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Cohen Hired Firm to Rig Online Polling; Four Americans killed in Syria; Democratic Field Takes Shape. Aired 6:30-7a ET

Aired January 17, 2019 - 06:30   ET

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


[06:30:00] DAVID GREGORY, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: To come out with a bigger deal, something that's more reasonable, you know, wall funding in exchange for the dreams that I think has the potential to put a lot more pressure on Democrats than he's done so far.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Um -- yes, quickly, John.

JOHN AVLON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: But that's been offered to him and he keeps rejecting it.

GREGORY: Yes.

AVLON: There is an obvious plan that Lindsey Graham and others have been pushing the president. He just doesn't seem interested.

CAMEROTA: And, very quickly, that's why Maggie Haberman is reporting, according to her sources, here's the quote that Donald Trump said, we are getting crushed, Mr. Trump told his acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, after watching some recent coverage of the shutdown, according to one person familiar with the conversation. Why can't we get a deal? Well, because you've got to open the government. I mean like that's what the Democrats are saying. It's quite simple.

AVLON: Look in the mirror.

JACKIE KUCINICH, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Right.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Can I introduce another wow into the morning?

CAMEROTA: And can I get my lighter to light my hair on fire?

BERMAN: OK. If there was not enough wow --

CAMEROTA: This warrants it.

BERMAN: This is a story from "The Wall Street Journal" that posted about 15 minutes ago from Michael Rothfeld, Rob Barry and Joe Palazzolo.

CAMEROTA: Prepare yourself.

BERMAN: Let me just reeled the lead paragraph. In early 2015, a man who runs a small company showed up at Trump Tower to collect $50,000 for having helped Michael Cohen, then Donald Trump's personal lawyer, try to rig online polls in his boss's favor before the presidential election.

AVLON: Yes.

BERMAN: There's a lot more words that follow this.

GREGORY: Yes, right.

BERMAN: But let me summarize what we just heard there. A bag of cash, Michael Cohen, rig online polls.

CAMEROTA: Can I read a little bit more about the bag of cash. Hold on. In his Trump Tower office, Mr. Cohen surprised the man, John Gowger (ph), by giving him a blue Walmart bag containing between $12,000 and $13,000 in cash.

ALVON: Yes. And it gets worse. It is really extraordinary not only, you know, the only the best people details of the bag of cash being brought to Trump Tower, but it's unbelievable they'd try to rig early polls. They -- this isn't, by any means, necessary crew (ph). But also significantly, this firm, this individual associated with Liberty University, the evangelical --

CAMEROTA: He's the information officer of Liberty University.

AVLON: That's correct, where Jerry Falwell Junior, who early got on the bandwagon with Donald Trump and helped him coordinate and rally support among evangelicals, which normally would be let us say an odd fit. There's a lot more here. This is fascinating.

CAMEROTA: Well, let me just tell you something. Let me just say something. Sometimes the corruption -- I mean I think that, again, people can lose track of all of the different stories about corruption. This one, to me, rides to the top. If you're paying somebody in a blue Walmart bag, bags of cash, because you don't want it detected, so that they can rig online polls so that people think that your candidate, Donald Trump, has more support than he really does, I don't know how to put a finer point on this.

BERMAN: It's a bag of cash.

KUCINICH: You know --

BERMAN: Either -- either it's an independent expenditure or it's a campaign expenditure that should have been filed.

GREGORY: Right.

BERMAN: Jackie, go ahead.

KUCINICH: I don't know about you, but I just got a little bit more excited for this Michael Cohen oversight hearing that's going to be happening in the --

GREGORY: Yes.

KUCINICH: In the House. I believe it's February 7th. So it's circled on my calendar and now it's starred. There you go.

BERMAN: There you go. Exactly.

All right, guys, thank you very, very much.

KUCINICH: Thank you.

GREGORY: Thanks.

CAMEROTA: All right, now we have to get to this story because this was breaking during our hour and we now know more than we did yesterday.

Four Americans were killed in a terror attack in Syria and ISIS is taking credit for it. But the Trump administration maintains that ISIS has been defeated. So we have a live report on the facts from Syria, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:37:21] BERMAN: ISIS is taking responsibility for a suicide bombing that killed four Americans and several others in northern Syria. The attack is raising new questions about President Trump's plan to pull U.S. troops out of the region after claiming ISIS is defeated.

Clarissa Ward is live in northern Syria with the very latest.

Clarissa.

CLARISSA WARD, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi, John.

What we're learning now from Kurdish sources that in addition to those four Americans, also two Kurdish security forces and eight civilians were killed in that massive explosion in that restaurant in the town of Manbij. That restaurant, we are also learning, was regularly frequented by U.S. forces. Potentially they may have been going there to meet with local sources, gather information about the situation on the ground. And certainly it's fair to say that U.S. troops do have a significant presence in the town of Manbij.

