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Inside Politics

Barr Investigates Origin of Russia Probe; Graham Ends Investigation; Biden Hits Back; Farmers Struggle As Trade War Escalates. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired May 14, 2019 - 12:00   ET

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

[12:00:00] KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: They just -- let's be honest, basically everything if you want to have longevity.

JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Sure.

BOLDUAN: Twenty spots, now 22 people in the race.

ZELENY: Right.

BOLDUAN: This is going to get interesting.

Good to see you, man. Thank you so much.

ZELENY: Thanks.

BOLDUAN: Thank you all so, so much for joining me. I really appreciate it.

"INSIDE POLITICS" with John King starts now.

JOHN KING, CNN ANCHOR: Thank you, Kate.

And welcome to INSIDE POLITICS. I'm John King. Thank you for sharing your day with us.

Breaking news, CNN learning the attorney general getting some very high-powered help as he investigates the origins of the FBI's investigation of Trump campaign contacts with Russia.

Plus, a big smile from Joe Biden today as he delivers a blunt message to liberals questioning his commitment to fighting climate change. Check the record, the former vice president says, before adding this, calm down.

But from the west, a new entry into the crowded Democratic presidential field. Montana Governor Steve Bullock says his story is unique among the 20 plus 2020 hopefuls.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. STEVE BULLOCK (D-MT), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: As a Democratic governor in a state that Trump won by 20 points, I don't have the luxury of just talking to people who agree with me. I go all across our state's 147,000 square miles and look for common ground to get things done.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: We have a packed hour ahead, including a big test of whether the president can keep telling Congress to take a hike when it demands information. The president's accounting firm in court right now trying to fend off a House subpoena for all the president's financial statements.

But we begin with breaking news about the attorney general's investigation of the investigators. A new CNN reporting showing how big and broad the group is looking into whether the FBI acted with good cause when it started investigating ties between Trump campaign aides and Russia.

The president, just moments ago outside the White House, said he did not ask for or order this big new probe, but he likes what he sees.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: No, I didn't him to do that. I didn't know it. I didn't know it. But I think it's a great thing that he did it. I saw it last night, and they want to look at how that whole hoax got started. It was a hoax.

I am so proud of our attorney general that he is looking into it. I think it's great. I did not know about it, no.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Let's get straight to Laura Jarrett at the Justice Department.

Laura, we know AG William Barr is in charge. Who is he asking for help?

LAURA JARRETT, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, John, we're learning that he's also working with the CIA director, Gina Haspel, as well as the director of national intelligence, Dan Coats, and also the FBI director, Chris Wray, someone the president attacked later on when speaking to reporters today because Wray had tried to distance himself from the use of the term spying, the -- something that Attorney General Bill Barr has said, he wants to look into whether the Trump campaign was spied on, whether it was properly predicated. And so we're learning all of these agencies, these national intelligence agencies, are all working together under Barr, as well as the U.S. attorney in Connecticut, John Durham. He is leading that effort, John.

And, you know, we had wondered exactly what was the basis of Barr's concern and we're still trying to do some more reporting on that, but he has described that he thinks that the public perception of this has been a little bit anemic and maybe not quite the full story. He has talked about the fact that an informant was used, as well as he's talked about that infamous dossier compiled on the president by Christopher Steele, that ex-British intelligence agent. And he's talked about he's looking at all of this, but there may be more to it, and he now has a group that's going to get to the bottom of it, John. KING: Laura Jarrett at the Justice Department, important new

reporting, appreciate that.

And as the investigation plays out, one of the big questions about the attorney general's investigation and why it's happening and the like and will it reveal something we don't already know.

With me in studio to share their reporting and their insights, CNN's Abby Phillip, Michael Shear with "The New York Times," Elana Schor with "The Associate Press," and Rachael Bade with "The Washington Post."

The president made clear he's happy. It was interesting to hear his answer. He says he did not ask for this. Not directly, maybe. He's asked for it publically countless times that he wants this to happen.

