tv New Day With Alisyn Camerota and John Berman CNN December 5, 2018 4:00am-5:01am PST
4:00 am
the filing shows he has had 19 interviews with the special counsel's office. >> if this is the best we have got, it's time he writes the report. >> he is saying senior government leaders should be held to the highest standards. i would be a little nervous if i were the president. >> i have zero question in my mind that the crown prince ordered the killing. >> we expect the saudis are going to do everything they can to uncover who is responsible. >> the united states should send a very strong message. >> president bush will be
4:01 am
honored with a memorial. >> the guy was the most generous, kind person that you would ever meet. >> this is "new day" with alisyn camerota and john berman. >> good morning and welcome to your "new day." we join you from washington this morning, obviously a lot going on here with the state funeral, but also there's breaking news. the highly anticipated court filing, robert mueller recommends that michael flynn get no prison time because of his cooperation in the russia investigation. the key words, the defendant has provided substantial assistance in a criminal investigation. mueller says flynn has helped with at least three investigations. the details of two of them are redacted. we also learned that flynn has met with the special counsel's investigators 19 times, and mueller adding flynn's early cooperation was valuable giving the prosecutors a road map for
4:02 am
the russia probe that may have prompted others to cooperate as well. >> we have yet to hear from president trump about the flynn revelations, and he tweeted on monday saying the judge should throw the book about cohen. how does he feel about flynn's sentencing the viewing for george h.w. bush has just ended and his flag-draped casket will soon depart for the national cathedral where his state funeral will be under way in a few hours, and this is the last time you will see the aerial view from the rotunda. all five living presidents and world leaders will attend the state funeral. chris cuomo is there and we will get to him soon.
4:03 am
let's start with the breaking news, the michael flynn allegations. >> thank you for joining us. i know you have spent hours pouring through these documents. i see a lot of retkabgtions. one is flynn met with mueller 19 separate times. that's a whopping number. that suggests there's lots of information being provided by flynn that mueller is asking about. that's number one. number two, several times in the document mueller takes pains to say there are ongoing investigations. you know, there has been speculation in the news in prior days that mueller is wrapping up. there was even one report attributed to a leak or
4:04 am
something like that from the senate, and this says to me, huh-uh, there's still a lot left to happen, a lot of investigation left to proceed. >> when mueller refers to three ongoing criminal investigations, one of them is his own, i assume, the mueller investigation, and that one is not redacted. is another, the southern district of new york investigation? what are the two others? >> we don't know, and we don't know for good reason. mueller is being careful with others's constitutional rights. the whole point of the grand jury presentment clause in the constitution is to make sure that people have rights before they are named as targets and the like. mueller is just following the book. we don't really know, and there's obviously a number of speculations as to what it could be, but we don't know. >> one of the big headlines from it was that robert mueller is
4:05 am
requesting no prisontimefor michael flynn. that came as a surprise to many people. here's a little portion of that -- of the document in which he explains because of the early cooperation. his early cooperation, meaning flynn's, was particularly value because he was one of the first people with long-term and firsthand insight regarding what was under investigation, and his decision to plead guilty likely influenced others to cooperate. what did you see in the no prison time request? >> i think two things i see. number one, the charge that flynn is pleading to only carried zero to six months in prison, so there's not that surprising that there's a slow recommendation, and it's because mueller allowed flynn to plead guilty to only one charge last year. there was a charge bargain that was struck then, because it was
4:06 am
zero to six months for what flynn did is extraordinary low, but it suggests to me flynn is providing serious information about somebody higher up than flynn, and there are not very much possibilities in exchange for a lower sentence. number two, i think it's important to contrast what mueller did yesterday with what the president did the day before in attacking michael cohen for cooperating and saying the book should be thrown at him in one tweet, and then in a subsequent tweet a minute later saying, you know, roger stone, was a great guy, he's holding firm and not ratting and flipping, and you know, effectively just saying, look, i will pardon those who stay with me and don't tell the truth to mueller. that is an extraordinary thing for anybody, but particularly for the president of the united states. it looks very much like mob, mafia mafia behavior, and when you
4:07 am
