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Trump And Chief Justice Clash Over Independence Of The Judiciary; The 92nd Annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade; Flash Money And Get Away With Murder. Aired: 6-6:30a ET

Aired November 22, 2018 - 06:00   ET

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


JOHN BERMAN, HOST, NEW DAY: You insist on it being the right temperature.

ERICA HILL, HOST, NEW DAY: Well, it's important.

BERMAN: It's really cold outside. It's wicked cold. So cold they might not fly the balloons for the Thanksgiving Day parade here, and I imagine the problem is shrinkage. We are looking at live pictures of the parade. You can see shrinkage is the problem there.

HILL: Yes, I am also -- I am impressed that you went there at 6:00 a.m.

BERMAN: They have entire departments here at CNN to make sure I don't say things like shrinkage, but they are off today.

HILL: I was talking about wicked cold. But you do you.

BERMAN: The two are related. This is a day for giving thanks. The President is engaged in the long held Thanksgiving tradition of telling the Republican appointed Chief Justice of the United States that he needs to study the court system. That's pretty stunning.

Even more so, the public rebuke of the President by the Chief Justice. It began with President Trump slamming a Federal judge who ruled against him as an Obama judge. The Chief Justice responded in a rare, really extraordinary statement saying, "We do not have Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges. What we have is an extraordinary group of dedicated judges doing their level best to do equal rights to those appearing before them. That independent judiciary is something we should all be thankful for."

HILL: Well, just hours later, the President defiantly firing back tweeting in part, "Sorry, Justice Roberts, but you do indeed have Obama judges. President Trump has made a habit of course of blasting judges who rule against him while the Chief Justice has long defended judicial integrity and independence. The Supreme feud sparked by Trump's anger over a judge's decision to block his new migrant asylum policy. But could an alternate plan to block asylum seekers already be in the works?

"The Washington Post" reporting overnight, the Trump administration is set to implement sweeping new measures at the southern border. The plan called, "Remain in Mexico" would force those seeking asylum in America to do just that, to wait in Mexico while their cases are processed.

It would be a major break with current screening procedures. Joining us now, CNN White House correspondent Kaitlan Collins who is traveling with the President, senior political correspondent for the "Washington Examiner" David Drucker, and former Clinton White House Press Secretary, Joe Lockhart.

And Kaitlan, let's just start with you. Are we hearing anymore this morning from the White House on this reporting overnight that this plan "Remain in Mexico" could be in the works?

KAITLAN COLLINS, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, CNN: No, no word from the White House yet on this, but the DHS spokesperson did put out a statement essentially telling "The Washington Post" they believed it was premature for them to report on this policy because it said it was not being implemented this week. They didn't say when they would hope to implement this policy, but we know this is a greater frustration of President Trump's, and asylum has been a very sensitive area for him and something he is really focused on during his nearly two years in office, and that is something he has been focused on.

That really ties into everything we are talking about here, including the fight with the Chief Justice, John Roberts, which is after President Trump was telling reporters before he headed down here to Florida for this Thanksgiving break that he wanted to file a complaint with the Ninth Circuit Court because of a ruling they had on his administration's changes to asylum.

So it all goes back to each other and this is the President's greater frustration with these judges because he wants to be able to change these asylum laws. He is very frustrated with the border crossings, and this really stems to much in his administration and so much of the frustration, not only with this and the judges and the Supreme Court, but even with his own DHS Secretary, Kirstjen Nielsen who just last week in an interview is saying he wanted her to be much tougher.

For the President, that means he wants her to be able to do that, change the way they enforce these laws which she has at times communicated to the President. She simply doesn't have the power to do, but it creates this overall widespread frustration not only in the West Wing, but throughout the entire administration.

BERMAN: Kaitlan, I do want to know if there was some kind of water fowl trolling you, photobombing you during your hit there and you should just want to be careful. This is a day if you are a bird, you need to be careful because you could wind up on a table somewhere.

HILL: People are hungry.

BERMAN: Stop taunting Kaitlan Collins during the live shot right there. David Drucker, this back and forth between the Chief Justice and the President is extraordinary. And it is more extraordinary from the Chief Justice because the President will go after anybody and everybody. We've seen that for the last several months and he spoke to some of the judiciary quite a bit. But for some reason, it crossed some line yesterday for the Chief Justice, who has been asked to respond before and never has, but this time he did. Why?

