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White House Discredits Cohen; Impeachment Suggestions on Capitol Hill; Schumer Calls to Delay Kavanaugh Hearings. Aired 12- 12:30p ET

Aired August 22, 2018 - 12:00   ET

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

[12:00:00] JOHN KING, CNN ANCHOR: Sharing this important day with us.

The president and the presidency in crisis. His own Justice Department now alleging the president of the United States directed felony campaign finance violations in hopes of keeping a porn actress and a playmate silent. His response is telling. He attacks his longtime lawyer for cooperate with the feds, praises his former campaign chairman for fighting the feds. Both face prison time.

Impeachment is a word in play here in Washington today, though many leading Democrats say, wait, let the special counsel finish his work. What do Republicans say? Well, not exactly a profile in courage.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOHN CORNYN (R), MAJORITY WHIP: All I know is Mr. Cohen has been on all sides of these issues, and his credibility, I think, will be a major issue.

SEN. JOHN KENNEDY (R), LOUISIANA: I don't see any deeper meaning in this other than you have to pay your taxes, and you can't lie on a loan application.

SEN. ORRIN HATCH (R), UTAH: Time is going to tell who's to be trusted around here and who isn't. But they're --

QUESTION: Including the president?

HATCH: Well, including everybody.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: We begin there with a president in crisis and the stunning fact, yes, fact, at the foundation of that crisis. Here it is. The president of the United States is an unindicted co-conspirator in a felony campaign finance case. And if that isn't enough, the special counsel won convictions on eight counts in his first major trial. That of the former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort.

The president's reaction today is beyond telling. He's attacking his longtime lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen, who decided to cooperate with the feds. And he is praising his former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, who says the -- who the president says is refusing to break under pressure.

Now, both Michael Cohen and Paul Manafort face prison time. What now for the president is the big question here in Washington. There are Democrats who say there's now more than enough to impeach, though even some leading liberals say, wait, wait, wait, let's see if the special counsel's methodical march produces more.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN (D), MASSACHUSETTS: Let him make a full and fair report to all of the American people. And when we've got that, then we can make a decision on what the appropriate next step is.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Republicans, the president's party, are in a private panic and what you might best call public denial. Many for now following the president's defender in chief.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEAN HANNITY, FOX NEWS HOST: It has nothing to do with Russia collusion. Nothing. Paul Manafort, earlier today, found guilty of eight of 18 charges all related to bank and tax fraud. No Russia collusion. Michael Cohen plead guilty. Eight counts of bank fraud, tax fraud, minor campaign finance violations. Far worse has been committed by others. No Russia collusion.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: A little historical footnote here. Monica Lewinsky had nothing to do with Whitewater, but everything to do with a president who lied and tried to hide the truth. But I digress.

Republicans fear losing power if they lose the support of Trump voters. So don't expect even fact-finding hearings on what Michael Cohen laid out in court. It is this, that he paid off two women who said they had affairs with the president at a key moment in the 2016 campaign at the explicit direction of the candidate and that he was reimbursed with Trump organization corporate funds after President Trump took office.

A lot to discuss today. With me to share their reporting and their insights, CNN's Kaitlan Collins, Michael Shear with "The New York Times," Seung Min Kim of "The Washington Post" and "The Daily Beast's" Jackie Kucinich.

The president reacting today. I'm -- well, I'm going to say it, I have children so I've been through it. One tweet saying campaign finance violations, no big deal. Another tweet essentially saying, I didn't do it. So either he didn't do it or it's no big deal and Michael Cohen's a liar.

SEUNG MIN KIM, WHITE HOUSE REPORTER, "THE WASHINGTON POST": I think that's exactly what we kind of expected to see from the president. I was actually traveling with the president yesterday as all this news was breaking on Manafort, with him on Air Force One on the way to West Virginia. When we got off the tarmac, we were screaming questions -- or when he got off the plane onto the tarmac, we were screaming questions at him. And he did engage on the Manafort verdict. And he made it explicitly clear during those 60 seconds or so that we had with him that this has nothing do with me. This doesn't involve me. The witch hunt continues. This has nothing to do with Russia collusion.

But I think we can see that since Mueller's team was able to secure eight guilty pleas in this first round that it isn't a witch hunt, that they are serious here. And while the president has it correct that this doesn't technically -- this case doesn't technically have to do with the Mueller probe, or with the -- with the Russia issue, it just shows you how expansive and serious this investigation is.