contrast the two, mueller is saying look, mr. president, you want to play that game of zero prison time, i have that card too and i have got it for people telling the truth to federal law enforcement. >> that's really interesting. you are saying without saying it, robert mueller is saying you think you have a get out of jail free card? i have a get out of free jail card. all of you witnesses you decide, if you want to bet on me, robert mueller, or president trump? >> exactly. when you look at how cohen, almost a sense of relief he had last week after telling the truth. there's a difference between playing to donald trump and playing with robert mueller. those that play with mueller, they play on team america, team truth, and they have stopped the lying that is endemic to trump and saying, i am just coming clean and telling you what i did. there's a psychological piece to this too and an important moral
4:08 am
piece that mueller is highlighting, too. >> and one of the revelations is michael flynn met with robert mueller and his investigators 19 times. what do you think of that number? >> it's a whopping, whopping number. it suggests there's a lot of stuff that flynn knew about that they wanted to ask about. you know, past that we can't really tell. we are all in the realm of speculation. at this point i think it's fair to say if i am donald trump and i read what i read yesterday and last week read what i read by michael cohen, i think the technical legal term for what i would be right now is freaking out. >> i am familiar with that technical legal term. bottom line, as you know there have been all sorts of pundits that say surely robert mueller is wrapping up the investigation soon, and from what you read yesterday in the sentencing memo, does it looks like it's wrapping up soon? >> not at all.
4:09 am
looks like there's a lot of ongoing stuff, stuff we don't know about. you have to add, even if mueller thought pieces of this were going to wrap up, he was dealt a setback last week when he realized paul manafort, who was supposedly cooperating with him, was a, lying to him, and b, passing everything over to the trump team. that will delay things, too. when the president's defenders say mueller is taking too long and so on, and one of the reasons mueller is taking so long, everybody is lying to him who is in the trump orbit. that's obviously going to delay the investigation further. i expect that this is going to continue for quite sometime and for some pretty darn good reasons. >> we appreciate your expertise in this. thank you very much. president trump and all living presidents will soon join
4:10 am
the bush family and world leaders to honor president george h.w. bush at the state funeral at the national cathedral, and the doors have been closed but these are still people who have been brought in and the viewing continues as it has all night. chris cuomo, live at the national cathedral, waiting for the arrivals. the guest will be incoming over the next few hours, chris? >> reporter: john, look, it's a national day of mourning. those are members of the public largely in there, and the response to the passing of president george h.w. bush has been big, in fact, bigger than expected. people who wanted to come through, they have been dealing with flow and they had to add to security for the viewing at the capitol, and i am sure that will bring consolation to the family. it is a big bush family. you literally have dozens here
4:11 am
in their contingency, and that meant so much to the president that they had such a big and productive family, and loved the grandkids and great grandkids, and today will largely be about them. speaking with family members last night, you know, the rest of us see this as a political moment and what will it mean and is there intrigue, and that's not how it is for the family, it's a loss of a great grandfather and grandfather and father, and for us it's a u.s. president. they will make their way over here to the national cathedral. the president has a long way to go, though, in terms of celebrating his life, and having his funeral. there will be one here. he is then going to be flown to texas. there will be a private family funeral there. again, the emphasis on family. they want to have their own time there. and then the president's body will be sent by train to texas
4:12 am
a&m, and they will bury him next to his beloved wife and their daughter they lost at three years of age to leukemia. one of the things here in talking to the family about how they wanted to celebrate this, what matters, it was really interesting to me, john, how much emphasis was put on the values he put in the family. not so much as in service, and of course he was president and that means so much to have a family of not one, but two, and not since the adams have we seen that type of prestige in one family, but it was who he was as a man. in the ultimate moment, i believe, is what we saw with senator dole. you really got to see the greatest part of the greatest generation on display with these two men. the senator there still being able to rise to the occasion, getting up there with help, of course, and saluting with his left arm because his right is now too far gone, and just a
4:13 am
