Transcripts For KQED Charlie Rose 20170717 : vimarsana.com

KQED Charlie Rose July 17, 2017

And society. But some of this is unacceptable. We continue with craig unger, a new republic discussing trumps russian laundromat. Where you can go through all of the purchases for example at trump tower. Whenever you get a name you google it. He sold many apartments there in florida, he had developments where about a third of the units were sold to russians. In panama city panama, he has a trump towers and dozen and dozen of the units were sold to russians. This was a fire sale in a way to bring in russian money, donald trump, jr. Said as much. We conclude with trip adler, the ceo of the on content Subscription Service scribd. You can have a frictionless great experience with great recommendations to read what you want. Right now theres the experience where you have to buy books individually over here, you have to subscribe to individual newspapers and individual magazines over here the in our case we bring that together in one experience. Politics, donald trump and russia and trip adler when we continue. Rose funding for charlie rose has been provided by the following bank of america. Life better connected. And by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and Information Services worldwide. Captioning sponsored by Rose Communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. Good evening, charlie is away. Im Jonathan Karl of abc news. We begin tonight with politics. President trouble has been on a state visit to france this week, but when he returns to washington, hell find that russia is still dominating the news. And on thursday, Senate Republicans released the newest version of their bill to repeal and replace the Affordable Care act. Joining me now, megan murphy. Shes the editor of bloomberg businessweek, and from washington, mike allen, the cofounder of axios and the axios am newsletter. And yoni applebaum, Senior Editor for politics at the atlantic. Wow, its been a heck of a week. Megan, ive heard the president before he left for translashing out deeply frustrated over the fact that the russia story wont go away. Ive heard suggested by some that he saw the, this story involving his son don, jr. As perhaps the worst development, the worst day of his presidency. So we have new developments. More new developments today. And weve heard the president has hired a new criminal attorney, ty cobb. Yes. Theyve been looking for someone to comment to be the enforcer on this probe, to get more discipline on it, figure out how theyre going to react to it in terms of Rapid Response and making sure people adhere to a singular story line Going Forward. But youre right in the sense it cuts the entire issue surrounding his presidency as he goes away again. And yet it intensifies. People call it drip drip dread. Almost flood flood flood at this point. You wake up to new revelations about who is in this meeting with don, jr. About promising intelligence about Hillary Clinton. The number increases even today we see more people. We still dont know the full list of people. The second that story broke, you knew it could be a defining moment just for the sheer gravity of the allegations involved there. And its not going to go a way until people feel like theyve been fully transparent. We still dont know whats out there. We dont know whats out in other emails. We still dont even know what was actually discussed other than their version of the story. If he thinks this is going away, right now its on the tra jectity of getting worse day by day. What are the significance of the days other developments. You mentioned this june 9th meeting with the russian lawyer. This is a now famous meeting set up by don, jr. , attended by Paul Manafort, attended by Jared Kushner and now we learn that in addition to the lawyer, the promoter friend who contacted first about this, we have at least two others. What significance is that. How many people in the room i dont think matters. I think it will still go, theres two issues here. Theres the don, jr. Issue where he knew not only that this information was promised on Hillary Clinton but that it came from russian officials. He also knew that this was part of a concerted effort by russia to get his father elected. So thats one half of the equation. Now for what he said in saying i love it, i cant wait. Essentially i cant wait to meet. That is stupidity but the second half of this equation is Jared Kushner, Paul Manafort, people who frankly should have known better, should have raised incredible alarm bells, red flags the second you saw an email promising that kind of information from that source. Paul manafort, one of most sophisticated political operators in washington for many years. Jared kushner as well. One of the president s closest advisors at the time and continues to be so. So i think if you hide this off, theres the stupidity on don, jr. s part. The other half of the equation is deeply troubling in terms of how far these connections went, what they knew and particularly what the president knew about this kind of information that was being pedaled in terms of where it came from. So mike the age old what did the president know and when did he know it. The president himself said he didnt know about this meeting until just a few days ago. But now we have reporting that the president s legal team knew about this weeks ago. Whats the significance of that . Thats true, john. In addition to the legal team, other senior staffers have known bit for a couple weeks. Heres the problem with that. Is that when don, jr. Put out a statement which its been reported that the president was involved in crafting that statement, it was the first statement. The one that denied that basically said this was just about adoption. Right. And it was at the very least radically incomplete. It has since been updated. But then don, jr. Went on hannity and said its all out there. But no, it turns out theres more people. This is why the president is right in your telling at the top about the gravity of it until now. And john hasnt, the trump canned de, the trouble presidency