DAVID DRUCKER, POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, John, I think you picked up on why this was so notable. The Chief Justice has done a lot to try and stay out of the limelight. When critics of the Obamacare decision some years back were surprised that a conservative leaning judge didn't side with the Republican position, a lot of people sort of assumed and posited that it was because he didn't want the court to be seen as overtly political sticking its neck into such a hot political issue and so it wanted to keep the court out of that.

[06:05:04]

DRUCKER: So for the Chief Justice on a Thanksgiving week, when there's very little news to go out with a statement like this that he as a savvy political player had to know was going to get a lot of attention and probably elicit some pushback from the President of the United States --

BERMAN: He totally knew that.

DRUCKER: Right, which means he had a lot he wanted to say, that he wanted to make a point and it's either his concern that the judiciary has become over politicized even beyond the normal. You know, it is true, by the way, you have judges appointed by Democrats and judges appointed by Republicans, they tend to come from different judicial philosophies. They tend because of that to elicit different rulings. The Judge knows this, the Chief Justice -- but he had something that he wanted to say and a point he wanted to make and he was willing to risk a political battle, at least in public, with the President of the United States.

And so it was very -- it clearly was something that concerned him. And you wonder if this was something that bubbled up from the bottom of the judiciary branch through all the district courts and the appellate courts and if he really felt he needed to say something -- look, one last thing on this. The President has had two years with a Republican House and a Republican Senate. He could have sent up a package of legislation changing the law.

What the courts have ruled, whether you like the rulings or not is that the President's executive changes have been in contravention of existing law in the Constitution. If the President wants to change the law he can do that, and yet he has done very little from a legislative standpoint with Republican majorities to try and rejigger immigration law to better fit his philosophy about border security.

HILL: And to your point, David though, for the President it's more effective to say, not that I am trying to go about this, crossing all the T's and dotting all the I's. Following the way things are done in Washington, but it's a more effective message for him to say, "Look, I am constantly getting blocked by the court, and oh, it's the Ninth Circuit, and oh, it's a bunch of liberals, and this is where I am at." Joe?

JOE LOCKHART, POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes, I mean, that's true, I mean, the President as always is playing politics and putting politics ahead of the policy or even the goal there. I think a lot of what the Chief Justice's motivation was, he has seen what the President has done to other institutions -- the media, enemy of the people; the intelligence community, he just rejects them and talks about the deep state, and the Justice Department with Jeff Sessions, and I think the Chief Justice looked at this and said it's time for someone to stand up for an independent judiciary and even if it means we get into a fight, he's willing to into the fight because it's worth fighting for.

BERMAN: It's just strange to me because every article that has ever been written, dealing with the Federal judge will say Obama-appointed judge, or Reagan-appointed judge, or Carter-appointed judge, it's part of the discussion about the judiciary. We always note it. So I just -- and we are going to talk to Joan Bescupic in a little bit, it's just curious to me about why this time? What had bubbled up in John Roberts that he felt like he had to lash out now -- not lash out, issue a very carefully worded public rebuke.

One thing I want to note about the President writes, the ninth circuit is not the most reverse circuit court. There are two circuit courts that get reversed more than the ninth, it gets reversed higher than average, but only a very little bit. It happens to all the courts. This is just part of the Appeals Court process. Kaitlan, we've seen this week on this Thanksgiving week when we all give thanks, the President take on William McRaven, you know, the guy who was in charge of Special Forces during the Osama Bin Laden raid and now the Chief Justice of the United States. There is no institution clearly that he feels sacred enough not to go against if he feels it goes against him.

COLLINS: That's right. I mean, the President has even gotten into a fight with the Pope. So he truly, this is classic Trump. It's just surprising for John Roberts to issue that rare rebuke of President Trump, but it's not surprising for what President Trump said and for him to have responded so quickly to the Chief Justice's statement yesterday, which he did maybe two hours or so after John Roberts issued that rare rebuke of President Trump. So White House aides will say, this is classic Trump that when he gets criticized, he is going to push back and we have seen that fit into a pattern throughout his presidency that regardless -- and years before that as well, regardless of who it is, the President is going to speak out.