little bit of history about what these two men have done in service of this country. bob dole has a bad right arm because he was hit with shrapnel by the nazis, and he dragged his radio man to safety and lied almost completely paralyzed on the battlefield for hours because they could not get to him, and yet he went on to live a full life of service. and george h.w. bush, after high school he volunteered during the most dangerous time in our history, and at 19 he was in the war theater, and he was the only one to survive when they were hit in battle, and that says what these men are about and what we need to remember on this day. >> that was a really stunning moment to be able to watch, so private and yet the symbolism of it, what it meant, chris, and the symbolism of watching five
4:14 am
u.s. presidents all in one room. of course it's about the family, as chris points out, but for us that will be a fascinating moment for us. >> and i think chris is on to something when he says it's not about the politics with w, but it will be about the relationship. he is going to be standing up there more than anything as a son. i know, because i have seen it in his face over the last couple of days, and we heard yesterday that this is going to be tough for him to stand up in front of his family and country and talk about how much he loves his father, chris. >> reporter: it's very tough stuff. i lived it in my own family and it's never easy to see the center of your family to be put to rest. i think it's going to be important for the rest of the country to see how real and raw and relatable this experience is, that you are going to see a president up there and he's going to come across in a way that he probably never has before. i think you will see an unusual
4:15 am
dose of humor. the bush family had a lot of fun with one another, and it was really important in celebrating the spirit of george h.w. bush, and i think that's the tall task for the president today is to be able to couch his own pain and a little bit of humor and affection for what his father meant to the family. we will all be looking forward to it. let's be honest, the country could use it right now to remember things that are right and not just dwell on what is wrong. >> chris, thank you very much for the preview. we will check back with you throughout the morning and day. up next, after a briefing from the cia, senators say the saudi crown prince ordered the journalist's murder. why do president trump and his top officials still not believe that assessment? we look at that, next.
4:16 am
welcome to tide pods talk with gronk. i'm gronk! i'm big and awesome, but this guy is little, can it really clean? heck yeah it can! it's concentrated detergent plus stain fighters plus odor flighers that fight for clean. boom! even this entire bottle can't beat tide pods. and now a word from future gronk: ugh... tide pods. if it's clean, it's got to be tide. ibut it doesn't always come naturally. this i can do, easily. benefiber® healthy shape is a 100% natural prebiotic fiber that's clinically proven to help me feel fuller longer. benefiber® healthy shape. this i can do!
4:19 am
i am a techie dad.n. i believe the best technology should feel effortless. like magic. at comcast, it's my job to develop, apps and tools that simplify your experience. my name is mike, i'm in product development at comcast. we're working to make things simple, easy and awesome. special counsel robert mueller says former trump national security adviser, michael flynn, should not go to prison for lying about his contacts with russia's ambassador in a heavily, heavily
4:20 am
redacted letter. according to mueller, flynn has provided substantial information about three investigations, two of which we know nothing about. let's join our panel back, laura coates and abby phillips and phil mudd and david gregory. >> phil, let's go to you first since frankly you scare me on a good day and now i have offended you. when you see the redactions in the memo. what do you see? >> i am putting pieces together that are not evidence but look clear to me. you have to combine what the document says with the information about the extensive interviews like don mcgahn and people from the white house, and look at the number of times general flynn met with the
4:21 am
special counsel. look at another thing. there's specific reference about not investigating lies or money trails, which is what got paul manafort. if you put the quantity of information together and the fact that there's specific reference to russia and three ongoing investigations mentioned documents, and there's a size 16 shoe going to drop here, and it's not going to be related to lying, and i think they are centering in on the core of the investigation and the cooperation with russia. i think it will happen. >> do you see a size 16 shoe about to drop, laura? >> is that shaquille o'neal? you know what i see here? a total gut punch to the president. here's why. you have the president of the united states dangling pardons for quite sometime. look, if you scratch my back i will scratch yours, i have this
4:22 am
absolute pardon, and now you have a pardon handed down to somebody who once called for hillary clinton to be locked up, and that's michael flynn. mueller sees this and says i have a great deal of power as well and prosecutor influence. the person that had to get the authority and clearance by mueller to say can we go forward with this now has essentially signed off and everything has been in motion, all the plans have been laid by the mueller's team over the past year, at least since michael flynn has plead guilty, and it's all too late perhaps to stop the train. it looks like the president is maybe going to get ran over by it. >> we were like on metaphor overload, and we talked about size 16 and a punch in the gut and a roadside issue.
