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E-mails on FBI Move; USA Gymnastics Struggles; Volatility on Wall Street; Crisis Over Journalists Apparent Murder. Aired 8:30-9a ET

Aired October 19, 2018 - 08:30   ET

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


[08:30:00] JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: So, new this morning, internal e- mails reveal that President Trump was more instrumental than previously thought in stopping the FBI headquarters move out of Washington. Now, Democrats contend there's the hidden financial motive at play here. This is a really interesting story. I want you to pay attention to Tom Foreman here.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Overcrowded, outdated and crumbling. Plans to relocate and rebuild FBI headquarters have been in the works for years. The government study showing how it could be moved from downtown D.C. to one of several possible sites in nearby Maryland or Virginia. The cost, $3.6 billion tax dollars.

But now a different plan is calling for the FBI center to be rebuilt right where it is, even though it would be smaller than the suburban alternative, likely have security risks and be more expensive, $3.8 billion. So who came up with that?

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I'm a real estate guy. I build buildings.

FOREMAN: A study by the inspector general of the General Services Administration traces a series of meetings in which the suburban plan was pushed aside by the Trump administration amid claims that keeping the headquarters downtown would be cheaper. The IG report shows team Trump's math is wrong. Nonetheless, Press Secretary Sarah Sanders insists the president wanted to save the government money and also the FBI leadership did not want to move its headquarters.

Skeptics, however, suspect a hidden motive. For years Donald Trump had been all for freeing up that FBI land downtown for private development with his brand-new hotel close by, even talking about getting in on the action. But congressional Democrats, in a letter to the GSA, say something important changed. After he was sworn in as president, and became ineligible as a federal employee to obtain the property, he reportedly became dead opposed to the government selling the property, which would have allowed commercial developers to compete directly with the Trump Hotel. He was directly involved with the decision to abandon the long-term relocation plan and instead move ahead with the more expensive proposal. There is no proof so far, and the White House insists once again House

Democrats have it all wrong. But those Democrats are demanding the paperwork to prove it.

NORMAN EISEN, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: The government won't turn over the information on the president's exact reasoning. Why is the president doing this?

FOREMAN (on camera): Why, we just don't know. But the inspector general found one of the president's team members may have misled Congress about the president's role in all of this, and it has all reignited concern about potential conflicts of interest for this billionaire president.

Tom foreman, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CAMEROTA: Our thanks to Tom for that.

Meanwhile, USA Gymnastics is struggling to recover two years after the sex abuse scandal involving former team doctor Larry Nassar. This week, the former head of the USA Gymnastics was arrested for allegedly tampering with evidence relating to the Nassar case. And the organization's interim president, Mary Bono, resigned five days after taking the job.

Let's discuss all of this with "USA Today" sports columnist and CNN sports analyst Christine Brennan.

Christine, great to talk to you about this.

You and I have talked about this in the past and I thought that it was going to be resolved or go away. But the tentacles of this scandal and the ripple effect, are you surprised that two years later we're still seeing all of these events?

CHRISTINE BRENNAN, CNN SPORTS ANALYST: Alisyn, I am. This is the worst sex abuse scandal in U.S. sports history, and the worst scandal in U.S. Olympic history. And instead of getting better, it only gets worse.

Why is that? Well, they've -- USA Gymnastics, the national governing body for the sport, their whole point is to be in charge of the well- being of the young athletes and also to put them out there at the Olympics and world championships. The -- they've had three different CEOs now within a year and a half, including two in the last six weeks. Mary Bono, as you mentioned, was named a week ago on Friday and she was already resigning by Tuesday because of conflicts and other issues.

This is the game that can't shoot straight. And it would be absolutely hilarious if it weren't so reprehensible and just plain awful because we're talking about, of course, the sexual abuse of hundreds of young women and girls at the hands of Larry Nassar and they still can't seem to get it right. CAMEROTA: And why is that, Christine? Why can't USA Gymnastics, after

what we would assume all the lessons that they've learned or that have come to the fore of these two years, why can't they get anything right?