Now, this is a Republican, as you said, appointed Supreme Court Justice, the Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court who is coming at a time when we are seeing a very different Supreme Court. Now that Brett Kavanaugh is on the court, John Roberts is now seen as what could potentially be the swing vote. He is going to hold a lot of power on the court so it does makes it interesting the he is speaking out now and that we have got these two heads of the Federal branches of government going at each other.

[06:10:06]

COLLINS: It's not likely that John Roberts is going to respond back to this and continue a tit for tat with the President, that's what people close to him say, but people close to the President won't predict as much. They don't know that the President he will not continue tweeting at John Roberts, and it is interesting because in the past when President Trump has criticized John Roberts specifically calling him a disaster, he did not respond to that, instead has welcomed him to the Supreme Court during the two times that President Trump has visited there.

So it is interesting to see the dynamic of the relationship at play here, but it does show President Trump will not, not criticize anybody.

HILL: And David, real quickly, what is the chance that we will hear from lawmakers?

DRUCKER: Well, I think they are going to try and stay as far away from this as possible, at least Republicans will. I think Democrats will have a lot to say and don't forget there's a Democratic House coming in January, so I can imagine spats like this triggering calls for hearings and Democratic Chairman trying to drag up Trump administration officials to the Hill to talk about stuff like this.

Look, the President is a populist, right. He is a populist first and he is about himself first, if you go after him as Kaitlan said, he is going to strike. One of the reason he won the Republican primary and the presidency in 16 is because he was willing to attack institutions that people have lost faith in and he believes it works for him. He's not going to stop now, not with 2020 looming.

BERMAN: All right, guys, stick around, please. We have much more to discuss on this Thanksgiving morning, and of course we are thankful for all three of you.

HILL: Always, yes, we are also thankful for the annual traditions including the 92nd annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. It kicks off here in New York, not too far from where we are. Kicking off this year with bitter cold temperatures. Spectators bundled up, some of them already out there. Strong winds though could spell trouble for the parade's giant balloons. CNN's Miguel Marquez is live at the start of the parade route with more although I am told you have it from a good source, your knee, that we are going to be all right, Miguel?

MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CORRESPONDENT, CNN: Yes, it's fine, it's only 21 degrees out here and my knee tells me that it's going to be just fine. Look, if the winds get up over 23-miles-per-hour sustained or 35 -- 45 miles hour gusts, we are going to have to round the balloons. Forty three of the smaller ones with the Macy stars you see there and then 16 of the really big character balloons like you see Chase from Paw Patrol there.

Right now we have some winds, not very much gusts, so my guess is, the old knee telling me, we are going to make it just fine. Down here, all of the floats are already lined up as well, everyone from the Bare Naked Ladies will be on those, John Legend to I can't believe it, I'm so excited, Diana Ross and her entire family will be on this as well.

Look, one of the bands, one of the 12 bands that will be in the parade is already arriving here. A thousand clowns and 1,100 cheerleaders, it's on no matter how cold it gets, no matter how windy it gets it will kick off.

The last time it got this cold it was about 1901. If it gets down to 15 degrees, it's 21 now, 15 degrees with that wind chill, that will be as cold as it was in 1871, that will be the coldest on record and I was what? I was 12 or 11 then, and so a long, long time ago.

BERMAN: Yes, you killed it when you covered that parade, Miguel. If you need a second source.

MARQUEZ: It was amazing.

BERMAN: If you need a second source for your knee, do you like turn to your ankle? How does that work?

MARQUEZ: It's the crick in the back, that is the one that really is the clincher, yes, and that would tell me for sure.

BERMAN: All right, Miguel Marquez there somehow braving not just the cold but the thousand clowns, what could be more terrifying than that. On the street at the parade, Miguel, we will check back in with you a little bit.

Thankfully, thankfully, we have all kinds of technology here at CNN ...

HILL: Not just knees and backs.

BERMAN: Not just knees and backs, let's go to the Weather Center, Chad Meyers has your forecast, Chad.

CHAD MYERS, METEOROLOGIST: It is going to be cold. I get that. It's wintertime almost, you expect it, but Santa Claus is on his way. That is the most important thing. The balloons will fly. Our winds right now are 16 miles per hour. We are way below the threshold. It was going to be a game time decision and it is now game time.

