Transcripts For CNNW New Day With Alisyn Camerota And John Berman 20190404

Lying down. Announcer this is new day with Alisyn Camerota and john berman. Good morning. Welcome to your new day. Breaking overnight, the first signs that the mueller team doesnt like how their findings are being depicted and they may be starting to do something about it. The New York Times was the first to report some investigators for the special counsel are saying that attorney general bill barr did not adequately portray the findings of the nearly twoyear probe in his fourpage memo. Mark mazetti talked to us moments ago. Almost bawilliam barr had a shaping the narrative here. In doing so he downplayed the information that potentially was perilous for donald trump. We dont know how extensive this frustration concern is inside the team. We dont suggest its every member. But we think there is a significant strain here inside the investigation about of concern and frustration about how that all played out. Well get much more on that in a moment. Also new this morning a top democrat is asking the irs to hand over six years of President Trumps personal and business tax returns. In a letter to the irs first obtained by cnn, house ways and Means Committee chairman richard neal wants the returns from 2013 to 2018 and set an april 10 deadline. That could set up a drawn out legal battle. Lets bring in jeffrey toobin, former federal prosecutor and cnn chief legal analyst. We have laura coates, cnn legal analyst and chris cillizza, cnn politics reporter and editor at large. Lets start with the mueller team. It sounds like some of the investigators on the team are frustrated by the characterization that attorney general bill barr put out. They have spoken to Close Associates who then shared that with the New York Times. We now know that what they had intended, they created their own summaries of each portion of the 400page report. They thought it could be released to the public. In other words, scrubbed of classified or damning information. Thats not what bill barr did. He distilled it further into his own fourpage summary. They think that mischaracterized their work. And bar put a very pro trump spin on the mueller findings. This is yet another example of why the report itself has to be released. Now we have barr characterizing it. We have people in the Mueller Office characterizing it. This document exists in the world. People can read it for themselves. This is really a goad to barr and ultimately to congress to release it. There was a question about how far the mueller team would let the president and his allies go in depicting and portraying whats in the report. Before they expressed frustration, the answer is this far. Today. Today. Im with jeff. I worry that the bigger the gap between fourpage barr summary and whatever larger Mueller Report, if it is all or most of it comes out, the time to shape the political narrative. You saw donald trump within 24 hours of the barr letter, no collusion, total exoneration. That wasnt true because it said it doesnt exonerate donald trump, quoting bob mueller. This is what hes good at, like him or hate him. Hes good at framing the narrative. Hell say, oh, yeah, now they are saying this. In some ways it will get lost for a decent chunk of the populous no matter when it comes out and in what form. He has already had this fourpage letter he can seize on and say, see . I didnt do anything wrong. When the rest comes out, oh, theyre nitpicking about details. Maybe it will be enough that it will change peoples perception, but a lot of people are already over this. Thats a good story for donald trump. Yes, i suppose. Except when real information comes out and there are real descriptions over what Robert Mueller found some of which not be a love letter. They will be incriminating or at least embarrassing, people can change their minds with new evidence. Absolutely. Think about this. William barr, it took him 19 pages to evaluate and assess and offer his thoughts on obstruction of justice before he even saw the evidence in front of the 22month investigation. A 19page letter was distilled down to a page, a little under a page of what he now surmised of the actual mueller probe. The notion there would not be a disconnect between what was ultimately found and conveyed is a farce. Particularly because anybody who is literate would have been able to read even limited words from mueller contained in the bar summary showed the president s narrative is a false one. There was not a total exoneration, particularly with respect to obstruction of justice. You have to have and to your point, alisyn, there is information out there that actually posed some sort of conundrum for mueller and his team. There was evidence he had to weigh on both sides of the issue. It seems the barr summary only presents the side that weighs in favor of trump. If they were not able to reach a conclusion thats whats so important and substantive that we have to see it. Jeffrey, i know you are an avid watcher of new day. We had a fascinating discussion with one of the reporters who broke this. Is it just information on obstruction that the mueller team feel is here or issues around collusion. Mark said probably some of both. But it is clear on obstruction they feel something is being spun the wrong way here. The Washington Post matched much of the reporting and i want to read this. Members of the mueller team complained to Close Associates the evidence gathered on obstruction was alarming and significant. Even by