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Bush 41 to Be Flown to Capitol to Lie in State Before State Funeral; Former Senate Majority Leader Recalls Working with Bush 41. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired December 3, 2018 - 07:00   ET

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


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GEORGE H.W. BUSH, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I want a kinder and gentler nation. Like 1,000 points of light in a broad and peaceful sky.

[07:00:22] GEORGE W. BUSH, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Humble. Driven. Competitive. A person who cared deeply about others who hurt.

DAVID GERGEN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: He was highly civil, and it opened doors for friendships across the board.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, Heffie (ph), I think we're going to heaven. He said, "Good, that's where I want to go."

GEORGE H.W. BUSH: God bless you, and God bless the United States of America.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Whether it's Manafort or Gates or Flynn or Cohen, all the people around the president were lying.

ROGER STONE, ASSOCIATE OF DONALD TRUMP: There is still no evidence whatsoever of collusion between the Russian state and the Trump campaign.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. Mueller needs to be able to complete his investigation without interference.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY with Alisyn Camerota and John Berman.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to your NEW DAY. We are here in Washington this morning, where the nation will bid farewell to our 41st president, George H.W. Bush. He will make his final journey to Washington today. He will lie in state at the U.S. Capitol Rotunda for the public to pay respects until Wednesday morning.

Traveling with the president, his faithful service dog, Sully. You can see him here in that photo. There he is, a Yellow Lab who has been with the president since the passing of Barbara Bush last spring. Such a nice picture there.

President Trump will be flown here on the presidential plane that we all know as Air Force One when the current president is on board. This flight will be dubbed Special Mission 41.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: President Trump will attend the state funeral Wednesday at the National Cathedral, and that's significant. You may remember President Trump did not attend the service for Barbara Bush or the one for John McCain, but Bush 41 made it clear he wanted President Trump to be there. It will be an important and rare show of unity.

Meanwhile, back to the business of Washington. The possibility of a government shutdown over border wall will likely be put off for a couple of weeks, but the Russia investigation seems to continue apace. Michael Cohen's lawyers are asking a judge for leniency and, in the process, revealing new information.

And the president's friend and adviser, Roger Stone, insists that he had no contacts with the head of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange.

We begin our coverage with CNN's Kaylee Hartung. She is live in Ellington Field in Texas with more.

Good morning, Kaylee.

KAYLEE HARTUNG, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Alisyn.

Special Mission 41, the late former president's final flight aboard the 747 will begin this morning. On board to escort the president's remains from Houston to Washington, we're told, will be members of the Bush family, including George W. Bush, close friends, members of his staff, including his secretary of state, James Baker, and also his service dog, Sully. You mentioned that beautiful photo posted last night of the dog laying in front of his casket with the caption, "Mission Complete." That dog's next mission, to service veterans at Walter Reed.

There will be a departure ceremony here at Ellington Air Base this morning, and then upon their arrival at Joint Base Andrews, another ceremony to welcome him.

Once they get to the Capitol, there will be a ceremony there and members of congressional leadership will host it. We're told Vice President Pence among those who will speak there. And the president will lie in state in the Capitol's Rotunda until Wednesday morning, allowing the public a chance to pay their respects there.

Following that, a service at Washington's National Cathedral, President Trump among those who will be in attendance.

And then the president's remains will be returned here to Houston. There will be a second memorial service on Thursday morning at St. Martin's Episcopal Church, the same church that Barbara Bush was celebrated in more than seven months ago.

The president's remains will then be taken by train to his final resting place, that in College Station, Texas, Texas A&M University, the home of his presidential library.

We've learned that in the president's final hours, he was asked if he wanted to go to the hospital. He said no, he was ready to go be with Barbara and Robin. And that is where he will be laid to rest, right alongside them -- John and Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: Oh, my gosh, that's so poignant. Kaylee, thank you very much for that report from Texas.

Joining us now to talk about all this, we have CNN political analyst David Gregory; CNN White House correspondent Abby Phillip; CNN political commentator and host of CNN's "SMERCONISH," Michael Smerconish; and Frank Sesno, former CNN Washington bureau chief and now director of George Washington University's School of Media and Public Affairs.

Great to have all of you here this morning on this very -- the beginning of this very special week here in Washington.

Michael Smerconish, we found a photo of boy wonder Michael Smerconish. You can tell us the history of this moment of when you met President Bush and what was happening here.

MICHAEL SMERCONISH, HOST, "SMERCONISH": That photograph was actually taken when I was an intern in his advance office. And on the last day of the internship, I was afforded a three-minute meeting for a photograph.

