Return to Transcripts main page

NEW DAY

Trump Defends Saudi Arabia Denial Ignores CIA Assessment; One- on-One with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg; Reporting Indicates President Trump Wanted Justice Department to Prosecute James Comey and Hillary Clinton; President Trump Releases Statement on Allegations that Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Ordered Killing of Journalist. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired November 21, 2018 - 8:00   ET

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


[08:00:00] JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: -- to go after his political rivals. Dean also said this is the sort of stuff of a banana republic. This is what an autocrat does. A source tells CNN the president wanted to have Hillary Clinton prosecuted and repeatedly pressed then White House counsel Don McGahn to lean on the Justice Department to do so. On multiple occasions the president raised investigating Clinton with Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and Matt Whitaker, now the acting attorney general, but then he was Jeff Sessions chief of staff. Recently the president claimed he never knew Matt Whitaker, but the fact that he leaned on him repeatedly to find out what DOJ is doing and had conversations proved that that was a lie.

"The New York Times" reports the president also wanted to prosecute former FBI director James Comey, but McGahn pushed back saying he had no authority to order a prosecution, and even, quote, "had White House lawyers write a memo for Mr. Trump warning that if he asked law enforcement to investigate his rivals he could face a range of consequences, including possible impeachment."

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: And now this other top story. President Trump is siding with Saudi Arabia over U.S. intelligence and their assessment that the crown prince of Saudi Arabia did order the murder of "Washington Post" journalist Jamal Khashoggi. The president is making it clear he will not punish Saudi Arabia for killing and dismembering Khashoggi inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul two months ago.

The president thinks the crown prince's culpability may never be known, in his words, he said maybe he did, maybe he didn't. Critics and many in Congress are blasting the president for putting economic interests above American values and morals. Senator Bob Corker, who heads the Foreign Relations Committee, tweeted this, quote, "I never thought I'd see a day a White House would moonlight as a public relations firm for the crown prince of Saudi Arabia."

A new tweet from the president this morning tells us pretty clearly where his priorities are on Saudi Arabia. I guess I won't read that. You'll read that as son as you pull that up.

Joining us now we have former federal prosecutor, now CNN legal analyst Renato Mariotti, "New York Times" opinion columnist and CNN contributor Frank Bruni, and political anchor for "Spectrum News" and CNN political commentator Errol Louis. Happy Thanksgiving to all of you. Great to have all of you here on this very busy news day.

Errol, this wasn't just a passing thought of President Trump's back to wanting to prosecute James Comey and Hillary Clinton. He repeatedly, it sounds like, pressed Don McGahn as well as Matt Whitaker, as well as who knows who else. He couldn't understand why his Justice Department wouldn't investigate Hillary Clinton and prosecute her. And it sounds like they had to serve as guard rails. Don McGahn is now gone from the White House.

ERROL LOUIS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: That's right. I think probably some of his lawyers in the White House counsel's office believed that it was just political hyperbole. We were all in that arena in Cleveland in 2016 when they started chanting lock her up, and in one speech after another, fulminating, pounding the podium, yelling into the mic that she's got to be prosecuted, she's got to be prosecuted. As you showed in the clips, the president said it on national television, in televised debates. He promised it. He promised it. He promised it.

There are a lot of people who probably believed he couldn't possible mean that because it was really sort of the core and I think one of the first items in the second article of impeachment against Richard Nixon. You don't do this. You don't sic prosecutors on your political opponents. You don't even ask. It is not supposed to be done. It's highly improper, possibly illegal. There are serious legal consequences. Donald Trump apparently meant every word that he said.

BERMAN: And let's just play what he said in that debate, since you brought it up, Errol. He told the American people in a televised debate with tens of millions of people watching what he wanted to do.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: If I win, I am going to instruct my attorney general to get a special prosecutor to look into your situation, because there has never been so many lies, so much deception. There has never been anything like it. And we're going to have a special prosecutor.

