Return to Transcripts main page

NEW DAY

Rod Rosenstein Reportedly Leaving Justice Department after Confirmation of New Attorney General; Paul Manafort's Attorney Reveal Manafort gave Trump Campaign Polling Data to Russian with Kremlin Intelligence Ties. Aired 8-8:30a.

Aired January 9, 2019 - 8:00   ET

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


[08:00:00] GEORGE W. BUSH, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: -- are decent people who work hard, support their families, practice their faith, and lead responsible lives.

We are a nation of laws, and we must enforce our laws. We are also a nation of immigrants, and we must uphold that tradition which has strengthened our country in so many ways.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN AVLON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: And that's your reality check.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: So fascinating to hear it in comparison, John. Thank you very much.

We do have some breaking news on the Russia investigation, so let's get to it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is CNN breaking news.

CAMEROTA: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to your NEW DAY. It is Wednesday, January 9th, 8:00 in the east. We are following breaking news because CNN has learned that deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein, who launched and has overseen the Mueller investigation since Jeff Sessions recused himself, is on his way out. We have new video of Rosenstein leaving his house. I didn't mean on the way out of his house. I meant of his position. But here is the latest video of him heading to work.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: He doesn't have to be bumped.

CAMEROTA: He's actually bumped. Rosenstein is expected to leave the Justice Department in the coming weeks after a new attorney general is confirmed. So with Rosenstein gone, the Mueller investigation will be overseen by people who have publicly expressed hostility towards at least some of that probe.

BERMAN: We have major news in that investigation as well. Lawyers for Paul Manafort, they inadvertently revealed that Manafort shared internal Trump campaign polling data with an associate tied to Russian intelligence, a direct link between the highest levels of the Trump campaign with someone known to be connected to Russian intelligence. So is that collusion?

Also, in just hours the president will meet with Congressional leaders to try and break the stalemate over the border wall funding. That stalemate has shut down the government for 19 days now. The president took his case directly to the American people in an Oval Office address last night.

Let's begin with CNN's Jessica Schneider with breaking news on Rod Rosenstein. Jessica?

JESSICA SCHNEIDER, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: John, the deputy attorney general, who has been the target of the president, of course, while overseeing the Russia probe, Rod Rosenstein is expected to leave the Justice Department in the coming weeks. A source telling CNN the plan right now is for Rod Rosenstein to depart after the president's new pick for attorney general, William Barr is confirmed. And with hearings on William Barr set to begin next week, any confirmation of him likely would happen in mid-February at the earliest.

So a source, though, stressing to us that Rosenstein is not being forced out, that he has told the White House of his intentions to leave once William Barr is confirmed. But of course, the big question in all this is what will Rosenstein's departure and Barr's likely entry as attorney general mean for the Russia probe? Because Rosenstein has previously signaled that he would leave the department when he was satisfied that Mueller's investigation was either complete or close enough to completion that it was protected, because remember, it was Rosenstein who was the one who appointed Special Counsel Mueller, and Rosenstein over the past two years, he has made clear that Mueller's authority could be somewhat expansive. It was Rosenstein who wrote in an August, 2017 memo that Mueller should investigate allegations that Paul Manafort was colluding with Russian officials to interfere in the 2016 election. And of course that directive became all the more poignant after yesterday's inadvertent revelation from Manafort's lawyers that Manafort actually gave polling data to a Russian operative with ties to the Kremlin during the 2016 campaign. So of course, that directive from Rosenstein playing out in court documents yesterday.

Once Rosenstein leaves, the question will become how will William Barr, once he takes over presumably the attorney general position, how will he handle the Russia probe especially since he's written memos and op-eds questioning the obstruction of justice part of the probe. So John and Alisyn, a lot to come here. We'll see how it all plays out. Rosenstein expected to leave in the coming weeks and then really hand over this Russia investigation to the incoming likely attorney general William Barr. Guys?

CAMEROTA: So much news to cover. Jessica, thank you very much.

Let's discuss it all with CNN chief political correspondent Dana Bash, former FBI supervisory special agent Josh Campbell who served under Rod Rosenstein, and former assistant U.S. attorney Elie Honig. Great to have all of you. Josh, I want to start with you. Because you worked for Rod Rosenstein, you know him well, would he be leaving now if he were concerned that William Barr was going to scuttle the Mueller investigation somehow?

