Fight Over President Trump's Tax Returns Is Intensifying; President Trump Says He Is Nominating Conservative And Former Republican Presidential Hopeful Herman Cain To The Board Of Federal Reserve
WHITFIELD: The fight over President Trump's tax returns is intensifying. Now the White House is vowing Democrats will never see the documents. This comes after the Democrats' unprecedented request to the IRS for six years of Trump's personal tax returns. Here is how acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney is reacting to that.</s>MICK MULVANEY, ACTING CHIEF OF STAFF: Keep in mind, they knew they are not going to get these taxes. They know what the law is. They know what one of the fundamental principles of the IRS is to protect the confidential alt of you and me and everybody else who files taxes.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: To be clear, you believe Democrats will never see the President's tax returns?</s>MULVANEY: Oh, no, never. Nor should they. That is not going to happen, and they know it. This is a political stunt by my former colleagues.</s>WHITFIELD: Never is a big shift from this.</s>DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: If I decide to of course, I'll produce my tax returns, absolutely. I'm releasing when we are finished with the audit. I will release my tax returns against my lawyer's wishes when she releases her 33,000 emails, I'll release them when the audit is completed. As soon as that is finished whenever that may be. Hopefully it's before the election. I'm fine with it.</s>WHITFIELD: So President Trump's attorney weighing in saying Democrats are trying to use the IRS as a political weapon. Let's check in with CNN's White House correspondent Boris Sanchez. So tell us more about this escalating fight.</s>BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Hey there, Fred. Yes, you heard the acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney call this a political stunt. Democrats opening up yet another front in their battle against the White House with the House ways and means committee demanding six years of the President's tax returns and tax returns pertaining to some of his business assets. The White House took a defensive posture almost immediately. Sources indicating that this was something that they were preparing for. The argument for Mick Mulvaney is that the American people did not need to see Donald Trump's tax returns to elect him President despite the fact that as you heard there from President Trump he said he would be open to releasing them as soon as an IRS audit was completed. That audit has gone on for several years now. We should point out this would likely turn into yet another legal fight for this White House, one that they are apparently prepared to go all the way to challenge Democrats on. A senior official telling CNN they would fight to the Supreme Court if they had to, Fred.</s>WHITFIELD: And Mulvaney also discussing a meeting that he held at Camp David this weekend to talk about healthcare so what are we learning about the successes or failures of that meeting?</s>SANCHEZ: Yes, Fred. Yesterday the acting chief of staff hosted some White House staff as well as cabinet members at Camp David to discuss healthcare moving forward. He committed this morning to presenting a plan to the American people before the 2020 election saying that they would work along the lines of the Graham/Cassidy bill that ultimately went nowhere just a couple years ago. Listen to more from the acting chief of staff on one of the Sunday morning talk shows now.</s>MULVANEY: We spent the time this weekend saying, OK, what have we done? What can we talk about that's a success? What do we need to work on going forward? We talked about the individual marketplace. We talked about how we are protecting Medicare. We are talking about getting drug prices down. And I do think you will see a plan here fairly shortly.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Will you see it before the 2020 election?</s>MULVANEY: Yes. No, we want to run on this. We re firm believers that you can't beat something with nothing. We, have Republicans have, better ideas than Democrats. We should not be afraid to talk about that.</s>SANCHEZ: You can't beat something with nothing. Clearly taking a page from President Trump who last week blatantly told Republicans that they could not win in 2020 unless they challenged Democrats on healthcare and became, in his words, the party of healthcare - Fred.</s>WHITFIELD: All right. Boris Sanchez, thanks so much at the White House. All right. Joining me now, senior editor for "the Atlantic" Ron Brownstein and national political reporter for the "New York Times" Lisa Lerer. Good to see you both. OK. So how do we go from, you know, Trump saying in 2014 he would absolutely release his tax returns to him and later saying he would release them after an audit is complete to now the White House acting chief of staff, Ron, saying Dems will never see his tax returns.