We were there just a few days ago, John. We saw for ourselves the U.S. flag flying above the base just on the outskirts of town. We drove past the very restaurant where the attack happens. And we were shooting video just a couple hundred yards away. And I can tell you that even though ISIS was pushed out of the town of Manbij back in September 2016, there was definitely still an air of tension on the streets of this town.

No question that daily life has returned. It was busy. But you could feel simmering beneath the surface untold, unspoken tensions, probably because this is an Arab town, it's under control of security forces who are largely Kurdish and everyone here telling us ISIS sleeper cells are everywhere, they're very concerned about what happens next when the Americans pull out.

Alisyn. CAMEROTA: Clarissa, this is why it's so important to have you there

because that's so different than what we're hearing back here at home from the administration.

Please be careful. Thank you very much for your reporting from Syria.

Well, former Congressman Beto O'Rourke is hitting the road and blogging about it. Does that mean he's running for president or writing a book? Former Democratic Presidential Candidate Howard Dean is with us to talk about the growing Democratic field, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:43:28] BERMAN: Former Democratic Congressman Beto O'Rourke is on a moody road trip documenting it all in a dramatic online blog. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand launched an exploratory committee this week. Former HUD Secretary Julian Castro, he's in. Senator Kamala Harris is selling books. Senator Elizabeth Warren is out with her dog. 2020, it's on and it's big.

Joining us now for much more, the former governor of Vermont, former presidential candidate, former chair of the Democratic National Committee, Howard Dean.

Governor, thank you very much for being with us this morning.

HOWARD DEAN (D), FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Thanks for having me on.

BERMAN: So people have observed that no one is scared about jumping into this race. No one is looking at this race. There's not a Democrat whose saying, you know what, I can't want win. Talk to me about the sizes of this field.

DEAN: We knew it was going to be big. It is. And all the people who were writing a year ago and two years ago that the Democrats had no bench are now -- should be embarrassed, although I'm sure they're not. So I think it's great. I mean these are really great candidates. And it's going to be a very lively season. I think the DNC has already anticipated this by scheduling early debates and multiple debates so you don't have the spectacle of 17 people on one stage.

CAMEROTA: Right. So of those 17, who are you keeping an eye on? Who has intrigued you?

DEAN: Well, the -- as I've said publicly, the people that I are most interested in are the young ones. I think it's time that young people took over the party. They pretty much did in the last election. We gained a third of our legislative seat losses back in 2018 and a lot of it was done by things that people like run for something in Collective Pack, Color of Change, Indivisible, Voter Latino. These are all outside groups made up of young people that are incredibly good on social media. And I need to see more of that happening.

[06:45:12] So, I'm interested in a younger, newer candidate. But, you know, I'm going to support whoever we nominate. BERMAN: You say incredibly good on social media. Former Congressman

Beto O'Rourke is now on a road trip.

DEAN: Right.

BERMAN: I don't know if he's still in Oklahoma or he's moved on to Kansas, but he's on the road and he's driving and he's blogging.

Let me read you something he wrote that was posted just yesterday. He goes, have been stuck lately, in and out of a funk. My last day of work was January 2nd. It's been more than 20 years since I was last not working. Maybe if I get moving on the road, meet people, learn about what's going on, where they live and have some adventure and go where I don't know and I'm not known, it will clear my head, reset. I'll think new thoughts, break out of the loops I've been stuck in.

I don't know if that should be set to music from "The Cure" or something, but that feels a little bit moody, as I said. What do you take from that?

DEAN: Well, I don't know Beto personally. His campaign was unbelievably attractive. I think in some ways he's incredibly well prepared to run for president if he choose to do that, which he may not for personal reasons. Because he's run what may be the second toughest race in the country, which is a Senate race in Texas, and he did really, really well, and he clearly has -- he's a little like Obama in the sense that he has enormous personal charisma and ability to organize from all over the country. So, I mean, he has a lot of advantages going in.

But, you know, he also has three small children and he has to make a tough decision. He's -- unlike most of the other candidates, he has actually seen what it's like to run for president more than anybody else except for obviously Joe Biden, whose, of course, run before.

CAMEROTA: But, governor, I think what's interesting about it is where he starts where he says, I've been stuck lately in and out of a funk. He's publicly ruminating.

DEAN: Right.

CAMEROTA: And I think that's an interesting read. But isn't that an interesting tact for somebody who might be running for president?

DEAN: The book -- absolutely right. The book "Inside Washington" is you don't publically ruminate. And I'm sort of old school. I mean I'm 70 years old. So, yes, I don't public -- try not to publicly ruminate.

