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Former Trump Lawyer: Trump Made Hush Payments Knowing It Was Wrong; Cohen Says Trump 'Does Not Tell the Truth'. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired December 14, 2018 - 07:00   ET

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


MICHAEL COHEN, FORMER LAWYER FOR DONALD TRUMP: I just reviewed the documents in order to protect him. I gave loyalty to someone who truthfully does not deserve loyalty.

[07:00:11] GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS, ABC NEWS: He was trying to hide what you were doing, correct?

COHEN: Correct.

STEPHANOPOULOS: And he knew it was wrong?

COHEN: Of course.

STEPHANOPOULOS: And he was doing that to help his election?

COHEN: You have to remember at what point in time that this matter came about, two weeks or so before the election, post the Billy Bush comments, so yes, he was very concerned about how this would affect the election.

STEPHANOPOULOS: To help his campaign?

COHEN: To help him and the campaign.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: President Trump, of course, has denied directing Cohen. So let's discuss all of this with Maggie Haberman, White House correspondent for "The New York Times" and CNN political analyst.

Maggie, we're waiting for more sound from Michael Cohen, breaking his silence this morning with George Stephanopoulos. But look, you've known Michael Cohen for years, as have we. He was always at the president's right hand. What -- what do you see when you see Michael Cohen this morning?

MAGGIE HABERMAN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: I think that Michael Cohen is certainly telling the version of reality of his experience with Donald Trump that I witnessed over many years, and that I think you did, too.

I think that he was Donald Trump's right-hand man. I think that Donald Trump liked nothing more than to bark orders at -- at Michael Cohen. I think Michael Cohen's statement that nothing happened at Trump Tower without Donald Trump knowing about it of this magnitude, involving his money, is certainly my experience in covering them over the years.

And so I think that what he is saying is -- is certainly consistent with that. He also says very plainly that the president was aware that what he was doing was improper, what he, Michael Cohen, was doing was improper.

I guess the question is whether the president knew it was legally wrong, and that is going to be where, I think, his lawyers say, "No, he didn't."

But I think this is the clearest that we have seen Michael Cohen speak in his own words, in his own defense. He looks -- he looks very rough. It is -- it is -- you know, it is sad to see, frankly, after he has been sort of holed up in isolation.

I think that the president is going to continue trying to undermine what Michael Cohen is saying. And Michael Cohen, look, I mean, the SDNY, the Southern District of New York where he was in court and where he pleaded guilty and where he was sentenced, prosecutors there went out of their way to try to attack him and his character, which does undermine him going forward.

But certainly, what he is saying is consistent with what we witnessed over the years in terms of how they interacted and how Trump Organization ran.

BERMAN: Yes, two things. It's also consistent with the case being laid out by federal prosecutors. Michael Cohen said in that interview, in that one brief soundbite, that the president directed him to make the payments. He said the president knew it was wrong. He said the president tried to cover it up, and he said that the president did it to help get elected in 2016. All of those things are central to the case, not just against Michael Cohen but to a case if they were ever to make one against the president.

But beyond that, Maggie, you know, I've now seen this three times as we played it this morning. And I can't match the Michael Cohen I just saw there with the Michael Cohen who would yell at me on the phone in 2012 -- or 2013, or 2015, when defending the president and telling me how perfect the president is, and about how fiercely loyal he was to the president.

And there's that quote there at the end for Michael Cohen: "I gave loyalty to someone who truthfully does not deserve loyalty."

HABERMAN: There's something else he says in this interview, which isn't in the sound you played but where he talks about how he thinks that Trump has changed in this job, that he essentially doesn't understand the system that he is representing.

And that last part matches what we have heard any number of former administration aides talk about, that the president doesn't understand the system he serves. We have seen the president repeatedly repeatedly denigrate the justice system.

I think where we would personally disagree with Michael is just what I have seen of Donald Trump, I don't think he's any different than who he used to be. I do think the pressure of the job is intense and can change people.