[07:05:10] Now I have to say, fast-forward a decade, when I was 29, I was appointed by his presidential administration from the Department of Housing and Urban Development to run all public housing in five states in Washington, D.C. And I think, in a way it says something about the Bush administration and this president and the way that he regarded dues paying.

Alisyn, when I think about him, I think about the first time that I met him in 1980, running for president when the slogan was, "a president we won't have to train," in view of the fact that he had already been U.N. ambassador, envoy to China, head of the CIA, member of Congress, business success.

I mean, in sharp contrast, I have to say, to today, the way in which people can become media sensations and think they can run for office, this was a guy who believed you had to log the hours.

BERMAN: And of course, the president you wouldn't have to train, he was talking about Ronald Reagan, who at that point had been a former two-term governor of California. You know, no political slouch himself. That was a remarkable thing to say in 1980, a really fascinating campaign.

Frank Sesno, you covered former President Bush, in so many different ways, for so long. And we note he is the last president of the greatest generation, the final member of the World War II generation who will be in the White House.

FRANK SESNO, FORMER CNN WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF: And he brought all of that with him everywhere he went, including in some of his contradictions.

You know, but he believed in service. He had done it himself. He believed in sacrifice. He had done it himself. He believed in personal responsibility. His whole thousand points of light was "We don't need the government to do all this stuff." Although he believed in government, too, he really believe in volunteerism.

But he -- you know, he could play politics. I was on the floor of the convention when he said, "Read my lips, no new taxes." And we thought that was kind of an interesting comment, and it came back to haunt him.

But I think that understanding George Herbert Walker Bush is what Michael said a moment ago and what you were getting at here. He believed in paying dues. He believed in public service. He believed in what could be done together, flaws and all.

CAMEROTA: What's interesting, David, is that the "no new taxes" came back to haunt him, because he decided it was best for the country to cut down on the deficit and to raise taxes, to go back on a campaign promise. He decided, at great political peril for himself, to do that for the country. That also seems to be a bygone time.

GREGORY: Because he believed in the back-room deal. He believed in working Washington in a way that Washington no longer works: personal relationships. He didn't have a ton of legislative accomplishments, because he did have to deal with the Democratic Congress.

But even in foreign affairs, dealing with the Chinese in a -- in a quieter way after Tiananmen Square got him a lot of criticism, as well.

You learn a lot about President Bush 41 by understanding President Bush 43. The "no new taxes" pledge is so important, because he ended up having to run in '92 as "Who do you want, the guy who raised taxes once and felt bad about it, or the guy that's done it 120 times and doesn't have any problem with it?"

He -- he allowed himself to get away from his Republican base, which is something that George W. Bush would never do. And -- and H.W. Bush made compromises of his own -- with his own pragmatism along the way. He had campaigned in earlier efforts where he'd lost running too far to the right and then promising not to do that again. And of course, how he got elected in '88 with some bare-knuckle tactics that he would kind of apologize for and say, you're not going to see that guy again.

So he was this pragmatist. He wore the office very well, and he was -- he comes from a time of more gentile politics that is gone.

BERMAN: I have to say, it's remarkable. Frank brought up 1,000 points of light. One of the recent connections between the current president and Bush 41 was that President Trump has mocked the 1,000 points of light during campaign rallies. He's been going up and saying, "'Thousand points of light,' what's that? I prefer, you know, 'America first.'"

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: And it's more than just the fact that he thinks it's not that great of a slogan. I think the idea of a thousand points of light is not -- it doesn't align with President Trump's vision for what leadership is supposed to engender in people. I think he views strength as being the predominant thing that he needs to embody as president of the United States.

And I think President George H.W. Bush believed that the moral leadership of the office was as important as that. And so that's why the thousand points of light thing, the fact that President Trump chose that to underscore why he didn't understand that era in American history, tells us so much.

It also tells us a lot that the White House basically went back in their statement over the weekend. They included the thousand points of light as being the epitome of what George H.W. Bush was all about.

I think President Trump is having a moment this weekend. I think his staff thinks so, too. They're very happy with how he's dealt with -- with this situation. Because despite the criticism, he has been genuine in his praise of President Bush, and I think allowing the -- allowing President Trump to kind of grow in his level of respect is worth doing.

[07:10:15] CAMEROTA: Michael Smerconish, he talked -- I mean, as Abby was just saying, respecting the office of president was very important to President Bush.

