Transcripts For CNNW New Day With Alisyn Camerota And John Berman 20190524

Public testimonials that he was calm when he walked out of an infrastructure meeting. Kellyanne, what was my temperament yesterday . Very calm, no temper tantrum. What was my temperament . Kellyanne is right. You were very calm and very direct. And his hands were very big, that seems to be the subtext. Joining us now is Maggie Haberman, a cnn political analyst. That makes me break up in hives. I also once worked for an extremely stable genius who reminds me of that moment. Roger ailes has some things that are similar to donald trump. And that having to kiss the ring, publicly, is an interesting practice. Im sure when larry kudlow was tapped to come and be the top economic adviser, this was not the scenario he imagined, telling donald trump how calm he seemed the day before in public. We know that donald trump has a big need for affirmation publicly. This is like these scenes with these cabinet meetings where he has them go around and how great he is. Its sort of reality tv like, so its not a huge surprise. But it is a reminder that for all the idea that nancy pelosi is not getting under his skin, she is getting under his skin. I dont know why somebody would Say Something about that. Because other aides acknowledge that her comment about him being involved in a coverup is what caused him to go out and cancel this meeting in the first place. He is, as you know, is very attuned to the Media Coverage about his behavior. And there are certain story lines and pieces of coverage that bother him is about his temper and about his moods. And he asked hogan gidley to testify there on his behalf. He wasnt in the room, right . I saw hogan tweet last night that he wasnt in the room. I wasnt in the room, so i cant speak to it. His aides were saying that day, i guess it was two days ago, the president didnt yell, theyre saying he yelled. I dont hes not always the most selfaware of how his words sound, so i have no idea what was really happening. But i dont see you come in and cancel a planned meeting and it seems completely calm and breezy. But if he was depicted as he had been, as having a temper tantrum and he didnt, i can see why hes frustrated. Can i do. I think thats right. He does not think that he did. But the public testimonials go way beyond its roathese two different psychologies. I think your point of whats bothering him, whats getting under his skin in a way that nancy pelosi does is a way that other people have not. And we saw that come to a head where for the first time, he started calling her names and trying to depict her as something shes not. And i think he was escalating, which doesnt surprise me, it reminded me a lot of those few final months of him versus Hillary Clinton. Where it went to, shes crazy, shes unstable, her health is bad. Its a litany of words that he calls people in general, but about women in particular. And i dont think it was a surprise to see him go to that. I think the question is going to be, does pelosi avoid doing what other people have done, which is start trying to call him names back. And nobody really wins when they try to do that against him. Didnt she try to do that. Didnt she try to depict him as unstable . She was doing it in this kind of calm way of, i pray for him, i worry for him. There was a tweet from her account yesterday, after someone tweeted out her as a mess, and she said, if the quote unquote extremely stable genius wants o to, okay. But its hard. What we seemed to see last night was the troops fall into line which seems to be a clear president ial if not white house strategy to battle back against nancy pelosi on this. You heard the president talking about nancy pelosi, questioning whether or not she is sane. And they have this video and i dont want to play it again. Play the real one and then i play the fake one. I think it does their work for them. And then he had a press conference in the rose garden, with all of this sort of visuals that obviously were planned long before. So im not going to play where they slow down her speech to make her sound drunk. This has been posted by some conservative group that makes fake videos. Rudy giuliani, the president s lawyer tweeted it out last night. He pulled it down, but he put it out there. This is what he did in 2016. Its the exact same thing, the same playbook. And its Higher Movement here to discredit nancy pelosi with what was, i could use the word lie, you think in some way lie is overused at this point, but its a fake video. Its a doctored video and its manipulated and it is, i think, really important to highlight to everybody, because this is this election will require a lot of critical thinking. So when you see something that doesnt exactly smell right, it will require everybody to do double checking. Its out there, its already happening, were seeing it with this video and Rudy Giuliani tweeted it out. Rudy giuliani tweet eed it o, and then the president tweeted out a spliced video of nancy pelosi, which was done in such a way to make her seem goofy, off, and not quite all there. And at a certain point, when you have all of these videos out there, if one is more real than the whats the difference . Theyre all trying to do the same thing. Its interesting that as the president talks about fake news as much as he does, he is then tweeting out content like that. The president s biggest asset is that hes not going to be shamed over