BRENNAN: That's a great question. Certainly mistakes and missteps. As someone who's covered the Olympics for a long time, I have to say that I don't know -- think that the adults in the room, Alisyn, be it the U.S. Olympic Committee, the previous leadership there, or U.S. Gymnastics, any leadership they've had, I don't think they've taken this seriously enough. I don't think that they have realized the magnitude of the -- of the trouble.

The -- now, interestingly, the board of directors of USA Gymnastics, the previous one, all left. This is a new board of directors and they still gave us Mary Bono, who was gone in four days.

[08:35:08] So it's almost to the point of questioning, should there be decertification of USA Gymnastics? What that would mean is the U.S. Olympic Committee would take over. That hasn't happened yet.

There is a search firm now looking for a new CEO of USA Gymnastics. The same search firm that found the present CEO of the U.S. Olympic Committee. They will hopefully do the right background check. But they have to find someone, Alisyn, who is so squeaky clean, who has absolutely nothing to do with USA Gymnastics or the law firm that has been involved with USA Gymnastics.

Now, there are thousands or perhaps tens of thousands of people who would fit the bill. They need to find one of them who also has the knowledge and the understanding that this is such a huge issue and they cannot get it wrong again.

CAMEROTA: You said that their goal was to -- or their goal should be, ideally, to protect their athletes. And I just want to read Rachael Denhollander's FaceBook post about what she thinks is now justice, the idea that this former president of the USA Gymnastics, the head of it, has been arrested. She wrote, Steve Penny has been detained for charges related to tampering with the Larry Nassar investigation. This is for every little girl who could have been saved from Larry and for every coach that Penny received warnings about and then put into a file cabinet. They are worth it all. May justice continue to be done.

That's the feeling today, Christine, of some of the athletes.

BRENNAN: Well, that is true, Alisyn. And Steve Penny, of course, was the CEO for many years and the allegations are incredibly troubling. He's been arrested in the idea of evidence tampering and taking files out of the Karolyi Ranch where they all train before the authorities showed up.

So, the tentacles, as you said, are deep. It looks like they are getting to the people who did these horrible things and the leaders who failed our young gymnasts, those great gymnasts you cheer for every four years at the Olympics. That's the good news. The bad news, that it has taken so long. And we're talking decades of

abuse by Larry Nasser, not only in USA Gymnastics, but Michigan State, is absolutely appalling, reprehensible, whatever adjective you want to use, whatever words you want to use, it's just horrible.

The good news is, they're getting to it. The bad news is, of course, the countless young women and girls whose lives were changed irreparably forever.

Meanwhile, Simone Biles is out there competing at the world championships. Talk about the conscience of USA Gymnastics. There she was tweeting about Mary Bono, helping to get Mary Bono to resign and now she's going to go try to win her fourth world championship. So there are heroes here and the heroes are these athletes.

CAMEROTA: Oh, my gosh, the perseverance of these young women cannot be overstated.

Christine Brennan, thank you very much.

BRENNAN: Thank you, Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: John.

BERMAN: Wild swings in the stock market could be testing your portfolio. Christine Romans tells us what's behind it, next.

Plus, the absolute worst investment you can ever make. The Mega Million jackpot nears a billion dollars, next

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:42:20] CAMEROTA: OK, it's time for "CNN Business Now."

Volatility is back on Wall Street, leaving stocks to fall around the world. Is the Saudi Arabia crisis affecting the market? Chief business correspondent Christine Romans here with more.

What do you see, Christine?

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Hi there.

You know, it's been a rough October for stocks, Alisyn. The Dow lost another 300 points yesterday for the month, now down about 4 percent. The Nasdaq fell another 2 percent. It's October losses now 7 percent.

High value tech stocks like Netflix, FaceBook and Amazon, they've been hit really hard. Selling yesterday accelerated after the Treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, backed out of that conference in Saudi Arabia. And we now know that no other U.S. officials will attend.