But somebody help me here in the sense that the attorney general -- with Laura's reporting, the attorney general asking some of the highest ranking people in the American government, the FBI director, the director of national intelligence, the CIA director, to help him. Did they do this right? Did the FBI overstep? Did they have good cause? Did they follow forward procedure?

Also asking a U.S. attorney to look into the very same question while the Department of Justice inspector general is looking into the very same question. Too much?

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, I -- it just depends on how you view this. I mean there was a Democratic lawmaker just a few hours ago speaking with Jim Sciutto who actually suggested that Democrats shouldn't be pushing back on this quite as hard as maybe they might instinctively want to. And the rationale being that if they do do a thorough investigation, then -- and -- and the -- the origins of this investigation were -- were clean and perfectly justified, then they will turn up nothing, and it will only bolster the need -- or the belief that this investigation was properly originated.

[12:05:01] On the other hand, I mean, I think if you're Bill Barr, a, you know that President Trump wants this investigation to happen in some way, shape or form and you could see these moves as an attempt by Barr to create the most thorough environment that he can to investigate this choosing in Durham, for example, someone who has experience doing these kinds of investigations under Democrats and Republicans. And also bringing in the rest of the intelligence community and making sure that they're a part of the process and not being looked at from a suspicious perspective. So you could view this -- I think there is a way to view this move from Barr as an effort by him to try to create a comprehensive an thorough investigation because he knows he has to do it.

KING: If they're transparent about it. If they're transparent about it. There's nothing -- absolutely nothing wrong with looking back at how something big started. And you say the Democrats could say, well, ah-ha, the FBI acted appropriately, stop the conspiracy theories. Or if they find misconduct -- if they find misconduct, those who had misconduct should be held accountable for it.

But my question is, this is taxpayer dollars. How about one credible investigation? Are we doing this all in the right place in the right way?

MICHAEL SHEAR, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, look, I think that's an important question. Is there -- is this too much. But I think if you step back, one of the other things that we have to look at is, the damage that the last two and a half years has done to the process, to the integrity of the -- of what has traditionally before this administration been a real sort of red line between the politics of the White House and the Justice Department, where, you know, previous presidents have not -- have sought to really stay hands off from the investigations so that you wouldn't have these questions that we all have now about, you know, is this a legitimate investigation? Is this a legitimate attempt to look back and -- and --

KING: Is there a political motivation in the highest levels of the FBI?

SHEAR: Or is there a political -- right, or at the -- well, and, but is there -- is there a political motivation in the White House? I mean he did -- the president didn't have to order them to do this. He's been saying it for the last year. And so --

KING: And he also -- he also didn't have to do this.

Just moments ago, outside the White House, remember, the attorney general has used the term I think spying did occur. It's a loaded term in Washington. Now he's heading this investigation. He's appointed a U.S. attorney. But you can -- Bill Barr comes to the question with an answer in his head, right, at least publically, that I think spying did occur. So he's got his thumb on the scale to start the investigation, not the way you're supposed to start.

The FBI director then said, you know, I don't see it that way. He sees -- the FBI director saying he has seen no evidence, and he's the boss of the organization in question here, that they did anything wrong. The president takes issue.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

QUESTION: Did you have confidence in Christopher Wray after he said he (INAUDIBLE) --

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Well, I didn't understand his answer because I thought the attorney general answered it perfectly. So I certainly didn't understand that answer. I thought it was a ridiculous answer.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Here we go again.

SHEAR: Right. ELANA SCHOR, NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER, "ASSOCIATED PRESS": Well, in this case, it's important to have the inspector general also looking into it because here's a guy who we know is impartial, or at least required to be according to the terms of his office. So in a sense now it's probably good that we have two different bodies looking into this because we can't necessarily be entirely sure based on Barr's influence that what Durham is going to do is going to be free from influence.