things like this. So as much as people are criticizing him for it, he doesnt care. If you have one party that does worry about that stuff and another that doesnt, i can tell you which ones going to succeed. And its the one that doesnt mind playing by a different set of rules. So you noted when you stepped back last night and watched this on the one hand and also what happened with william barr, where the president granted william barr Unprecedented Authority to declassify intelligence and Unprecedented Authority to get the cooperation of the other intelligence agencies, its clear that the president , to me, is trying to retake the initiative here. No question. And i dont think that we should understate how big a deal this was that this happened. And to be clear, there are legitimate reasons to look into how this investigation began. I do think that that is important to talk about. I think that the question and people who have worked in the intelligence space have expressed this concern and certainly critics of the president have, is, is bill barr going to selectively declassify information so that it then gets into the publics sphere, painting a certain light . And whether its that or whether its videos that sort of are momentary, you know, edits that are made to paint somebody a certain way, there is a narrative that gets portrayed. And the concern is, is this really going to be showing everybody, the general public what happened in 2016 . Or is this going to be done to harm the president s political opponents. Do we know the answer to this . Based on experience im not guessing. Im saying, based on experience with how bill barr has misrepresented the Mueller Report, dont we have some experience that he will not depict this in a completely objective way . Im really reluctant to predict what hes going to do. And i will say, in his favor, he did release almost the entire Mueller Report. And that was not a guarantee, at all, that that was going to happen several months ago. We have to see what happens, but i think that it raises a host of questions, including what this means for human sources whose identities are protected. And they be revealed and possibly endangered because of it. I understand why people want to look at how this began. I think that that is not unimportant. There are already two or three other reviews of how this investigation began. Its not clear why you need this other one, but its an enormous amount of power for bill barr. Particular for somebody who hates the russia investigation, claims that he wanted it over with. Why are we still doing this and using taxpayer dollars. The idea that hes doing another redundant russia investigation, because isnt the ig covering some of it . The i dprg is covering some t and a u. S. Attorney in connecticut that is covering some of it. Those are the three investigations. And the intelligence agencies are going to be very worried about what this means. A career officer here, i wonder what she thinks about this. Your story, you do note, there are some signs that barr isnt finding or may be limited in scope. I dont know if its limited in scope or theyre not really finding that much. I dont know what the answer is. There are reasons to believe that they have not found criminali criminality. Remember, the two poles of this is where the president says people committed treason and then you have the data. And it could be that we are dealing with a gamut of Human Behavior that is improper, but is not illegal conduct and i guess well find out. Durhams investigation isnt a criminal investigation right now. Durham is the connecticut guy. And if they had already found criminal activity, it would be a criminal investigation, one might suspect . That is correct. That is the assumption. By the way, the Mueller Investigation also looked into the origins of it. What mueller did in looking into the origins of how it all started concluded it was what we had already heard and reported, George Papadopoulos being drunk and talking to an australian diplomat who was then so concerned by what we heard, he called his u. S. Counterpart and the fbi. Maybe theres more digging to be done there might be more. Certainly, mueller looked at this and mueller concluded there was a legitimate reason to conduct this investigation. In closing, the president gets ready to go on a plane and go to japan, does that give you the sense that the president thinks he didnt win this week . I think they know this was not that good week for them and i would not understate the degree to which the two court losses over his financial documents are on his mind and hes certainly well aware of them. He has a way of taking things and spinning them into a positive for himself. I think thats what hes trying to do. Lets see what the next couple of days bring. He has a lot of foreign travel this weekend. Maggie, have a great weekend. You too. We have major breaking news from the united kingdom. The british Prime Minister theresa may announced that she is resigning. Cnns max foster is live at 10 downing street in london with all the breaking details. Max . Reporter john, an uncharacteristically emotional theresa may came out today making this announcement, and a huge amount of sympathy for her, as well. But ultimately, her fate was tide to this deal she had negotiated with the European Union about leaving the European Union. It and became pretty clear this week that that deal was dead along with her Prime Ministerial