Transcripts For CNNW New Day Sunday 20180318 : comparemela.c

A third decade. There are eight candidates standing in this president ial election, but of course theres only one serious contender. Well have the first returns on the russian election. Putin won. Good morning, everybody, so glad to have you with us here. You all right . Yeah, i know, its sunday. Just trying to get everything together. Im victor blackwell. Good morning to you. The president is escalating his attacks on his own Law Enforcement agencies and once again claiming that the russia investigation, which, remember, has resulted in indictments and guilty pleas and new sanctions is a witch hunt. Its a view thats shared by one of his top lawyers whos facing backlash for suggesting that the investigation needs to be shut down. None of this is stopping special Counsel Robert Mueller who we now know met with former fbi Deputy Director Andrew Mccabe and has notes on all of mccabes interactions with President Trump. Dan merica is following all of these developments from washington. What more do we know about repo Robert Muellers sitdown with the Deputy Director 0 are how he got ahold of these memos . We know that President Trump continues to fume and rage about this investigation hes has for a long time. Whats new here is as were told former fbi director Andrew Mccabe actually sat down with Robert Mueller, was interviewed by him, handed over these notes that he took which are critical because they could corroborate what james comey, the former fbi director who was fired by trump had said and had written at the time. He also took contemporaneous notes about his interactions with the president. So what mccabes notes could be, they could corroborate what comey had already said. Its been a busy weekend on the russia front for a number of reasons. Andrew mccabe was days away from retiring from the department of justice for receiving his full pension. He was actually fired on friday night just, you know, really hours before he could have received that full pension. Now the department of justice says that was because of i had conduct around investigations, especially one around the Clinton Foundation actually. But mccabe and others have said that his firing is nothing more than another attack and war on this Mueller Probe. President trump actually weighed in and tweeted about the Mueller Probe and has continued to fume about it. I want to read to you exactly what he said in a tweet yesterday. The Mueller Probe should never have been started and that there was no collusion and there was no crime. It was based on fraudulent activities and a fake dossier paid for by crooked hillary and the d in, c and improperly used in fisa court for surveillance of my campaign witch hunt. Hes obviously made that case a number of times. Hes also getting a little bit of backup from one of his outside lawyers john dowd. John dowd actually said in response to the decision to fire mccabe, i pray that acting attorney general rosenstein will follow the brilliant example of attorney general Jeff Sessions and bring an end to alleged russia collusion investigation. All of this kind of contributes to the fact that it doesnt look like the russia probe is going to end anytime soon and that may make President Trump even more angry. Certainly not going to end anytime soon according to these indicators. Thank you so much. Thank you. So joining me now, commentary writer and cnn political analyst, thank you both for being here. We appreciate. first and foremost, we know that mccabe told cnn he had four interactions with President Trump last may. While he was acting fib director, three of fem e them were in person, one of them was via phone call. How much credence do these memos hold, julian . Well, i think they will hold a lot of creed yaps fdence for are not simply listening to President Trump. I think like the comey memo these could provide a window into the thinking of the president of the United States and into the question of whether there was an attempt to obstruct. And i think mccabe brings with him a certain amount of credibility to the table that obviously Trump Supporters wont agree with. But i did think those memos can be damaging. Er is wrat do you agree tha these memos like comeys memos can give of that much wait to this investigation . That depends. There are some things with respect to mckayes firing that are in question. We dont have Public Access to any of the documents relating to whether mccabe misled investigators or he lacked candor when he was speaking to investigators. And whether that constitutes a fireable offense. Of course if he did commit any of those things and he was in, you know, obviously within the range of being fired, then probably you can make the justification that he should be fired. But with respect to the memos, you know, its possible whether, you know, it be about him voting for whoever in the 2016 election whether it be for trump or hillary clinton, that conversation that he had that was reported on in january, obviously thats of concern with respect to the investigation. But its also interesting that the responses that were seeing from the Intelligence Community to trump, its almost a response being its basically washington speak for trump is about to catch this fade. By the time the tweet that dan read as well as the statement from john dowd came out, this sent a lot of lawmakers into some sort of a frantic spin here. I want to read to you what shum her