HILLARY CLINTON, (D) FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: It's just awfully good that someone with the temperament of Donald Trump is not in charge of the law in our country.

TRUMP: Because you'd be in jail.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: I understand that was the campaign, Renato. But spring of 2018 is not the campaign. That is when Donald Trump had been president for 16 or 14 months depending on when it was in the spring. That's a long time. And "The New York Times" says President Trump told the White House counsel in the spring that he wanted to order the Justice Department to prosecute two of his political adversaries. So, is that against the law?

RENATO MARIOTTI, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: It very well could be. It certainly is an abuse of his power. It would be grounds for impeachment. As to James Comey, because Comey is a witness against Trump in the Mueller investigation, remember that the reason the Mueller investigation started is because James Comey alleged that when he was FBI director Trump pushed him to try to let the prosecution of Michael Flynn go, a man who later pleaded guilty and is now cooperating with Robert Mueller.

[08:05:02] So essentially it's a form of intimidating a witness, lashing out and trying to arguably cower a person that's a witness against him and go after a witness against him. I'll note that there is no evidence that James Comey has committed a crime. It is unclear what he'd be prosecuted or investigated for. So it's very troubling that he would order that prosecution.

CAMEROTA: One more telling moment, Frank, and that was five days after the presidential election on "60 Minutes," Lesley, Stahl, I believe, asked Donald Trump about all of that that we saw at the political rallies, all of that outrage and foaming at the mouth about Hillary Clinton, and he struck a completely different tone then. So listen to this moment.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LESLEY STAHL: Do you want to put --

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: She did some bad things. She did some bad things.

STAHL: I know, but a special prosecutor?

TRUMP: I don't want to hurt them. I don't want to hurt them. They're good people. I don't want to hurt them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: So it's very hard to know when you see these glimpses of what looked like compassion, where they go.

FRANK BRUNI, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: They're fleeting.

CAMEROTA: They're fleeting. And obviously he got right back to wanting to prosecute her. So what was that act? Was that a lie? What was happening?

BRUNI: He changes all the time. But if you go back, he has consistently shown us he would like to use the Justice Department as a political instrument. Something that hasn't come up much in the last day and that we need to remember is he tweeted against Jeff Sessions about the fact that there were two criminal investigations of Republican House members who would soon be up for reelection. And I think he said good job, because he was implying t let criminal prosecutions and investigations go forward of Republicans whose reelection efforts might be hurt, that was bad. That was a bald statement that the Justice Department should act and be motivated politically. And this is just an extension and an even balder statement at that.

BERMAN: It's not like he's been hiding this from us. It's out in plain view. Also in plain view is the person now in charge of the Justice Department, Matt Whitaker, who is part of this story. CNN reported that several times apparently over the last year, Donald Trump went to Matt Whitaker who was then chief of staff to Jeff Sessions and said, hey, what's going on with the investigations into Hillary Clinton? This guy is now acting attorney general.

BRUNI: So we know that Donald Trump lied to us about how well he knew Whitaker. We know that. But there's another problem here which is if you follow this story, Don McGahn in this instance and also, remember, Trump once moved to remove to dismiss Mueller, and Don McGahn said I'm going to quit if you do that. Don McGahn is one of those adults in the room who is constantly restraining Donald Trump. A lot of those adults have left or are leaving the administration, and in their place we have who? Matt Whitaker, who by all signs is someone who is just going to be a yes man for the president and shares his views of a Justice Department that's a political instrument.

CAMEROTA: Though it does sound like from the "New York Times" reporting, Errol, that Matt Whitaker humored the president in terms of these investigations into Hillary Clinton but then didn't do anything to pursue them. But back to Don McGahn, he's gone. Does it make it all the more interesting to know that he sat down for 30 hours of interviews with Robert Mueller and that investigation continues apace?