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: It also really tells you which one is bothering the president the most. The fact that he went out of his way to come over there and speak with reporters. Something he rarely does when he's getting off Air Force One going to an event. He never does this almost. And he came over and he was happy to talk about Paul Manafort, distance himself from him, denounce the Russia investigation, but he didn't say a word about Michael Cohen and didn't go into what happened with him. And that really is telling of just how much this irritates the president.

[12:05:03] KING: It's also another way to look at it, though. You're absolutely right, of what he views as the threat closest to him and what he views as the disloyalty -- that's how the president views it -- of Michael Cohen.

JACKIE KUCINICH, WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF, "THE DAILY BEAST": Exactly.

KING: But Michael Cohen has flipped. Michael Cohen was in court. Paul Manafort now faces a big decision. He has a second trial coming up. He has the sentencing in his first trial, they'll appeal and all that. But he has to make a decision now. Does he continue to fight the fed? So the president -- you could also make the case, the president was trying to send Paul Manafort a message.

KUCINICH: That is true. But up until this point, Paul Manafort has not only -- he's been quiet. Michael Cohen has been -- he's been out there. He's been doing media tours. His lawyer is out there saying, we don't even want your pardon. Like, not only is he not going -- Michael Cohen not going to seek one, he doesn't want President Trump's pardon. He wants to go and talk about the truth as he sees it.

So that in and of itself, I mean the contrast between these two former staffers of the president and how he is viewing it, I think, is pretty stark.

KING: Sean Hannity might not or at least might not publicly be willing to understand process at the moment. Matt Drudge, normally a defender of the president, does. Look at "The Drudge Report" right here, "Trump Hell Hour, Manafort guilty, Cohen, I'm guilty, impeachment fears hit D.C." So you see that. This is not just another day talking about the

president's tweets or things Rudy Giuliani says on television that aren't backed up by facts. This is a very different day in Washington.

MICHAEL SHEAR, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, "THE NEW YORK TIMES": This is real. I had a conversation with somebody in the White House this morning. I think it is right to group all of this stuff together, the amazing sort of hour that we had last night. I will say, the people in the White House still believe -- and this is not just the president but the people around him -- that -- that the Manafort -- the threat legally from Manafort is somewhat more distant because most of the things that he's accused of were not directly involved in the president and directly involved in the campaign. They were blown away by Cohen. And the -- the bottom line is when the president has heard for months said this doesn't involve me, it doesn't have anything to do with me. When Cohen stood up in that court and directly implicated the president saying that he was the one that directed an illegal scheme. And if you go back through that transcript, the judge said, Mr. Cohen, did you know at all times that you were doing this that what you were doing was wrong and illegal? He said, yes, your honor.

KING: Here it is. Here it is right here. And then Kaitlan jump in. On or about the summer of 2016, in coordination with and at the direction of a candidate for federal office, I, the CEO of a media company, at the request of the candidate, worked together to keep an individual with information that would be harmful to the candidate and to the campaign from publicly disclosing this information. That is the Karen McDougal piece of this. There's also the Stormy Daniels piece of this. Michael Cohen laying it out in court.

And, again, not just Michael Cohen. The Justice Department accepting what he said and putting it into documents that essentially say the president -- we're not charging the president because we can't charge the president -- but he is as guilty as Michael Cohen. That's what the documents say.

COLLINS: Right. It's really unlikely that prosecutors would have taken Michael Cohen into that courtroom, let him talk to the judge if they didn't believe that they had evidence to back up what it was that he was saying.

But the contrast of Manafort and Cohen is a lot harder for the White House to distance themselves from Cohen than it is from Manafort.

SHEAR: Right.

COLLINS: Manafort was with the campaign for five months. They really tried to distance themselves from him. These were crimes that he committed before he knew the president.

Michael Cohen does not enjoy that benefit. The White House will not be able to do that. Because this is someone who has an office on the same floor as Trump in Trump Tower in New York. He was all over the place during the campaign. He was at the White House having lunch with the first lady last year. They cannot distance themselves from campaign finance violations. KING: Right. They cannot. And the question is, there's still a lot of

unknowns about where the special counsel investigation goes.

I want to bring into the conversation now, former adviser to four presidents and senior political analyst now here at CNN, David Gergen.

