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tv   CNN Right Now With Brianna Keilar  CNN  January 18, 2019 10:00am-11:01am PST

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for her security? i don't know that everyone would sign on to that. >> everybody has the right to criticize and they will criticize. >> this is criticism of the pences doing this, it's not a blind criticism of christian education. thank you for joining us on "inside politics." i hope you have a great weekend. brianna keilar starts right now. i'm brianna keilar live from cnn's washington headquarters underway right now. we begin with a stunning report that if true it raises serious questions about possible obstruction of justice by president trump. according to this buzzfeed report, then-candidate donald trump directed his long-time attorney michael cohen to lie to congress under oath about negotiations to build a trump tower in moscow. and this report cites two federal law enforcement officials involved in investigating the matter. important to note, cnn has not corroborated this buzzfeed
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report. cohen has admitted that he falsely told lawmakers that talks about the moscow project ended months earlier than they actually did. buzzfeed says according to its sources, the president personally instructed cohen to lie. cnn justice correspondent jessica schneider has more on this reporting. so walk us through what we need to know about this report. >> brianna, this is an explosive report with several significant revelations all attributed to two law enforcement officials to back it up. so first, the president reportedly supported a plan that was spearheaded by michael cohen to visit russia during the presidential campaign and even for donald trump to personally meet with vladimir putin. this, of course, would all be sort of that start to that effort to jump-start the trump tower moscow negotiations. now, buzzfeed even says that then-candidate donald trump told michael cohen, quote, make it happen, which, of course, it never actually did. in addition, this report also describes how intricately donald
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trump was involved in these trump tower moscow negotiations that did stretch through at least june 2016 after trump secured the republican nomination. buzzfeed now reporting law enforcement sources saying that trump had ten face-to-face meetings with michael cohen to discuss this project throughout the campaign. and then, of course, the biggest bombshell, that the president directed michael cohen to lie to congress about the negotiations to build trump tower moscow and the fact that those talks stretched well into the campaign. and while the president has repeatedly pointed to michael cohen as a liar, including in tweets this morning, it does appear that mueller's office isn't just relying on cohen's words. buzzfeed putting it this way, saying the special counsel's office learned about trump's directive for cohen to lie to congress through interviews with multiple witnesses from the trump organization and internal company e-mails, text messages
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and a cache of other documents. and that fact is prompting a huge democratic outcry, some even resurfacing the idea of impeachment and democratic senator sheldon whitehouse, brianna, saying an indictment shouldn't necessarily be off the table. >> jessica schneider, thank you for walking us through that. the president's attorney, rudy giuliani, sboresponded to the report by attacking michael cohen's credibility. this was a statement that was released just a short time ago also denying it. it says any suggestion from any source that the president counseled michael cohen to lie is categorically false. michael cohen is a convicted criminal and a liar. our abby phillip is at the white house for us. what about the president? how is he responding to this potential bombshell, abby? >> reporter: well, brianna, we heard from president trump about this. it seems based on his twitter feed this morning that he quoted the fox news report, but at the end he tacked on this comment about michael cohen, saying whe
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was lying to reduce his jail time and also watching cohen's father-in-law, who the president has been watching for a long time, suggesting trump ought to be investigated. trump has been trying to undermine michael cohen for some time now, but that has escalated in recent weeks, especially after michael cohen agreed to testify publicly in congress about all of the things that he pled guilty to in criminal court over the last year. but this morning the white house, in addition to undermining cohen's credibility, would not necessarily directly address the buzzfeed story. deputy press secretary hogan gidley was on fox news this morning and was asked directly multiple times and here's what he had to say. >> you're saying the president did not tell michael cohen to do that. >> i'm telling you right now this is exactly why the president refuses to give any kreensd credence or credibility to news outlets because they have no