barrs summary it was a close question about whether the president committed an illegal act. That means there is Bad Information in there. Is idea that this is 400 pages of hearts and flowers to donald trump is inconceivable. There obviously is incriminating information there. How much . How people view it . That, of course, remains to be seen. I dont really share chriss worry about how people are going to receive the information. As far as i can tell, nothing changes anyones opinion about donald trump. Thats true. Polls on trump never change. We make a big deal when his approval goes from 40 to 42. Thats just noise. I care about the facts. Thats what people should care about. I liken it to a recount which you have covered. If you were ahead by one vote when the recount happens, you can say the election was stolen from us. You prefer to be ahead by the one because you can say we have been leading for months. But take the political concern out of it. We know what hes going to do with it. It is a 22month investigation into foreign interference in our election. We lose that sometimes. It turned out 199 criminal counts. Lets see it because a foreign power was seeking to influence our president ial election beyond the politics. We have a lot more to talk about. One other point some conservatives said is why do investigators care about the narrative. Why dont they care about getting the facts out . There is another big political story this morning. A key House Democrat is requesting President Trumps tax returns. He has the Legal Authority to do so. The chairman of the ways and Means Committee wants six years of the president s personal tax returns and records from eight of his businesses. Lets get to lauren fox on capitol hill to help us understand whats going on here. Reporter this is a major step yesterday when the house ways and means chairman sent the formal request to the irs. Of course democrats argued they have to do this in part because the president is the first president in decades not to just disclose his tax returns. House ways and means chairman richard neal making the first move in what is expected to turn into a Major Political and legal showdown. Formally requesting six years of President Trumps tax returns and his business entities. Is that all . Oh, usually its ten. I guess theyre giving up. Reporter the president saying he wont comply. We are under audit. Until such time as im not under audit i would not be inclined to do that. Reporter despite mr. Trumps longstanding explanation, an audit doesnt prevent an individual from releasing tax returns. Richard nixon did it in 1973. The Washington Post reports mr. Trump told advisers he plans to fight all the way to the Supreme Court. Hoping to stall the issue until after the 2020 election. And treasury officials will not comply until they are compelled to do so. Im not aware there has been a request for an elected officials tax return. Well follow the law and protect the president as we would protect any individual taxpayer under their rights. Chairman neal is allowed to request anyones tax returns as long as they can share its part of kopgs oversight role or an investigation. This leaves no wiggle room. It is squarely within the authority. Neal alluding to this requirement in the twopage letter to the irs writing, quote, the committee is considering legislative proposals and conducting oversight related to the federal tax laws. The Top Republican on the Committee Kevin Brady criticizing the requests in a letter warning that, quote, weaponizing the tax code sets a dangerous precedent and weakens americans privacy rights. Democrats insisting neals request is justified. Hes been very careful throughout the process. He made it clear this is not about politics. This is about policy. Now the irs has a weak to comply with the requests. Well be watching closely how they respond. Richard neal said the day after the election he planned to make the move. Hes taken several months to talk closely with how counsel and lawyers on the committee trying to build this case. Thank you very much for explaining that. Back with us now we have jeffrey toobin, laura coats and chris cillizza. So it is legal and the purview of the chairman of the house ways and Means Committee to request anyones tax returns. They have done that. It should be legal. It is treasury secretary Steve Mnuchin who will decide do you see a brewing legal storm with this now . For certain. This is just a symbol of how many of these subpoena fights we are going to see over the next year and a half. I think what may be the most important factor in this is time. These legal fights are going to take time. Whether the democrats get anything whether its from the white house or hear from the Internal Revenue service is really going to be determined by how quickly the courts address the questions and the white house is going to be in no hurry. I think we are going to see a lot of legal fights starting in the District Court in washington, d. C. Circuit, some going to the Supreme Court maybe. While these fights are going the democrats will get nothing. Its interesting. You said the treasury secretary will decide the decision isnt on the law. It is whether to comply with the law. This is code. This is a law passed upon written request from the committee on ways and means or finance. The secretary shall furnish. Hes required by law to tur niche will not comply and that will lead to the fight. You are also required to comply with the subpoena. We see fights brewing that there is a reason