David, context is hard in the Trump presidency because we live in this world of constant tweets, constant lies from leaders, including the president of the United States. Give me your perspective on why, and this is how I feel this day -- today is so different from yesterday.

DAVID GERGEN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: I am very reminded of a day back in the Watergate investigations when John Dean went to Richard Nixon and said there is a cancer on your presidency. And what yesterday did, what these last 24 hours have shown is there is a cancer now in the Trump presidency.

I think it's different from Watergate in the sense that it's still manageable. You can still get through it. The president can. But this -- if this metastasizes and with other misdeeds coming to light, I think he's in very, very deep trouble, whether it comes at the ballot box or it's through an impeachment process. More likely at the ballot box.

And I think he's got to do some things now, John, that he does not want to do because I think the pressure's on. In order to reassure the public, which is critical, if his polls start dropping and Republicans start fleeing, he -- then things come, as you know, will change very quickly. I think he has to do a couple of things. One is, he has to go before Mueller now and testify. We -- the American people are due a -- the truth on this. We have, as Rudy Giuliani keeps pointing out, competing truths now, competing narratives about what happened.

Well, we haven't heard the president's side of this story under oath. We have heard the president lie about a felony that he has committed apparently as -- in -- and with regard to Cohen. So given those -- that set of lies, you -- it's imperative that we hear from him.

[12:10:29] I think the second thing he ought to do, but he -- I'm sure he would hate to do it, is to take the power of pardon off the table. I think if he -- if he sent a clear message on that, it would be very reassuring. As it is now, there's no basis on which to believe anything else the president has said absent a full investigation from Mueller.

KING: I want to read a line from a man who's a friend of ours, and I think we both admire his work, Dan Balz in "The Washington Post" today writes this.

GERGEN: Yes.

KING: This was a day when truth overran tweets, when facts overwhelmed bold assertions. Presidential tweets, however provocative, eventually disappears into the ether. Tuesday's convictions could send two people who have had close relationships with Trump to prison for several years. Do you think the president gets that though? You just offered us some

advice. I'm going to bet you everything I own he's not going to accept it.

GERGEN: Right.

KING: Do you think the president understands how today is different?

GERGEN: Not fully. Not fully. Although he may be privately panicked about things he's hearing about where the investigation is going, whether it -- how it may involve members of his family or something like that. He'll probably be going through agony if that's the case.

But, nonetheless, I don't think in public he has -- he has adjusted. His rhetoric is the same today through his tweets. And last night, as it was before all this happened, it's as if it -- as if the significance of what's happened hasn't sunk in on him or he's in denial.

KING: What about his party, David Gergen? Should they not at least have fact-finding hearings to see if Michael Cohen is a liar, as the president says, the Republicans have committees in both the House and the Senate. They can lay all this out before the election to the American people. Shouldn't they?

GERGEN: Well, do you really trust what they're going to do in the House if they had the hearings or are they just going to be an effort to smear Mueller and one thing and other? Yes, and the Republicans must understand that Watergate led to a blowout in the midterm elections in '74, as you'll recall John, and then -- and then to the election of Jimmy Carter, a Democrat, in '76. And both of those outcomes hinged upon the misdeeds in Watergate. And the party got badly punished for it. And the party could easily get punished, I'm not sure, as badly, but could easily get punished in a very significant, severe way. If they don't -- if the Republicans stay silent and the president keeps on with this malarkey, it's all a witch hunt, I think the party gets badly hurt. I mean, you know, this party will not have a future with millennials unless it deals pretty uprightly with this -- with this story.

KING: Excellent insights, David. Really appreciate you taking the time to join us on this important day.

GERGEN: Thank you.

KING: Thank you.

Up next for us here, Capitol Hill wrings its hands over how best to respond. Manafort, Cohen, at the center of it, Trump.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:17:19] KING: Welcome back.

Republicans today putting political survival ahead of any interest in finding the truth or their own party's credibility. Again, it's important to note the Trump Justice Department asserts in court papers that the president, as the Republican nominee, directed an illegal campaign finance scheme. That's a big deal, right?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. ORRIN HATCH (R), UTAH: Naturally, it makes you very concerned. But, you know, the president shouldn't be held responsible for the actions of people that he's trusted.

SEN. CHUCK GRASSLEY (R), IOWA: What about Michael Cohen?