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ability to corroborate anything they put out there. instead they're using innuendo or shady sources -- >> that was not a denial of my question. >> no, but the premise is ridiculous. >> that statement you just read from rudy giuliani came hours after gidley's appearance and it seems to be a change of course. the president's attorney is now categorically denying this story, but the dissidence between those two statements shows how the white house is still trying to figure out how to address this story, which is incredibly damaging to president trump, basically alleging that he committed a crime. >> abby phillip at the white house, thanks. some democrats are openly talking about possible impeachment if this buzzfeed story is true. at the very least they're hoping to investigate if what is said is true. we have senior fellow at the center for new american security, kerry cor derksdero,
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have our chief political analyst gloria borger. this is significant, gloria, and i know people are looking at the mueller investigation and the peripheral investigations that are related to similar things. it becomes this kind of drip, drip, drip and they wonder is this a significant day today, is this a significant thing? well, if true, this is a significant thing, right? because this is the first time, instance, that we the public know about president trump directing someone to lie under oath to conceal interactions with russia. >> sure, and again, if true, and we ought to point out that cnn has not independently confirmed this story. that if true, this wuld be according to the president's attorney general designate, bill barr, this would be a clear case of obstruction of justice, trying to find -- trying to direct somebody to lie. so we don't know at this point independently whether it is, but what we do know from court
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filings is that cohen has said he interacted with white house-based staff before he testified, and that he did follow the political messaging of the president of the united states in order to protect the president. that is what we know. this takes it from court filings. this takes it, of course, a huge leap further, which is that the president was directing him, and i would presume it's without the knowledge of all the other lawyers who were involved in drafting his statements before congress. you would have to presume that. so we have to kind of try and wait until we can unspool this story to figure out where it is. >> you mentioned the president's ag pick william barr testifying before congress. we have sound bites of his hearing, exchanges he had with a democratic senator and a republican about this very
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thing. let's listen. >> if there was reason to believe that the president tried to coach somebody not to testify or testify falsely, that could be obstruction of justice? >> yes, under an obstruction, yes. >> you wrote on page one that the president directing someone to commit perjury would be obstruction, is that right? >> yes. >> carrie, when you look at bill barr saying that, why is this report something that could be a game changer? >> because this particular allegation that's being alleged in the buzzfeed article accuses the president of basically committing obstruction, of directing an individual, michael cohen, to provide false testimony to congress. so even under the theory that attorney general barr has explained in the memo that he had sent to the justice department even before he was nominated, this type of obstruction would not be something that would fall under any kind of presidential power
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that could take it out of criminal realm. it really would be a violation of the statutes. i would suspect that the attorney general nominee would believe that the appropriate remedy for that would be impeachment, not prosecution. but it certainly falls under obstruction. >> can you speak to that, mike? because you're the former chairman of the house intel committee. that is the committee, not, obviously, while you were overseeing it, but that's the committee that michael cohen is said to have lied to when he testified, and there's also this question of what is congress going to do? because there's been some reticence on the part of democrats to jump on that impeachment bandwagon. what do you think? >> i think they shouldn't be too quick on this. two problems here. a political problem for the president and a legal problem, and the legal problem is a little less clear to me. the sourcing of this information, i'm a little skeptical of. it wasn't people involved in the investigation, it was one tier out, number one. and you're dealing with somebody who has made it very clear he's
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willing to lie in order -- or at least embellish his value. he was out running around the track trying to say somebody from the mueller campaign or the special counsel should come talk to me. and part of the u.s. prosecutors in new york said he was lying and he should get jail time. he wasn't fully cooperative. so it gets really messy when you're saying, is this a credible story with a credible witness against an impeachment charge? they would have to have documentation. just the word and the -- you know, the wink-wink, nudge-nudge testimony is not going to work. the big thing here is certainly this feeds the narrative. it's going to get the people who want impeachment charged up. chris christie is running around the country for the next two weeks, and i don't know if you saw his politico op-ed, but it is fairly damning about what kind of decision-making is being had with the people surrounding the president.