4:23 am
i want to play what the president has said about michael flynn. >> i feel badly for general flynn. he lost his house. he lost his life. some people say he lied and some people say he didn't lie. >> i feel very badly for general flynn. he has led a strong life and i feel very badly. >> mike was doing his job. he was calling countries and his counterparts. when i looked at the information, i said i don't think he did anything wrong, but i think he did something right. >> michael flynn pleaded to doing something wrong. you listen to that string there, abby, and no cruel words and now that we know he is corroborating or if we are told he was cooperating, and i think the president was sending messages to michael flynn in all of those
4:24 am
clips saying to stay strong, and just like saying to roger stone you have got guts if you don't want to testify here. i think the president may have made a miscalculation, which is that michael flynn may have done the best thing for him and getting the lightest sentence that robert mueller is asking for him, to get a lot of leniency for the crimes he has admitted to. president trump is in a bind because the people he thought would stay strong for him, in his words, are not doing that, they are testifying and cooperating extensively. i am not sure the president understands the scope of what is going on here. often i think he thinks it's very much about it's just about the narrow band of things that he hears talked about on fox news, but there's a lot more out there as we can see in these documents, a lot more that the special counsel is still not
4:25 am
revealing. >> david, how do you see it? >> the wow factor is that you have a document related to michael flynn, who has been so important and been in the shadows now for months and months, coming out and saying we have a nexus between the trump orbit and these contacts with russia. i think that's potentially very significant. in the space of a week you have somebody close to the president, michael cohen, flipping and telling all, and michael flynn who was close and there in a critical time in the campaign time and the first couple weeks of the presidency who can speak to potential coordination. the last point is the power of narrative. the president and people around him have been in control of slicing and dicing mueller and the investigation and the witch hunt and all of these bit players, what does it add up to? mueller is perhaps putting together a very powerful narrative, putting it together in a way that maybe we did not anticipate because we do not know and have not for months
4:26 am
what it all adds up to. >> the president's aides have felt comfortable with how they tried to break down mueller in the court of public opinion, but that's because we have not really known anything about what mueller has been up to really. now that we are getting into that place where we are getting a lot more information, they will find it more difficult. i think we have seen rudy guiliani trying to make a political argument that this means nothing, but the documents really speak for themselves. there are at least two major chunks of the investigation that we know nothing about. and rudy guiliani's argument doesn't hold water when you put it up to that. >> sometimes we forget at this point, michael flynn was the president's national security adviser, inside the white house, albeit for only a few days, but there's no small potatoes. michael cohen was his personal lawyer. the list of people now who have
4:27 am
either pleaded guilty or were involved in some way or directly with this, you can't lose sight at this point of that. >> remember why michael flynn is so important. he is the person that is the common link between sally yates telling the president, the man, your national security adviser may be compromised by the russians, and he the person whose name was mentioned to comey, please let this thing go. and you have obstruction charges with the firing of james comey to what happened on the transition team. and let's not forget, he's in with turkey, and this man may walk away, and if the judge says no jail time, he may walk away, and that tells me, who is the
4:28 am
big fish? i can't imagine mueller saying i will let the national security secreta man go with no sentence. >> one of the investigation is the mueller investigation, and is the other the southern district of new york? what are the other two investigations? >> i am going to guess here, and you were talking about it a few minutes on the show, and there was a couple things i was thinking about when i was reading the document, and you look at the issues related to russia, money and lying, and i can see others coming out like what paul manafort did. clearly there's a question of whether there was cooperation with the russians. that's a roger stone kind of investigation. that's different than the money investigation. in parallel to that, everybody here seems to lie like a rug, so there has to be investigations related to who else was lying