for establishment republicans, its been a series of telling themselves stories about trump. He will be fine when hes in office. He will be fine when we start to pass legislation. And with the russia story, as you know, republicans have been telling themselves oh these guys just didnt know what they were doing. This was more keystone cops than something insidious. But now we have these brutal montages of these officials telling again and again including yourself that there was nothing going on with russia. That its outrageous, that it is silly. And we find out that all of that is incorrect. So thats the problem is that how now do they give any kind of a blanket denial or any kind of denial period that will stick or be believed. And yoni, if the president is deeply frustrated, slashing out because of the russia story and the fact that it wont go away. That was what i was being told over and over again earlier this week. I mean, this storys not going anywhere now. Chuck grassley has said he wants don, jr. To testify before his committee. Wants Paul Manafort. This is the judiciary. This isnt even the house and Senate Intelligence committee investigation. This is another one. And he wants Paul Manafort before his committee next week. Is this going to happen. It will be on a frustration. Every time he lashes out he just make it worse for himself. This has become a problem. The first rule of scandals is you want to get ahead of it. This is the whitehouse which is constantly back on its feet. Constantly trying to find ways to catch up to the narrative. And it creates two sets of problems for this whitehouse. One is that it gets increasingly difficult for members of the public to buy the stories that its releasing when it releases a new story with new details which previously have been obscured or which falsify earlier statements with each successive day. Youre right. Theres nothing in the current account which is on its face impossible to believe. Except that every previous version of the story that this whitehouse has put out there has proven to be false or misleading in some very significant respect. The other is that its starting to distract the whitehouse and its ability to do anything else. Increasing number of aides are getting pulled in. Their own legal liabilities to be called to testify. This is a nightmare for the white how, the scandal that is broadening on it and distracting from the things we would really like to be doing and talking about. And the president s reactive style is a key driver of that. This is the thing. They brought in ty cobb now, a new lawyer. These people arent listening to their existing lawyers. You have don, jr. Out there talking about this on hannity. Then being contradicted by a set 16 facts of facts a day later. No lawyer would be discussing the kind of things theyre discussing precisely for the reason the facts dont match up whats coming out of their mouth. Its interesting they brought someone else why. They are their own worse enemies and their own best friends. They still have a large group of people who think that hes being attacked by the left, that its obstructionists in washington and blocking his agenda. It will be interesting to see Going Forward with healthcare is whether or not if they cannot get this bill over the floor, if they cant get it through the senate, how much, hes basically removed himself from the entire process of so far his signature attempted legislative achievements. This is extraordinary. And whether or not its a calculated, a sort of method to the madness to remove themselves so that he stays away from the blame. Its interesting to me to where the American People are going to stack up of who they point the finger to. Im not so sure the russia thing is still even whether its resonating as much as we think it is, with the broader rank and file outside of the coast. Mike, is it the sense, one of our mutual friends said that basically people already think there was collusion and people that support donald trump dont care about it and the people that dont like donald trump, you know, theyve already made up their minds. What is the resonance. The investigation goes on but its how the investigation seems. Youre right to point to the opportunity costs. You were there, you covered it. You know that george w. Bushs most productive period and Barack Obamas most productive period were those first two months, two years when their parties controlled the entire congress. And those days are so precious and theyre fleeting and theres increasing signs they will be fleeting for donald trump. So you have to jam in as much as you mike can. With all the foot dragging thats gone on over healthcare with the distractions, theyre now behind on that. I think anybody would take the under on the healthcare vote. Right now they are exactly where they need to be to barely pass. You lose two republicans. Mike pence breaks the tie. One more person walks through that door and healthcare is dead. And everybody around this table covered these votes where you know how it works. Either you have it or you lose ten, right. Its not going to lose by one or two when it looks like a turkey thats going to sink people are going to get off it. Bleak for healthcare. Tax reform way far behind. Im now told theyre going to do the development of that during the august recess, come back, work on that in september. Have significant action on it by the end of the year. Were told they cant get it done by the First Quarter of 2018, of course you know how how hard it is, you know gary conan is going to head out of there. Very little to show for the entire machine. Yoni theyre only at 50 votes for healthcare not on the bill itself. Simply for the procedural vote to begin to be able to debate the bill. But you know, i still talk to Republican Leadership both in the senate and those working this issue in the whitehouse who tell me they think they can still get it done. Can they . Yes. They are hopeful. Theyre absolutely hopeful they can get this done but the problem is that the senators who are sitting on the sidelines with reservations are both feeling to some extent