JOSH CAMPBELL, FORMER FBI SUPERVISORY AGENT: So it's hard to say. And obviously it will be interesting to hear from Mr. Rosenstein whenever he actually departs. I imagine as someone who's been very concerned, or at least there is the appearance he's been very concerned about his legacy and his reputation, I imagine he's going to come out and describe what it was like on the inside and his actual reason for leaving. I think one thing that it's interesting is as we look ahead, I don't think history is going to be very kind to the legacy of Rod Rosenstein.

[08:05:01] And the reason I say that is this. We talk about the notion that he has stood up to the president and has basically been the last line of defense, keeping the president of the United States from firing Robert Mueller. But if you go back in time and history and remember, he is the reason why this all began. If you go back to May, he wrote the memo that allowed the president to justify removing the FBI director under whom I served, which was the person investigating the president.

Now, there's been some reporting that whenever the president asked Rosenstein for this memo he also wanted him to add a part that he was innocent as it related to Russia, and Rosenstein said, no, no, that's not necessary. And the reason that's important is because it tells us, according to the reporting, that he knew Russia was on the president's mind and allowed himself to be used to remove the FBI director.

Since obviously he stood up. He appointed the special counsel, but I think as someone who has been known within the FBI and in certain circles in the Justice Department to really focus on the direction of political winds, he probably saw the colossal mistake that was and was attempting to play clean-up. So history has a strange way of condensing time. and we'll remember these attacks not so much in the day to day but the larger reason that's there and the lasting implications for what he did. And I think that that's going to be the thing he's remembered for.

BERMAN: And just so people know, Josh worked very closely with James Comey whom the Rod Rosenstein memo was used to fire. That was the purpose of that memo there. Dana Bash, confirmation hearings next week for William Barr to be the next attorney general. It seems to me that the stakes of the hearings just went up a lot. The need to get questions answered from him just went up a lot.

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely. There has been a bipartisan push that's been not fruitful at all so far to pass legislation to protect Robert Mueller's investigation. Because those bipartisan senators can't get Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leading, to bring it to the floor, their focus is going to be to effectively get the Robert Mueller protection legislation done through the confirmation process, meaning he is going to be -- William Barr is going to be grilled and really pinned down, at least the attempt to pin him down will be pretty extreme, I'm told, by people on Capitol Hill to promise to protect Robert Mueller, to promise not just to say, OK, the investigation can go on, but to give specifics in terms of promising that the resources will be there, and every step of the way that the Mueller investigation would need to not only see its completion but see the light of day as well, because, remember, the person in charge of the investigation, now Rod Rosenstein and soon to be Bill Barr, will be the person to determine what happens to that report.

Right now the only thing that technically has to happen is it has to go to the Hill. It has to be seen by the Senate judiciary chair, the House judiciary chair. And that's basically it. It is up to the discretion of the attorney general or right now the deputy attorney general in charge to decide what else happens with it. So that's a big, big deal beyond just making sure that the investigation concludes.

CAMEROTA: Elie, the reason the people are skeptical of Bill Barr's commitment to the Mueller probe is because he supported the Robert Mueller probe before he didn't support it. And he's issued this unsolicited memo sort of saying that he didn't think the president should be subject to questioning on obstruction of justice. So of course, that got people's antenna up about him.

ELIE HONIG, FORMER ASSISTANT U.S. ATTORNEY, SOUTHERN DISTRICT, NEW YORK: Dana is right. I want to build on that. And next week's hearings - the confirmation hearings of any attorney general are naturally going to be high stakes, but next week's now are going to be even more elevated because of that memo, and that memo is bizarre. It was unsolicited. Apparently nobody asked him for it. He went out on his own. It's this detailed 20-page, 19-page memo.

And here are some of the things that he actually writes in it, because it's worth reading because I think it is alarming. And I hope our Senate Judiciary Committee, both parties, grill him on this. Here's some of the things he said. He said that Mueller's obstruction theory is fatally misconceived. He said that there is, quote, no legal prohibition on a president acting on a matter in which he has a personal stake. So think about that. That's pretty extreme. And he also says Mueller is risking becoming overly zealous and overly aggressive.