this is not supposed to be complied with. The law is clear here. The notion will be this is an attempt by the democrats to weaponize the code to get a political objective. That will be the substance of the argument made. Ironically the notion that the ways and Means Committee is using is to say they want to know whether or not the policies that are already in place to audit a president to review the tax returns is a good one. Should there be changes. I remind everyone back when nixon was in office, this is an issue that prompted him to say i am not a crook. It was a tax issue to have them realize whether the president of the United States was a crook based on tax fraud in part. You have a developing history and this president now saying even if you weigh the cost benefit analysis of the American Peoples right to know whether the president or the process is in place to oversee the president is solid against his own decisions and prerogatives not to want you to know whether hes rich wont play out favorably when you have this overwhelming public need. However the public narrative certainly has a partisan slant to it. That will be revealed in the court documents. It will be argued until they are blue in the face. They are not giving this up. He made a decision early. Before he was a candidate he said im more than happy to release tax returns. Someone said, yeah. Theres stuff in here that wouldnt come out. He made a decision during the campaign whatever negative press he was going to take. Hes not transparent enough. People didnt care about that as much as they would care whats in these things. Its not up to the president. I totally agree. They will not comply. This will go, as jeff said, this winds up in front of the Supreme Court. This will be a fight over something from 1924 that was put in place to equalize power between the legislative and executive. President claims hes being audited. We dont know whether thats true. Never had evidence. And even if it is, it is not a legal reason. Nixon released his tax returns while under audit to prove he was not a crook. Thank you very much. Attorney general william barr is under scrutiny after the reports that there is concern inside the mueller team that barr isnt accurately portraying what they found in the twoyear investigation. We are going to speak to a former attorney general about this next. Hi, whats this Social Security alert . 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Limu gets a little confused when he sees another bird that looks exactly like him. [ loud crash ] yeah. Hell figure it out. Only pay for what you need. Liberty, liberty, liberty, liberty the New York Times and the Washington Post report that some members of the special counsels team believe that the Mueller Report is more damaging to President Trump than attorney general william barr revealed in his fourpage summary. The post said the evidence gathered on obstruction was, quote, alarming and significant. Joining us now is former attorney general Alberto Gonzales who served under president george w. Bush. Now the dean of the law school at Belmont University and the author of true faith and allegiance, a story of service and sacrifice in war and peace. Thank you for being with us. When you hear there are simmering frustrations among the team of investigators including fbi agents and lawyers about how the report is being depicted and they are somehow getting those simmering frustrations out in the public how do you see it. We have a complicated investigation covering a large amount of complicated information. People will have different views. Prosecutors and investigators have different views about the conclusions. At the end of the day someone has to make the call. That call has been made by bob mueller and bill barr. The fact there is some concerns, complaints about the ultimate conclusion doesnt matter. The truth is we know from reading the fourpage summary from bill barr there has to be damaging information that hasnt been disclosed yet. I would say let bill barr release a report hes going to release. Let him testify before we start throwing accusations that hes trying to protect the president. I think we need to give bill barr the benefit of the doubt and see how it plays out. Everyone agrees the easiest way to fix this question is to see the report as completely and as soon as possible. As to the specific concerns, its that somehow barr isnt adequately portraying what investigators found. When you say someone had to reach a conclusion, its not clear to me that the people who are now getting this out there felt it was barrs place to make the conclusion on the issue of obstruction. Someone has to make the conclusion. If bob mueller was unwilling or unable to reach that conclusion, bill barr is the attorney general and supervises the work of the special counsel in this case. Its perfectly appropriate for the attorney general given the circumstances to reach this conclusion. Doesnt Congress Actually explain who gets to make conclusions about the president . Not with respect to criminal prosecutions. Thats not the role of congress. If we are talking about gathering information to reach conclusions about impeachment thats a different matter. Again, yes, i think bill barr deserves an opportunity to give a fuller explanation of whats in the report. His conclusions and findings. Let him release the report. It will be redacted, no question about it. Well get into a discussion with congress involving the American People about whether or not some of the redactions