KING: And I want you to listen -- this was last week in town. James Baker, the former chief council, general counsel for the FBI, I asked about this very question because it has been a constant, recurring theme. The president says it was the dirty Steele dossier paid for by the Clinton campaign. He ignores it was originally funded by a conservative group at the beginning. But that's not how all this started. And the FBI's former general counsel saying, go ahead and look. You're going to figure out, we did it just right.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAMES BAKER, FORMER FBI GENERAL COUNSEL: There was a point in time relatively recently where I just became sick of all the BS that is said about the origins of the investigation, and I just got fed up with it.

The Papadopoulos information is what triggered us going down this path.

Look, the investigation was not predicated on the basis of the information that Christopher Steele gave to us in the form of the dossier.

I don't know how to say this other than, we're not stupid, right, the FBI. We're not stupid.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RACHAEL BADE, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes, but just -- I mean it highlights the struggle that you're seeing right now with a lot of people who are working in the FBI, you know, they see this as an attack on their own credibility and what they did.

This whole situation was unprecedented, that you ever had these sort of allegations that, you know, a campaign was somehow conspiring with Russia. I mean so there wasn't a playbook that they could look to. And, you know, we're just going to continue to see Trump's allies say that since this is something perhaps that FBI had never done, they broke some sort of rules. But the reality is that this was the situation where nobody really knew what to do, so maybe they could have done something better. We're just going to have to see if people find some sort of ill will or criminality. But, you know, it's just an unprecedented situation.

KING: Right, and then -- it is unprecedented. They say they got started for good reason. They saw people associated with the Trump campaign having communications with Russians and that freaked them out. There's no question there were some idiocy during it, the texts between Lisa Page and Peter Strzok. They were held accountable. Bob Mueller fired them when he found out about it. The question is, so, let's have an investigation and air it out. The IG is one place to do it.

One place we won't see this, though, is in -- on Capitol Hill. Lindsey Graham became chairman of the Judiciary Committee. He said he wants to look into this. Now he says, never mind.

[12:10:01] (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-SC): I'm glad you have a prosecutor, not a politician. I don't expect you to take my word about what happened with the FISA warrant. I'm a Republican and I want the president to do well. I don't expect Republicans to take Nadler's word about anything -- wrongdoing toward Trump.

We finally have somebody outside of politics. And I want to give Mr. Durham -- is that his name? I don't even know him -- the space to do his job. I'm a Republican Judiciary chairman. We've now got a prosecutor -- I don't want to get in their way. I don't want to mess up his criminal investigation and I don't want to put people at risk. So I'm going to back off.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Do we take him at his word that, oh, there's this credible guy looking at it, I'm just going to get out of the way and keep politics out of this, or is it, great, there's a guy looking at this, now I don't have to have it in any forum where say maybe the Democrats might get to ask questions?

PHILLIP: Well, the most important thing he said was, I'm the Republican chairman of the Judiciary Committee. He's basically saying, I'm a Republican, I need to back off of this issue because this is something that is like a third rail for the president and the levered my party.

Lindsey Graham is operating in a very transparent way. He supports the president. He said so just a few minutes ago in that clip that you played. And any action that he's going to take is going to on that basis, especially now that he's in a position of leadership and really needs the president in order to avoid political trouble down the road back in his home state.

KING: I was going to say, let me add, especially that he's on the ballot in 2020.

PHILLIP: Exactly.

KING: And they've already helped him avert a primary challenge.

Up next for us, domestic politics of a different sort. A big challenge today for Joe Biden. How does he hand incoming fire from the very vocal progressive left?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:16:12] KING: Live pictures. You're watching right there. The former vice president, Joe Biden, now Democratic candidate for president. It looks like a beautiful day in Nashua, New Hampshire. The vice president campaigning in Nashua, a little bit after mixing it up a bit this morning with one of the Democratic Party's rising liberal stars.

Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez says there's no middle ground approach to fighting climate change. That is a shot at Biden, prompted by the -- a media account that said the former vice president was preparing such a plan. In New Hampshire today, Biden said not true and he shrugged off the incoming.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I've never been in the middle of the road on the environment. And I'd tell her to check, you know, the statement that I made and look at my record. She'll find that nobody has been more consistent about taking on the environment and the green revolution than I have. And so, look -- anyway. But I -- so I can't -- I don't think she's talking about me.

