Transcripts For CNNW The Lead With Jake Tapper 20191025 : vi

Taking shots at a different trump relative and his job. Welcome to the lead, im jake tapper. We begin with the politics lead and the president continuing to try to lie his way out of the ukraine scandal as sources tell cnn that the Current White House National Security counsel official will back up much of the damning from bill taylor, the dom diplomat in ukraine about ukraine being pushed to investigate the bidens. White house sources told cnn the president has a Communications Problem regarding this scandal. But truly this isnt a Communications Problem, it is a facts problem and the facts are bad for the president. So he seems to be trying to change them by lying and saying, for instance. That the entire impeachment inquiry is about one thing its one conversation that i had with the president of ukraine that was perfect. It is not just about the phone call. The allegations that President Trump held up military aid to ukraine and other things ukraine wanted in exchange for opening investigations that would benefit him politically including into the bidens. They are not just based off that one phone call, they are based on testimony there was an entire campaign that involved multiple Administration Officials and the president s lawyer Rudy Giuliani having multiple conversations with officials in the Ukrainian Government months before the july 25th phone call. President zelensky and his team were discussing the pressure from the Trump Administration to open these investigations, a source tells cnn. As for the president s repeated claims that the call was, quote, perfect, well that is a judgment call but multiple republicans have conceded it was not only imperfect, at the very least inappropriate. The president tried to lie that the Senate Majority leader Mitch Mcconnell agreed the call was perfect and told him that but here is what Mitch Mcconnell said about that. The president said you told him that his phone call with the ukraine president was perfect and innocent. Do you believe that the president weve not had any conversations on that subject. So he was lie being that . Yeah. Assal erk mar court reports, there are more depositions to come including possibly from the former security adviser john bolton who according to other witnesses had serious concerns about this rogue Trump White House policy regarding ukraine. Reporter one of the biggest names at the center of the impeachment inquiry, john bolton has so far been mysteriously quiet. That may soon change. A source tells cnn that lawyers for President Trumps former National Security adviser are in talks with the three committees leading the inquiry about being deposed. He made some very big mistakes. Reporter bolton was fired last month, the president mocking him as a tough guy. Sources tell cnn that a former top deputy testified that bolton called the president s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani a hand grenade who is going to blow everybody up. It corroborates a lot of the other information that we had previously about mayor giuliani freelancing reporter the ieng the inquiry will ratchet after others on the july 25th call between trump and ukraine president zelensky in which trump asked for a favor and brought up the 2016 election and the bidens. If you have somebody directly saying i was on the call and this is what happened, that is direct evidence that really causes problems politically and legally. Reporter morrison, the first person on the call to testify, is expected to confirm key elements of the testimony of the top u. S. Diplomat in ukraine bill taylor who said on tuesday that more isson told him that President Trump did insist that president zelensky go to a microphone and say hes opening an investigations into biden and 2016 election interference. This is as 400 million in military aid for ukraine was being held up for months. Sources now telling cnn it wasnt unfrozen until september 11th after trump received pressure from ohio senator rob portman during a phone call. A day after john bolton abruptly resigned and two days after u. S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland told President Trump that concerns were being raised that his actions amounted to a quid pro quo. There was no quid pro quo at all. Reporter the release of the money to ukraine wasnt only from senator portman but by the end of september the funds would have to be given to ukraine or they would get nothing at all and so they urged the president to send the money and the president agreed but not before grumbling the u. S. Was getting a bad deal. Jake. Alex marquardt starting us off. Toluse, let me start with you. According to bill taylors testimony this week, tim morrison, the white house official said he had a, quote, sinking feeling, in which the president insists that the ukrainian president needed to go to a microphone and saying he was opening an investigation into the bidens and this is another person backing up a key part of the testimony. This could be pretty damaging testimony for the white house a Current White House official willing to back up what taylor said. We had republicans say that taylor was secondhand information and he didnt hear the conversations directly. This could be someone who was directly involved who was directly in the white house who was hired by the president so he cant say this is a member of the deep state or