career. Lets hear from her. It is and must always remain a matter of deep regret to me that i have not been able to deliver brexit. It will be for my successor to seek a way forward that honors the result of the referendum. To succeed, he or she will have to find consensus in parliament where i have not. Reporter the only way of describing british politics right now is a broken mess right now. If you would consider nearly three years ago, brits voted to leave the European Union, shortly after that theresa may came into power, and were meant to be leaving by the end of october. But were pretty much back to square one. And a new leader wont be elected until probably midjuly. So the frontrunners, probably Boris Johnson, everyone agrees it has to be a leader this time around. Boris johnson is the clear frontrunner, but things could change very quickly. Theresa may actually leaving or announcing her resignation on the week or the at the end of the week that donald trump is here. Hes very close to Boris Johnson. So were all wondering whether donald trump will support and endorse Boris Johnson when he comes over. That is definitely another wrinkle in this very interesting puzzle. Thank you, max foster. All right, so a top democrat uses the Trump Administration of trying to weapon icize Law Enforcement and topsecret information. Reaction from a former prosecutor, next. This is rick blomquist. His life is pretty comfortable. Then, he laid on a serta and realized his life was only just sorta comfortable. Ive been living a lie. laughs the Serta Icomfort hybrid mattress. Not just sorta comfortable, serta comfortable. Youwhen you barely the clip a passing car. Minor accident no big deal, right . Wrong. Your Insurance Company is gonna raise your rate after the other car got a scratch so small you coulda fixed it with a pen. Maybe you should take that pen and use it to sign up with a different Insurance Company. For drivers with accident forgiveness, Liberty Mutual wont raise their rates because of their first accident. Liberty mutual insurance. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. When crabe stronger. Strong, with new nicorette coated ice mint. Layered with flavor. 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Giving barr the unilateral power to declassify, selectively, if he wants to. Whats the meaning of that . I think it undermines National Security at the expense of creating political theater. The main thing this allows bill barr to do is declassify National Security information, including information about the means and methods, the way we do our National Security information. Sources that may be providing information about National Security information. Understand, bill barr as attorney would have had access to that information anyway. But now if he can declassify it, it throws it into the public realm. The public knowing about that gets potentially very dangerous and i think whats going on here is its political theater and intended to divert attention away from the many problems that still do face the president and those around him. As journalists and just curious people, we do want to know all of the information and i, you know, a part of me is intrigued to see what bill barr unearthed. So the problem is, since weve all learned since the Mueller Report, attorney general barr doesnt accurately represnt what his findings are. We saw the difference in what the Mueller Report said and how he selectively lifted some phrases. How he made an announcement that was not accurate. So if were counting on attorney general barr, im not sure that were going to see the real information. I started off with a degree of confidence in william barr based on his resume, but by now, i think he has completely destroyed his credibility and his independence by the way he has mishandled the Mueller Report. And we heard that from mueller himself. And by the way he has tried to spin things. And i think its a real problem. I think i dont think its a mistake that the president has made bill barr the filter once again. All right, we gave you homework assignment, ellie. We looked at you to rank the top five as to how threatening they are to the president. Lets start with the most threatening. Lets start with the Southern District of new york, my former office, and the investigation of the Trump Organization and the Campaign Finance payments. Lets not forget about this. Theres already been significant results here. Michael cohen was convicted of this. This was the hush money payments to Stormy Daniels and karen mcdougal. He is behind bars as we speak because of that. Individual one, we know to be donald trump. And the Southern District of new york said on record that Michael Cohen acted in coordination with and at direction of individual one. Donald trump is not going to be indicted by doj while hes in office. Thats the doj policy. But mueller went out of his way in the report to stress that the president can be indicted when hes out of office. Theres more to come here, and we know that because information about this investigation has been redacted. We saw the Michael Cohen search warrants unsealed this week, but the information remains redacted. Theres other people that could be in trouble, including the people identified as executive one and executive two who made and authorized those payments. That would be interesting to unveil who executive one and executive two are. Number two investigation is the