President Trump Continues to Deny Recently Released Death Toll Numbers in Puerto Rico in Wake of Hurricane Maria.
PAUL: It's 40 minutes past the hour right now. So glad to have you with us. We're going to keep our eye obviously on Florence there that continues to makes its way further inland into the Carolinas. But want to talk about President Trump because he is doubling down on his questioning of nearly 3,000 person hurricane death toll in Puerto Rico. "No way," he tweeted, "that the number jumped from 16 people to 64 people," and I quote here, "like magic to 3,000 people killed." President Trump first disputed this death toll Thursday. He claimed the Democrats put out those numbers to make him look bad. The island's governor formally raised the death toll from hurricane Maria following a study that was conducted by researchers at the George Washington University. So Maria Cardona, CNN political commentator and Democratic strategist is with me, as well as Scott Jennings, CNN political commentator and former special assistant to President George W. Bush. Thank you for being with us.</s>MARIA CARDONA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Good morning, Christi.</s>SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Good morning.</s>PAUL: Good morning to both of you. I want to read something after all of this, late last night the governor of Puerto Rico, Ricardo Rossello, had this tweet out. He said "Mr. President, I would very much be willing to walk you through the scientific process of the study and how GW arrived at the excess mortality number estimates. There's no reason to underscore the tragedy we have suffered in the aftermath of hurricane Maria. In the meantime, I hope you consider sending a message of support to show you stand with all of the U.S. citizens in Puerto Rico that lost loved ones. It would certainly be an act of respect and empathy." Scott, is it time to switch focus from numbers to people because there's so much that needs to be done there?</s>JENNINGS: Yes, no question. I don't understand why the president is obsessed with this number, frankly. It was a devastating storm. We all agree on both sides of the aisle, the storm one of the most devastating to hit any part of the United States ever. They had massive electrical failure, massive water failure, almost all roads were impassable, it was devastating by any measure. So you can easily see how loss of life of magnitude that was found by the researchers could occur. The most important thing a federal government can do, of course, in the aftermath of something like this is exactly what FEMA Director Brock Long said they did, which is study it, learn from it, and update their procedures and protocols for the future. So the real issue here for the president is not the numbers, not the statistical death toll, but what did we learn from the aftermath of the storm and how are we applying it to future storms. That's what the American people want to hear. And it would be best for him to take that messaging advice and move on.</s>PAUL: Maria, I wanted to ask you, because this is very personal to you. You have family there. What do they need there, what do you want to hear from the president, you personally?</s>CARDONA: Well, I wish that he would listen to people like Scott, but what we have seen from this president is that he is incapable of showing respect. He is incapable of showing empathy. I grew up on that island. My brother, as you said, lives there with his family. I saw this devastation when I was there over the summer personally. What the president just said in terms of questioning the 3,000, and frankly, a lot of people think it was more than 3,000 lives that were lost, I can't even begin to describe to you how offensive and hurtful that is to the American citizens not just that live on the island but the American citizens who live in Florida, who live in Texas, who live in Pennsylvania. Guess what, elections are coming up. I think this is not only offensive and just completely ridiculous on behalf of the president, but it is politically stupid.</s>PAUL: Scott, do you agree with that? Is there a risk politically for the president here?</s>JENNINGS: Well, he is putting Republicans in uncomfortable positions. I noticed the governor of Florida, Rick Scott, who is now running for the United States Senate, had to distance himself from the president on this issue. So his political allies like Governor Scott are having to take a step back from him. Speaker Paul Ryan had to take a step back from him because everybody basically agrees that this was a devastating storm in which there was massive loss of life, and you don't want to look insensitive to that because objectively speaking, it is true. And so yes, when you put your closest political allies in a position of having to step away from you, you're not only making your own life hard, you're making their life hard. So just speaking of the raw politics of it, it leaves the president a little bit isolated when the rest of political America tends to agree with the facts as they have been reported by the researchers.</s>PAUL: All right, speaking of truth, Scott, since you brought it up, I want to talk to you about Paul Manafort. He is now pleading guilty, pleaded guilty I should say, and agreeing to cooperate with Mueller and his investigation. Take a look here. We have a screen of the people already in the Trump team who have either pleaded guilty, have plea deals, and are cooperating with Mueller. We have got George Papadopoulos, we've got Flynn, we've got Cohen, we've got Rick Gates. Now we add Manafort to that mix. And he has agreed, the cooperation agreement he signed, states that he will testify fully, completely, and truthfully before any and all grand juries at any and all trials of cases or other court proceedings in district of Columbia and elsewhere. This is very broad. He now essentially has to talk to anybody at any time about anything it sounds like. Scott, what does this mean for the president?</s>JENNINGS: Well, we don't know exactly because Manafort may have information that's germane to investigations that have nothing to do with the president, or he may have information that's germane to things going on with the central question of the inquiry, of course, which is was there collusion with Russia, which is so far unproven, alleged but unproven. Even Bob Woodward today said, I noted, that he looked hard for two years and found no evidence of Russian collusion. So it would be difficult to speculate what Manafort is going to do. Obviously his choosing to cooperate must be worrisome for the White House, but he was with the campaign a short period of time, he is connected to things that have nothing to do with the campaign. So I think before we go down the road of speculating that Manafort is going to bring down the president, it is important to remember, he may say things about people and other situations, lobbying situations, for instance, that are completely unconnected to Donald Trump.</s>PAUL: Right, right. And so in that sense we had this other Mueller investigation targeting attorney Greg Craig, who is a prominent Democrat. Maria, what do you make of where that's going, and how many people might be sitting back right now, because Scott's right. There is nothing yet leading to collusion with Manafort.</s>CARDONA: That we know of.</s>PAUL: Nothing that he is doing thus far that he has said. But now that he is dipping into a Democratic line, a Democrat here, is there reason for Democrats to be worried?</s>CARDONA: No, not at all. In terms of what I know about the connection with Greg Craig has to do with his law firm doing work for some kind of foreign agent work that they were not registered for the Ukraine. So again, all of this leads to the connection of Paul Manafort. And while I agree with Scott, we don't know if Paul Manafort is going to bring down the president, I think the president is going to bring down the president because he is the one at the end of the day who has been at the center of all these connections. Clearly, Paul Manafort was his chairman. Michael Cohen -- the chairman of his campaign. Michael Cohen was his personal lawyer for years. Michael Flynn was his national security adviser. All of these people who have been indicted, who have pled guilty, have close connections to the president as much as he now wants to distance himself from it. And so this does not spell good news for the president moving forward. We don't know what else Mueller has, but clearly there have been indictments in this. There have been again, people who have pleaded guilty. So, of course, the president is shaking in his boots. And so I wonder if his ridiculous and offensive statements about questioning the death toll in Puerto Rico are efforts to distract from all of this other stuff that is going on. What we do know is that going into an election where everybody, including Republicans, are so nervous about this president, his connection to the Republican Party, I think that Republicans would do themselves a great service by distancing themselves finally from the president and calling him out on his incompetence and on his unfitness to lead.</s>PAUL: Maria Cardona, Scott Jennings, I'm so sorry we have ran out of time. But also so good to get your perspective and your insight. Thank you both.</s>JENNINGS: Thank you, Chrisit.</s>PAUL: Absolutely. Kaylee Hartung is in Pender County, North Carolina, and she's going to walk us through what they're seeing there. It's a pretty dicey situation I understand. Stay close.