4:29 am
and who you want to indict. the number of people involved and the number of them lying and the documentation of financial records and et cetera, this could go on for a while. >> and out of respect for the fact that i almost cut him out of the segment altogether, and you brought roger stone up and he suggested he would assert his fifth amendment rights. that's pretty interesting that it happens in the same week where the president is praising him for not cooperating, and what do you see there about the fifth? >> john, let me give you a perspective on this. i am watching roger stone and if i am sitting in his shoes or if i am his lawyer, he better hope for a few things, the feds don't have documents related to what he did and said. number two, they don't have communications, for example,
4:30 am
e-mails about contacts with people like wikileaks. and finally with these people cooperating like michael flynn, he better hope those who are cooperating are not talking about him. i got to believe with all that that roger stone is going down. >> there's a legal track here that is very important that will play itself out, but the big piece of this with regard to the president is the political conclusions, and if the what is interference with our campaign, attempted and real, the why, maybe that gets to finances, you know, that may track to the president, and then what the president and those around him did in response to all of this, that becomes the narrative that could be very powerful. >> friends, stay tune. this all happens again on friday. >> yeah, there's other sentencing memos coming from mueller -- or, manafort. >> i knew what you were talking
4:31 am
about. >> thank you, especially phil mudd. and then losing governor seats in the midterms, the checks they are trying to put on those executive branches is next. right. dad, apple music. he gets it. this guy gets it. (vo) get six months free apple music, on the network you deserve. you wouldn't feel good not knowing the price here. don't let it happen when you buy your diabetes test strips. with the accu-chek® guide simplepay program, you pay the same low price. all without having to go through insurance. plus, they come in a spill-resistant vial along with a free meter. skip the guessing game and focus on your health. not the cost. make saving simple today at simplepaysaves.com. there are so many toothpastes out there... ...which one should i use? choose one that takes care of your gums and enamel. crest gum & enamel repair
4:32 am
4:35 am
wall street will be closed today to observe the national day of mourning for president bush. global markets taking a hit after the dow plunged nearly 800 points yesterday. christine romans joins us now with what is fueling all of the jitters. i see we are both wearing our beautiful money green -- for me, it's in honor of laura bush's green dress yesterday, and i think everybody got the memo. >> yeah, trading closed today and the respite welcomed. yesterday was the worst day since october 10th, and the s&p fell 3.2%. those are big moves. 790 points sounds scary, and
4:36 am
3.1%, certainly a bad day but ranks as only the 329th worst day ever percentage wise. so perfective there. two things took down stocks. the realization the trade war with china is not over, and the president's boasts of progress were not matched by the chinese r rhetoric. stock market loss is accelerated yesterday when trump called himself tariff man in the tweet storm. he said tariffs are always the best way to max out our economic powers, and investigators disagree. second, a technical move in the bond market that in the past has signaled a slowing economy or a recession, and it's called an inverted yield curve. some treasuries begin to invert.
4:37 am
the dow was up 3.5%, and the nasdaq is up just shy of 6%. so that's the perspective. >> nothing scares me more than when christine romans talks about the inverted yield curve. >> had to do it. and then wisconsin gop passes a bill to curb the governor's power. cnn has the latest. >> reporter: the legislature here never closed. the debate raged throughout the evening. they are still at it this morning. it's expected to go for several more hours this morning, according to people who are watching all of this. the bottom line for this, and the rush for all of this, is that they are racing the clock.