I think it is worth pointing out here that, yes, Michael Cohen's version of events has changed over time. Donald Trump's version of events makes very little sense that's based on what we have heard Michael Cohen say in court and what prosecutors say happened. And given that we know prosecutors have interviewed the CFO of the Trump Organization, Allen Weisselberg, in relation to the Cohen case, we have to assume that he at least gave something that matched up with what Cohen said had happened.

Donald Trump has given an explanation that went from he didn't know about this to maybe he did know about it, but this was a private transaction. These were not women who he had relationships with. And yet he -- Donald Trump who does not really like to part with his money on a good day, somehow was fine with OK-ing payments to these women just to make them go away. It is very hard to make any sense of what he has said over time on this.

[07:05:05] CAMEROTA: Here is the verbatim of what you were just referring to, another thing that Michael Cohen has just said. Again, this morning he is speaking out for the first time. So here is what he said in reference to this. Again, this morning he is speaking out for the first time.

So here is what he said in reference to what you were saying: "I think the pressure of the job is much more than what he," Donald Trump, "thought it was going to be. It's not like the Trump Organization, where he would bark out orders and people would blindly follow what he wanted done. There's a system here. He doesn't understand the system."

Maggie, I have been so struck by that, even before Michael Cohen said it.

HABERMAN: Yes. Absolutely.

CAMEROTA: That he thought that he could run it like a business, and not just any business, his business.

HABERMAN: His business. Correct.

CAMEROTA: The Trump Organization.

HABERMAN: That's right. He did not -- yes.

CAMEROTA: That voters thought, well, it would be great to have a businessman. Look, somebody who -- who is a mogul, somebody who is a multimillionaire or billionaire, whatever. That's what we need in this country.

And I think that we see every day his frustration, Donald Trump's frustration, that things in the government do not run like the Trump Organization. HABERMAN: The president of the United States yesterday, in talking

about Michael Cohen's case, said that what we have is a, quote unquote, terrible system in the country. He's talking about the justice system that he overseas. That is a breathtaking statement from the president.

I continue to be -- we are all so sort of collectively numbed to a lot of what gets said, that a lot of things don't register with surprise any more. And that was a remarkable statement, and it was the statement that he made in the same -- the same day that he tweeted that Michael Cohen's family had been, quote, unquote, "temporarily spared charges."

We know that, when Michael Cohen pleaded guilty, it was in part because he believed that his wife and possibly father-in-law were facing charges, that prosecutors had threatened to do that. They've not said that publicly and said -- they've not indicated they are doing that at all. So the fact that the president of the United States would raise that is remarkable.

BERMAN: You know, and this is part of the president's defense that he's making on Twitter and publicly, and interviews where he's saying there was no crime committed, which is a different version than he said before, which is "I didn't order the payments. I didn't know about them."

George Conway, who obviously is married to Kellyanne Conway. He's been commenting on the president's version of events. And let me just read you what George Conway said: "Given that Trump has repeatedly lied about the Daniels and McDougal payments and. given that he lies about virtually everything else to the point that his own former personal lawyer described him as an F-ing liar, why should we take his word over that of federal prosecutors?"

Maggie.

HABERMAN: I don't really care what George Conway tweets, but I do think that there are plenty of people who have asked questions about why it is that the president has given such a different version of events. And he -- this is where the corrosive lying that we have all -- the three of us have talked about over the course of the last many months, that has come out of the White House, that has come to the president, does catch up to you at a certain point.

There are points, as a president, there are points for anyone where you are going to want people to take your word over somebody else's, and this is why the president acts as if he is living in a perpetual ten minutes of time, where nothing matters that was said previously; and it doesn't matter how it impacts it going forward. And he is now facing the repercussions of that, I think.

CAMEROTA: OK. Maggie and everyone, listen up. We have brand-new sound. This is where Michael Cohen for the first time publicly addresses the president's attacks on him.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) COHEN: -- all the truth. I took responsibility for my actions, and instead of him taking responsibility for his actions, what does he do? He attacks my family.

