cassidy brought this issue from completely dead to two, three, four votes away from passage. He's saying, look, we put all the work in, we had the debate, let's put it on the floor and see where everybody is. You all campaigned on this. Put a yes or a no out there.

KEILAR: It's not up to him, though, is it, though?

MATTINGLY: He is not the majority leader of the U.S. Senate. Contrary to occasionally what he feels. But, no, he's not the majority leader of the U.S. Senate.

And, again, just to underscore it, he and Bill Cassidy brought this from nothing. And I think here is a lot of passion in wheat's happened with them over the last couple of days and I think they got a taste of just how close they were getting it. Just how able they were to get those 44, 45 Republicans that would absolutely going to be there for this.

The problem -- and this has been the case with several iterations of this in the past, is, you need 50. And just because you can get 46 doesn't mean you can close the deal, get over the line with that 50. And at least right now it's very clear they don't have it yet.

KEILAR: That's right. Phil Mattingly, thank you, sir.

Just moments ago, one of the president's most outspoken confidants testified before the House Intelligence Committee in the Russia investigation. I'll speak with a congresswoman who just questioned Roger Stone, who told her that she needed to apologize to him. Stand by for that.

Plus, take a look at this, faculty members at Georgetown kneeling ahead of Attorney General Jeff Sessions' visit. And Sessions defending the president's NFL attacks with an interesting remark. Stand by for that.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)