4:38 am
the republican governor expected to exit because he is being replaced by an incoming democratic governor and attorney general and the republican controlled legislature wants to hold on to power, critics say. i want you to listen to the displeasure as the session opened to the public that. so what sparked all of this? the public was ordered to leave the senate gallery because laughter was heard and then you could hear the eruption of anger. there have been days of outrage in madison, republicans refusing to heed the will of the public and accept the election results. here's what one protester told us? >> they can only win by cheating, and that's what they are doing and right now they are a bunch of cowards.
4:39 am
>> reporter: the gop majority, john, is expected to pass all of this this morning. the gop outgoing governor expected to sign it. >> this controversy will swirl for sometime as a result. thank you very much. robert mueller recommends no jail time for michael flynn and raises a lot of new questions. what do lawmakers think this morning? senator marco rubio joins us next.
4:40 am
4:42 am
this is moving day with the best in-home wifi experience and millions of wifi hotspots to help you stay connected. and this is moving day with reliable service appointments in a two-hour window so you're up and running in no time. show me decorating shows. this is staying connected with xfinity to make moving... simple. easy. awesome. stay connected while you move with the best wifi experience and two-hour appointment windows. click, call or visit a store today.
4:43 am
let's talk a little "20/20." former robert mueller is mulling a presidenti-- >> bloomberg was acting like a candidate, and he praised local leaders here for the strides they are making in green energy jobs, and he had very blunt criticism for president trump, but he was far more reserved about any questions about his candidacy. listen. >> what lessons did you learn from bush's life and leadership style? >> what was unique about george h.w. bush was his honesty, his
4:44 am
morals, his elegance, if you will, and i think unfortunately you contrast that with what we have in the white house now where the current president doesn't seem to have any feeling of sacrifice for the good of the country, and maybe that's one of the real differences -- >> you are here in iowa, a critical state for any potential candidate to gauge whether or not they are viable. why are you here? >> well, i am here to preview a movie about climate change. it's called "paris to pittsburgh." that's why i am here, to preview the movie. it has a segment about people from the great state of iowa who are very environmentally friendly. >> when i am in new york and i see you run into people, i see people who, at least this probably happens to you about a dozen times a die, who tell you you have to run for president. >> it's very nice when somebody says that, and somebody does
4:45 am
occasionally. if it didn't put a smile on your face, i don't know -- you have to be pretty sick, but that doesn't mean, number one, you should do it or could do it, and what i have said is i will look at it at the beginning of the year. >> do you get a similar sense here in iowa when you meet people? >> i want to understand what iowa is all about. i want to learn. one of my chief associates says, ask a question, make a friend, and so i want to know what makes iowa particular. >> biden said yesterday he is the most qualified person for the job. do you agree? >> you would think that anybody running for the job would think they are qualified. joe biden is a guy i have known for long time and he's a very competent guy. there will be 25 people or 20 people running on the democratic side, all of whom i think would answer the question the same way if you asked it. >> do you think you are the most
4:46 am
qualified? >> i can't speak for anybody else. i do think after 12 years in city hall dealing with international problems and security problems and economic problems and creating jobs and the environment and guns, and women's rights and tobacco and all of these things that i have a lot of experience, which would be useful if i was president of the united states. that doesn't mean i am going to run. it's one thing to say something and it's a different think to have actually done it. >> reporter: john, bloomberg also praised soon-to-be speaker, nancy pelosi, of course breaking what more progressive members of the democratic party on that particular front, and he issues a warning to democrats saying they were elected to make change and now is the time to do it. john? >> new democrat, michael bloomberg and then old democrat and then republican and
4:47 am
independent, and now democrat, and it was fascinating to hear from him. thank you so much. a group of senators briefed by a cia director. they all left with the information that saudi arabia crown prince is responsible for the khashoggi murder. we speak with marco rubio next. whoo! get a dollar-for-dollar match at the end of your first year. only from discover.