This idea that I haven't done anything, take a look at the record. That's what I'd say. I'm sure she will get time to look at it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Note the smile. How the former vice president handles these liberal attacks and criticisms is going to be a big test. Here's the climate complaint from Ocasio-Cortez.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ (D-NY): I will be damned if the same politicians who refused to act then are going to try to come back today and say we need a middle of the road approach to save our lives. That is too much for me.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: CNN's Jeff Zeleny joins the conversation.

What do we make of the moment -- there's this specific here -- and this is going to a constant for Joe Biden. The more progressive base of the party, including Senator Sanders, potentially Senator Warren, she's already doing a little bit in the race, but then the outside groups are going to be coming at him every day. How he handles it is going to be critical.

JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: No doubt. And this is how these races sometimes become an intra-party fight, if you will, and this is how candidates get drawn in. Up until now, the former vice president has been very consistent about not saying I'm not going to respond to Bernie Sanders. He answered that question for a reason. It was a question by our Arlette Saenz up in New Hampshire. And he does want to start mixing it up a little bit. He reads those stories as well, is he too cautious, is he too sort of protected? So he wants to make the case that, yes, he has been doing climate change longer than she has been alive probably. That's essentially what he was saying.

But he runs a bit of a risk there of being maybe a little bit dismissive towards the congresswoman, who has a big following. So it's going to be fascinating to watch how Joe Biden chooses to engage, chooses not to engage. But, today, he chose to engage for a reason.

KING: And I want to listen to a little bit more of it here. The former vice president saying, I understand, but everybody, listen to his choice of words here, everybody, I'm not even going to finish it, just listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Very -- there are very loud voices on the very new progressive side of the agenda. And I think it's -- I think it's useful. I think they're good, they're smart people and they should be able to be making their case. But the idea that somehow the Democratic Party has gone so far to the left that it is not recognized by most Democrats who consider themselves liberal is not factually what's happening.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: He's taking them on, on the facts, saying, you know, I'm fine. I'm a mainstream Democrat. I'm an Obama/Biden Democrat. The party has not moved so far. He also said in that same little gaggle with reporters, everyone should calm down a little bit. The vocal progressive base of the party I don't think is going to like that part of the sentence very much.

SCHOR: Absolutely not, but this conflict only stands to help Joe Biden, keep in mind, because these are the same environmental activists who took on the Obama climate agenda during Obama's re- election fight in 2012 and throughout his second term, saying you need to do more, you didn't go far enough. And this kind of benefits him because he's really speaking to the middle. He's speaking to swing voters who are not on Twitter, who maybe are not part of the millennial generation. And, yes, we could be seeing a replay of a bit of the Bernie versus Hillary dynamic where these younger voters are not motivated to come out for Biden. But this is a net good for him.

[12:20:21] BADE: And I was just going to add to that, you know, Biden is vocalizing a feeling that I see in the House Democratic caucus where there's some frustration with the folks on the far left and that they are so vocal and people do want them to calm them down because they think is undercuts keeping their majority in the House. But Biden, you know, trying to defend himself, he's one of the Democrats actually pushing back. And I do think that there's an appetite for folks who do want to check the far left. But, you know, if they do have this balance, they can't totally alienate the base, right?

ZELENY: Walking right up to the line of those saying, calm down, what's the next step. You're being hysterical. You're being whatever. So we'll see how he -- how this -- how this evolves.

KING: More importantly we'll see what he proposes. He says just wait.

ZELENY: Right.

KING: He says that there was a Reuters account that said it was going to be a middle ground approach and so that, you know, that Bernie -- Senator Sanders, Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez said, wait a minute, we're past that. We need more than middle ground. Then the former vice president saying it's not true and he's going to lay out the details soon. That will matter.