someone who is an opponent of the president. Sure you could well the president may still do that but the fact that hes still working there in the white house and hes defying the white houses call for this whole impeachment inquiry to be deemed illegitimate and it could back up what taylor said and it is damaging and if you have multiple people back it up, it stacks up against the president. But taylors testimony is based on morrison calling taylor. So it is based on sondland and volker and morrison. Morrison is very important to hear what he said. Cnn is reporting, right, that two sources say that morrison will say he didnt see anything wrong with what happened on the phone call. That he told taylor, he didnt see anything wrong with it. So that is what is interesting to see, what he testifies when he gets up there. Does that matter . Because morrisons testimony is important. Does his opinion on this matter . Presumably it would. Right. The just kidding defense or oh, no big deal, ignorance is not a defense in the eyes of the law. It is wrong, it is wrong. And if it is about a quid pro quo, meaning that the United States is holding up something that is a vital of National Security interest to itself and another country for a president ial personal favor that is a problem. Usually in diplomacy and National Security, you use the tools as leverage to get behavior from another country and advancing another political issue. And trumps adviser said in her deposition that john bolton then the National Security adviser told her to tip off to tell the white house lawyers about the activities of giuliani and others calling giuliani a hand grenade who would blow everybody up and now we know that giuliani im sorry, that boltons lawyers are talking to the House Democrats about a deposition potentially. And john bolton comes up also in bill taylors testimony too. It is in the middle of a lot of these conversations that were having. You mentioned fiona hill and the challenge of doing business with the ukrainians. John bolton left the white house under not so great circumstances. And we werent sure what the circumstances were either. Exactly. Some of them seemed to be about invitations of to the taliban to camp david, him being upset about that. But the president didnt have very good things to say about him. Often while he was in the white house and then on the way out. And of course bolton said oh, youre going to hear from me at some point and this is one of those instances where well hear from him. Well see what he says. It is not good that all of the people are cooperating. Youve got tim morrison defying the white house strategy to shut this whole thing down and paint it as ill legitimate and hard to say that john bolton is deep state and against the interest what is American Foreign policy. And not a trump loyalist but works in the white house and was there because of an ideology whether it is regime change in iran or hawkish hardline policy so if trump was doing was underpinning what bolton thought was good for National Security, hes more likely to spill the beans. What do you think of the white house saying they have a Communications Problem . It seems to me it is more of a facts problem than a Communications Problem. So look, impeachment is a political undertaking. This isnt about the facts but how people in america perceive the facts because the house have to vote up and down on articles of impeachment and then the senate will vote whether to remove the president or not. And so unless there is a ground swell of support behind the facts, members of house wont vote for articles of impeachment and not move so. So now you see the depositions scheduled in the house the second week of november. Speaker pelosi said this will be wrapped up by thanksgiving. It doesnt look close to that. And then you talk into next year. An election year. You go out and read and look at swing state, some of the polls done in swing states, the focus groups, and voters are saying, hey, there is an election coming. Let the polls take care of this and congress focus on what theyre doing. That message resonates very well. The polling generally supportive of impeachment and the polling in the battleground states is the opposite. Stick around. President trump comparing the impeachment to a Justice System and a official has receipts, the author said, notes from conversations that the author wants to use to expose President Trump in his own words but is there anything that could shock us at this point . Stay with us. Most people think of verizon as a reliable phone company. woman but to businesses, were a reliable partner. We Keep Companies ready for whats next. man we weave security into their business. Virtualize their operations. woman and build ai customer experiences. We also keep them ready for the next big opportunity. Like 5g. Almost all the fortune 500 partner with us. woman when it comes to digital transformation. Verizon keeps business ready. Corrupt president in our nations history. When i called for his impeachment two years ago, washington insiders and every candidate for president said it was too soon. But i believed then, as i do now, that doing the right thing was more important than political calculations. And over eight Million People agreed. We proved that there is no challenge that americans cant meet when we work together. Im tom steyer, and i approve this message. Is just like our originalhn sandwiches. Only littler. So we bought a little ad. On lil jon. Little johns, yeah 3, what . the pain and swelling. The psoriasis. Cosentyx treats more than just the joint pain of active psoriatic arthritis. It even helps stop further joint damage. 