inauguration, because they spent so much money. They spent an unprecedented amount, almost double what the obama inauguration spent. This is a prosecutorial dog pile. Everyones dumping on this, the Southern District, the new york ag, the new jersey ag. We reported at cnn earlier this week that as a result of the subpoena, the Southern District is now going through tens of thousands of documents. Lets remember, rick gates, hes basically the only cooperator in this whole case who is not going off the rails. He was the deputy chair of the campaign and he will do, i believe, he is in position to do what the best cooperators do, which is to give prosecutors a guided tour of the inside of that operation. I think what are they looking at . The most interesting thing is potentially contributions by foreign nationals to the inaugural, which that would be a federal crime. All right. Trials we know about of Trump Associates like roger stone. Lets not forget about roger stone. He loves the limelight. Hell be back. That trial is going to happen. Were going to learn a little bit more about roger stones efforts to connect with wikileaks, did he ever succeed in that effort to coordinate. It appears he probably did not, because i think there would have been different charges if he had. But whats going to be really interesting is this, in the roger stone indictment, he said he was directed by Senior Trump Campaign officials, senior, meaning important people, officials, plural, to get in touch with wikileaks. And there was that interesting phrasing that the one of the Trump Campaign officials was directed to do that. So that will be very interesting to learn. This week, weve seen these two court cases, Deutsche Bank and mazars involving the financial records of the president. So you say the financial fraud is another investigation youre watching. Two huge court wins. Bigger picture, they reaffirm this notion that congress has very Broad Authority to go out and get information. Focusing on this narrow issue, it goes to whether the president was involved in financial fraud. Did he Michael Cohen testified, and Michael Cohen certainly has credibility problems. Thats why you go get the documents from the banks. Did donald trump inflate the value of his assets in order to get bank loans he was not entitled to . If so, that is textbook bank fraud. Thats the kind of thing you do as a beginning prosecutor. You take the information from mazars, trumps accountant, and take the information from Deutsche Bank, who he submitted the information to, does it match up or did he inflate it in the loan applications . If so, thats a pretty straight forward bank fraud. Counselor, elie honig, thank you very much for joining us. President trumps allies are peddling a doctored video meant to make it look like nancy pelosi is slurring her speech. Well show you what is real and what is fake, next. Anyone can go fast. But, is fast enough . Or, do you want speed and style . Introducing performance, born of refinement. The lexus rc line. Experience amazing at your lexus dealer. Experience amazing onmillionth order. R. There goes our first big order. 44, 45, 46. How many of these did they order . Ooh, thats hot. You know, we could sell these. Nah. We dont bake. Opportunity. What we deliver by delivering. Hi, do you have a travel card . We do the discover it® miles card. Earn unlimited 1. 5 miles on every purchase, plus well match your miles at the end of your first year. Youll match my miles . Yeah mile for mile and no blackout dates or annual fee. Nice i was thinking about taking a scuba diving trip i love that. Or maybe go surfing. Or not. Ok. Maybe somewhere else. Maybe a petting zoo. Cant go wrong. Cant get eaten. Earn miles. Well match em at the end of your first year. Plus no annual fee or blackouts. The discover it® miles card. Overnight, allies of President Trump were engaged in spreading a provable lie. Allies including the president s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, who tweeted out a doctored video meant to demean House Speaker nancy pelosi. Cnns Donie Sullivan is live with whats real and whats fake here, donie. Hey, john, we want to show you this video. First, were going to show you the real video of nancy pelosi speaking a couple of days ago and then were going to show you the fake one, which has been slowed down, the audio slow down to make it appear as if Speaker Pelosi has been slurring her words. And then he had a press conference in the rose garden, with all of this sort of visuals that obviously were planned long before. And then he had a press conference in the rose garden with all of this sort of visuals that obviously were planned long before. So you can hear that edit there. You know, when you see it side by side, it might seem obvious, but when you encounter this on your Facebook News feed as a standalone, it might not seem as obvious. And doctored videos, hoaxes online are as old as the internet itself. But simd gives people the opportunity to put a fake video out there and have it viewed by millions of people. And also whats unprecedented is people close to the president of the United States, including the president s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, tweeted out a link to this video asking, what is wrong with Speaker Pelosi . That she seems to be slurring her words. He quickly then deleted that tweet. This video has been removed from youtube. They said that it broke their policies, that it is misleading. Facebook, on the other hand, the video is still up there. It says it doesnt break their rules, they are having Fact Checkers taking a look at it. One version of the video has been viewed almost 2. 