But, you know, there's a whole new set of rules that are being written. And it's not just Trump that's writing them. It's -- more importantly, for the future of the country, it's the under 30s and under 35s that are rewriting these rules. And that's -- that honesty and public rumination is very attractive to people. So this is a very confusing time because you're seeing a generational shift in the Democratic Party, which is inevitable. BERMAN: There seem to be a lot of these candidates now trying to do carve outs with the Democratic voting populous. Kirstin Gillibrand, the senator from New York, announcing her campaign, talking about she is a young mom and wants to be the candidate of young moms. Elizabeth Warren going out there campaigning on income inequality. Sherrod Brown, who may get in, the senator from Ohio, talking about the working, you know, middle class, rust belt working people.

How -- what does that do to a field if everyone's trying to carve out their own individual little space?

DEAN: Well, this is the thing I think that's really important. I -- you know, my M.O. has always been to jump into races really early and pick a candidate and stick with them. This time I'm probably not going to pick a candidate until the convention. So I -- you know, I think this is a time to try all this stuff out.

I have a lot of faith in the Democratic voters. The Democratic voters want what the most important thing for the Democratic Party is, which it to beat Donald Trump and restore our country to a normal, optimistic -- the normal optimistic country than we've always been. That's the unifying principle. So, of course everybody's going to pick the niches where they're strong because they're hoping to get enough votes together so they can get through Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina and then make it to the big stage, which is all the Super Tuesdays. And in order to do that, you're going to have to get more votes than all but about four people. And that's how they choose to do it and I think it makes sense.

CAMEROTA: And so given that, what do you think of Joe Biden getting in or possibly getting in?

DEAN: Well, I -- you know, that's his personal choice. I've already said what I had to say about turning the page on our -- my generation. But, you know, I'm -- you know, Joe Biden is a good guy and people like Joe Biden a lot. He's run before and hasn't been able to win. I -- you know, maybe he will this time. I don't know. I mean I'm really not going to take sides in this. There are no candidates, with one exception, that I really don't think should be president.

BERMAN: And who's that exception?

DEAN: Tulsi Gabbard. I don't think she knows what she's doing and I don't think she should be -- is qualified, and she's not qualified.

CAMEROTA: And what's that based on?

DEAN: About her dalliances with Assad, her statements about gay people. It's just -- she's -- I don't know what she thinks she's doing.

BERMAN: Howard Dean, you've been there before, both as a candidate and chair of the DNC. We hope you come back and talk to us more about this field as it continues to take shape.

DEAN: Thanks very much. CAMEROTA: Thanks so much. Great to talk to you.

[06:49:57] BERMAN: All right, comics take on the fight over the State of the Union Address. Our late night laughs, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAMEROTA: Well, the saga over the State of the Union Address is, of course, ripe for punch lines. Here are your late night laughs.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAMES CORDEN, HOST, "THE LATE LATE SHOW WITH JAMES CORDEN": Pelosi did say Trump could submit a written version of his speech, which is pretty strategic on her part. She's going right for his biggest handicap, spelling.

STEPHEN COLBERT, HOST, "THE LATE SHOW WITH STEPHEN COLBERT": Rule is, he can only go there by her invitation. Trump acts like the big dog, but she won't let the dog into her house because she knows he's going to poop everywhere. OK, out, out, out.

SETH MEYERS, HOST, "LATE NIGHT WITH SETH MEYERS": Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie is release a memoir later this month titled "Let Me Finish." Oh, you haven't seen your approval ratings lately. You're finished.

COLBERT: We've now hit day 26 of the government shutdown and vital services are being threatened. For instance, I've run out of shutdown jokes. We might have -- we might have to dip into the national reserve at this point.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[06:55:01] BERMAN: Going to have to find more because this thing ain't ending anytime soon.

CAMEROTA: You know it's funny when even Stephen Colbert knows he's made a funny joke and almost laughs at it, that's how you know it's a good one.

BERMAN: All right, a major development in the president's legal defense overnight. Rudy Giuliani essentially saying, okay, so maybe there was some collusion after all. Why did he make this stunning admission? Next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RUDY GIULIANI, PRESIDENT TRUMP'S ATTORNEY: The president did not collude with the Russians. He didn't say nobody, he said he didn't.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is just stunning. The president's lawyer is basically admitting that the president's campaign colluded with Russia. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mueller's getting close in them. This is an act of

desperation.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It would be very, very odd to be having a State of the Union speech when big chunks of government are shutdown.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He could get out there and really turn things around. They don't want to see that happen.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well, he's messing with the people that struggle every day, work paycheck to paycheck.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We have won against ISIS. We've beaten them.

CLARISSA WARD, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: There are still people sympathetic to ISIS who are lurking in these towns.

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R), SOUTH CAROLINA: My concern is that you have set in motion enthusiasm by the enemy we're fighting.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[07:00:00] ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY with Alisyn Camerota and John Berman.

BERMAN: All right, good morning and welcome to your NEW DAY.

While you were sleeping, at least while