QUESTION: He's accusing (INAUDIBLE) the president (INAUDIBLE) --

GRASSLEY: He's -- he's -- he's plead -- he's plead guilty and that's the way the Constitution works.

QUESTION: So what about (INAUDIBLE) -- what about him naming the president --

GRASSLEY: So -- so what else -- so what else -- so what is -- what is there about him to worry about?

SEN. JOHN KENNEDY (R), LOUISIANA: Mr. Cohen's credibility is going to be challenged. I don't think the full story has been written yet.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: The top GOP leadership, silent so far. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell declined to respond to questions. House Speaker Paul Ryan said he needs more information.

Among Democrats, there's across the board outrage, but mixed opinion over how to channel that outrage. Some saying everything should be on the table, including impeachment, even indictment. Others say, let's be a little more cautious.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN (D), MASSACHUSETTS: Protect Robert Mueller. Let him finish his investigation. And when we've got that, then we can make a decision on what the appropriate next step is.

SEN. TAMMY DUCKWORTH (D), ILLINOIS: I don't think that we should be talking about impeachment.

SEN. DICK DURBIN (D), ILLINOIS: At the very minimum, we should be withholding this decision on the Supreme Court nominee until the air is cleared.

SEN. RICHARD BLUMENTHAL (D), CONNECTICUT: We should talk about all the remedies. Every single remedy, including indictment of the president, should be on the table. The president can be indicted.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Let's get straight to CNN's Phil Mattingly, who's been racing around Capitol Hill.

And interesting day up there. Phil, what's the most surprising thing, if anything, that you're hearing?

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I think the most surprising thing is that nothing's really surprising right now based on kind of trolling the hallways for the last 19 months, generally trying not to be scooped by Seung Min over there, the kind of reaction here is similar to what we've seen. Dramatic, seemingly cataclysmic moment for the administration x (ph) occurs and then the next day or the -- couple hours later you go talk to Republican senators. Some have concerns. Some didn't see it or don't have the information on it. And others outright defend the president. And that is exactly what has happened this morning. And I don't think you're going to see any shift.

The red line has always been, John, and we've talked about this a lot, the firing or efforts to get rid of the special counsel, Robert Mueller. Anything short of that, you're just not going to see many people bite.

The one interesting element obviously you heard from Senator Richard Blumenthal, what I've picked up from Democrat after Democrat is, nobody wants to go anywhere near the impeachment question and they're aware of kind of the political problems with that on their side. They want to talk about Mueller finishing his investigation. But on the Republican side, this is very much aligned with the rhythm that we've seen on Capitol Hill from Senate Republicans and House Republicans over the course of the last 19 or 20 months.

[12:20:06] KING: The grand ostrich party I would call it.

Phil, the Senate Democratic leader, Chuck Schumer, says delay Brett Kavanaugh's hearings for the Supreme Court nomination because of this. Connect those dots for me.

MATTINGLY: So basically the way Democrats are putting it right now is when they talk -- when they've gone through the record of Brett Kavanaugh, when they've gone through what he did with the Starr independent counsel, what he's done in his judicial ranks, that his view on executive power doesn't align with a president that's currently either been implicated or perhaps under investigation.

Here's the reality here. That's their push right now. You already had Senator Mazie Hirono, Judiciary Committee, cancel her meeting with Brett Kavanaugh, her one-on-one meetings. Cory Booker saying they need to postpone the meetings, instead hold hearings on the Cohen issue.

The reality is, in talking to senior GOP aides, as one told me, this train is moving. It's not going to stop.

Democrats, as you know well, don't have power to actually stop anything on their own and they don't have the power to block the nomination on the Senate floor without help from Republicans who, as it currently stands, that's clearly their position. They're trying to get grassroots and the base riled up to put pressure on Republicans there. But at this moment, it doesn't look like anything of that sort is going to go their way, John.

KING: At this moment. We'll see if tomorrow is like today. Phil Mattingly, appreciate it. A busy day up on The Hill.

Let's bring it into the room.

It is -- it is a fascinating moment for everybody. But you do get the sense from Republicans, this is bigger than the past Trump crises where they just try to, you know, walk away or, you know, pretend they don't know what they're talking about or duck the questions or just hope tomorrow is a new question. Their calculation now seems to be, there's an election in 11 weeks. We need Trump voters. If we don't have Trump voters, we lose our power. Therefore, we're going to take -- wash our hands of this and try to stay away from it. Is that fair?