Before that, a year before that in 2017 Barr gave an interview to "The Hill" magazine in which he described Mueller's theory of obstruction as, quote, asinine, and he also said that Mueller risks, quote, taking on the look of a highly political operation to overthrow the president. So this is a guy who will is going to in front of the Senate next week up for attorney general. So they need to really to drill down on that.

[08:10:00] JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: So if I can change the subject to the other major development over the last 24 hours in the Mueller investigation, this inadvertent revelation that Paul Manafort handed over polling data. Paul Manafort was the campaign chair for the Trump campaign, handed over internal polling data to someone known to be connected to Russian intelligence. Dana, you are going covered a lot of campaigns. When you're the campaign chair sharing internal data with someone connected to the intelligence service of another country, that's unusual. BASH: Yes. That's an understatement. I heard Senator Lankford on

with you last hour diminishing it. He's a member of the intelligence committee. That actually surprised me because he's on these and a lot of issues he's not a partisan player particularly when it comes to particularly national security. And this is a five-alarm fire when it comes to national security and counterintelligence. The campaign chair, whether he had power or not, that was his title, of a major party candidate to meet with somebody who is a known operative, high- ranking operative in Russian intelligence? A, let's just say they just met and did nothing but had coffee as far as we know. That would be a big deal. But then to hand over internal polling data, there are so many questions that that raises. None of the answers is good.

CAMEROTA: Josh, I want to get back to what Dana was saying about Senator Lankford. He said this is not the smoking gun of collusion. You're the expert in smoking gun investigations. How do you see this?

CAMPBELL: I actually wrote down that phrase when I was listened to his interview because it made my eyes widen. In investigations there is rarely a smoking gun. You have different clues that you try to assemble in order to paint a picture to describe what happened, to tell a story. Rarely do you have Richard Nixon on the tape trying to obstruct an investigation. It's more nuanced than that.

And so I think the senator knows that. I'm also confused as to why he's trying to diminish this. But the American people have to understand this is a major deal to have a president's campaign manager colluding -- and I will say the word. I don't know if it's illegal what he did. That's yet to be seen. But at least colluding with a person that he knows is tied to a foreign intelligence service is just incredible.

And we have to look to history because whenever the president has been cornered on anything that's happened since he's taken office that potentially would cause him to run afoul of the law, what he's always said, well, people have done it before, it's not illegal. If you look at campaigns in our lifetime, I would doubt that any presidential campaign was conspiring with a foreign government, sharing internal information with them, particularly a hostile foreign government.

So I don't think there is anything innocent here. With respect to the president himself, obviously the question is what did he know about this? Did he know anything? But we have seen that pattern that whenever there is alleged malfeasance inside his campaign by people working on his behalf, he always says, I didn't know it, which is one hell of a way to run an operation. So that will be the question. What did he know? Did he have information about it? A lot of questions that he has to answer.

BERMAN: The campaign chair is the campaign. The campaign was sharing polling data with someone known to be connected to Russian intelligence. Senator Lankford's argued was, well, Konstantin Kilimnik and Paul Manafort have worked together for a long time. They had a business relationship separate from the Kilimnik's connection to Russian intelligence, so it isn't necessarily nefarious. I'm not sure that is a distinction that matters. HONIG: I would disagree respectfully with the senator. I think that

would be evidence I would want to introduce if I was prosecuting this case, that they had a previous relationship that hay carried on when Manafort gained access to the inner sanctum of the Trump campaign. Is it collusion in the sort of normal sense of the word, that everyday nonlegal, it's nor really a legal term, but the sense of the word before Rudy Giuliani started using it? Sure. I think Josh explained exactly, what could be more collusive than the top guy in a campaign sitting with a Russian intel operative, giving him the most sensitive, proprietary data that a political campaign has.

Could it also be a crime? Yes, it could. It is a federal crime to solicit or attempt to receive foreign election aid. And think about what appears to have been happening here. Manafort is feeding this information to the Russians right at the time when the Russian hacks are being leaked through WikiLeaks, right at the time when the social media trolls are out there for the Russians.

CAMEROTA: And they're trying to target, the social media trolls are looking to target to make it most effective. So if you have internal polling, that might help you target.

HONIG: Exactly the same as you would do in your own campaign, only you are saying, hey, Russian, foreign interests, here's your info. Make the best use of it. Target what you're doing, target your message, tailor your message. That is foreign election aid. That's a federal crime.