I have my own old photo with President Bush, and I see your old photo and raise you this one. This was, I think, in August of 1999. I am there on a beautiful day in Kennebunkport with my camera crew. And we were interviewing him. And he talked about the Clinton scandal, the impeachment scandal, but very gently and why he felt it was just so important to preserve the respect for the office. So listen to this moment that plays into now.

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GEORGE H.W. BUSH: But I have said publicly that it concerns me when the office of the presidency is not shown proper respect, the office itself. It's a special symbol around the world, not just the physical Oval Office, but what the presidency means.

And so I am afraid that the presidency itself has been tarred by certain events, and I think whoever is elected, Republican or Democrat, will have the obligation to lift that office to heights that are beyond challenge in terms of integrity and honor.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: So interesting how careful he was being there. I mean, he just -- he didn't want to sort of besmirch the office. He could have -- his son was running for president at that time, Michael.

SMERCONISH: And that remarkable op-ed that I know you're familiar with, Alisyn, in "The Washington Post" today, where President Clinton reflects on the value he placed on the friendship that he established with George Bush and the letter that was left behind by President Bush for Bill Clinton, which is really a remarkable document.

Speaking of service and honoring the country as well as the office, one thing if I can add, I've been going back since learning of his passing and reading portions of "All the Best," which is his very unconventional memoir, where he assembled -- he was a man of letters. He wrote letters; he saved letters. And instead of embellishing on himself, or as he would say, bragging on himself, he went back and chronologically assembled the letters that defined his life written in real time, and boy, are they a remarkable study as to the life that he said.

GREGORY: But Alisyn, you know, that soundbite, if I may, what's interesting about hearing former President Bush express that, John and I remember when President George W. Bush, Governor Bush campaigned, his closing line at all his rallies would be "I will restore honest and integrity to the Oval Office, so help me God" --

BERMAN: Honor and dignity.

GREGORY: "Honor and dignity to the Oval Office, so help me God." So there was a lot -- you know, this is where a father was helping -- was helping his son.

The thing that strikes me, too, especially when we look at the current context, is this tension between dynasty and disruption. Right? So he represented this dynastic part of the presidency, a father and a son being president for the first time since John Adams and John Quincy Adams, which they used to joke about quite a lot.

But also the disruption. Pat Buchanan challenging him in 1992, Ross Perot representing the breakdown of the Reagan revolution. And then, of course, the upstart candidate in Bill Clinton as the representative of the new South, the new Democratic Party. That was all happening, not to mention what was happening in the world and the disintegration of the Soviet Union and a new world order that it was at the dawn of.

So all of that coming together in his time.

BERMAN: I say, you talking about dynasty there, the first time I met George H.W. Bush, and there is no picture, is when I was a freshman at Andover.

CAMEROTA: Well, prove it.

BERMAN: At Phillips Academy. He came to visit at Andover when he was vice president and then came back two years later as president. Can you imagine a politician today going to his prep school twice?

GREGORY: Yes.

BERMAN: These days? No. I mean, he --

GREGORY: You went to Andover as a student?

BERMAN: I went to Andover as a student.

GREGORY: Really? A man of (ph) the people.

BERMAN: But my point is, you know, a national politician, the political liability of latching onto your prep school today --

GREGORY: Right, right.

SESNO: But it was -- it's a brand of his loyalty, you know. Loyalty was a very important part of George Herbert Walker Bush. Loyalty to family. Loyalty to friends. Loyalty to institutions. Loyalty to America. And I think that's what you saw, and that was genuine. And he felt that and he expressed it in that sound bite when he was talking to you. He felt the weight of the office on his shoulders. He expressed that frequently.

BERMAN: Again, because you were there. We talk about him. We sometimes forget, this guy knew politics. It wasn't that he couldn't play the game. I mean, 1988 was in the -- in some ways the archetypal negative campaign.

SESNO: He knew them -- he knew them, but he didn't love them. Didn't love campaigning.

BERMAN: Well, but what people say, critics say, is he hired people to come do it for him.

SESNO: He did that.

BERMAN: Roger Ailes.

SESNO: He did that.

BERMAN: Among others.

SESNO: He did that, yes. And Manafort and others. I mean, he dealt with people who were out there who did the dirty work. But the difference between then and now, is he's "You do it. I don't really want --"

[07:15:07] GREGORY: But look at -- look at how he handled Nixon, too. Right? He's head of the RNC, where he's defending him, and he talked about, "I've got two stacks of mail, those saying why aren't you closer? Why aren't you going farther away?" And ultimately had to pull away from it.