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and i just think that combination politically is going to be a very difficult week for him to get over. >> so let's talk politically and legally about the denial that we're seeing, because now we have rudy giuliani saying this is categorically false. but what struck me, carrie, was initially, and there was discussion about how president trump's kids were involved in this deal and this reporting which, yes, we have not corroborated. ivanka trump came out with a statement and it basically says off the top dealing with the fabl factual or non-factual part of this story -- i'm paraphrasing -- but then she said she's getting into another role when it comes to moscow. her spokesperson completely does not take the opportunity to refute the factual nature. hogan gidley, white house spokesperson, did not refute the factual nature. and rudy giuliani didn't come out right away and say that it was untrue. what do you make of it?
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let's talk legally. >> so here's what i think -- let me start with factually, actually. here's where i think we are actually eventually going to know the facts of it. the senate intelligence committee chairman, chairman burr, said a couple months ago in public statements that his committee has made multiple referrals to the special counsel's office regarding individuals who lied in front of the senate intelligence committee in their russia investigation. so it wasn't just michael cohen, it also was other individuals. and as that information makes its way through whatever is the special counsel's look at those particular cases, i think when we find out who those individuals are, it will reveal more about whether or not there was some kind of coordinated effort amongst the sort of inner circle around the president. >> right, and just remember the context of all of this, which is that before michael cohen declared his independence from
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donald trump in early july, he was somebody -- and we've done a piece on this -- he was somebody who kind of expected and hoped that he was going to get a pardon from the president. and that he was in touch with administration officials, according to these court filings we know. we don't know who the administration officials were, so at this point in his life, he was kind of hopeful that, well, you know, i'm going to be a good boy here. i'm going to protect the president, protect his messaging, protect all of that. and then at a certain point when he realized that wasn't going to do him much good, he went off on his own. so there are two michael cohens we are talking about, and the one who testified before congress was the michael cohen who was being a good boy for donald trump. >> and michael cohen -- it does seem that the mueller investigation, which seems to have proved to him more
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favorable when we saw him in court in the southern district. they obviously wanted to throw the book at him and didn't feel like he was cooperating. but do you think that even though there is this questionable, obviously, about michael cohen, it's questionable because we've seen him lie. but this is the story and we're seeing the mueller investigation where they're not relying on michael cohen's word. it appears they're relying on that he may say something but it's corroborated by evidence. if that is the case, what does this mean? >> if they can show that, in fact, the president had knowledge and put perjury on a member of congress, that is an obstruction of justice charge. there is no way around it. i believe that would be grounds for impeachment. if, in fact, that happened. but that's a big leap. rememb remember, from this report to proving the president had
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knowledge and asked for perjury, that is a big leap. that's why the documentation is so important, but remember, cohen was very good at taking notes and making recordings. and so one of the things, of all of those boxes that fbi agents took out of his office, i'm going to guess that likely -- well, we know those are all in the hands of mueller -- they are all fully reviewed. there's probably lots of clues in there if this, in fact, did happen, and they would need that corroborating evidence to stand up because, again, his testimony alone won't do it. he is a damaged witness. >> very good point. chairman, thank you so much. carrie cordero, gloria borger. in a few minutes i'll be asking a house committee member about the latest cohen news in that buzzfeed report. if true, does this amount to a
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clear case of obstruction? and later, secretary of state mike pompeo welcomes the chief negotiator from north korea to washington. what is the letter he is bringing to president trump? sometimes a cough gets in the way of a good night's sleep. that's when he needs vicks vaporub. proven cough medicine. with 8 hours of vapors, so he can sleep. vicks vaporub. goodnight coughs.