CAMEROTA: But does it matter, as Josh just introduced, if the president knew? Let's give the president the benefit of the doubt. He probably didn't know what Paul Manafort was doing flying off to different places to meet, pass documents. So does that matter legally if the president --

HONIG: A hundred percent yes. When you are assessing the president's liability or exposure to impeachment, that's the big question. Did he know, or was he turning a blind eye? And when you see so many people, I think the numbers is 16 people close to him including the people closest to him, his son, his son-in-law, his campaign manager had these connections with Russians.

[08:00:00] GEORGE W. BUSH, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: -- are decent people who work hard, support their families, practice their faith, and lead responsible lives.

We are a nation of laws, and we must enforce our laws. We are also a nation of immigrants, and we must uphold that tradition which has strengthened our country in so many ways.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN AVLON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: And that's your reality check.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: So fascinating to hear it in comparison, John. Thank you very much.

We do have some breaking news on the Russia investigation, so let's get to it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is CNN breaking news.

CAMEROTA: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to your NEW DAY. It is Wednesday, January 9th, 8:00 in the east. We are following breaking news because CNN has learned that deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein, who launched and has overseen the Mueller investigation since Jeff Sessions recused himself, is on his way out. We have new video of Rosenstein leaving his house. I didn't mean on the way out of his house. I meant of his position. But here is the latest video of him heading to work.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: He doesn't have to be bumped.

CAMEROTA: He's actually bumped. Rosenstein is expected to leave the Justice Department in the coming weeks after a new attorney general is confirmed. So with Rosenstein gone, the Mueller investigation will be overseen by people who have publicly expressed hostility towards at least some of that probe.

BERMAN: We have major news in that investigation as well. Lawyers for Paul Manafort, they inadvertently revealed that Manafort shared internal Trump campaign polling data with an associate tied to Russian intelligence, a direct link between the highest levels of the Trump campaign with someone known to be connected to Russian intelligence. So is that collusion?

Also, in just hours the president will meet with Congressional leaders to try and break the stalemate over the border wall funding. That stalemate has shut down the government for 19 days now. The president took his case directly to the American people in an Oval Office address last night.

Let's begin with CNN's Jessica Schneider with breaking news on Rod Rosenstein. Jessica?

JESSICA SCHNEIDER, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: John, the deputy attorney general, who has been the target of the president, of course, while overseeing the Russia probe, Rod Rosenstein is expected to leave the Justice Department in the coming weeks. A source telling CNN the plan right now is for Rod Rosenstein to depart after the president's new pick for attorney general, William Barr is confirmed. And with hearings on William Barr set to begin next week, any confirmation of him likely would happen in mid-February at the earliest.

So a source, though, stressing to us that Rosenstein is not being forced out, that he has told the White House of his intentions to leave once William Barr is confirmed. But of course, the big question in all this is what will Rosenstein's departure and Barr's likely entry as attorney general mean for the Russia probe? Because Rosenstein has previously signaled that he would leave the department when he was satisfied that Mueller's investigation was either complete or close enough to completion that it was protected, because remember, it was Rosenstein who was the one who appointed Special Counsel Mueller, and Rosenstein over the past two years, he has made clear that Mueller's authority could be somewhat expansive. It was Rosenstein who wrote in an August, 2017 memo that Mueller should investigate allegations that Paul Manafort was colluding with Russian officials to interfere in the 2016 election. And of course that directive became all the more poignant after yesterday's inadvertent revelation from Manafort's lawyers that Manafort actually gave polling data to a Russian operative with ties to the Kremlin during the 2016 campaign. So of course, that directive from Rosenstein playing out in court documents yesterday.

Once Rosenstein leaves, the question will become how will William Barr, once he takes over presumably the attorney general position, how will he handle the Russia probe especially since he's written memos and op-eds questioning the obstruction of justice part of the probe. So John and Alisyn, a lot to come here. We'll see how it all plays out. Rosenstein expected to leave in the coming weeks and then really hand over this Russia investigation to the incoming likely attorney general William Barr. Guys?

CAMEROTA: So much news to cover. Jessica, thank you very much.

Let's discuss it all with CNN chief political correspondent Dana Bash, former FBI supervisory special agent Josh Campbell who served under Rod Rosenstein, and former assistant U.S. attorney Elie Honig. Great to have all of you. Josh, I want to start with you. Because you worked for Rod Rosenstein, you know him well, would he be leaving now if he were concerned that William Barr was going to scuttle the Mueller investigation somehow?