So he knew -- he knew how to deal with the politics of the day and how to stay relevant through all of that, even though he was -- he definitely was squeamish about it.

And again, his son learned all of those lessons and learned how not to pull punches at all. PHILLIP: And even as he did that, I think you see the -- both roles

being played at the same time, both the politician, which all of these people are. They're all politicians in some way doing a lot of dirty work in their campaigns. But in the office of the president understanding what the imperative of moral leadership is for that office.

I think you saw that throughout his presidency, and then even more so, in some ways, afterwards when he left office and became kind of like the father figure of the former presidents' club.

BERMAN: Right.

PHILLIP: He -- he was sort of the patriarch of that group in a lot of ways. And I think the fact that this week we have an opportunity to see what the transition of leadership means in this country, which is that they all get to be in a room after they've left office, and we honor them for their service, is extremely important.

It's important that President Trump is going to be part of that, because for so long he has tried to be apart from that group. I think this could be one of those rare times when he comes back into the fold and, for this country, that's important.

BERMAN: It's a moment that only happens in America. My boss was mocking me for noting you don't see former kings going to current kings' funerals, because they're all dead. But that's the point. That's the point. We have former presidents here, which is what you have in a democracy.

There's a moment, a poignant moment from last night at the Kennedy Center Honors, attended by David Gregory, because he's fabulous. But President George H.W. Bush was honored there. You can see the standing ovation.

David, are you there?

GREGORY: Yes, well, you know, Gloria Stefan, who was the host, had told such a personal story, how they were -- she was playing, I think, at George Mason, and they invited her family over. And President Bush spent 45 minutes talking to her son about education and the in and outs of the presidency. The next day she had that terrible accident, and he checked with her immediately afterward and checked in with her over the years.

Again, this famous note-writer and correspondent with people was so caring and kept in touch with her. And it was just one of a couple of tributes, people who had talked about their relationship. And a lot of people in the audience, too, were long-time supporters, politically, of the Bushes, talked about him and remembered him.

CAMEROTA: That's really nice. The art of note writing. That is really a beautiful thing that I hope has not gone away.

SESNO: No, it has.

GREGORY: It has.

CAMEROTA: Guess what? Donald Trump -- President Trump also writes handwritten notes, or he did. I've received one.

PHILLIP: He does.

CAMEROTA: I think -- I hope that Twitter has not superseded that.

PHILLIP: It will be interesting to see if we eventually get to the point where we do get a collection of President Trump's handwritten notes. Because Alisyn is right. He does write them to people. He writes them on pictures. He writes them on things that they've written that he likes. He sends people notes, and it's not just the tweets. But we get to rarely see that private side of him.

SESNO: Do you have time for a quick story?

BERMAN: Yes.

SESNO: So one of the things that the Bushes did -- and it was totally genuine -- was they invited the White House press corps over to visit to their home, Kennebunkport, in the summertime for a family gathering. So we went.

I had two little boys at the time, a 2-year-old and a 5-year-old. And there are these great pictures with President Bush engaging one and then engaging the other.

And when the pictures came, I said, "Is there any way the president would sign these to the boys?" And they said, "Of course." And in they went.

About a few weeks later, I got the pictures back with one problem, "to Matthew" was on the picture to Chris and "to Chris" was on the picture -- what do I do with this? It's the president of the United States, do I ask him to resign these pictures?"

So I just had casually mentioned something to someone in the lower press office, and they said, "Absolutely. The president will want to have you have the right pictures for your boys." He went back in, they printed new pictures, he signed them, lovely signatures, and my boys have them today.

CAMEROTA: That's beautiful.

GREGORY: We got to visit Kennebunkport only for a couple of days, if W. was there.

BERMAN: No, it went. He went.

GREGORY: And I said, "Couldn't you just spend a week up here?"

And he said -- he would say, "You white wine swillers would love that."

BERMAN: That's the morning talk. CAMEROTA: He knew you well.

SESNO: But he still -- you know, they still went head to head with us, you know. I mean, they didn't co-opt us; we didn't get co-opted. They understood the relationship, didn't love it. Didn't love it, wouldn't be prudent. There it was.

CAMEROTA: Guys, we have only three hours. Wrap it up. Hard wrap. Thank you all very much for all the remembrances.

So what was working with President Bush like if you were on the other side of the political aisle? Well former Senate majority leader, George Mitchell, is going to share his memories of that time, next.