4:48 am
♪ can you feel it ♪ can you feel it amazon has everything you need for your holiday get together. with low prices and free shipping on millions of items, for everything you need this holiday, visit amazon. than psoriatic arthritis. as you and your rheumatologist consider treatments, ask if xeljanz xr is right for you. xeljanz xr is a once daily pill for psoriatic arthritis. taken with methotrexate or similar medicines, it can reduce joint pain... ...swelling and significantly improve physical function. xeljanz xr can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis. serious, sometimes fatal infections, lymphoma and other cancers have happened. don't start xeljanz xr if you have an infection. tears in the stomach or intestines, low blood cell counts and higher liver tests, and cholesterol levels have happened. your doctor should perform blood tests before you start and while taking xeljanz xr, and monitor certain liver tests.
4:49 am
tell your doctor if you were in a region where fungal infections are common and if you have had tb, hepatitis b or c, or are prone to infections. xeljanz xr can reduce the symptoms of psoriatic arthritis. don't let another morning go by without talking to your rheumatologist about xeljanz xr. don't let another morning go by without whoooo. with tripadvisor, finding your perfect hotel at the lowest price... is as easy as dates, deals, done! simply enter your destination and dates... and see all the hotels for your stay!
4:50 am
tripadvisor searches over 200 booking sites... to show you the lowest prices... so you can get the best deal on the right hotel for you. dates, deals, done! and i'm the founder of ugmonk. before shipstation it was crazy. it's great when you see a hundred orders come in, a hundred orders come in, but then you realize i've got a hundred orders i have to ship out. shipstation streamlined that wh the order data, the weights of , everything is seamlessly put into shipstation, so when we print the shipping ll everything's pretty much done. it's so much easier so now, we're ready, bring on t. shipstation. the number one ch of online sellers. go to shipstation.com/tv and get two months free. your insurance rates skyrocket you could fix it with a pen. how about using that pen to sign up for new insurance instead? for drivers with accident forgiveness, liberty mutual won't raise their rates because of their first accident. switch and you could save $782
4:51 am
on home and auto insurance. call for a free quote today. liberty mutual insurance. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ . after a week of criticism, cia director gina haspel. senators leaving the meeting say the intelligence community's assessment is clear. >> there is not a smoking gun, there is a smoking saw. it is zero chance, zero, that this happened in such an organized fashion without the crown prince. >> if he was in front of a jury, he would be convicted in front of a jury in 30 minutes, guilty.
4:52 am
>> obviously, you know senator graham and senator corker and the other senators that came out with that universal message. what we heard is that the crown prince is responsible. what is your reaction? >> let me say i'm on the u.s. senate intelligence committee. we have known -- and i'm not going to discuss classified information other than to tell you that i don't, frankly, think you need to get that far. from what we know about this murder leaves you with no doubt that the crown prince, at a minimum, knew about it, condoned it and perhaps, worse, was actually involved in directing it. he has absolute control in saudi arabia. the 17 people who flew into turkey have now been publically reported who they are. many have very close ties to him. there is no way, and i mean in way, that 17 people that close to the crown prince fly into a
4:53 am
third country, murder someone in a diplomatic facility and fly back to saudi arabia and he not at least know about it, much less perhaps be involved in it. you can conclude that without having been in that briefing and without sitting on the intelligence committee the way i do. >> you say it leaves you with no doubt, no doubt. then how do you explain what i'm about to play. the president, the secretary of state and the secretary of defense. listen to this. >> maybe he did. maybe he didn't. they did not make that assessment. the cia has looked at it. they studied it a lot. they have nothing definitive. >> i don't know if anyone is going to be able to conclude that the crown prince did it. >> we have no smoking gun that the crown prince was involved. >> there is no direct evidence linking him to the murder of jamal khashoggi. >> senator, are they being
4:54 am
straight with us? >> well, i think they're carrying out the policy of the administration. we don't need smoking gun evidence. this is not a criminal trial. this is not an episode of "m "matlock." we know more than enough who these people were and what happened to conclude he had to know about it and he was involved in it. saudi arabia is not a decentralized government that acts with all sorts of people acting independently. all alliances have buffers. all alliances have limits. and the crown prince will continue to test the limits of this alliance until the limits are set. >> are we setting any limits?