JOSH CAMPBELL, FORMER FBI SUPERVISORY AGENT: So it's hard to say. And obviously it will be interesting to hear from Mr. Rosenstein whenever he actually departs. I imagine as someone who's been very concerned, or at least there is the appearance he's been very concerned about his legacy and his reputation, I imagine he's going to come out and describe what it was like on the inside and his actual reason for leaving. I think one thing that it's interesting is as we look ahead, I don't think history is going to be very kind to the legacy of Rod Rosenstein.

[08:05:01] And the reason I say that is this. We talk about the notion that he has stood up to the president and has basically been the last line of defense, keeping the president of the United States from firing Robert Mueller. But if you go back in time and history and remember, he is the reason why this all began. If you go back to May, he wrote the memo that allowed the president to justify removing the FBI director under whom I served, which was the person investigating the president.

Now, there's been some reporting that whenever the president asked Rosenstein for this memo he also wanted him to add a part that he was innocent as it related to Russia, and Rosenstein said, no, no, that's not necessary. And the reason that's important is because it tells us, according to the reporting, that he knew Russia was on the president's mind and allowed himself to be used to remove the FBI director.

Since obviously he stood up. He appointed the special counsel, but I think as someone who has been known within the FBI and in certain circles in the Justice Department to really focus on the direction of political winds, he probably saw the colossal mistake that was and was attempting to play clean-up. So history has a strange way of condensing time. and we'll remember these attacks not so much in the day to day but the larger reason that's there and the lasting implications for what he did. And I think that that's going to be the thing he's remembered for.

BERMAN: And just so people know, Josh worked very closely with James Comey whom the Rod Rosenstein memo was used to fire. That was the purpose of that memo there. Dana Bash, confirmation hearings next week for William Barr to be the next attorney general. It seems to me that the stakes of the hearings just went up a lot. The need to get questions answered from him just went up a lot.

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely. There has been a bipartisan push that's been not fruitful at all so far to pass legislation to protect Robert Mueller's investigation. Because those bipartisan senators can't get Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leading, to bring it to the floor, their focus is going to be to effectively get the Robert Mueller protection legislation done through the confirmation process, meaning he is going to be -- William Barr is going to be grilled and really pinned down, at least the attempt to pin him down will be pretty extreme, I'm told, by people on Capitol Hill to promise to protect Robert Mueller, to promise not just to say, OK, the investigation can go on, but to give specifics in terms of promising that the resources will be there, and every step of the way that the Mueller investigation would need to not only see its completion but see the light of day as well, because, remember, the person in charge of the investigation, now Rod Rosenstein and soon to be Bill Barr, will be the person to determine what happens to that report.

Right now the only thing that technically has to happen is it has to go to the Hill. It has to be seen by the Senate judiciary chair, the House judiciary chair. And that's basically it. It is up to the discretion of the attorney general or right now the deputy attorney general in charge to decide what else happens with it. So that's a big, big deal beyond just making sure that the investigation concludes.

CAMEROTA: Elie, the reason the people are skeptical of Bill Barr's commitment to the Mueller probe is because he supported the Robert Mueller probe before he didn't support it. And he's issued this unsolicited memo sort of saying that he didn't think the president should be subject to questioning on obstruction of justice. So of course, that got people's antenna up about him.

ELIE HONIG, FORMER ASSISTANT U.S. ATTORNEY, SOUTHERN DISTRICT, NEW YORK: Dana is right. I want to build on that. And next week's hearings - the confirmation hearings of any attorney general are naturally going to be high stakes, but next week's now are going to be even more elevated because of that memo, and that memo is bizarre. It was unsolicited. Apparently nobody asked him for it. He went out on his own. It's this detailed 20-page, 19-page memo.

And here are some of the things that he actually writes in it, because it's worth reading because I think it is alarming. And I hope our Senate Judiciary Committee, both parties, grill him on this. Here's some of the things he said. He said that Mueller's obstruction theory is fatally misconceived. He said that there is, quote, no legal prohibition on a president acting on a matter in which he has a personal stake. So think about that. That's pretty extreme. And he also says Mueller is risking becoming overly zealous and overly aggressive.