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Breaking news now, President Trump just moments ago at the historically black Benedict College seemingly compared the impeachment inquiry to the unfair treatment in the criminal Justice System. We make tremendous strides to deliver greater economic promise to our citizens. Well never let up on our efforts to ensure that our Justice System is fair for every single american. And i have my own experience. You know that. You see what is going on with the witch hunt. It is a terrible thing that is going on in our country. No crimes. You might remember a few days ago President Trump tweeted, quote, all republicans must remember what they are witnessing here regarding himself. A lynching. Abby phillip is at the white house. And we know republicans have urged the president to focus on governing but he keeps injecting the impeachment inquiry into daytoday comments and daytoday events, including times that he seems to be suggesting that he is akin to the victims of the civil rights horrors of this country. Reporter and, in fact, this visit was supposed to be about the president reaching out to africanamerican voters, talking about his championing of the First Step Act to rectify the ways in which the criminal Justice System unfairly targets africanamericans but he compared that history to himself and what hes facing. He said that these investigations are an investigation in search of a crime and it underscores the challenge for republicans as they continue to urge the president to focus on governing, at the same time that the white house is struggling to come up with a plan to deal with the ongoing impeachment probe on capitol hill. But the president has another problem and that is an anonymous senior official is coming out with a tellall book features the president s own words. Im not a fan of never trumpers and never will be. Reporter as trump rails against the never trumpers in a deep state, a official plans to use the president s own words against him in an explosive new tellall book out next month. The author whose identity still hasnt been revealed will reportedly rely on extensive notes from meetings and conversations with trump. Writing on the books back cover there is no better witness to his character than his own words. And no better evidence of the danger he poses than his own conduct. All this coming as the white house continues to flounder without a plan for dealing with the impeachment inquiry unfolding on capitol hill. Sources telling cnn aides continue to feud over whether there should be a war room and who would lead it. Here is the thing, i dont have teams, everyone talks about teams. Im the team. I did nothing wrong. Reporter but three sources told cnn that trumps soninlaw and Senior Adviser Jared Kushner is pushing to bring in tony sayegg to lead the efforts which includes personally attacking democrats conducting the impeachment probe. People are still in a basement in a secure room in the basement, trying to make us look as bad as possible. But that is not working too well. Reporter and going after the senior diplomatic officials who have testified like Ukraine Ambassador bill taylor whose testimony was described by one lawmaker as damning. Here is the problem. Hes a never trumper and his lawyer is a never trumper. Reporter but there is no evidence that taylor, a vietnam veteran who served president s in both parties, actually is a never trumper. Trump now blaming his secretary of state mike pompeo who recruited taylor to serve in ukraine. Hey, everybody makes mistakes. Mike pompeo, everybody makes mistakes. Reporter there was talk of a war room being set up back when the white house was trying to deal with the Mueller Probe but at that time they also decided against creating one instead white house aides and the president s campaign took their cues from President Trumps twitter feed and that is happening again. Nia malika henderson, ill start with you. I was not expecting him to bring this up at criminal Justice Reform and getting a lot of kudos for this bipartisan act and one of the few truly bipartisan achievements of his presidency and he seemed to kind of step in it a little. And it is not surprising in that way, right. The president is obsessed with an impeachment. Folks want him to keep on message and focus on the good things that his administration has done, he is there on hsbc in columbia, south carolina, likening himself apparently to africanamericans who are often the victims of criminal Justice System, sort of the inequities in the criminal Justice System, something weve seen him do before, likening him to a lynching victim which again is an inappropriate linkage because what we know about what happened with lynching victims, right. Denied justice and hung from trees for speaking to a white woman or anything like that. And so this is what donald trump does. I think any speech that he gives in front of an audience like this, hes going to mention impeachment and mention the sense that he feels like hes the victim of an unjust process so that is what were going to get. Listen, i dont understand why when folks go before africanamerican communities it has to be abo