WSJ: Trump to Impose Tariffs on $200B in Chinese Goods
BLACKWELL: A new report from "The Wall Street Journal" says President Trump is planning to hit China with another round of tariffs, this time on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods and he's going to do it before the trade talks start at the end of this month.</s>PAUL: Yes, and the tariffs could result in higher prices on goods because companies usually pass on the cost to consumers. And look at your calendar, the holidays are just around the corner. So, the impact could be felt by millions of American consumers. CNN White House reporter Sarah Westwood with us right now. What else do we know, Sarah, about these tariffs? And good morning.</s>SARAH WESTWOOD, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Good morning, Christi. And we know that these tariffs are to increase pressure on Beijing as the U.S. and China discuss the possibility of renewing those high- level trade negotiations. The tariffs are set to be around 10 percent, although officials have discussed setting those duties as high as 25 percent. And these new tariffs will hit goods like dishwashers, food seasonings, televisions and make those products potentially more expensive for American consumers. These tariffs are designed to give Trump leverage in his efforts to end the Chinese practice of demanding American companies turn over their intellectual property in order to gain access to China's markets. And it will be on top of the $50 billion worth of Chinese imports that are already subject to tariffs, and that first round of tariffs have hurt key Republican constituencies like farmers and manufacturers. China has been matching Trump's tariffs dollar for dollar so this new move is only likely to increase economic tensions, Victor and Christi.</s>BLACKWELL: As President Trump was on the Twitter machine talking about his poll numbers, and why he thinks they are so low. What did he say?</s>WESTWOOD: That's right, Victor. No surprise here but President Trump is attributing his falling poll numbers to the Russia investigation last night, saying that the Russian probe could be hurting Republicans heading into the midterms writing, while my, our poll numbers are good with the economy being the best ever, if it weren't for the rigged Russian witch hunt, they would be 20 points higher. Highly conflicted Bob Mueller and the 17 angry Democrats are using the phony issue to hurt us in the midterms. No collusion. Now, this comes on the heels of the guilty plea of President Trump's former campaign manager Paul Manafort. Republicans have been using the spectrum of impeachment to motivate Republicans to get to the polls so Russia has been the key factor in Republican messaging. And this comes as Trump's legal team and his allies have been railing against Mueller to try to get him to end the investigation before the November elections -- Victor.</s>BLACKWELL: Sarah Westwood for us in Washington -- Sarah, thank you.</s>PAUL: I want to bring in Daniel Lippman, a reporter and co-author of "Politico's" "Playbook" now. Daniel, good to have you this morning. I want to circle back to --</s>DANIEL LIPPMAN, REPORTER & CO-AUTHOR OF PLAYBOOK, POLITICO: Good morning.</s>PAUL: Good morning -- to China tariffs. And we know the Secretary Treasury Mnuchin is reaching out to leaders in Russia to try to deescalate this whole thing. Where do these new tariffs leave him?</s>LIPPMAN: It makes it much harder for Mnuchin to do that because I think the Chinese feel like Trump and the American government is going way too hard against them. And that does not breed great trust amongst the trading partners. I don't think that Trump understands the critical role that China and free trade plays in making an American economy prosperous. So this also hurts U.S. efforts to get the Chinese government to cooperate on North Korea and preventing nuclear proliferation and enforcing the sanctions.</s>PAUL: I want to switch real quickly to Brett Kavanaugh, because the Senate Judiciary is expected to vote on this on Thursday, President Trump's nominee, of course, Supreme Court. And there's this new acquisition out from someone who does not want to be named, who went to high school with him and says that in high school, he assaulted her. And Senator Dianne Feinstein had this letter did not give to the Senate Judiciary Committee. There has been no discussion on it. Do you believe that a discussion can move forward or that the vote can move forward without that conversation being had?</s>LIPPMAN: I think it all depends on what Senators Murkowski and Collins do. Whether they believe the accusations, you know, whether the woman comes out publicly. If she comes out and she doesn't want to, to defend her -- this allegation and say exactly what happened, then the confirmation may be in doubt. Right now, it seems like it's all steam ahead. And Republicans are kind of using the same playbook as a couple decades ago with Clarence Thomas and saying, well, these are unverifiable. You know, we don't trust this woman. You know, they have released a letter from Kavanaugh's female classmates attesting to his good character. And Democrats seem to have bugled this accusation by, you know, injecting it so late in to the game.</s>PAUL: Is there going to be some political push-back against Feinstein for it?</s>LIPPMAN: I think she's already seen as the past. And she doesn't have that credibility on the left anymore that she used to. She's been -- she's now part of the establishment. And it doesn't seem like she handled this well, both Republicans and Democrats say this would have been better information to have when she first received this letter and you could have protected the woman's name, but to release it now when it's become an open secret on Capitol Hill, it just feels like, I don't know, why couldn't the American people hear this before the confirmation hearing, so senators could have asked Kavanaugh on the stands?</s>PAUL: All right. Daniel Lippman, we appreciate it so much. Thanks for being here.</s>LIPPMAN: Thanks, Christi.</s>BLACKWELL: Let's bring in Michael Moore, former U.S. attorney for the middle district of Georgia now. I want to talk about Manafort, welcome to the show.