cut out of the process. And even worse, they have objections to the bill. For some its too conservative, for others its not conservative enough. Theres the criticism that President Trump himself lodged. The house bill was too mean. Its not clear that this revised version of the bill addresses that criticism. So its a really tough circle to square for leadership. And it puts the administration really in a very difficult spot. It campaign on a variety of promises. This was one of the big ones, repealing and replacing obamacare. Mcconnel has stopped using the word repeal in his speeches. Hes acknowledging at least implicitly thats not what theyre doing and even this much more modest attempt to largely to reform medicaid and not the system as a whole is now on the shoals. If its on promises that are popular and finds its very difficult to deliver on the promises, its going to send congressmen out to face the voters in 2018. It will face the voters himself in 2020 and may not have a whole lot to show for it. And the question is what dos the president do after it goes down. This is like the fox argument again. The thing that is most interesting i think about this bill, its made people so much aware in particular of how important medicaid is as a program at all stages of life for all types of people, kids, women, the elderly. How much its paying now to rural america. How it stretches and how damaging the scale of the cuts could be nearly 800 billion to every day healthcare that people obtain and they get the poorest kids, earlily that are dealing with dementia and nursing homes, how much it pays for. So heres something that is definitely true. The exchanges need to be fixed. The marketplace needs to be fixed. There are two too people providing plans under obamacare under the aca, the premiums are too high. Even the staunchest of democrats agree. Whats possible is a partisan compromise and willingness to work on that legislation. Is it in fact possible that even if the senate bill dies next week, that they come forward with some type of near term compromise to prop up the exchanges to bring premiums down to get the marketplace function better that can possibly be haled as a victory on both sides. Of course not repeal and replace, not the signature promises that republicans have campaigned on for seven years but something that donald trump has claimed a victory. I think its possible instead of repealing obama, youre talking about strengthening obamacare. Fixing it. Or played off of fixing it and making it more palatable. Now of course for the Republican Party as whole, anathema. Theres one thing for certain. That marketplace needs to be fixed and theres an agreement on both sides that needs to be done. So if this bill goes down, im not sure its actually possible for them to abdicate entirely on doing something to shore up Critical Healthcare for a large portion of americans. Before we wrap up, i want to come back to the deal team because you mentioned megan if theres a new lawyer. This comes after this extraordinarily strange chapter in all this involving mark kazowitz. Can you explain this. He went threatening emails to somebody he didnt even know. He went on a late night email rant to someone who criticized him had in an email. But the language was so abusive. Im going to move on. Stuff that you just wouldnt hear in modern characterization particularly in the president s lawyer. He apologized putting out a statement saying it was after a long working day. Look, i think we do need to think about the degradation of the office in general. Some of the things that are happening from the antics that are happening. This is the personal lawyer of the president of the united states. We talk all the time about the president s tweets and whether they are appropriate or not, whether were dealing with joe and mika or dealing with some of the other things. I do get worried that we are becoming so inured. That this is just the latest in a this hour news cycle. The next event. The next thing that we brush off. Are we becoming inured as voters as a society. Some of this is just frankly unacceptable. You would not, it would not be tolerated in any workplace, certainly not my workplace or our workplace. And are we even, are we concentrating among all the madness that we dismiss, are we d how troubling it is anddeepme frankly what kind of example were setting to the rest of the world. That tone is set from where . The president himself. And that is the problem is when you have a, someone in that oval office who has no message discipline, i think the longest weve ever seen him have message discipline is when hes gone dark about three or four days max. This week when he got a single public event on his schedule, sunday, monday, tuesday, wednesday until he took off. Are we really in a position where he cant be in public in order to enforce message discipline. That is tremendously worrying indeed for the president of the united states. Lets be serious here. Weve got isis being, fighting against isis, north korea, massive geo political instability and problems. And were focused on his lawyer sending a late night email rant. Thats actually what they would say. They would say look, weve, isis is on its heels in iraq, mosul, run out, the stock market has hit a consecutive highs this week. In his words, the president has done more legislatively than any presidency since washington. They have an differently view of this but they would say look its, were spending too much time focusing on these issues and not enough on what theyre actually accomplishing. What are they coy. They point to the economic times. One of the most undeniably bigger accomplishments for the First Six Months has been giving business a spring in its steps. We saw that in the market and ceo announcements but think of the babbled bandwidth this s soaking up inside. This is the amazing thing to reflect on. For all the craziness and all the fast nation of these six months, there hadnt been a transcendent crises. Either something at home or a National Security event abroad that wo

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