5 million times. Twitter, the president s favorite social media platform has nothing to say about this video that is still circulating on their platform this morning. I think it is really incumbent upon us to educate viewers how these things spread, how theyre doctored, what to look for, because well see a million things like this in the upcoming election. Rachael bade, lets bring her in. David gregory, also a cnn political analyst. Rachael, we want to start with you. You have this psychology, i think, behind what is going on between President Trump and Speaker Pelosi. Because something shifted yesterday. So they had seemed to it had seemed that President Trump respected nancy pelosi in a way that he didnt some other politicians and people around him. And then yesterday, he resorted to name calling of her, after she had gone after him to suggesting that, you know, he needed an intervention, that he something was terribly wrong with him. And so the idea that this is intentional on her part, thats curious. Why would she intentionally provoke him . So, yeah, there was a point after the 2018 election that the president called pelosi, complimented her on her leadership, said he wanted to work with her. And trump allies and trump sources basically said that was genuine, hes always admired her and her grip on the party, but things have really broken down between the two. And what youre seeing now is both of them in this sort of power struggle, where theyre trying to outgoad each other. Pelosi feels that trump has been trying to gin up her members, to break from her and try to impeach him. And this week we saw a bunch of members, including some in her own Leadership Team break from her and go public and say, its time to start impeachment proceedings. Pelosi thinks that trump believes this will just help him in 2020, and she was angry about this. It caused her a headache. So this week, you saw her leave a huddle with House Democrats and say before a bipartisan negotiation that a lot of people thought were going to break dow coverup. And a lot of people thought these infrastructure talks at the white house were never going to go anywhere. But the question was, who was going to be to blame . And trump plaid right into her hands. He saw her coverup comment and he ended up stopping the entire negotiation and saying, im not going to work with democrats until democrats stop their investigations. And he sort of looked, you know, like he was putting his ego in front of the countrys needs. The next morning, she goes up to the mic in the morning for a press conference and shes specifically trying to goad him and upset him. And he saw, you know, her comments about how he doesnt have control over the white house, suggesting maybe he had a problem, you know, mentally, lightly so. And she and he basically youd his own press conference to respond to her and instead of staying on message about a farm package which he was passing, which really helped his own base. And that was totally throwing him off message. So youre seeing the two sort of engage in this tugofwar, whos more powerful. She knows what buttons to push here. And as far as those skills go, david, if you take a step back, we got some insight into someone who knows known nancy pelosi for a long time. Alexander pelosi, the daughter of nancy pelosi, told us about this skill set from her mother. Listen to what alexandria said . Okay, alexander came on our air a few months ago and said nancy pelosi oh, here we go, lets play it. Shell cut your head off and you wont even know youre pleading. Thats all you need to know about her. No one ever won betting against nancy pelosi. So sweet, a daughter toward a mother. We can say that about alex, because were old pals. But i think its interesting. I was thinking of alex this morning, because i was thinking, john, of pelosis relationship, Nancy Pelosis relationship with george w. Bush, with president bush, which was contentious in a different kind of way but people didnt realize because of alex and how fond of alex president bush was, that they had a kind of warm relationship, too. And separate that out and here you have in President Trump, someone who has high regard for nancy pelosi as being a tough leader, someone he can also do business with. So i think as rachael has laid out very well, theres gamesmanship here, and theyre both using the other to some extent. I think its interesting that nancy pelosi said when the socalled stable genius, he red referred to himself that way, wants to really do something constructively and productively, then ill work with him. In the meantime, shell troll him the way he likes to troll other people. And you know shes getting under his skin when he did just such an absurd thing at the white house, where hes publicly at an event, turning to Kellyanne Conway and asking, you know, for her validation about how calm he was during that meeting with congressional leaders. I mean, its its really striking how absurd some of these scenes are. But the one thing ill say that i think President Trump understands is that the tension that nancy pelosi is trying to deal with in her own caucus is pretty much lost on most people. She can serve a very important function for him, which is just the head of the