LOUIS: Yes. It is very interesting and it is probably going to keep the president up at night just a little bit. Matt Whitaker, any of the lawyers around the president, have got to be thinking at some point about themselves, that they will have to incur legal bills, that they're going to have problems with their own reputation, with their own legal standing. He is leading the White House, he is leading his administration into a really, really sticky situation. And those who remember Watergate can't help but say we have been here before. You cannot do this. Nixon sicced the IRS on his political enemies. He ordered the Justice Department to go after his political enemies. When it all came out, and it wasn't that hard to uncover, the House committee put it right into the articles of impeachment.

BERMAN: Everyone should go look at article two of the articles of impeachment. Carl Bernstein and John Dean pointed this out to me, and when those guys say go look at article two, you should probably listen. It is interesting. Renato, you're the prosecutor. Talk to me about witness Don McGahn. Don McGahn has testified to the special counsel and his team for 30 plus hours now. Given this latest revelation, does this put him in a new light?

MARIOTTI: Well, first of all, everyone should assume that everything Don McGahn knows Robert Mueller knows. You don't talk to a witness for 30 hours if they are not being helpful to you. So there's no question that McGahn has been cooperative. And given what we just heard in this report from CNN, you could see why. As a lawyer there is nothing scarier than your client wanting you to participate in a crime. That's not something that often happens to a lawyer.

And here there is no attorney-client privilege between the White House counsel and the president as to matters like this. The special counsel can ask Don McGahn about those conversations, and of course, it appears that he has.

[08:10:05] So you can imagine now a Democratic House receiving these sort of details in a report from Mueller, could be very, very problematic for this White House.

CAMEROTA: Frank, we have heard already this morning on our program from, for instance, Alberto Gonzales, former A.G., about this is more of the president's bluster. The president says these things. The president makes these idle threats, but nothing ever comes of it I think are the words that he used.

BRUNI: Nothing has ever come of it yet. But I don't think it looks like bluster at this point. He was apparently repeatedly, repeatedly asking people about this. He was expressing his displeasure. He has done it publicly. He has been stopped by the people around him, as I said earlier to this point, but we don't know that that's going to continue to be the case. And what's really scary is we don't know that the Republicans in the Senate will ever stand up to this president. Just a few days ago we were talking about Mitch McConnell refusing to allow a floor vote on a bipartisan bill to protect the Mueller investigation. We have no sign that that check in the checks and balances will work, so I don't think we should at all feel content in saying about the president just being someone who blusters and we're all fine.

BERMAN: And I do want to mark the moment because we learned this yesterday as we learned that President Trump and his legal team, Errol, have submitted their answers to Robert Mueller's written questions. And there is reporting this morning that among those written questions are what do you know about the Donald Trump Jr. meeting. Did you know beforehand. That's a yes or no question. He has to be careful how he answers that.

LOUIS: As according to the president himself, he said he answers those questions himself personally and he answered them very easily. One hopes that he took some time before responding, but the reality is he's going to now, I think, put himself in a slightly worse position than if he had said, I worked with my lawyers. The lawyers guided me. Everything I did was within the law. In other words, he's now kind of established publicly that this is all him. This is not legal guidance from the White House counsel's office. This is not his personal attorneys. This is him, Donald Trump. He personally wrote the answers. If that's true, he will stand alone when the account is read about what Mueller knows versus what the president says he did.

BERMAN: Errol Louis, Frank Bruni, Renato Mariotti, have a wonderful Thanksgiving. Thank you for being with us.

President Trump is taking sides. He's chosen Saudi Arabia over his own intelligence community's assessment of a journalist's murder. The chilling message the president could be sending to despots around the world. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:16:02] JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: President Trump is defending Saudi Arabia, despite the CIA assessment that the crown prince ordered the murder of "Washington Post" journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

Listen to the president's explanation.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REPORTER: Why are you siding with the Saudis over your own intelligence?

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Because it's America first to me. It's all about America first. Saudi Arabia, if we broke with them, I think your oil prices would go through the roof. I have kept them down. They have helped me keep them down.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: He just a little bit more about that on Twitter moments ago.