And after yesterday, again, being before the court and taking the responsibility and receiving a sentence of 36 months, the only thing he can do is to tweet about my family?

STEPHANOPOULOS: He said in the tweets, he repeated in an interview later on that basically he says, his claim -- you are lying about him to protect your wife, to protect your father-in-law.

COHEN: Inaccurate. He knows the truth. I know the truth. Others know the truth.

And here is the truth. The people of the United States of America, the people of the world, don't believe what he's saying. The man doesn't tell the truth. And it's sad that I should take responsibility for his dirty deeds.

STEPHANOPOULOS: You lied for him for a long time.

COHEN: More than ten years.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Why?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

STEPHANOPOULOS: What? Why? Why, Michael, why? Maggie, what did you hear there?

HABERMAN: I think that, look, this is a -- this is the question I should have liked to have heard the rest, where George Stephanopoulos says -- asked him about lying for a long time and he lied for ten years.

There's a lot rationalization that goes on in what people who work for the president over a long period of time tell themselves about what he's doing. It's either that's just how he talks or he doesn't really mean some of the things he says, or well, but he didn't really do this. And he's very good at bending people to his will, and that is what he did with Michael. So I think that that is no surprise.

[07:10:09] I think that Michael is sincere that he does not want to be the fall guy for Donald Trump's life, and for things that are happening that, you know, is at least clearly seem directed at Trump.

Look, again, I think it is important to note that the president's defense and what we are hearing from his folks is, well, lying you know, to the American public is not a crime. It's not -- there's no legal implication, and that -- that may be true.

But when you are the president of the United States, the bar is supposed to be higher than, well, that's not a crime. And Donald Trump continues to act as if he does not hold the office he has. And this goes to the point that Michael made to George Stephanopoulos about not understanding the system that he's in.

He doesn't seem to understand that there are real-world repercussions of what you say, that you're not just spinning a story to "The New York Post" or to "Page Six" or to whomever. That this -- you're leading the country. Your words matter at a different level, and including tweeting about a private citizen who has been sentenced in a case, tweeting about his family.

BERMAN: All right, Maggie, stand by. Because more sound from Michael Cohen, asked what he has given the special counsel, Robert Mueller. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

COHEN: Because the special counsel stated emphatically that the information that I gave to them was creditable and helpful. There's a substantial amount of information that they possess that corroborates the fact that I am telling the truth.

STEPHANOPOULOS: You're done with the lying?

COHEN: I'm done with the lying. I'm done being loyal to President Trump. And --

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BERMAN: "I am done being loyal to President Trump." I think that much is clear, Maggie.

HABERMAN: I don't think that's a mystery. I mean, I think that -- and I think you will probably see him say additional things going forward. He has a window of time until early March before he is supposed to report to federal custody and start serving a three-year prison sentence.

I think that he is very frustrated and angry that his life has been reduced to sort of a piece of rubble. Alongside, you know, whatever has happened with the president over the last two years, while the president, essentially, is unscathed, you know, that he himself is -- is taking blame.

Look, Michael Cohen had to plead guilty to other crimes that were not just related to Donald Trump. He pleaded guilty to issues related to taxes among others, and those were his own life.

You saw prosecutors paint a very negative portrait, as I mentioned, of Michael Cohen, in their presentencing memo. It was -- it was a strikingly harsh memo, and it was very much at odds with what the special counsel wrote. It was like reading about two different people.

But I think that Michael Cohen is going to do everything he can to make sure that people do not remember him as the guy who paid for, you know, hush payments, or executed hush payments to an adult film star who claimed she'd had an affair with a candidate, I think. He does not want his life reduced to that. CAMEROTA: Very quickly, I want to bring in -- sorry, Maggie. I just

want to bring in.

HABERMAN: I was going to say, he has two children. He's got a wife. He's got a family. He's got lots of other things in his life that he has done. And I think he does not want to be this to be the only thing anyone ever thinks of him for.