democrats, and can represent those democrats who do want to impeach him. And whether shes goading him but holding the line against impeachment can be a distinction thats lost. So in the end, he can rail against her, and as others have, and make a lot of political hay out of it. So very quickly, now theres this dusti idisgusting disinfor campaign against nancy pelosi where theyre trying to make it seem as if shes not sharp, as though she might be drunk, as though shes confused. So just one more time, this is what Rudy Giuliani tweeted out to try to make it seem as though nancy pelosi is confused. Wat watch. This is a man with a big party that loves people, all people. From the top to the bottom to the middle to the side. Im sorry, that was a real video. That actually wasnt doctored. Sorry, wrong video, our mistake. Thanks a lot, guys. Thanks for being here. Rachael and david appreciate it. All right, in the trump cabinet i see what you did there. One man stands out by not having had any controversy. Secretary rick perry, how does he fly under the radar . Thats next. At panera, our salads are uniquely crafted. With peak season berries, creamy avocado. And a dressing fit for a goddess. Come taste what a salad should be. And with panera catering, theres more to go around. Panera. Food as it should be. To give you the alrprotein you needin ensure max protein. With less of the sugar you dont grunti g ill take that. cheering 30 grams of protein and 1 gram of sugar ensure. For strength and energy. Her saturdays are a never ending montage of comfort. [tv sfx] where have you been all my life . But then anne laid on a serta perfect sleeper. And realized her life was only just sorta comfortable. 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But we all know were paying too much for it. Enter xfinity mobile. Americas best lte with the most wifi hotspots. Combined for the first time. When youre near an xfinity hotspot, youre connected to wifi, saving on data. When youre not, you pay for data one gig at a time. Use a little, pay a little. Use a lot, just switch to unlimited. Get 250 back when you buy a new samsung galaxy. Call, visit or click today. Energy secretary rick perry appears to be an exception in the scandalplagued trump cabinet, unlike many of his colleagues, the former Texas Governor has been relatively free from controversy. Cnns Alex Marquardt is live in washington with more. This is interesting, alex. What did you learn . It really is, alisyn, he has been free from controversy. No real scandal, hardly any negative press coverage. Rick perry is one of the quietest, least talked about members of this trump cabinet, which is really no small feat in this white house. Remember, hes leading the department, the department of energy, that he campaigned on getting rid of. And his allies now say hes been successful at it because of his decades in politics and simply knowing in this administration, you just keep your head down. Reporter in the trump cabinet, fortunes rise and fall with alarming speed. One day youre the top dog, like general james mattis. Mad dog hes great. Reporter then, youre out. Whats he done for me . Reporter few cabinet officials have been able to fly under the president s and the medias radar for the past two and a half years, with one significant exception. Rick perry. This is the coolest job ive ever had. The former Texas Governor and president ial candidate was plucked from retirement to lead the department of energy, a department hed campaigned on getting rid of and famously forgot at a department. The third one i cant, sorry. Oops. Reporter when chosen for the job, the New York Times reported that perry didnt realize that the departent maintained thousands of nuclear warheads. Yet observers say with an affable personality and political skills honed as a governor, perry has managed to navigate the choppy political water of washington with relatively few ripples. Rick understands that in our business, particularly when youre working for someone else, you keep your head and your rear end down. So that neither one of them gets shot off. Reporter perry has largely steered clear of the scandals and gaffes of fellow cabinet members, avoiding the extravagance of tom price and scott pruitt or moments like this from ben carson. Do you know what an reo is . An oreo . No, not an oreo, an reo. Reo. Reporter hes had some controversial headlines, but nothing thats really stuck. He has an agency that hasnt come under a ton of congressional pressure. There hasnt been any epic fights related to the Energy Department and congress and the white house. So thats a big benefit. Its not that the dancing with the stars alum shuns the himlight, but after hanging up his dancing shoes, he came to washington and started traveling the world promoting u. S. Energy interests. It is very, very important for the world, for the middle east, for the United States to be the partner in as many of these development of Civil Nuclear Energy Programs as we can be. Reporter aides say hes been planning his exit. If he does leave, perry seems determined to not leave the long list of officials who have left unceremonio unceremoniously. I think the secretary is smart, but hes also savvy. He understands human nature, human relations and politics. Reporter now, during the 2016 campaign, perry was very harsh on his now boss, President Trump, blasting him as a cancer on conservatism. Then fast forward to this week, perry just got