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a book that you're ready to share with the world? get published now, call for your free publisher kit today! questions about whether president trump obstructed justice are in the spotlight once again, and that's because of this explosive report by buzzfeed that president trump ordered his personal attorney to lie to congress. it is important to note here that cnn has not corroborated the buzzfeed story. but the report is generating renewed interest in that project that attorney michael cohen had lied about, those plans to build a trump tower in moscow. cnn senior international correspondent matthew chance has
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details. >> for trump it's always been about business. his business. his brand. his properties. >> people ask me, what does trump stand for more than anything else, and if i used one word, it's always quality. big windows, great fixtures, beautiful kitchens. everything is going to be the best, and that's what it's all about. >> and it was trump, that property developer, who campaigns to be a republican presidential candidate, juggling his business and political ambitions which, inevitably, overlapped. but by how much is only now coming to light. his former lawyer revealing negotiations to build a trump tower in moscow went on much longer than previously admitted, until at least june 2016, after he essentially secured the nomination.
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>> it was a well-known project. it was during the early part of '16 and i guess even before that. i didn't do the project. i decided not to do the project. so i didn't do it, so we're not talking about doing a project. >> the trump organization likes to be ahead of the curve. we're always ahead of the curve and this would be another example. >> ivanka trump and her spa and fitness brand were also an integral part of the moscow proposal. a letter of intent obtained by cnn, trump's daughter would be given sole and absolute discretion to approve the spa designs. this was a trump family affair. but how much was the kremlin also involved? until this week, it insisted attempts to find out about the trump tower moscow had been ignored. their office called and asked why they wanted to have meetings
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with the presidential administration and explained that we have nothing to do with construction issues in the city of moscow. matthew chance, cnn, moscow. >> that is the moscow story. the story today as reported by buzzfeed is that the president of the united states directed his attorney michael cohen to lie about that project during testimony to congress. we have democratic congressman raja wirth with us. he's on the foreign relations committee. sir, thank you so much for being with us. >> thank you, brianna. >> i want to reiterate, cnn has not confirmed this buzzfeed story, so that's why we're saying if true. if this story is right, if they got it right, is this obstruction of justice? >> it would be clearly obstruction of justice because subordination of perjury bas, basically getting someone else
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to lie, would be obstruction of justice. >> in that case, would congress have to move to impeach? >> i think, you know, basically it would rise to a high crime or misdemeanor, and i think that for a lot of people, that would be grounds for impeachment. >> you're not ready to go that far? >> well, i think getting from here to there obviously requires a lot of investigation. i'm a member of both the intel and the oversight committees. i would expect and urge them to investigate this at the earliest as maybe other commentators have mentioned, there has to be corroboration for what has been alleged, but it's a very serious allegation. >> so the oversight committee which you're on, as you just mentioned, is going to hear from michael cohen on february 7, and this is a hearing that's going to be public, so we're going to be seeing that. part of it, if there are, as we
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expect, some sensitive matters to be discussed, will be behind closed doors. do you think that this -- what is in this report, questions that you would have about this report for michael cohen, is that something he can talk about in the public portion? >> good question. i think that certainly anything that would border on classified material or would be classified material certainly could not be discussed in public, but with regard to matters that are already in the public arena or that are publicly known, i would urge that there be full transparencies so that the public can hear michael cohen unplugged. >> so if he were asked, did the president instruct you to lie to congress, presumably that is not a matter that is classified, right? >> i personally don't think so. on the other hand, i would want
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to know whether the material about whether he was asked to lie is somehow classified. so we would have to be very careful about the extent to which the questioning would proceed. we don't want to either interfere with the mueller investigation or interfere with any other investigation being conducted by the house intel committee pertaining to classified information. >> you were just appointed to the intel committee, and in october of 2017, before you were on it, cohen testified before the intel committee. those transcripts pretty much under lock and key, but have you been able to see them? >> i have not seen them yet, although i believe that there is a move afoot to release them so that the public can see what michael cohen and others said, to the extent that it's not classified material. >> have you been briefed on them? do you have a sense of what he may have lied about and what you would want to ask about those