Before that, a year before that in 2017 Barr gave an interview to "The Hill" magazine in which he described Mueller's theory of obstruction as, quote, asinine, and he also said that Mueller risks, quote, taking on the look of a highly political operation to overthrow the president. So this is a guy who will is going to in front of the Senate next week up for attorney general. So they need to really to drill down on that.

[08:10:00] JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: So if I can change the subject to the other major development over the last 24 hours in the Mueller investigation, this inadvertent revelation that Paul Manafort handed over polling data. Paul Manafort was the campaign chair for the Trump campaign, handed over internal polling data to someone known to be connected to Russian intelligence. Dana, you are going covered a lot of campaigns. When you're the campaign chair sharing internal data with someone connected to the intelligence service of another country, that's unusual.

BASH: Yes. That's an understatement. I heard Senator Lankford on with you last hour diminishing it. He's a member of the intelligence committee. That actually surprised me because he's on these and a lot of issues he's not a partisan player particularly when it comes to particularly national security. And this is a five-alarm fire when it comes to national security and counterintelligence. The campaign chair, whether he had power or not, that was his title, of a major party candidate to meet with somebody who is a known operative, high- ranking operative in Russian intelligence? A, let's just say they just met and did nothing but had coffee as far as we know. That would be a big deal. But then to hand over internal polling data, there are so many questions that that raises. None of the answers is good.

CAMEROTA: Josh, I want to get back to what Dana was saying about Senator Lankford. He said this is not the smoking gun of collusion. You're the expert in smoking gun investigations. How do you see this?

CAMPBELL: I actually wrote down that phrase when I was listened to his interview because it made my eyes widen. In investigations there is rarely a smoking gun. You have different clues that you try to assemble in order to paint a picture to describe what happened, to tell a story. Rarely do you have Richard Nixon on the tape trying to obstruct an investigation. It's more nuanced than that.

And so I think the senator knows that. I'm also confused as to why he's trying to diminish this. But the American people have to understand this is a major deal to have a president's campaign manager colluding -- and I will say the word. I don't know if it's illegal what he did. That's yet to be seen. But at least colluding with a person that he knows is tied to a foreign intelligence service is just incredible.

And we have to look to history because whenever the president has been cornered on anything that's happened since he's taken office that potentially would cause him to run afoul of the law, what he's always said, well, people have done it before, it's not illegal. If you look at campaigns in our lifetime, I would doubt that any presidential campaign was conspiring with a foreign government, sharing internal information with them, particularly a hostile foreign government.

So I don't think there is anything innocent here. With respect to the president himself, obviously the question is what did he know about this? Did he know anything? But we have seen that pattern that whenever there is alleged malfeasance inside his campaign by people working on his behalf, he always says, I didn't know it, which is one hell of a way to run an operation. So that will be the question. What did he know? Did he have information about it? A lot of questions that he has to answer.

BERMAN: The campaign chair is the campaign. The campaign was sharing polling data with someone known to be connected to Russian intelligence. Senator Lankford's argued was, well, Konstantin Kilimnik and Paul Manafort have worked together for a long time. They had a business relationship separate from the Kilimnik's connection to Russian intelligence, so it isn't necessarily nefarious. I'm not sure that is a distinction that matters.

HONIG: I would disagree respectfully with the senator. I think that would be evidence I would want to introduce if I was prosecuting this case, that they had a previous relationship that hay carried on when Manafort gained access to the inner sanctum of the Trump campaign. Is it collusion in the sort of normal sense of the word, that everyday nonlegal, it's nor really a legal term, but the sense of the word before Rudy Giuliani started using it? Sure. I think Josh explained exactly, what could be more collusive than the top guy in a campaign sitting with a Russian intel operative, giving him the most sensitive, proprietary data that a political campaign has.

Could it also be a crime? Yes, it could. It is a federal crime to solicit or attempt to receive foreign election aid. And think about what appears to have been happening here. Manafort is feeding this information to the Russians right at the time when the Russian hacks are being leaked through WikiLeaks, right at the time when the social media trolls are out there for the Russians.

CAMEROTA: And they're trying to target, the social media trolls are looking to target to make it most effective. So if you have internal polling, that might help you target.