back from ukraine where he was sent as the president s envoy for the inauguration of their new president , showing that now hes an allaround utility president that this white house can rely on. Quite the turnaround, john. Really interesting look. Thank you so much, alex. Appreciate it. This morning, african elephants are losing one of their sanctuaries. The government of botswana is lifting a ban on hunting. Cnns David Mckenzie is live with us right now. And david, youve done so much work covering the plight of elephants in southern africa. Whats going on here . Well, john, its really shocking to many, good morning. And you look at those majestic herds that we have seen over the years in botswana and other countries in southern africa. And they are now under threat, say many, because the bots wannan government saying they are going to allow hunting of some 400 elephant per year. They are hitting back at critics saying that conservation is in their dna, john. That they are just right to help preserve those herds, that they are helping to stop the human animal conflict. Big elephants going into a farm yard. They can hurt and even kill people. Some 30 People Killed and or injured each year say the government. But theres a Bigger Picture element here. Cancer conservations say theyre social such social animals that by killing them, its morally repugnant as one conservationist told me. And now they are just sticking to their guns, to use probably inappropriate phrase, and the elephants are potentially under threat. The next step, we believe, is that they will try and open up the sale of ivory in that country, particularly ivory stocks worth millions. Just recently at a conference they handed out elephant stools, Elephant Feet that have been stuffed, its hard to contemplate, and given them to delegates visiting that conference. Really difficult decisions being made by the botswanan government and many people are outraged. Alisyn . David, thank you very much for bringing all of that to our attention. All right. Howard stern has known donald trump for decades and says he knows why donald trump ran for president. This was a publicity stunt. I happen you have no doubt about that . I have no doubt because i have some inside information. All right. Howard sterns going to share some of his inside information, next. K at hilton. Com i get to select my room from the floor plan. Free wifi. And the price match guarantee. So with hilton there is no catch. Yeah the only catch is im never leaving. No im serious, i live here now. Book at hilton. Com and get the hilton price match guarantee. Book at hilton. Com itso chantix can help you quit slow turkey. Along with support, chantix is proven to help you quit. With chantix you can keep smoking at first and ease into quitting. 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Fastsigns designed new directional signage. And got them back on track. Get started at fastsigns. Com. This morning howard stern helped make donald trump a National Media figure, so many interviews over the years on his radio shows, and it gave stern a unique and surprising insight into the president , including why he ran for office in the first place. He says it was a publicity stunt. Anderson cooper has a really interesting discussion with stern. Listen. As an interview ive noticed this just when i used to interview him, he was very susceptible to flattery and i noticed this in your interviews with him, you would throw out something like, your poll numbers, i have never seen anything like this well, its a definitely technique. It washes over him. Notice i call him in every interview mr. Trump. This was before he was president. Mr. Trump. Thats intentional. Oh, absolutely. Someone had asked me why do you call him mr. Trump, i said because it loosens him up, he feels respected, he feels good about him sechl, now hes going to roll, hes going to open up to me. When you see him now in the white house as president , what do you say . Well, first of all, its unbelievable to me. Ive documented my thoughts about how this whole candidacy even came about. This was a publicity stunt. I you have no doubt about that . I have no doubt because i have some inside information. And the thing is that it started out with the art of the deal, the book, and it was, you know, a pr guys idea, said, donald, what you need to do is we will make sort of a rumor that youre running for president. Donald is like, oh. So all of a sudden he was being interviewed, the book goes right to number one. Then this time around in the last election the apprentice ratings were not what they were, nbc was not going to give him a raise and whats a better way than to get nbcs interest, i will run for president and i will get lots of press and i think thats what happened. Do you think he likes being president . I dont think he likes being president at all. I think he liked winning the presidency. He likes to win. Again, im not Donald Trumps psychotherapist and i had many good laughs with donald. In some ways i feel like its been wrong the way they use my transcripts in a way to frame him, and i will give you an example. When he said the line about stds because his vietnam, that was a very jokey thing on my show. If you went back and listened to the shape you would not take that seriously, he was in the spirit of the program. Then he was you know, they tried to use that against him, hey, how dare he compare himself to a veteran of the vietnam who