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[07:24:01] CAMEROTA: Well, in a time marked by political division, Washington this week will come together to celebrate the life of former president George H.W. Bush. Our nation's 41st president will lie in state at the U.S. Capitol until Wednesday, when his funeral will take place.

Joining us now to talk about all of this, we have former Democratic Senator George Mitchell of Maine. He was Senate Majority Leader during the Bush presidency.

Senator Mitchell, great to have you here. And we do want to hear your remembrances, particularly during your time as majority leader from a different party than President Bush. What was that dynamic like?

GEORGE MITCHELL, FORMER SENATE MAJORITY LEADER: Well, we had a good relationship from the beginning. We had a covalent (ph) bond of love of Maine. I was born and raised there. President Bush's family home is there, of course, and he loved it. And his family are esteemed members of our community in Maine.

In the first two years, we had a great deal of bipartisan cooperation. I, in the Senate, with Senator Bob Dole, and the both of us with the president himself. In the last two years, as we got closer to the next presidential election, it got more difficult.

But in that first term we enacted a lot of major legislation, and the one I give President Bush great credit for was the Clean Air Act, a major achievement, which if I have a moment, I'd like to describe.

CAMEROTA: Yes, please.

MITCHELL: I'd been -- I'd been part of a bipartisan group of senators who, for nearly a decade, had pushed for action on clean air, but we made no progress. President Reagan was adamantly opposed, as were many major industries; and we didn't get anywhere.

Then President Bush was elected, took office and within weeks he made a major speech saying that he favored clean air legislation, which dramatically shifted the question from will there be a clean air bill over to what will be in the bill that the president proposes? And it's clear to me that there would not have been clean air legislation but for his courageous decision.

We then had a tough two-year negotiation which produced a good bill that stands to this day as a testament to public health protection through bipartisan action.

CAMEROTA: And how do you think President Bush felt about the rollbacks of regulation and environmental changes that are happening now?

MITCHELL: Well, I don't know. Personally, I've not discussed it with him, but I think he must have been disheartened by some of the dramatic changes that have been made, that have adversely affected the public health of Americans. But that will be a tale for others to tell.

CAMEROTA: In those two years that you had bipartisan cooperation, why was that possible then and it doesn't seem possible now?

MITCHELL: Well, the second question would take a lot longer than we have to describe the increase in hyper-partisanship in our politics, the dramatic flood of money into it, the increasing use of intense partisanship in the drawing of congressional district lines, gerrymandering.

But it was possible at the time, in part because of the concept that President Bush had of the presidency and politics. He was a practical person. He conducted a very tough campaign to be elected, but he was an honorable man. He believed in country. He, I think, wanted to get things done. I think his concern about the environment was genuine.

It was also spurred, in part, by his friendship with the Canadian prime minister, and Canada was very much concerned about the adverse effects of so-called acid rain on their eastern waters. So it was a combination of factors, and we, of course, wanted action.

It just wasn't clean air. We enacted the Americans with Disabilities Act, major legislation. Bob Dole, a Republican; Tom Harkin, a Democrat, were the leaders of that. The president signed it into law.

And after a very tough battle over taxes and spending, we enacted a very strong budget act in 1990, which took steps toward a budget- neutral -- a neutral budget, no deficit. That took place years later after Clinton's plan followed on. And that was already a tough issue for the president, because of course, he'd made a pledge during the campaign not to raise taxes, and in that budget there were some taxes that caused him some political pain. But it was the right thing to do for the country.

CAMEROTA: Yes, we've talked about how -- how rare that seems now, to do something that's right for the country even at your own political peril.

While we have you, we do want to take this opportunity to ask you about some current events. And we also have a, I think some video right now, a live shot of the plane, Air Force One, that is getting ready to bring -- there, the sun is coming up in Texas. It's a beautiful shot as the plane gets ready to bring President Bush's casket to Washington.

So what are your thoughts on what we've just seen at the G-20 with President Trump and President Xi of China? Do you think that President Trump's gambit on a tariffs -- on imposing tariffs and on the trade war threat has ended up working, in some way, to get President Xi's attention and bring him to the table to negotiate?

MITCHELL: Well, I think that the pause for further negotiations is a good thing, and I hope that they will reach agreement within the 90- day time frame or as soon thereafter as possible.

I think President Trump is right to be concerned about China's illegal trade practices. Every American president in my lifetime in recent years has had the same position and pushed hard for changes within China.

Where I disagree is the method he is using that is general tariffs on a variety of goods. I would have preferred more targeted action directed toward those sections of the Chinese economy in which they are engaging in illegal technology.