CAMEROTA: Understood. And in fact, that picture of his family in front of the courthouse, as he's ushering his daughter in and it's on a crush, it's -- you know, it was just very sad.

HABERMAN: It's very sad to see.

CAMEROTA: To watch the downfall of somebody who believed in someone and misplaced that trust.

Elie Honig is a former federal prosecutor. You've been listening to everything that Michael Cohen said. I'm very interesting where he says that what he offered to federal prosecutors or whatever, the SDNY, I don't know, was substantial. The evidence that he turned over to them was substantial.

But he doesn't have a conventional plea deal. He didn't make a plea deal before he handed over whatever evidence. That's interesting.

ELIE HONIG, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: As is often the case with Michael Cohen, he's kind of right. What he did was he gave information that both Mueller and the Southern District said in writing we found to be credible and consistent with the other evidence.

The problem was he didn't want to answer all the questions the Southern District had, and that was their complaint with him in their -- in their memo. They said, "You do not get to cooperate. I worked at the Southern District. You do not get to cooperate halfway."

When you come into cooperate, you tell us everything you know about everybody: your mother-in-law, your former boss, maybe your kids. Anything who did anything wrong, you have to tell us everything. He was not willing to do that. That's why the Southern District cast him out.

The Southern District did not say he was dishonest or unreliable. To the contrary, the Southern District actually says what he gave us, what he gave Mueller was credible and consistent with the other evidence. Mueller was a little bit more positive.

But I think that's the essence of Michael Cohen. He's the kind of witness that's only good to the extent he's corroborated by other hard documents, hard evidence. And I do think, look, he is -- look, he's minimizing. He's self-pitying for himself, but ultimately, the core of what he says seems to be backed up by other evidence.

BERMAN: All right. Elie Honig, Maggie Haberman, I would love to talk to you guys for hours more. So many more questions, but you know what? We're going to have much more of this coming up. CAMEROTA: Yes. Michael Cohen is speaking out this morning, and we

have more of that interview, so stick around.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:19:31] CAMEROTA: President Trump's long-time lawyer and now convicted felon, Michael Cohen, is breaking his silence this morning and he is speaking out for the first time since being sentenced. Cohen is not mincing words. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

COHEN: I know the truth. Others know the truth. And here is the truth. The people of the United States of America, the people of the world, don't believe what he's saying. The man doesn't tell the truth, and it's sad that I should take responsibility for his dirty deeds.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[07:20:03] CAMEROTA: Joining us now is Democratic Senator Jeff Merkley. He is in Texas. He's leading a congressional delegation investigating the administration's treatment of migrant children who have crossed the southern border, and we have a lot to talk about with that, as well, Senator.

But first, I just want to get your response to when you hear Michael Cohen, truly one of Donald Trump's most loyal soldiers over the past decade, say what he's saying this morning. What are your thoughts?

SEN. JEFF MERKLEY (D), OREGON: Well, I think what he says that nobody believes the president, he's absolutely right. We have a president who compulsively lies about everything. We've known this for a long time. And when he says "I was loyal to a man who didn't deserve my loyalty," I think that resonates for a lot of people.

CAMEROTA: I want to talk about what you're doing right now, because you're at the border, and you had planned to go to the border to investigate what's happening with children and the family separations and how children are being treated in custody, even before we got this terrible news that this 7-year-old girl from Guatemala died. She died in U.S. Border Patrol custody.

They tried to get her help,, it sounds like. But she was so dehydrated by the time she got to them, they sent her to a hospital, and she died. What are your thoughts as you hear that story play out?

MERKLEY: Well, when I heard it last night, it was just -- it's shocking. And it's a reflection of the horrific circumstances in which families are traveling to the U.S.

But -- and I hope she got immediate care, and the received water as all as everybody should at the border, but, yes, it's -- it's tragic and awful; and it should make us think about the fact that right now, the United States is locking up 14,000 children in a series of child prisons across America. And they're virtually out of sight and out of the news; and we need to get to the bottom of how the U.S. is treating children.