KIM: Exactly. And I think while the news may seem to be bigger, the Republican reaction really isn't. For example, I spoke with -- I was up on The Hill with Phil earlier and I spoke with Senator Chuck Grassley of the Judiciary Committee and I asked him, all the news from yesterday, what does that mean for the prospects of the Mueller protection bill that we have seen languish in the Senate? And he's like, look, it's up to McConnell. And I don't see the calculus changing before the midterms at all.

And you talked about Trump voters at the rally last night. It was as if this news hadn't even happened. And we heard the chants of "lock her up," but that was not in reference to anyone connected in Trumpland. It was to Hillary Clinton herself.

KING: Yes, the president's personal attorney pleads guilty. The president's campaign chairman is found guilty and Trump voters say "lock her up."

KUCINICH: The only -- the only, I guess, thing that could happen on The Hill, you had Warner and Burr come out shortly after the Cohen plea deal was announced and say that they were going to -- they wanted Cohen to come back in because it was clear that he wasn't telling them the truth. So will that happen? We'll have to see. Cohen seemed open to coming to The Hill and testifying in public. I don't see that happening. That's -- that is the one bright spot in a whole flurry of ostriches, I think.

KING: Right. It is foolish to expect or ask for consistency, but I covered the Clinton White House when he was impeached. I mean it had nothing to do with Whitewater, which is where Ken Starr began.

COLLINS: Exactly.

KING: I don't remember Republicans jumping up to Bill Clinton's defense saying, how dare you, Ken Starr, that has nothing to do with Whitewater. So now when they say it -- and we don't know where Robert Mueller's going to end. We just know we're in the early chapters of the Mueller part. And so when the Sean Hannity's and members of the United States Senate say this has nothing to do with Russia, why are we doing this -- SHEAR: You know, it's interesting, you haven't -- you have, for the next, you know, number of weeks before the election, you have an interesting PR battle. And we're going to see which side wins, right? On the one hand, the Republicans that you saw there are betting that they can make the PR case that they can undermine the credibility of all of these people. You saw them trying to undermine, well, Cohen's going to have trouble. He doesn't have any credibility. The same way they've been consistently trying, with the help of the president, to undermine the credibility of Mueller and the angry Democrats and all of that.

On the other side, the Democrats are going to -- are having -- been given a gift of, you know, being able to describe a culture of corruption, right? And that's what their message is going to be. And the question is, which of those --

KING: Not just with the administration. Two Republican congressmen, one yesterday, one a couple of weeks ago indicted as well.

SHEAR: Absolutely. And all of everything else, Scott Pruitt, and Zinke and everybody else. And so you've got these two competing messages that are going to play out over the next 10 or 11 weeks and the question is, which one is going to be more powerful. You know, are the -- and the Republicans right now are betting that they're going to be able to sort of destroy the credibility so by the time the voters get there, they sort of shrug.

KING: (INAUDIBLE).

COLLINS: Well, and the defense of there's no Russian collusion is not exactly rock-solid messaging for them when the -- in the wake of what happened yesterday. But I do think some of the president's allies over the last, you know, 16 hours or so are worried of what they're hearing from Republicans because they may not be coming out and condemning what happened, condemning Michael Cohen, but they are saying that these are really serious allegations, that they're very concerned or either they're not saying anything at all, like Mitch McConnell. And I do think they're worried that this could come out, that they're not immediately defending the president or defending anything, anyone he's surrounded himself with, and I do think that they fear that that could eventually turn on them because as soon as the voters turn on the president, the Republicans on Capitol Hill will turn on the president, too.

[12:25:03] KING: And they --

KUCINICH: That's very true.

COLLINS: All they care about is --

KING: To the Republicans on Capitol Hill, they keep getting surprised by the news. They keep getting surprised by what's happening in court and they don't trust what they're hearing from the White House. We'll continue the conversation about the politics in a moment.

Up next, though, the special counsel with new validation and now some say fresh leverage over Paul Manafort.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:30:03] KING: Welcome back.

"Now what" isn't just the big political question today. As stunning as yesterday's courtroom developments are, they are just building blocks. We know the special counsel has much more to come and the New York case involving