HONIG: Exactly the same as you would do in your own campaign, only you are saying, hey, Russian, foreign interests, here's your info. Make the best use of it. Target what you're doing, target your message, tailor your message. That is foreign election aid. That's a federal crime.

CAMEROTA: But does it matter, as Josh just introduced, if the president knew? Let's give the president the benefit of the doubt. He probably didn't know what Paul Manafort was doing flying off to different places to meet, pass documents. So does that matter legally if the president --

HONIG: A hundred percent yes. When you are assessing the president's liability or exposure to impeachment, that's the big question. Did he know, or was he turning a blind eye? And when you see so many people, I think the numbers is 16 people close to him, including the people closest to him, his son, his son-in-law, his campaign manager had connections with Russians.

[08:15:05] And then, of course, everybody lies about it after the fact. It gets harder to argue that the president didn't know or should not have known.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: And Paul Manafort is lying about it, Dana, because the Mueller team is asking about it. They're asking about it, and asking about it after Manafort's guilty plea this fall which tells us where the Mueller team's head recently -- as recently as the last couple of months.

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right. You mentioned it but we should say this was not information that the Manafort legal team or the Mueller team wanted out there. This was an accident. This was a big mess-up.

It was supposed to be redacted and it wasn't in the filings given to the court yesterday. And, yes, this is a reminder that he's already in trouble. And this just adds to not just the trouble that Paul Manafort is in. But the larger picture that we are just getting a little peak into of the Mueller probe.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: OK, Dana, Josh, Elie, thank you very much for your expertise.

BASH: Thank you.

CAMEROTA: So, did President Trump convince any Americans that were not convinced that the only solution or the best solution, I guess, to fix the situation at the border is his border wall? We have a debate you don't want to miss, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:20:00] CAMEROTA: All right. In just a few hours, President Trump will once again meet with congressional leaders in the Situation Room to resume talks over funding his proposed border wall.

But the government shutdown is now on day 19. Did the president win any more support last night for the wall?

Let's discuss it with former Clinton White House Press Secretary Joe Lockhart and former Pennsylvania Republican Senator Rick Santorum.

Senator, I want to start can you. The sticking point is the wall. Did President Trump make his case last night for a border wall?

RICK SANTORUM, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: He did a better job last night than he's done throughout the course of the debate. That's because he put it in the context that I think is the proper context.

I mean, you heard Senator Lankford said, it's about a humanitarian crisis. Even the Democrats admit there is a humanitarian crisis at the border. There are issues related to employment, drugs, sex trafficking.

Look, this is a real problem. Most Americans believe whether it is a problem or a crisis, the vast majority of Americans believe something needs to be done. He de-emphasized the wall and talked about a broader package of things we can do and the border is a piece of that, that's the proper context to make this debate. And he did it well last night.

CAMEROTA: But the wall is the sticking point.

SANTORUM: I think it shows and this is where the president has the potential to gain footing here. If the president is out there saying, look, I'm willing to do other things, look at it as a comprehensive base, we need comprehensive fill in the blank.

This is a comprehensive approach to border security. He's also offering -- no doubt offering something on the issue of DACA and other things. There is a big deal here that's probably not going to make guys like me happy with the immigration things I think are on the table that this administration has put on the table.

If the Democrats want a deal that's going to solve problems actually do what they say they care about having border security and dealing with the immigration problems we have in this country for folks who are here illegally, there is a deal to be done here. The question is, whether they have the political courage to give the president a pittance, a few billion dollars out of this larger package to meet a political need of his.

CAMEROTA: Joe, did you hear last night a willingness to compromise?

JOE LOCKHART, FORMER CLINTON WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: No. The president just restated where he was. If I don't get my wall I'm not re-opening the government. I'm going to take my ball and no one can play until I get what I want.

CAMEROTA: Should Democrats give what Rick Santorum called a pittance for the wall?

LOCKHART: I think there is more than a pittance here. There's a border security. I agree with the senator we need to look at it as a broader border security.

The president didn't say anything about DACA. Didn't say anything about Dreamers. That's where the deal is. There was nothing there.

And, you know. while he may have identified a humanitarian crisis that he helped create by separating families, most of the speech was about Trump vintage 2015 demonizing immigrants. He spent roughly a quarter of the speech detailing horrific acts that immigrants to this country have committed when all of the statistics show the immigrant crime rate is lower than native-born Americans.