Temperatures though with the wind will be feeling more like one degree. Now, (inaudible), look at this picnic up here. It feels like 14 degrees below zero up there, so in Vermont, if you are going to ski some, this is the best early snow we have had across these mountains in a very long time, but it will be cold day up there. Cold in Buffalo as well. It could be 20 or more record lows coming up just like in probably another hour, that's where when the record lows happen. Somewhere around 7:00 in the morning.

Now, back out west, we do have something else serious going on, a lot of rain coming down right now in that Paradise fire burn area. Another round of rain after an inch and a half of rain overnight. That's good news for firefighters, bad news for those mudslides and those ash debris flows, so we are going to have to watch out for that. The rest of the country, pretty nice. How about Denver? Denver, sunshine today and 60 degrees. We'll take that on Thanksgiving Day. Guys, back to you.

[06:15:04]

BERMAN: Chad Myers, thank you very much. You will keep us posted all morning. Appreciate it.

HILL: Money, as we know, talks. "The Washington Post" -- what?

BERMAN: But it can't sing and dance and it can't walk.

HILL: No, it can't, John Berman, and that is why money is not in the parade today.

BERMAN: As Neil Diamond likes to say, "Forever in Blue Jeans."

HILL: I like a good Neil diamond record as much as the next girl, and I'm thankful for that this morning. In other news --

BERMAN: I didn't get much sleep. I am sorry. I apologize in advance.

HILL: John Berman a little punchy after a week of doing double duty. In all seriousness, "The Washington Post" publisher this morning blasting President Trump's decisions to back Saudi Arabia over the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi warning that the President's unwavering support for the Kingdom sends a dangerous message to tyrants. We have more on that, next.

BERMAN: Flash money and get away with murder. That's the headline at a "Washington Post" op-ed this morning written by Fred Ryan, the paper's publisher and chief executive. Ryan says, "President Trump sent that message to tyrants around the world after siding with the Saudi government over the murder of journalist, Jamal Khashoggi."

[06:20:04]

BERMAN: I want to bring back David Drucker and Joe Lockhart and Kaitlan Collins. And Joe, I want to start with you, it was two days ago that the President sided with Saudi Arabia in this issue of the fact that apparently the Crown Prince ordered the murder of Jamal Khashoggi.

Yesterday, the President actually thanked Saudi Arabia for low oil prices, and you get the sense that he likes the perception that's being seen all around the world of how he is handling this.

LOCKHART: Well, I think that he thinks it works politically for him, just like he thinks it works politically for him to deny climate change this morning on Twitter. So there's not much we can do about that. This is really a dangerous thing. In addition to going against his own intelligence community, he is sending a message to tyrants around the world that they can get away with it, but probably just as importantly, he is sending a message to Democratic countries.

We have been critical of other countries in the past, France in particular, for selling weapons to tyrants, and we have used our leadership to try and keep that curtailed and we have been successful at that.

But now we've sent a message to everyone, which is if you have cash, and you're willing to do business with us, you can do anything you want, and that is just one further step away from America's leadership in the world, and while that may play to Trump's base, it is a very dangerous situation for our own national security because we will pay for this down the road and the safety of the world.

HILL: David, how much of that -- when we heard the strong criticism of the statement from lawmakers, soon -- right after it was released, it was quite a statement as we all know, from the very first sentence, how much of that, though, especially with what Joe has said up there about the lasting impact of this. How much is that a focus moving into this new Congress?

DRUCKER: Well, we will see how Democrats choose to handle this and also how Senate Republicans, absent Bob Corker, absent Jeff Flake decide to deal with this. Look the President --

HILL: And that's the real question.

DRUCKER: Yes, the President doesn't do shining city on a hill, all right, everything with him is dollars and cents. And I think if wanted to make the case that because of our position in the Middle East and our desire to box in Iran, and tamp that down its hegemonic desires to exert its influence as the leading state sponsor of terrorism around the world, I think that's a case the President can make because our alliance with Saudi Arabia, though imperfect has always been a key part of our diplomatic and military effort in that part of the world.

When he talks about it in domestic economic concerns, I agree with Joe that in fact, what happens is the President diminishes the leverage that the US has. We have always been seen around the world as having sort of grander designs about keeping the world safe for democracy and dealing with rogue nations, so that they cannot gain a foothold.

And in acting the way the President did and using the rhetoric that he did, it is going to make it easier for countries like China and Russia to say, look, we don't have to worry about stuff like that, the US certainly doesn't, and that actually hurts the US in its dealings with our adversaries, specifically Beijing and Moscow, but also others.