But, you know, global investors have a long list of worries here. They've got raising interest rates. That hurts corporate profits, but also raises mortgage rates. Home building stocks fell yesterday. And, of course, you've got this U.S.-China trade war. In fact, China's economy is growing at the slowest pace since the financial crisis, 6.5 percent in the third quarter. The Chinese economy faces loads of debt and pressure from U.S. tariffs. So far the U.S. has targeted $250 billion in Chinese goods but threatens all $500 billion in Chinese exports. Right now global stocks, though, mostly lower. U.S. futures are higher. We'll see, John, if we can have a little bit of a Friday bounce back here.

BERMAN: All right, Romans, thanks very much.

ROMANS: You're welcome.

BERMAN: So, on a similar note, the Mega Millions jackpot is at a record high, just like me --

CAMEROTA: High on donuts.

BERMAN: $970 million. It could hit one billion dollars before tonight's drawing. And if losing once isn't enough for you, you can lose twice on lottery tickets. You can try your luck with Powerball. That drawing is tomorrow night. Estimated jackpot of $430 million.

CAMEROTA: Chump change. Chump change.

BERMAN: Exactly.

CAMEROTA: Compared to tonight.

The odds of winning are 1 in 302 million.

BERMAN: So you're --

CAMEROTA: So you've got a chance.

BERMAN: So you saying there's a chance, as we like to say.

CAMEROTA: You've got a chance.

Why is President Trump so hesitant to blame the Saudis for the apparent murder of a journalist? We get the bottom nine with Nicholas Kristof, next?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[8:48:21] BERMAN: President Trump, this morning, faces mounting pressure and criticism for his handling of the apparent murder of "Washington Post" journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the hands of Saudi Arabia, apparently. The president concedes that Khashoggi now could be dead.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

QUESTION: Jamal Khashoggi is dead?

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It certainly looks that way to me. It's very sad. It certainly looks that way.

(END VIDEO CLIP) BERMAN: So what's the president going to do about it? More importantly, what has that -- this last week meant for the American position in the world, and the president's position in the world, and the president's position in the world.

Let's get "The Bottom Line" with "New York Times" columnist Nicholas Kristof.

Nick, great to have you here.

And your column on this subject is titled "A President Kowtowing to a Mad Prince."

NICHOLAS KRISTOF, COLUMNIST, "NEW YORK TIMES": That's right. Look, I knew Jamal for 15 years. And I'm heartbroken at what happened to him. But I'm also horrified at what appeared to me to be a White House reaction that seemed to downplay the horror, the situation in which the White House seemed to emerge as an apologist for Saudi Arabia. And I think it's important to note that this prince, the crown prince, who I call the mad prince, I mean, this is only the latest reckless action that has been bad for Saudi Arabia and bad for the U.S. You know, he kidnapped Lebanon's prime minister. He attacked Yemen and has brought eight million people to the brink of starvation. And in every case there has been no consequences. I -- my theory is that if there are no consequences this time for the mad prince, then what will happen next?

[08:49:58] CAMEROTA: In fact, your friend, Jamal Khashoggi, was on the air talking about this. Just a year ago he was on a different news network and he was talking about the kidnapping of the prime minister of Lebanon and talking about how brazen the crown prince was being.

So let's watch this moment.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Why does Saudi Arabia feel right now that they could potentially be successful in Lebanon, and can they really?

JAMAL KHASHOGGI: We argue about that. Is it the Trump effect that made Prince Mohammad bin Salman feel empowered to this impulsive behavior in foreign policy? It is dangerous.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: I mean, first of all, it's chilling, obviously, to just listen to him talk about the Trump effect emboldening the crown prince. And now his death is what we're talking about, whether President Trump has somehow emboldened the crown prince.

KRISTOF: And it seems to me that the White House and President Trump have mistakenly believed that Saudi Arabia has leverage over us and that the crown prince is fundamentally reflecting American interests. And, in fact, everything is crown prince touches, he screws up. The -- he -- and he kidnapped the Lebanese prime minister intending to hurt Hezbollah in Lebanon. In fact, the outcome was Hezbollah ended up better than ever. He confronted -- he created this crisis with Qatar to hurt Qatar. In fact, that it pushed them closer to Iran. And now he, I believe, ordered the killing of Jamal to silence criticism and, in fact, created this huge uproar, which I hope will end up unseating him.