are inappropriate. Well see what happens. One of the things in the times report is the mueller team itself produced summaries of different parts of the report. The special counsels investigators had written multiple summaries of the report and some believe barr should have included more material in the fourpage letter he wrote on march 24 laying out their main conclusions. We counted. He used 101 words from the Mueller Report, william barr did. That may get to the frustration here. Looking at it now do you feel as if william barr seized a moment, entered a vacuum here and played a little bit of politics. Well see how bill barr answers that question to congress and the American People. There may be reasons he may not have been comfortable releasing the summaries without more time to study carefully the 400page report and felt more comfortable releasing the fourpage conclusion their summary. I would like to give the attorney general the benefit of the doubt and ask questions as to why the fourpage summary, what concerns you have about the other summaries prepared by the team. There is a lot of information i think we need to get from the attorney general. How much redacting is appropriate here . Well, thats a very good question. One that the department of justice is wrestling with. If you are talking about grand jury information that should be appropriately redacted. There will be classified information that should be appropriately redacted. With respect to information that may affect ongoing investigations, typically that information is redacted and held back. There is a longstanding practice at the department of justice with respect to releasing derogatory information about someone who is on periphery of an investigation or whether the inclination to prosecute. Typically that information is redacted. It is appropriate based on the law, practice and tradition to hold back information. How much of the information can be shared with congress behind closed doors. That will be worked out between the attorney general and members of congress. Always a pleasure to have you on new day. Thank you very much for being with us. Come back soon. Thanks for having me. We have other breaking news. Ethiopian investigators say the pilots did everything boeing suggested but they could not prevent the jet from crashing. What would boeing do now . We discuss it next. When youre y for what comes next. 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At a comfort inn with a glow taround them, so people watching will be like, wow, maybe ill glow too if i book direct at choicehotels. Com. Who glows . Just say, badda book. Badda boom. Book now at choicehotels. Com. Breaking news, ethiopian investigators released preliminary finding in the crash of the boeing 737 max 8 jet that killed 157 people last month. The crew performed all the procedure procedures provided by the manufacturer, but was not able to control the aircraft. Authorities are outlining the frantic efforts by pilots to regain control of the plane but ultimately they were not able to. Joining us now is an aviation reporter at the wall street journal who has done a lot of reporting on this. Thank you very much for being here. Up until this morning and this press conference there were questions about whether or not the pilots maybe werent trained in the new technology. Maybe they didnt know what boeing recommended, but it turns out at least according to ethiopian investigators they followed the procedures that boeing laid out and still couldnt keep the plane from going into a nose dive. Is that what you got out of the press conference this morning . Thats the assertion. It will be interesting to see what the report actually says about the specific steps that boeing and the faa laid out after the lyon air crash. To see how specifically the crew react reacted as they took that primary emergency step of cutting off the power to the Flight Control system called mcas. Were going to be looking for the details and to see what steps and how they were followed. The investigators didnt release the details. Correct me if im wrong but they havent released what they found on the data flight recorder or the voice recorder. Obviously that would be Important Information and so we are taking the ethiopian investigators word for it. But given that, what should boeing do today. Boeing is waiting for the report and well comment further later. Presumably well know more from their perspective separate from this particular crash investigation, boeing has been working on a software fix to the Flight Control system. They ultimately have to get the regulators around the world including the faa to sign off on the revised Flight Control system for the 737 max so that regulators will allow the Airline Operators to get the airplane back in the air. Whats really nerve wracking is to hear investigators say the pilots turned off that automatic Flight Control system. So the one they believe was sending the plane into a nose dive, the pilots knew from their training and i guess from the flight manual to turn off that system and they still couldnt get the plane to climb. They still couldnt control it. So its just very worrisome obviously to the passengers, the flying public that pilots who knew what to do werent able to prevent this tragedy. Right. This is a big question hanging over this second tragedy involving the 737 max. After the first tragedy, boeing and the faa alerted airlines and pilots around the world that if they encounter a misfiring of the Flight Control