CAMEROTA: But there's no suggestion, as far as you know, from where you are this morning that Border Patrol did anything wrong in terms of helping to exacerbate her situation?

MERKLEY: That's right. There's no information that I saw at all last night.

CAMEROTA: And so are there still children who are separated from their parents, who were separated during the ill-conceived Trump policy of family separations, who are still not reunited with their parents?

MERKLEY: That there are a few dozen children who are still -- still separated. And certainly, all those children who are separated were traumatized, several hundred children.

But we also have now the -- a new strategy of traumatizing children, which is what we're going to lock them up. We're going to lock them up with their families in internment camps; and I'm going to be visiting two of those internment camps today, one in Daly, and one in Carnes, Texas. And children belong. They belong in homes, in schools and parks and playgrounds.

CAMEROTA: Of course, Senator, but --

MERKLEY: -- and not being locked up behind barbed wire.

CAMEROTA: This is where the devil is in the details. If you believe that their parents are breaking the law by crossing the border illegally, your only other option is to let them free into the interior of the country, and as you know, many people object to that, and that doesn't work either.

So they have to be locked up, either with their family or not with their family. What's the other option?

MERKLEY: The other option is a family case management program. It's a program that was shut down by President Trump. It's a program that the inspector general of homeland security said in his report that 100 percent of the families showed up for their asylum hearings.

So when you have a program that works perfectly well, that treats people with respect. And you shut it down and choose to lock up families instead, and lock up thousands of children by themselves in camps, then you're doing something that's totally unnecessary.

It's designed to traumatize these kids in order to send a message to the world. Do not -- do not, if you're fleeing persecution come to the United States. That's the point. We had a program that worked. The United States government, President Trump, shut it down.

CAMEROTA: Yes. That was a pilot program that had, I think 100 percent success rate, and that needs to be re-examined. Next to the border wall. So as you know, the president wants $5 billion. As you know, Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer are objecting to that, and the government might shut down a week from today.

Now, how is what President Trump asking for different from what Congress wanted in 2006 that then Barack Obama supported, Hillary Clinton supported, Nancy Pelosi supported, which was fencing. Call it fencing, call it a wall. Why do we object -- meaning you guys -- now to a border wall when border fencing was considered by Democrats to be successful, then?

MERKLEY: Yes, border security, including fencing -- as I've been down to the border. I've seen the fencing. You can see through it. In fact, the border guard itself says a concrete wall is an absolute mistake.

[07:25:08] They say the border guard needs to be able to see when it's going on on the other side, that the wall doesn't stop any bad things from happening. It just makes it impossible for the folks on our side to see what's developing, and it makes it more difficult for them.

So we're not going to fund a Fourth Century strategy, easily defeated. It makes life more difficult, even for security. So here's a president who's claiming he wants a wall for security, but it does the opposite. Why should we fund that? That makes no sense at all, and we're not going to do it.

CAMEROTA: And so you are prepared for a partial government shutdown a week from today?

MERKLEY: Well, the only reason there would be a shutdown is the president is throwing a temper tantrum, saying he wants less security rather than more by pursuing a stupid strategy, a dumb and dumber strategy. And he -- it's his right to veto the bill if he -- if he wants, but it's -- it's in his hands. And he bragged about wanting to -- he's been aching to do this for a long time. He sees this as a dramatic gesture. By the way, it's only 25 percent of the government would shut down. So it is going to look very different from previous shutdowns, should the president do this.

CAMEROTA: Senator Jeff Merkley, thank you very much for giving us your perspective from the border.

MERKLEY: You're welcome. Thanks, Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: Sure.

BERMAN: I'll say it's not a good sign where Republican John Kennedy tells you yesterday he's pretty sure there's going to be a shutdown, and Jeff Merkley there, a Democrat, makes it pretty clear he thinks there's going to be a shutdown. I'd get ready if I were you.

Meanwhile, Michael Cohen unleashing on President Trump and revealing just how much he told Robert Mueller's investigators. More of, really, his extraordinary first comments after being sentenced. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)