It was a squandered opportunity. He convinced no one in the public. The real question is he able to hold Senate Republicans? They are starting to fall one by one.

CAMEROTA: What about that, Rick? What about that? The Senate Republicans seem uncomfortable with how long the shutdown is.

SANTORUM: That's a red herring. There is not going to be 13 Republicans going to abandon the president on this issue. That's a red herring issue.

The fact that the president talked about the consequences of the illegal immigrants in which country committing crime, Joe, with all due respect, you can say, well, it's a smaller percentage. They shouldn't be here. We are talking about people who are illegally in this country and they should not be here and they are doing these things.

CAMEROTA: Understood.

SANTORUM: Don't brush it off, Joe. That's unfair to the families affected who say, look, these people are here unjustifiably. They're here illegally. This should not have happened.

CAMEROTA: How does a wall stop the heroin trade?

SANTORUM: Well, the wall is part. Does it help on the margins? Maybe a little bit, you're right.

CAMEROTA: That's not what the --

SANTORUM: I understand that.

CAMEROTA: They come through ports of entry through tractor-trailers and passenger vehicles. People who are climbing over a fence aren't lugging heroin.

SANTORUM: Alisyn, here's what I know. Every border security agent and homeland security person that's interviewed says that border security fencing and walls are an important part of an integrated plan to secure the border. And we have almost 700 miles of fence and it has worked. It's dramatically reduced a lot of crime and immigration.

[08:25:04] CAMEROTA: Shore it up. That's the point. Democrats, Joe, correct me if I'm wrong -- but Democrats have given money to shore up the fencing that works.

LOCKHART: They have. Republicans voted --

SANTORUM: Why are they opposing it?

LOCKHART: Let me make my point. Republicans voted 100-0 in the Senate to go forward with it. This is about politics.

Senator, with all due respect, if you are worried about these cases that the president mentioned yesterday let's deal with the real national emergency which is gun violence. On the floor of the United States House yesterday, you saw Steve Scalise and Gabrielle Giffords hug. Both of them are victims of gun violence.

So, I don't think the American people need a lecture from you or the president on what the problem is. There is not a crisis at the border. We have four times as many border agents than in 2000. We have about 80 percent less people coming over. It's a manufactured crisis for the president to get a political win. This is about more than a political win.

SANTORUM: The reality is when people were coming over in larger numbers they were primarily Mexicans who at the time, and continued today, can be returned quickly into Mexico. That's not the case today. Today, the majority of people aren't Mexicans and they cannot be returned.

And so, this idea that this is a much less problem now than it was then, that's not necessarily true, because back then when the majority were Mexicans, we could deal with it by simply returning them. We can't do it now. That's causing the stress on the immigration system.

CAMEROTA: I think the point is since 2010 and we have the graph. We show it all the time. The numbers have been consistent. Since 2010, the numbers -- that's not the right one. This is the graph about how many people, how many arrests there are at the southern border.

There's not been a spike. The numbers have gone back and forth between about 450,000 up and down since 2010. The point is that, yes, sure, is there a problem? OK. Is it a national emergency?

SANTORUM: We have more women and children coming over now which definitely strains our capability at the border and for housing. You have seen some of the horrible tragedies that occurred because of that.

Look, this is a different situation. I agree. Numbers-wise, it's less, but the complexity of dealing with the people who are coming is more. I don't think it is proper to say, well, less people so it's not a crisis. It is a different kind of crisis. The president last night did a good job elucidating that.

CAMEROTA: So, Joe, what will happen today?

LOCKHART: I don't know. To call this a national emergency is wrong. It's a political emergency. Donald Trump all during the campaign demonized immigrants and said he was going to build a wall.

We now know the wall idea only came from his political aides, Sam Nunberg and Roger Stone, as a way to remember to bring up immigration. He believes in his head that he will fail and not get re-elected if he doesn't get his wall. He was going to -- Vice President Pence went to the hill and said he'll sign the bill and then Rush Limbaugh told him not to. He didn't do it. This is a political emergency, not a national emergency.

CAMEROTA: We shall see. Joe Lockhart, Rick Santorum, thank you very much for the debate from both sides.

John?

BERMAN: Great discussion there. Is there a chance Democrats will give ground to end the shutdown? We'll be joined by a leader among the Democrats in the House, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)