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lies? >> i have not specifically been briefed about that particular issue. but i will be asking very pointed questions of the intel committee staff and probably reviewing this transcript in the very near future. >> great, well, we certainly welcome you back on the program. you're a part of integral committees when it comes to looking at all of this. congressman raja krishnamoorthi, thank you so much. the president putting a stop to nancy pelosi's travel and his state of the union address. we'll have more on that, next. liberty mutual accident forgiveness means they won't hike your rates over one mistake. see, liberty mutual doesn't hold grudges. for drivers with accident forgiveness,
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my name is tito, and i'm a tech-house manager at comcast. we're working to make things simple, easy and awesome. now to the state of the disunion and day 28 of the shutdown. today the speaker of the house leveled a pretty big accusation against the white house. this comes one day after president trump blocked a congressional delegation from going on a trip to afghanistan which requires a military plane. >> we had the prerogative to travel commercially, and we made plans to do that until the administration then leaked that we were traveling commercially. and that endangers -- we weren't going to go because we had a report from afghanistan that the
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president outing our trip had made the scene on the ground much more dangerous because it's just a signal to the bad actors that we're coming. >> so the white house has denied this, and a short time later the acting director of the office in budget limited all offices from using military aircraft. we should add the first lady took a government plane to mar-a-lago last night. at the same time many people said she is not involved with negotiations about the shutdown. that is an important distinction. we have chief of staff to nancy pelosi with us. thanks for being here, dean. >> thanks for having me. >> you take her at her word when she says they were going to go commercially, which you can do. you can fly commercially into kabul. >> much more dangerous. >> very dangerous, especially if you're someone of prominence like nancy pelosi. the white house is saying, wait, wait, that's not true, that
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doesn't work certainly with what they feel has been a win so far. but you're close to her, you're close to her folks still with her. tell us about this. >> look, i mean, this is a dangerous trip. it takes weeks, if not months, of planning. >> but she was going to go commercially is what you're saying? >> yeah. that's what they're saying, that she was going to go commercially and when the president decided to say, look, i'm cancelling all this, and then more talk, and according to some of her people on twitter, they were telling hill reporters she wa going to be going commercially. look, the president has gone too far with this, and it's unfortunate. he's using the military -- the military -- to score political points. when is it going to stop? >> how can she be so sure she has the upper hand here? >> it's not about the upper hand on this issue. what's important is -- >> it is if she wants to prevent there from being wall funding and she wants to reopen the
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government. she's trying to score a win politically even if it's about those things that she considers important and that a lot of americans want to be working and get paid when they're not. >> there's no mistaking the democrats want to reopen the government. the president wants 5 billion and that's it. that's a non-starter for democrats and a non-starter for the speaker. >> it's a non-starter for republicans to not have it. so how does she ensure she's in the right place when she's insisting on her position? >> house democrats want the majority, let's start with that. i don't think the president has come to that realization at this time. the second thing is the senate majority leader -- i keep going back to this -- 29 days ago passed a continuing resolution to fund the government. he wasn't asking for $5 billion, and somehow, from the bill going from the senate to the house.
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>> he changed his mind, he completely changed his mind, the president did, he moved the goalpost there. one of his latest moves is meeting with some democrats who are part of this bipartisan problem solvers conference. he's obviously trying to drive a wedge. what if he is successful? what's the speaker going to do? >> look, i don't think he's going to be successful. the speaker has been -- >> so one has already said they're open to supporting a physical barrier on the border, one of those democrats. >> let's talk about border security. this is what we want to talk about, right? the president wants a wall. he wants a 60-foot wall made out of concrete, no, he wants it made out of steel or whatever it is. but if you want to talk about a comprehensive strategy for border security, let's do that. >> then why aren't democrats doing that? even if it's laying out a policy that might tinker on the edges of the current status quo border policy, there are not a lot of details coming from democrats.