4:55 am
>> privately we probably have. i'm pretty confident. i don't know that for sure, but i believe we have based on what we know. i do think there needs to be some public actions. i detailed last week on a floor speech very specific asks and things we should be asking for. it ranges from human rights issues such as freeing women that have been taken prisoner for political reasons, freeing the man speaking out about the saudi regime and going beyond it, there are other things we should consider, that agreements should be postponed. there are all sorts of things we can do to make clear this can't continue to happen. he's going to, frankly, pull us into a war some day with some recklessness. >> you did, though, vote against defunding the saudi effort in
4:56 am
yemen. why? >> it had nothing to do with this particular case. i can outline the reason to you why we should be involved with the saudis. first of all, i don't believe the war powers act is constitutional. second, even if it were, i don't believe what we are doing with saudi arabia rises to triggering the war powers act. if we stop arming them, they're not going to stop the war because the ie ryan yan agents are being surrounded by iran. the second thing i would say is if we stop supporting the saudis, you will see an increase in the attack. strikes with rockets that could actually kill civilians and members of the royal family. not to mention the threat to the
4:57 am
shipping lanes. so there is a lot of reasons why voting for that is a bad idea. i don't think you have to vote for that to vote for what happened with khashoggi. >> i understand your position on the yemen vote. i want to go back to something you said before. you said they were carrying out the policy of the administration. that feels like you are giving them a pass for saying something you just told me you believe not to be true. >> again, i'm not going to get into analyzing intelligence or anything of that nature, especially on national television. i think you can argue from a technical perspective people can be saying things that are accurate, but i disagree with what they're saying in terms of the theme of what they're laying out. they work for the president. >> i know. again, you also just said you are worried that the saudi crown prince could drag us into a war and you also argue that the public words here matter. and those public words they said
4:58 am
are very specific. >> again, you know, i would wish that the administration's position was different. you will have to ask cemetery mike pompeo and mattis why they used that phraseology. i'm making an observation. i disagree with that assessment. i'm telling you this. it is not based on intelligence. i don't need intelligence. i think you know enough and the american public knows enough about saudi arabia to conclude whether or not we have a smoking gun there is no way that 17 people that close to that crown prince go to turkey and murder a guy in a consulate and he not know about it. >> senator, i want to get your take on some developments over the last this hours. you saw the sentencing order of michael flynn. i want to read one part of it. it says the defendant's extensive government service should have been made him aware of the harm caused by making false information to the ghovmt
4:59 am
. michael flynn should have known better. >> again, i'm on the intelligence committee. we continue with our probe. it involved a lot of the same people, but we're not a criminal justice entity. i don't think we should prejudge one way or the other. but i will continue to say this. i think it is important and in the best interest of the administration and the american people that mr. mueller be allowed to complete his probe and put all the evidence out there. if people are criminally charged, they will have their day in court. but let's let this thing work its way through. i know you guys have to cover the news and we have to respond. but let's wait for the complete picture to be out there. i think that's in the best interest of everyone. we'll look at the whole thing and then we can opine and obviously the u.s. senate
5:00 am
intelligence committee will have a role to play with their report. >> that's fair. i just wanted to get your take on it. i do appreciate you are on the intelligence committee. at, just today it is a national day of mourning and there will be a state funeral for george h.w. bush. i just want to get your moment of reflection on the president. >> you know, it was the first person i ever voted for back in 1992. i also had an interest in foreign policy. foreign policy often is our domestic policy, too. i just look back at the first gulf war. it was a masterpiece of foreign policy. you look at the coalition that george h.w. bush put together, the way it was done, the use of international entities to rally international support. what he did back then combined with managing the end of the cold war, i remember, i was in lillege at the time, it looked
41 Views
Uploaded by TV Archive on