to say. He said mr. Dowds comments are another indication that the first instinct of the president and his legal team is not to cooperate with special counsel mueller but to undermine him in every turn. President and his legal team must not steak any steps to curtail or interfere with or there will be severe consequences from both democrats and republicans. What could those severe consequences be . What are their options . Well julian. The big option obviously for law make sers not on the table right now, some kind of impeachment process. The major option on the table is to actually conduct a congressional investigation which has not happened. Its been killed by the same kind of partisan attacks youve had from the administration on the investigation. Thats what congress has done with their irancontra, watergate, set up a real joint committee and conduct a full investigation bringing witnesses that the public can see. So this isnt all done behind closed doors. Those are very effective and they gr for the democratic process. Thats really what we still need congress to step up and do. Well, we heard from senator mark warner as well, advice chairman of the Senate Intel Committee and he said every member of Congress Republican and democrat needs to speak up in defense of the special counsel now. Do you expect that we will have republicans standing up . Yes, absolutely. I think there are a anybody of republicans currently serving in congress who will speak out in support of special counsel mueller who believe that this investigation should continue because in the interest of transparency and seeing the investigation go entirely through who are still in Law Enforcement and agencies like the fbi would want that to happen because, of course, you dont goowant to go against thei in certain cases like trump is doing because that makes public enemy number one. And to group yourself in with trump is probably bad for republicans in the future. There are political reasons but there are other reasons such as actual justice that were trying to make sure that President Trump and his associates as well as those within the Trump Campaign had nothing to do with colluding with the russians. But, julian, President Trump is not the president , the kind of president that the United States has known up to this point. I mean, he is tweeting that this probe should have never been started, that there was no collusion. With that said, do you get the feeling or the sense that anybody is talking to President Trump and trying to direct him not to do this because does he care . Does the president care that if he would try to squash this this Mueller Investigation that he would he would look guilty to some degree . Well, i think he probably would disagree with that assessment. I think the president , in my opinion, knows what hes doing and hes conducting a fullscale assault on the investigation. Never really caring about firing Robert Mueller so much as discrediting him in the public mind so that no one in congress will actually do anything about this. Im sure there are lawyers who might say stop tweeting because every tweet puts you in more jeopardy or accelerates the investigation. But i think he feels that this platform, twitter, parts of the media, conservative media, those are his best tools to making sure that nothing ever comes of this regardless of the fact many guilty pleas, indictments, and evidence this is not simply all fake news. Right. We appreciate you both being here, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And today on state of the union with jake tapper, senator jeff flake, senator Lindsey Graham and rand paul all on that show. The state of the union with jake tapper today, 9 00 a. M. Eastern only on cnn. 18 years as russias president and very likely counting are Vladimir Putin support for reelection right now and hes pretty safe bet to win. Voting happening at this moment. Were going to take you live to russia in a moment. Facebook under fire and facing the pro prospect of tighter regulation as critics call on it to take responsibility in its role in the outcome of the 2016 election. And could be drug dealers soon face the Death Penalty . And who qualifies as a drug dealer . President trump is report lid about to lay out his longawaited plan and he says it will solve the Opioid Crisis. E about to lay out his longawaited plan and he says it will solve the Opioid Crisis. D about to lay out his longawaited plan and he says it will solve the Opioid Crisis. L d about to lay out his longawaited plan and he says it will solve the Opioid Crisis. Y lid about to lay out his longawaited plan and he says it will solve the Opioid Crisis. Lid about to lay out his longawaited plan and he says it will solve the Opioid Crisis. Id about to lay out his longawaited plan and he says it will solve the Opioid Crisis. D about to lay out his longawaited plan and he says it will solve the Opioid Crisis. About to lay out his longawaited plan and he says it will solve the Opioid Crisis. In, but shes not much on articles of organization. Articles of what . So, she turned to legalzoom. They helped me out. She means we helped with her llc, trademark, and a lot of other legal stuff thats a part of running a business. So laura can get back to the dogs. Would you sit still . This is lauras mobile dog grooming palace and this is where life meets legal. Need a change of scenery . The kayak price forecast tool tells you whether to wait or book your flight