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and i think there are some democrats, especially moderate ones, who are frustrated that that's not a discussion they can own. >> there was a $1.3 billion in the homeland security bill for border security that would have been given to the president. >> money is not a policy. >> it also included money for ports of entry and included some technology as well, perhaps some drones. and democrats have talked generally about what they would like to see in the border security bill, right? but reopen the government. why are you holding 800,000 workers, federal workers, hostage along with their families, slowly destroying the economy because you want the wall? >> should they talk specifically about offering an alternative to americans, the democrats? >> i think they'll be making that decision, certainly, but they are starting to look at things they could put forward or message a little bit more, and i'm sure that they will. however, this is, again, a
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complicated issue that will take a little bit of time and you have to have a willing partner. the white house doesn't seem to want a serious discussion. the president just wants his wall and that's it. >> nadeam, thank you very much. we appreciate it. a once trusted colleague to the never-ending russian questions. how is president trump under pressure? stay with me. forty bucks with the other guys, doesn't include a phone. so, start the new year right. join t-mobile and get unlimited with a phone included for just forty dollars per line. iyou may be at increased riskf for pneumococcal pneumonia -a potentially serious bacterial lung disease that can disrupt your routine for weeks.
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president trump from that buzzfeed story that he directed michael cohen to lie, something we haven't corroborated here at cnn, to the ongoing government shutdown to the mueller probe. just in general, we are all watching to see what comes out of the white house. barbara russ has worked for donald trump as an engineer on trump construction projects. she was well respected in the trump organization, and there is a lot going on, barbara, right now, as you're tracking this as well. difficult headlines for the president. in your experience, just knowing how he reacts to things, how do you think he views these headlines? >> typically and historically, he always rolled with the punches. there was always good news and bad news, and he was able to, you know, keep up his morale. a very positive-thinking kind of person, in other words, never accentuates the negative in terms of his press. he used to say all press is good press. now i don't see that. i see him going into a corner, i
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see him scratching back like a cornered animal. i think he's afraid. >> in this buzzfeed story, they talk about internal company e-mails, texts that led them to the conclusion that president trump had indeed directed michael cohen to lie to congress, which is under oath, by the way. we know the president tweets, barbara. he isn't really known for e-mails and texts. does that sound right to you? >> it might not just be he that is doing the e mailing and texting. there are other people who work for him, assistants and things like that. he does dictate letters, i know that, so he probably dictates e-mails. he either does it himself or he dictates it, but i'm sure he communicates that way, absolutely. >> nancy pelosi told the president he should reschedule his state of the union for after the shutdown, after the shutdown being over, or that he should deliver it in writing, and then very clearly in retaliation he cancels the military aircraft
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that she and other democrats were going to use for the trip to a war zone in afghanistan and to nato head kaurtequarters in brussels. i'm assuming you were not surprised when you saw that happen. >> no, i wasn't surprised, and what's kind of funny about it is he likes to hit back. you shoot him with a water pistol and he'll shoot you back with a magnum or something. he likes to hit back ten times harder than he's been hit, or more, and he's got nothing to hit her back with. this is silly. it looks ridiculous. >> that's what i was going to say to you, because to me forcing someone to reschedule the state of the union is a much bigger deal than cancelling a plane, even though i want to be clear this is a very important trip. but she is threatening his use of the bully pulpit, his avenue to talk to americans. >> absolutely. and he was counting on that. he was going to come forward and he was going to make his case. you know, the state of the
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union, everybody is there. he goes through, he makes the walk-through and glad-hands everybody and pans his own people in the audience and the camera keeps shooting to him. this is very slanted forwatowar president, no matter what he's going to say. it's a tremendous opportunity he will presumably miss out on because pelosi took that step. >> what do you make of the relationship, barbara, between nancy pelosi and donald trump, the way they relate to each other? >> i think that pelosi knows what she's dealing with and she's reacting exactly the way she should be. trump, on the other hand, i think is shell-shocked. i think he didn't expect -- he underestimated her to begin with, and i think he wanted her to be the speaker because she's a woman, and i think he thought viscerally that he could just control because of that. and i think he's very surprised at what he's seeing and doesn't know what to make of it. >> all right, barbara, thank you