Joining us now is former NATO supreme allied commander, General Wesley Clark.

General, thanks so much for being with us. You spent decades helping protect this country, so I want to go big picture here. Are human rights necessarily in opposition to oil prices? Are human rights necessarily in opposition to American interest abroad?

GEN. WESLEY CLARK, FORMER NATO SUPREME ALLIED COMMANDER: No. They're actually part of America's interest abroad. We fought two world wars in the 20th century. To be sure that the nations we are most closely aligned with wouldn't be overrun by dictatorships and by people who were hostile to America's values and interests and beliefs. That's what World War I and World War II were all about. That's what the cold war was about, freedom.

And so, when we align ourselves with nations that don't share our values, and we think we're pursuing our national interests, we're actually undercutting our most powerful appeal, our most powerful, call it a weapon. It's American values. It's human rights.

It is the U.N. declaration of the rights of man. It's western Democratic values. This is the real strength and promise of the United States of America.

BERMAN: And the president presents it as if it's a chose. Either we cutoff Saudi Arabia completely or we just say, hey, we don't care about murder.

But that's not really the choice here. They could choose to make a statement condemning the crown prince's decision to order the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. CLARK: I think that's right, John. Actually Saudi Arabia needs us a

lot more than we need them. We're actually producing more oil now than Saudi Arabia. And we could produce more.

It is a function of price. It is a function of economics. But we're the major oil producing country in the world right now.

Now, Saudi Arabia has oil. It can produce more because it has a lot of conventional oil. It is cheaper, and we have used that for years.

But the Saudis need our protection. They need our support. They need our weapons systems. And there are many members of the royal family in Saudi Arabia.

So the fact that this is really inconvenient or American policy, yes, these things happen. But if we're going to have America in the world that we want to see, we have to stand up for our values, and we have to put those values up front.

BERMAN: And I want to make clear something you just said there. This is complicated. No one is suggesting that this is easy. Foreign policy, foreign relations is inherently complicated, but sometimes there are different ways to handle that.

And just one last question on this point. If you are a dictator in some country, if you're in the Philippines, if you're Vladimir Putin, if you see this, what are you supposed to think?

CLARK: Well, I think it gives dictators a little freer hand to take actions against their own citizens. And it reduces the number of patients in the world who stand with us on our values.

And so, you know, the national security strategy worries about China and Russia. Well, neither of these countries support our values. We are calling Saudi Arabia an ally, and we have common interests.

But do we have common values with Saudi Arabia. We need to help the Saudis come in our direction. And calling it like it is on this would help them.

[08:20:02] BERMAN: General, you wrote an op-ed in "The Washington Post" about president Trump's relationship with the military. And you talk about his tendency, in your words, to politicize the military to an extent.

Let me just read you part of this. Posturing and electioneering were evident in the call for parade in Washington, since cancelled, and the Russia deployed active duty forces to the border to stem an invasion from the South. We don't want to be used that way.

Do you get the sense that people in the military now feel used?

CLARK: Well, I think these actions hurt the relationship that the president has as commander in chief with the men and women in the armed forces. They want to see a president out there sympathizing with them. They want to show off to the president of the United States. Look where we are, look how tough the conditions are, look at what we're doing for the United States of America. They want the president to be there, see it and then shake hands with them and have a meal with them and talk to them as a human being.

The president of the United States really is the chief recruiting agent of the United States armed forces. We're an all volunteer force. He's the commander in chief. And when parents talk to their children about would you serve in the military, they look to the commander in chief and say what kind of man is he? What's he going to do to my children?

When it comes to the armed forces as something as a political play thing, something used in electioneering, that really hurts those guys and gals who are deployed from the active duty force. Many of them have had multiple tours overseas. They were counting on a holiday with their family, and there they are out on the border.

And what's the mission? It was hyped. And Jim Mattis is doing everything he can to make it a real mission. He's doing everything he can to be loyal to the president of the United States, his boss. But it doesn't square.