system there is an establishes emergency procedure to follow to disable the system, wrest control of the airplane, fly it and land it safely. As you point out thats the big question. In this case, the crew according to the ethiopian investigators and the airline today followed that emergency procedure. There are particular steps in the procedure. Its going to be interesting to see how the steps were followed and what the crew did. Its a big question. That raises the question of what the fix will be from boeings perspective and how regulators around the world will let the plane get back in the air given what we now know or are finding out about the ethiopian crash. Well see what boeing does today. Andrew, thank you for sharing your reporting with us. It is time for cnn business now. Boeing 737 max safety crisis could help more than the companys bottom line. It could cause a dent in the entire u. S. Economy. Christine romans has more on that. Two years ago boeings ceo boasted about how quickly they were able to bring the 737 max to market. They praised the faas streamlined certification process, attributing it to the pro business philosophy of the new trump administration. After two deadly crashes, boeing is facing a crisis here. The 737 has been the best selling jet for decades. Boeing contributes to gdp. It sells more than half of the products internationally which boovss trade. It carries serious weight on the dow since the Ethiopian Air crash. 20 billion dollars shaved from its market cap. The chief Economist Says if boeing were forced to halt production it would cause a dent in the national gdp. For now, issues with the aircraft probably wont affect growth numbers, the economy overall. Production does continue. Boeing will report First Quarter deliveries and orders next week. One airline has publicly cancelled an order for the max. Boeing faces a huge bill to reimburse the airlines for the grounded planes. The cost is already 2 billion and growing each day planes arent flying. The ceo joined a test flight of the 737 max yesterday testing the planes Software Update continues. Boeing plans to submit it in the coming weeks. Thank you very much for the update. Two hollywood actresses face a judge in the College Admissions scandal. Will they face prison time . Thats next. Cal we saved our money and now, we get to spend it our way. Valerie but we worry if we have enough to last. Cal ellen, our certified financial planner™ professional, helps us manage our cash flow and plan for the unexpected. Valerie her experience and training gave us the courage to go for it. Its our confident forever plan. Cal . And its all possible with a cfp® professional. Find your certified financial planner™ professional at letsmakeaplan. Org. Neighbors. Loved ones. Living with diseases like cancer, epilepsy, Mental Health conditions and hiv. Maybe youre one of them. But new medicare rules could deny access to the latest, most effective therapies. Therapies that keep them healthy. Are medicare cuts that save less than one percent worth the risk to millions of patients . President trump promised to protect medicare. We need him to keep his word. This and even this. Hark, i deep clean messes like this. But i dont have to clean this, because the selfcleaning brush roll removes hair, while i clean. 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Easy . easy . Easy. Because now xfinity lets you transfer your Service Online in just about a minute with a few simple steps. Really . Really. That was easy. Yup. Plus, with twohour appointment windows, its all on your schedule. Awesome. Now all you have to do is move. That thing. [ sigh ] introducing an easier way to move with xfinity. Its just another way were working to make your life simple, easy, awesome. Go to xfinity. Com moving to get started. New developments this morning in the College Admissions scandal. Actresses Lori Loughlin and Felicity Huffman appeared and prosecutors are seeking jail time. Brynn gin grass has the latest. Reporter six to 21 months is what the government plans to ask according to a Law Enforcement source. Some parents may strike a deal with the prosecution. We did see some parents in court. Some people are already in conversations with the government. As far as two actresses when they arrived in court it was procedural. They went before a judge. The judge said do you understand the charges . Both women responded, yes, your honor. The optics different. Felicity huffman arrives three hours before her scheduled court time hand in hand with a Family Member and Lori Loughlin arrived with a security team, waved to fans, shook the hand of the prosecution before she went before the judge. Different with the two women. An update on the case though. We are hearing from a source that the government could ask for additional charges. We have already seen it with two parents who saw an additional Money Laundering charge to the case and soon we could see more arrests in the case, possibly of a student who knowingly participated in this according to a source. It gets more complicated. Thank you very much. Another day, another pivotal vote on brexit. Why does this seem impossible to solve and how did we get here . One man on earth who can solve brexit is here with the reality check. It makes our dysfunction seem less. Yes. We are not alone, people. That doesnt means the a good thing. Lets set the stage. One of the worlds longest lasting democracies thrown into chaos. A vote amid accusations the campaign lied. Now the divided country cant find