And we have -- we have power. And I think it is in our interests, and in the interests of upholding global norms, if we send a message to Saudi Arabia that a crown prince who orders killings should not be at state dinners, but, you know, should probably be in a prison cell.

BERMAN: I've got to say, I found it chilling to hear Jamal Khashoggi provide the direct linkage that we all know is there between the Trump administration and the crown prince of Saudi Arabia. He brought it up right there. And we know that Jared Kushner, who has a relationship with the crown prince, Mohammad bin Salman, is preaching patience to the president, "The New York Times" reports, because he thinks this will blow up.

KRISTOF: Yes.

BERMAN: He doesn't think this is a big deal -- a big enough deal to change U.S. policy.

KRISTOF: Yes, I mean, I think we have our fingerprints on this in a few different ways. I mean one is that Jared Kushner and President Trump essentially picked out the crown prince, MBS, before he was a crown prince and helped elevate him to that role. And I also think that there is an argument, maybe not certain, but certainly an argument that when you have an American president denounce the media as fake news, denounce the media as enemies of the people, then allies pay attention. And you see dictators from Saudi Arabia to the Philippines to Cambodia essentially adopt that same rhetoric and take it somewhat further.

And it's sad. I know I've watched American presidents for years uphold global norms about supporting a free press. It's painful to see an American president erode that norm in ways that can kill people. Forty-four journalists have died so far this year for their work around the world. Substantially more than last year. And rhetoric matters.

CAMEROTA: Having known Khashoggi for 15 years, as you did, are you surprised by the conservative talking points that have emerged in the past 36 hours basically trying to somehow tarnish his background because in -- when he lived in Saudi Arabia he, I guess, knew Islamists. He was at -- possibly in and out of the Muslim Brotherhood.

KRISTOF: I find it infuriating. You know, Jamal is dead. He had his fingers cutoff for his writing. He was tortured and killed. And now people are trying to smear him. And, I mean, it's also false. He -- it's true that as a young man he was an Islamist. Increasingly he moved in a more secular direction. He championed free expression. When he was in Bahrain he invited Shia dissidents to speak up. And now that he's dead because it's inconvenient to blame the crown prince, we want to smear him as some kind of a jihad or terrorist? That seems to me completely shameless. BERMAN: Do you think human rights has any role in the American first

policy of the president?

KRISTOF: I certainly don't think it does. I mean if you look around the world -- and, indeed, when President Trump visited Saudi Arabia, he sort of famously said, look, we're not going to be looking over your shoulder at actions. And so, I mean, some of the first actions they did were to imprison people, including women's rights activists. You know, that -- one thing we could do right now is tell the crown prince, look, if you want to show your bonafides, then it's too late to save Jamal's life, but you can release Rath Benawi (ph), who's in prison for blogging and faces 1,000 lashes. You can release Lagenal Palul (ph), who's in prison for letting -- for proposing that women drive. And, you know, at least that would be some progress, something that Jamal, I think, would appreciate as a legacy.

[08:55:26] BERMAN: Nick Kristof, great to have you here with us. Thanks so much.

KRISTOF: Thank you.

CAMEROTA: All right, time for CNN Heroes. Nearly 10 percent of homeless adults in the U.S. once served on the armed forces. When Army combat veteran Chris Stout saw some of his comrades fall on hard times, he immediately jumped into help. Chris is this week's CNN Hero.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRIS STOUT, CNN HERO: What branch are you?

After starting to work with veterans, I realized there's a huge gap in services. If you've ever served, you know that if one of your fellow platoon guys, they need help, you help them. That's what we do here. It gives them an opportunity to kind of get stable, gives them a safe and secure place and then fix what got them there in the first place.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: For more on how Chris is helping veterans, you can go to cnnheroes.com.

BERMAN: All right, the president of the United States unveiling a new campaign theme overnight. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:00:12] JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: A very good Friday morning to you. I'm Jim Sciutto in New York.