BERMAN: General Wesley Clark, thanks for being with us. Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours.

CLARK: Thank you.

BERMAN: Alisyn?

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: All right, John. Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg facing tough questions from CNN.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LAURIE SEGALL, CNN BUSINESS SENIOR TECHNOLOGY CORRESPONDENT: You are CEO and chairman of Facebook. That's an extraordinary amount of power. Shouldn't your power be checked?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: All right. His answer and much more in our exclusive interview next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:26:14] CAMEROTA: Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg sitting down exclusively with CNN, taking on a wide range of topics, including his fate at the helm of that social media giant.

And CNN's Laurie Segall joins us now with her exclusive interview.

I know it's been a whirlwind 24 hours for you. So tell us what he told you.

SEGALL: You know, look, I think he was responding to a lot of the criticism that came out of this "New York Times" article. And also, there are a lot of questions about Mark Zuckerberg and power. And, you know, a lot of this article and a lot of revelations haven't looked good for Sheryl Sandberg, his number two.

So, you know, I sat down with him and I asked him about his power and also what's going to happen to Sheryl Sandberg in all this. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEGALL: There are a lot of questions about Sheryl Sandberg's role in the latest controversy. Can you definitely say Sheryl will stay in her same role?

ZUCKERBERG: Yes. Look, Sheryl is a really important part of this company and is leading a lot of the efforts to address a lot of the biggest efforts that -- the biggest issues that we have. And she's been an important partner for me for 10 years. And, you know, I'm really proud of the work that we've done together. And I hope that we work together for decades more to come.

SEGALL: Are you going to make any changes? Not even looking at this crisis, but looking at a lot of the different tones over the last year. Are you making changes in your top leadership?

ZUCKERBERG: If you look at the management team at the end of 2018, you know, it's quite different than what it was in the beginning of the year. On the product and engineering side, I completely restructured things. So, I think we're leaving this year with a much stronger team in place.

SEGALL: You are CEO and chairman of Facebook. That's an extraordinary amount of power, given that you rule a kingdom of two billion people digitally. Shouldn't your power be checked?

ZUCKERBERG: Yes. I think that ultimately the issues that we're working on here, you know, things like preventing interference in elections from other countries, finding the balance between giving people a voice and keeping people safe, these are not issues that any one company can address, right?

So when I talk about addressing these, you know, I always talk about how we need to partner with governments around the world and other companies and nonprofits and other sectors. So, yes, I don't think fundamentally that we're going to be able to address all of these issues by ourselves.

SEGALL: So, you're not stepping down as chairman?

ZUCKERBERG: That's not the plan.

SEGALL: That's not the plan.

Would anything change that?

ZUCKERBERG: I mean, in fact, eventually, over time. I mean, I'm not going to -- I'm not going to be doing this forever, but I certainly -- I'm not currently thinking that that makes sense.

SEGALL: This idea of transparency is important and we keep hearing it. But then you have these reports coming out that say something otherwise. So, how do you ensure that you do win back public trust?

I think this is an incredibly pivotal point for the company, and for you as a leader, because it certainly seems over the last year, we haven't stopped hearing about, you know, one thing after the next that shows otherwise that the company hasn't been as transparent.

ZUCKERBERG: Yes. Well, look, there are always going to be issues, but if you're serving a community of more than 2 billion people, there's going to be someone who is posting something that is -- that is problematic that gets through the systems that we have in place, no matter how advanced the systems are.

And I think, by and large, a lot of the criticism around the biggest issues has been fair, but I do think that if we're going to be real, there is this bigger picture as well, which is that we have a different world view than some of the folks who are covering this. And --

SEGALL: But if we've given the world a voice, look at what's happened in the last year. You've had elections in the last year. Elections manipulated. Hate speech has gone viral and turned offline.

It certainly seems like this mission has been accomplished in many ways and there's a whole new set of problems that, perhaps, you guys didn't foresee. And now, we're in a very complicated place where there's not an easy solution.