common ground. Im talking about brexit. More than two year parade of parliamentary face plants that chaos has been coming at a daily clip leaving americans confused. Here is a simple wtf guide to brexit. The trouble began in 2016 when the Prime Minister David Cameron bowed to pressure and allowed a referendum on leaving the european union. Cameron decided to make the split with europe subject to a simple majority. Big mistake. Leader of the coalition talked a lot about british sovereignty but had a soft spot for putin and a dislike for antirussian sanctions. That rhetoric might be familiar. He was talking about taking the country back from arrogant bureaucrats and out of touch elites and railing against muslim immigrants. Some of the arguments fell apart. One argument said the eu received 350 Million Pounds a week that would go to the National Health service after brexit. That wasnt exactly true. The free trade deal would be one of the easiest in human history. Thats right up there with trade wars are good and easy to win. Meanwhile in the final weeks of the campaign there was a pro brexit push on russias english language propaganda outfits and cnn reported russian trolls pumped up brexit on social media the day of the vote. The brexiters won 5248 with england and wales voting to leave while scotland and ireland voted to stay. Cameron resigned. Theresa may tried to make the best of a bad situation. In january after months of negotiation the deal was rejected by a historic margin in parliament. More than a dozen votes have fared as well. May tried to offer to quit if a brexit deal was passed. Nothing has worked. Meanwhile the brit economy has taken it on the chin. May announced she would try to work with far left opposition leaders jeremy corbin. Whats next . Late yesterday parliament ruled out a no deal brexit by one vote forcing the government to seek an extension if it cant pass a deal by next friday. There is a redo option arguing the country may look at it differently knowing what they know now. About the only thing thats clear is brexit is a mess. Why should it matter to you . Its a reminder that even the longest lasting democracies can be crippled by negative partisanship and nativism. When people are more defined by what they are against rather than what they are for. Thats your reality check. The lesson is it can always get worse. Thats my takeaway. And no matter how unpopular you think you are there is always someone more unpopular next to you. Those are the good takeaways. If they were leading the parties you have a problem. Wheres Meghan Markle on this . Thank you. Presumably shell solve it. Good point. If anybody can. John, thank you very much. Parts of the south getting hammering by severe thunderstorms and hail while western states brace for wet weather. Jennifer grey has the forecast. Thats right. We have strong storms in the south. Thats going to slow down flights today. You can see all of the rain p h pushing through the Mississippi River valley. Look at the lightning. Really just lit up over the last hour or so. This is brought to you by the shark selfcleaning brush roll which deep cleans and now cleans itself. We have a risk of severe storms that could include damaging winds, large hail and the possibility of isolated tornadoes. This is for basically the entire state of louisiana and points just outside east texas including that as well as portions of mississippi. Lets time it out. You can see the showers and storms rolling through today. Even as we go through the overnight tonight into tomorrow. We could see some very strong storms push through the panhandle and make it to the east. We even get rain across the northeast and snow across portions of new england. By this weekend, temperatures are looking much warmer all around, better forecast, feeling more like spring. Thank you very much. So many people associate the murdoch with fox news. Now thanks to a huge New York Times magazine report we see how much farther the right wing reach extends. Its through the Trump White House and well beyond. Announcer your new day weather brought to you by the shark selfcleaning brush roll. The vacuum that deep cleans now cleans itself. This and even this. But i dont have to clean this, because the selfcleaning brush roll removes hair, while i clean. [announcer] shark, the vacuum that deep cleans, now cleans itself. Were oscar mayer deli fresh your very first sandwich,m. Your mammoth masterpiece. And. Whatever this was. Because we make our meat with the good of the deli and no artificial preservatives. Make every sandwich count with oscar mayer deli fresh. 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This is the night fox crossed the line between where the network ends and President Trump begins. And im going to tell you how we got here. America, you ever the power. Tomorrow you can shock the world again. Joining us now is the times media columnist jim rutenberg, he spent six months doing this peace. My partner john mueller and i have been working this really hard for several months. We put on a lot of air miles. That was a very ominous sort of manchurian candidatelike clip that we just played there. I think that what people in the u. S. Mostly tie the murdochs with is fox news, you just showed sean hannity there, but what your article shows is they have tentacles everywhere and are more powerful than many people know. They have elected Prime Ministers in other countries. They are vast. What it really is, its a global machine, right . And its almost in these other