</s>MICHAEL MOORE, FORMER U.S. ATTORNEY, MIDDLE DISTRICT OF GEORGIA: Thanks.</s>BLACKWELL: All right. So, Manafort, with his new guilty plea and the cooperation agreement, he was there at the Trump Tower meeting in 2016 with the Russians. Old friend and business partner Roger Stone who says that he may be indicted by Mueller soon. He was chair of the campaign when the party changed its stance toward Ukraine at the convention. List off the value, in addition to what I just did, of Manafort in this cooperation agreement.</s>MOORE: Watching last week was watching an old western movie when there's an attack in the prairie and they say the fork has fallen. Manafort fell last week. That is really what happened. What you see is we have gotten to a level so close to the president and so close to his administration, at the top of the administration, that you can't overstate that the importance of having this cooperation. You know, there's been a lot of talk about whether Manafort would hold out for a pardon, whether or not he had other information, whether or not he was just kind of getting the cues from the Trump tweets about holding some -- maintaining the level of confidence. But he decided that he's not going to be the sacrificial lamb at this point. So he knows what went on in the meeting, he took notes in the meeting, he knows -- remember, he's been a player in Ukraine and he was used to sort of eviscerating the political opponents. I think they're looking for that and they have already that information as it relates to WikiLeaks and the Clinton campaign. So, you can't overstate the value.</s>BLACKWELL: Well, if you asked the president's personal attorneys, they say too bad for Manafort that has nothing to do with us. Let me read this tweet from Rudy Giuliani. I'm going to read it, but there are spelling mistakes and words screwed up here. But according to sources close to Manafort's defense, the cooperation agreement I think he's trying to say does not involve the Trump campaign. There was no collusion with Russia. Let's put up a snip-it of the actual cooperation agreement. Your client shall cooperate fully, truthfully, completely, and forthrightly with the government and other law enforcement authorities identified by the government in any and all matters as to which the government deems the cooperation relevant. Reconcile those two.</s>MOORE: I think Giuliani is probably getting his statements, inside information from the folks that told him that the investigation would be over by this point and I wouldn't put a lot of stock in that all. This plea agreement, this cooperation agreement was buttoned up so tightly that it locks Manafort into giving full statements about what went on the past, what went on in the campaign, not just about what he pled guilty to. But he's now under an obligation if he's going to receive the benefit of the plea bargain to come forward with all information that he knows about any possible wrongdoing that's happened, basically, in perpetuity, that he'll have to share that with Bob Mueller's team. So I think Giuliani wants to put a spin on it. I don't think he's going to be successful at that. There's no way that you can look at his tweets and the fact that he had to retract some language out of the early tweet. You look at the president's sort of rant, there's no way you can look at those things and say they don't realize just how grave the situation is at this point.</s>BLACKWELL: You talk about the president's rant and I assume you're talking about this tweet that came out last night in which he said that the Democrats are using this, as he calls it, rigged Russian witch hunt that's an investigation by Bob Mueller to hurt them in the midterms. You're a former Democratic state official here in Georgia, is this politically potent for the Democrats headed to November, the narrative of this investigation and the men close to the president who have now pleaded guilty but found guilty?</s>MOORE: I think probably the thing for the Democrats to do is not to hang their hat on this investigation. There's enough going with the president and what happened, but they ought to be talking about things they can do positive, things they can do for the country, things they can do for their state, whatever the case may be. Here, though, I think that, you know, Trump wants to repeat the narrative to gin up his base. It's clear to me that you got a Republican deputy attorney general who's overseeing the investigation. He's allowing the thing to go on as he said he would do. That ought to tell people something. We also can talk about the credibility and the validity of the investigation, when you simply look at the number of people and the level of the people that have been charged and now pled guilty. So, we've got all these pleas, we've got all these convictions, we've got all these indictments. And the indictments are heard by a grand jury, I mean, they are handed out by a grand jury. So I think the idea to say it is a witch hunt is just a fool's errand by Trump as we move forward. He wants to spin it again to get off the midterms.</s>BLACKWELL: The president would have you believe that it's up to these, quote, seven angry Democrats.</s>MOORE: Well, he said some things, too. But as I say, I don't have much stock in the information he's passing out either.</s>BLACKWELL: Mike Moore, always good to have you.</s>MOORE: Glad to be with you.</s>BLACKWELL: And do not miss Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, the Democratic congressional nominee for the 14th district in New York state. She's on "STATE OF THE UNION WITH JAKE TAPPER". That's at 9:00 a.m. Eastern, right here on</s>CNN. PAUL: So once tropical depression Florence finally gets out of the Carolinas, there are a lot of people who may be upset to discover, hey, this flood is not covered in my homeowners insurance. We have an expert in the insurance field with us next. He's got some really valuable information for you, whether you live in a floodplain or not.</s>BLACKWELL: Plus, a man has died after a shark bite at Cape Cod Beach. Officials have not seen this kind of an incident in about 80 years.