now. So you can be confident youre getting the best price. Giddyup kayak. Search one and done. Heres the story of Green Mountain Coffee Roasters sumatra reserve. Lets go to sumatra. The coffee here is amazing. Because the volcanic soil is amazing. So we give farmers like win more plants. To grow more delicious coffee. Which helps provide for wins family. All, for a smoother tasting cup of coffee. Green mountain Coffee Roasters. The more you know the the commute is worth it. Me, for all the work you pour into this place, you sure get a lot more out of it. You and that john deere tractor. So versatile, you can keep dreaming up projects all the way home. Its a longer drive. But just like a john deere, its worth it. Nothing runs like a deere. Now you can own a 1e subcompact tractor for just 99 a month. Learn more at your john deere dealer. Liberty mutual saved us almost 800 when we switched our auto and home insurance. Liberty did what . Yeah, they saved us a ton, which gave us a little wiggle room in our budget. I wish our insurance did that. Then we could get a real babysitter instead of your brother. Hey, welcome back. This guy, right . laughs yes. Ellen. Thats my robe. You could save 782 when liberty stands with you. Liberty mutual insurance. Sir. Well, you know, as you as you sit there with your coffee this morning, voting in the russi russian. Today, seven candidates are running against putin but for voters in russia there is really one serious contender. Cnns Matthew Chance is live at a polling place there in moscow. Matthew, the result of this is a foregone conclusion. Yeah. Victor, its not exactly a nailbiter here in russia. As you rightly say, there are eight candidates contesting this election. There is only one real contender. Its a onehorse race as my camera man pointed out earlier. You can see the veterans about voter apathy has disappeared. Kremlin Vladimir Putin came out on Russian Television a couple of days ago to appeal to russians to get their voices heard and seems they are responding as we got from this one voting station in the capital of moscow. A look at the eight candidates here with their biographical details and Financial Information as well. Vladimir putin in the middle and it says underneath that he has 13 Bank Accounts with a total of 240,000 and he also has some apartments and has three russian cars. The public this is the public image that Vladimir Putin likes to present, that he is man of the people, that he isnt, you know, corrupt in any way. He doesnt have these billions of dollars that his critics accuse him of having. You know, that kind of sells well to the russian public, because despite all of the conflicts that Vladimir Putin has got russia into with the west and with the United States, that does not appear to have dented his popularity amongst most russians at all. Matthew chance, thank you so much, reporting live from moscow. Can you imagine having all of the Financial Information for a candidate in the United States . Well, in the United States, that would be illuminaive. Very nice word. Joining us is a author of the red web, he is also a watchdog of the russias secret service activities. Andre, good morning to you. Thank you for being here. I want to ask you i know youre no longer in russia but given what has happened this week in the uk, with the nerve agent attacks, do you have any concerns for your safety . Well, we know that for years, for 18 years, putin in power, we had lots of people who and something happened to them. People have been killed. We have spies killed. Every time kremlin line of defense was to say that it was kind of set up to undermine putin, but while all of these people are gone and putin is still in power and the result of this election is quite predictable. Matthew chance just mentioned that the concerns of apathy have dissipated. We know the kremlin went on this Public Relations campaign to try to excite people to get out to vote and according to those, i guess, antidotes we are seeing here, it worked. But what was the source of apathy leading into these final days and weeks . You can say is try to count how all you will be as the day he finally is out. And people account how much is spent under putin and, for instance, for me, its about 40 of my life. Some people under putin knew nothing about putin and people are quite tired of him. The only thing here you can use to counter this villain is to try to escalate, to mobilize people around your leader because when you are at war, you cannot question your commander in chief and that is exactly what putin is trying to do right now. In war with . At war with the west right now. Its all about the west. So when we were looking at all of those people were who showing up to the polls, i think people immediately say, i know what its like here in the u. S. To go to the polls. They there much like us probably want to know their vote counts. Do they believe it counts . Matthew that i had this is essentially an election of technicality. Yes, absolutely. At the same time, crazy conspiracy disseminated that we can expect some sort of attack from the United States, we can expect some attacks on the russian election, thats why you need to go and support your leader. At the same time, as everybody understands as a result results are quite predictable, lots of people feel we need to vote right now to support a leader and to help to protect the country. You mentioned that this war with the west, that at least pres