countries its taken as a given that the Murdoch Press is one of the most powerful forces in their country, in some cases almost like another political party. And here in this country, lets just dive into that. One of the interesting things its been reported elsewhere but you reveal in more detail that Rupert Murdoch was not a fan of Donald Trumps originally. You write am you are dock recognized trumps appeal as a tabloid character and ratings driver but he did not seem to see him as a serious person let alone a credible candidate for president. He is a blanking idiot, murdoch would say, when asked about trump. So how is it possible that they now have such a symbiotic relationship between fox news and the Trump White House . First of all, one thing to understand about Rupert Murdoch is he does go where his audience is, his audience for most of his products is center right to farther right, these days especially, but trump was not initially a murdoch kind of guy. Rupert murdoch is on record as being very much, for instance, for immigration reform, hes for free trade. Environmentally green. For a moment. That was a little shorter lived, but and we forget this now, but there was a point where fox news and trump were at war, right, with megyn kelly, challenging him in a debate, there was months of back and forth, some of their coverage would drive trump crazy, but as he comes in he starts getting close to getting the nomination, you see things start to shift. But i guess the question is do the murdochs have positions based on some sort of moral code or is it all just about winning in ratings . I think to some degree, yes, its about giving the audience what the audience wants, but if you look at the sum total of the direction of the Murdoch Press across the world, it is inn ex or blee kind of moving to the right. He is a pragmatist, rupert is, so he will get behind a more liberal government here or there, but its really mostly going in this other direction. Its also very interesting to see how he deals with the outsized influence that President Trump now has over fox news. Along with, you know, the president s friend and ally, sean hannity. When a fox contributor attempts to Say Something that might be seen as unflattering about President Trump and it happened with steven hays here. You might about what happened. After steven hayes called trump a clown, trump faxed bret baier a copy of his resume with a note skrald across it in black marker, tell hayes no clown, could have done this. That was at the point during the campaign when they were still at war and it apparently happened more than once when he was called a clown by Charles Krauthammer as well, we have some reporting on that. That is still during that period. He has gone on their air and complained about some of their people. So its not always in lockstep, but especially in prime time through like a sean hannity they are very, very close and we see it play out all the time as we did before the election and now since. And yet not all of the murdochs are comfortable with this. You talk about the rift that has happened between the sons, one of them being more liberal, is married to a more liberal woman who is very uncomfortable with the direction of fox news and the trump presidency. So how does that play out . This became a big point of conflict within the family. Gyms murdoch i think he would call himself a centrist and he saw especially roger ails asked to leave the network amid a Sexual Harassment scandal. James murdoch sees this as an opportunity to maybe bring the Network Reign it in a little bit. He still expects it to be a conservative network but thinks he lost. He loses. Lock land murdoch comes in and now is the heir apparent to his father and he is much more conservative and really doesnt see a problem why get in the way of something thats making a lot of money and winning in the ratings. Its an exhaustive and fascinating piece, everybody should read just how vast their influence s well beyond fox news. Thank you for sharing it with us. Thank you. There is a key split now being reported between Robert Muellers team and the attorney general william barr. New day continues right now. Barr put out this bare bones letter, what weve heard is there is a lot more that is damning for trump. They can put out every part of it, about as big an exoneration as i have ever seen. Theres going to be a push for detail. Until thats out there there will be no satisfaction. The house ways and means chairman sent a letter requesting trumps tax returns. We are under audit. I would not be inclined to do that. He faces the prospect of being shown to not be worth what he says hes worth. He is in big trouble here. Announcer this is new day with Alisyn Camerota and john berman. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to your new day, it is thursday, april 4th, 8 00 now in the east. The New York Times reveals that the Mueller Report may be far more damaging for President Trump than attorney general bill barr outlined in his fourpage summary to congress. The times says some of muellers investigators have told Close Associates that they feel that barr did not adequately capture the findings of their nearly two year long probe. Mark mazetti was on new day this story. William barr had the first shot at shaping the narrative here and in doing so he certainly downplayed the information that potentially was perilous for donald trump. We dont know how extensive this frustration and concern is inside the team. We dont suggest that its every