And that's why I think this is such a problem but it's because Trump, at his core, looks at things purely as a matter of dollars and cents and not as the United States as a unique nation with a grander function for keeping the peace around the world.

BERMAN: I will say this and until we hear from Mitch McConnell on this, and we really have not yet, I will not believe the Senate will do anything here. McConnell has made quite clear he doesn't have time for much before Christmas, so I don't think something is going to happen on this, I could be proven wrong, but we'll wait and see.

Kaitlan Collins, Robert Mueller still has an investigation going on, and the President's legal team turned over the answers to Mueller's questions -- my days are riding together here, but this week, got the questions in and in doing so though, Rudy Giuliani, the President's lawyer says we may not be done yet. I am not convinced that Robert Mueller doesn't want to come back and ask us more questions. That was interesting to me. What I couldn't tell is if Giuliani was foreshadowing whether he knows something, whether he knows that Mueller wants more.

COLLINS: Well, it leads you to wonder what's has gone on in those negotiations between the President's legal team, which is not just Rudy Giuliani, but other lawyers as well dealing with the special counsel and his team and what has been said during the remarks that led Rudy Giuliani to believe this because we know the position of the legal team and the public stance they are taking is that, they have answered these questions. They have cooperated, 30-something witnesses have spoken with the special counsel, so it's time for this thing to come to an end.

Well, the special counsel has given no indication of its timeline or when the special counsel believes this investigation is going to be over, so that is really the big question between the two sides here. The legal team for the President is trying to make this argument because they believe this is all going to come down to a court of public opinion.

[06:25:04]

COLLINS: Whenever Robert Mueller does release his report, and that's why you have heard the remarks they have made in recent days, from President Trump himself sitting at the resolute desk in the Oval Office, saying that he believes that sometimes they try to trick you into perjuring yourself by asking you whether or not it was raining or sunny on that day and if you get the weather wrong, then they are going to say that you lied to them. That is not how the special counsel works but that is the stance that we have seen the White House and President Trump take.

But we are seeing something interesting, which is that the President's legal team feels like they've got a win here because President Trump did not sit down with the special counsel as the special counsel wanted and as President Trump, at the beginning of the year was considering and was very close to doing.

They believe that they have successfully convinced the President he should not sit down with the special counsel. So it will be interesting going forward if the special counsel does try to sit down with President Trump, and Mueller does try to come face to face with the President and where that goes, so that is what people are keeping an eye on from here going forward.

HILL: Well, and also Joe as Kaitlan laid out, we know very clearly that part of the -- I wouldn't call it a legal strategy but the public relations strategy has been especially since bringing Giuliani on board, to set it up in the way that they have done, that this will play out in the court of public opinion and they are obviously putting out their own narrative.

Some a couple of things that were interesting though and what we did learn from Rudy Giuliani, Joe is that some of the questioning did involve whether the President knew about this meeting between Don, Jr. at Trump Tower, and that's interesting, just the fact that he is actually putting it out there saying "Oh, yes, we had to answer questions about this," Joe?

LOCKHART: Well, I mean the court of Donald Trump, Rudy Giuliani plays the role of the legal court gesture. I mean, we can go back and see how he has amended everything he says, so you can't take everything he says very seriously.

I think the really interesting thing that's going to be set up is, I don't think Mueller was done with this. He is going to make some move to try to get the President to talk either in written or in direct testimony about things he did in the White House, and it's going to set up a very interesting legal battle over executive privilege.

And I think this one is different than all of the other ones in the past because the President, in a sense, waived his executive privilege through Twitter. He has talked about -- executive privilege is supposed to protect internal deliberations. His deliberations have all been done in public. So he doesn't really have a strong case there.

So I think there's at least one more major turn in this investigation on this issue before Mueller finishes his report.

BERMAN: Our thanks to all of you. Joe Lockhart, it has got to be minus 30 where you are. Thank goodness you've got a fire there going. Nice to see you this morning, Joe, Kaitlan and David. Great to have you all here, appreciate it.

LOCKHART: Good to see you, John.

HILL: Up next, a scary moment for nearly 300 holiday travelers on an Amtrak train, two cars detached from the train as it was moving. How did that happen?