served when he did not serve. Everybody take a deep breath and relax. He asked you to speak at the rnc. I think he was desirous of my endorsement. When he secured the nomination and was thinking about the convention, i think he wanted some show biz there, he picked up the phone and called me personally. I was like, oh, gosh, for a split second i was like can you imagine if i was all in . I would be the head. Th of the fcc, i could be on the supreme court. You really believe that. I believe it 100 . If ben carson can get in there and i think donald would have appointed me. Regardless of whether i know what im doing or not. Do you think he wants to get reelected . I think psychologically if he really got under the hood he would say what am i doing . Im in my 70s. You havent spoken to him since you turned down the rnc. When i turned down the rnc was the last time we spoke. He said to me what are you doing . And i explained to him in the nicest way it would be difficult for me. I said im not comfortable being a public speaker, which im not. I never was a stand up comic, i dont like getting up in front of audiences, this radio studio suits me just fine. What struck me as odd, i know he was a Hillary Clinton fan, he was a supporter of hers. So the whole thing was weird. I have been a Hillary Clinton supporter way back before even when obama when she was trying to get i think shes a terrific public servant. I thought her husband was the best president we ever had. You tried to get her repeatedly to come on your show. The whole game plan was i wanted to humanize her to my audience. I wanted to humanize her in the same way there is a couple of people in my book where i interviewed them and the audiences perception changed just from one interview. Whoever becomes the democratic nominee or even if youre fighting for the nomination, i applaud those people who go over to fox news like mayor pete who said, do you know what, i want to win this thing and he got a standing ovation over at fox news. Impressive. That was my point to hillary. Who in the democratic field would you want to interview now . I dont know. You know, i dont do a lot of political interviews, im kind of fatigued from it. Im talking about from my radio show. I am curious about mayor pete because, number one, an openly gay candidate to me, i salute him. Its not going to be easy, theres still so much of our country that is homophobic and, you know, we could sit here in new york and say, hey, right on, but hes going to catch a lot of hell. So you would like to interview him . I would be curious about his life, i really would be, and the adversity. Biden would be just as sort of interesting to me in a way. Really interesting. Ive never been a howard stern listener. I am actually a fan. But i could listen to that conversation, you can listen to him talk for ever. He has a beautiful voice, number one and number two he is unvarnished and thats really nice to hear somebody who is authentic and just says whatever he feels and politics or repercussions be damned. Its really interesting. Theres much, much more of that conversation. You can watch andersons entire talk with howard stern tonight at 10 00 p. M. Eastern right here on cnn. President trump escalating his efforts to investigate the intelligence agencies. New day continues right now. When i watch nancy, thats a person thats got some problems. I wish that his family would have an intervention for the good of the country. Shes got his number. Shes getting under his skin. He looks truflustered. The president signed a memorandum ordering all agencies to cooperate with barrs investigation of the Mueller Investigation. I am baffled. It seems like an effort to distract. I dont want a whole new independent counsel, but i do think theres questions that need answered on that. I am today announcing that i will resign. Her pathway towards getting brexit over the line evaporated a week ago. From that moment she was on borrowed time. Announcer this is new day with Alisyn Camerota and john berman. Good morning and welcome to your new day. Its friday, may 24th. The kickoff of a holiday weekend. 8 00 here in new york. President trump has given the attorney general william barr unprecedented powers to declassify intelligence and investigate the or a skrins of the russia probe. The move gives barr who says the Trump Campaign was spied on the sweeping ability to control what information about the investigation is released publicly. The president and his allies also peddling a fake doctored video that makes House Speaker nancy pelosi look as if she is slurring her speech. The president didnt actually share that one, he shared a different one that was manipulated. This follows a heated back and forth between the president and the speaker, with both leaders questioning the others fitness for office. I wish that his family or his administration or his staff would have an intervention for the good of the country. Your comments almost suggest you are concerned about his well being. I am. It was sad when i watched nancy all moving, the moving and the hands and the craziness and i watched thats, by the way, a person thats got some problems. All right. Joining us now to discuss this and so much more we have david gregory, cnn political analyst, ash shar rangappa and Toluse Olorunnipa White House Reporter for the washington post. Great to see all of you. Asha, lets start with the bill barr stuff. Bill barr has now gotten the abil