SHEAR: But the truth is, whatever it is, we know it's not going to be where the far left is, right? I mean that's just not what Joe Biden is. And so he's trying to -- I mean he's -- he is unapologetically embracing that middle ground that he -- you know, he didn't want to use that phrase in this particular -- you know, because he's been -- was just attacked for it, but he is going to embrace that and he's trying to lay the predicate that not -- that the middle ground is something that you should -- that you should be dismissive of, but rather that that's where the most -- that's where the majority of not only the Democratic Party but the country is and that's --

ZELENY: That's how you beat President Trump.

SHEAR: And that's -- that's how you beat President Trump. And he's hoping that that's how you beat the Democratic field as well is that -- is that, you know, let the left kind of nibble -- you know, nibble at the -- at, you know, the constituency that they have, and he'll take the rest. He'll take everybody out.

KING: And he's betting that the Democratic Party that you see here on the Internet is different than the Democratic Party he's going to see in New Hampshire and he's going to see in Iowa and he's going to see in South Carolina, and he's going to see in Nevada. And if you're Joe Biden and you're the front-runner, that's what -- about what you get, four states, and then by then you better have proven it.

ZELENY: Right. If that many.

SCHOR: It's important to note, though, that these activists are also betting that they can push Joe Biden. If, in the end, Joe Biden squeaks a little bit more to the left as a result of this, it's a win for both sides.

KING: We'll watch it play out. It's interesting. It's -- it's just going to be a recurring theme of how he handles the incoming, shall we say.

Up next, President Trump says the trade war with China, nothing but a mere squabble. He says it's a lucrative squabble.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:27:20] KING: President Trump putting an upbeat optimistic veneer today on the unfolding trade war between China and the United States. Just last hour, outside the White House, the president said the United States has the upper hand here, and he insists, follow his histologic, we're making a lot of money in the meantime.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We're having a little squabble with China.

I think it's going to be -- I think it's going to turn out extremely well.

We are, again, in a very, very strong position. They want to make a deal. It could absolutely happen. But, in the meantime, a lot of money is being made by the United States, and a lot of strength is being shown.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: And a lot of economics professors are saying that's not the way it works, but we'll come back to that.

The president also tweeting about trade and tariffs over and over today. He's hinted he believes a resolution could come within a month.

The president's optimism may be helping global financial markets. They're up a little bit today, or at least static. But it's not calming fears in the Midwest, where farmers are sharing their anxiety about what happens if no deal is reached soon.

Take a look at some headlines from a few of our CNN affiliates. From Iowa, "China's retaliatory tariffs leave Iowa farmers and investors wary. From Wisconsin, trade war causing concern for central Wisconsin industries. And perhaps most telling, this from Illinois, farm bureau seeks to destabilize -- destigmatize mental health, increase access for services.

The president has hinted there's relief coming soon for farmers if the trade war goes on, but has yet to provide any details.

And there's the challenge. The president, smartly from his perspective, trying to keep upbeat about this, saying we're going to work it out. We need this as leverage. But when you go through the farm states, these destigmatizing mental health benefits because they worry about stress, they worry about suicides. People talking about, how do I plant my next crops. He's got a political problem out there.

PHILLIP: Yes, and these retaliatory tariffs from China were designed to target President Trump's voters and his supporters. And so far many of these individuals, even while they've been hurting, have been giving the president the benefit of the doubt.

But the question for everyone at this point is, how long is this going to last? And President Trump might seem optimistic about where things are headed, but our sources say that the talks have stalled at this point. There is not much happening in the way of communication. There are some vague plans for negotiators to go to Beijing to resume talks. But those haven't been hammered down.

The president hasn't -- has only said that he will meet face to face with President Xi at the G-20, which is all the way in -- at the end of June. So we have a long way to go before we even get the two principles back at the negotiating table.

[12:29:54] And President Trump seems to think that, in the meantime, tariffs are great, a, and, b, that he can just resolve the problem with farmers by redistributing wealth essentially, by moving $15 billion to farmers. But that's obviously not what the industry wants.

END