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for the perspective. barbara russ, former executive vp for the trump organization. we should also mention you are author of "all alone on the 16th floor: how one woman changed the face of construction." thank you for being with us. >> thank you. now washington is rolling out the welcome mat for north korea's chief nuclear negotiator. he comes bearing a letter from kim jong-un for the president, and we'll have details next. ask your doctor about entyvio®, the only biologic developed and approved just for uc and crohn's. entyvio® works at the site of inflammation in the gi tract, and is clinically proven to help many patients achieve both symptom relief and remission. infusion and serious allergic reactions can happen during or after treatment. entyvio® may increase risk of infection, which can be serious. pml, a rare, serious, potentially fatal brain
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a short time ago, president trump welcomed north korea's top envoy kim yong-chol to discuss negotiations on pyongyang's pledge to denuclearize and he was expected to deliver a letter
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from north korea's leader, kim jong-un. earlier, kim met with secretary of state mike pompeo. neither official would comment on any possible locations for a second summit. we have cnn military and diplomatic analyst john kirby with us here now. he served as a spokesman for both the pentagon and the state department during the obama administration. you look at this going on and you have a favorable view of what this could mean? >> i don't want to be polly annish. this guy kim yong-chol, he has kim jong-un's ear and he has more importantly his trust and he is the one that came over say positive sign. it shows that they're very serious about trying to get a summit going and to keep the discussions going. now whether or not they're serious about really denuclearizing and what that means and closing the gap between the two sides, that's another story and we'll have to see what they have to say at the end of today's meeting. >> the frustrations of many american in the diplomatic sphere is that you look at
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north korea, they're not taking the actions to show that they want to move in what the u.s. would consider the right direction. they're moving ahead with their program. >> right. we all expected that they would. that is their bargaining chip. why would they give that up before the negotiations ever really start? what we're looking for is a set of more confidence building measures. there's already been some. we cut back on our exercises. they haven't done any missile or nuclear tests now in over a year. it can be done. you just have to find a set of mutual confidence building measures that you can roll out roughly simultaneously to help keep the progress going. this is a long, long-term effort. >> his arrival really an extraordinary trip coming the same day as the u.s. missile defense warned north koreans -- warned that north korea remains an extraordinary threat. so in some ways they're sending these positive messages, but what's this message? >> that's a very clear message
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that we're taking the task of missile defense seriously and the threat they pose. i don't know if the timing was specifically set for this. it certainly is conspicuous but it was an important message for the defense department to send not just to the north koreans but to the russians and the chinese. we didn't get a lot of time to go through that review. it's sobering stuff but it's important stuff. i'm glad to see the pentagon did that review. it was long overdue and the fact that they're adapting now to new technologies and trying to get ahead of the missile threat that are out there, not just rogue state but big nation states, i commend them for that. >> thank you so much for being with us. we'll have more on that bombshell buzzfeed report that president trump directed michael cohen to lie to congress about the moscow project. [dog sfx] hey, mi towel, su towel. more scent plus oxi boost and febreze in every gain fling.
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right now in washington, huge crowds are taking part in the world's largest antiabortion event. we have some live pictures of the march for life. this is being held along the mall marching on constitution avenue after a rally. participants are seen holding signs such as choose love, choose life of the conservative ben shapiro was the featured speaker for this event. president trump actually addressed the crowd in a video message and vice president mike pence made a surprise in person
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appearance alongside his wife karen telling the crowd that this is the generation that will restore right to life in america. pence will speak at a dinner tonight as well. the rally's organizer is claiming that this year's crowd is the largest ever. that is it for me. brooke baldwin starts right now. hi, there. i'm brooke baldwin: you're watching cnn. a giant story from buzzfeed tonight involving president trump and michael cohen and an explosive claim that trump told him to lie to congress. if true, here's two words we're going to learn today, suborning perjury. cnn has not confirmed this. not only is suborning perjury a crime, it was also part of the articles of impeachment against

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