</s>RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Because that was the real answer all along. You know, I live in L.A., and there's a saying in Hollywood, there are two ways to say no. No and yes. And, you know, in fact, as long as you are not producing the tax returns in effect you are saying no. And it is worth noting that this is not something that the administration can enforce. If he believes the Democrats will never obtain this, ultimately he needs five members of the Supreme Court to agree with that.</s>WHITFIELD: Right.</s>BROWNSTEIN: And it's worth noting that the language in the law and the precedent of the law is very clear. The law -- the authority is based on the 1924 revenue act which was passed by a Republican Congress after the Republican President refused to provide them the tax returns they wanted to investigate first the Teapot Dome scandal about oil leases and then whether the treasury Secretary Andrew Melon's business interest was affecting tax policy. It directly relate to the kinds of issues that are, you know, at issue today. And then ultimately, the court would have to look pass that and a very strong language shall provide in the law in order to uphold what the chief of staff said today.</s>WHITFIELD: So Lisa, you know, doesn't the language that Dems will never see Trump's tax returns, you know, just pique the interest of, you know, so what is in there that they are working so hard to protect anyone from seeing?</s>LISA LERER, NATIONAL PARK REPORTER, THE NEW YORK TIMES: Of course it does, and that's part of what Democrats are banking on here. Whether they get the tax returns or not or if it's a fight that goes on for years and years and does go all the way up to the Supreme Court, Democrats see this as a political battle that will reflect well on them in the 2020 election. They think they are driving a contrast here, that it raises the obvious question of is the President hiding something? What could the President be hiding? And that's part of the reason why you see a number of Democratic primary candidates jumping over themselves to release their tax returns.</s>WHITFIELD: Right.</s>LERER: They see this as a way to get at what will be one of their central arguments against President Trump.</s>WHITFIELD: The transparency.</s>LERER: And his re-election campaign.</s>WHITFIELD: As much transparency as they are able to deliver.</s>LERER: Right.</s>WHITFIELD: So, Ron, here's what President Trump's attorney Jay Sekulow, had to say today.</s>JAY SEKULOW, PRESIDENT TRUMP'S ATTORNEY: This President decided not to because he has an ongoing IRS audit. The idea that you can use the IRS as a political weapon which is what is happening here is incorrect both as a matter of statutory law and constitutionally. We should not be in a situation where individuals -- individual private tax returns are used for political purposes. As you just said, George, what stops another party from doing the same thing?</s>WHITFIELD: All right. So this is the argument, you know, we are hearing from Republicans. We heard Trump's other attorney even say that, you know, it would be like opening a Pandora's box so do they have a point here? Is this -- could this an effective argument?</s>BROWNSTEIN: Look, every President, you know, every president in modern times has released their tax returns. They have released it for a very specific reason which is the public wants to know whether the President's financial interests is outweighing the public interest in shaping the policies that they pursue. And as I said, if you go back to the original nation of the authority that Congress is employing here, the 1924 revenue act, it was promulgated for exactly that reason by a Republican Congress during the term of a Republican President. They wanted to know whether there were financial conflicts of interest that were shaping policy. So, I mean, there is a reason why -- the important thing to remember is that Jay Sekulow is defending a deviation from what has become a very accepted norm. I mean, it is not like Donald Trump is, you know, being asked to do something - yes, he is not being asked to do something anomalous. He is being asked to in fact conform with what every other President has done. He is refusing to do that and then saying that attempts to try to bring him into compliance with that norm is a political grandstanding act.</s>WHITFIELD: All right. And now switching gears a little bit here, you know, healthcare. The President put it back on the table again. And Mick Mulvaney says, you know, they want to come up with a plan that Republicans can run on in 2020. Lisa, they had their meeting or at least there was one meeting, right, at Camp David with Mick Mulvaney there. So, is this a real possibility for the Trump White House?</s>LERER: I mean, certainly not if you are talking to Capitol Hill. There's a lot of work that needs to be done. And as we move into a reelection cycle, it's not generally the time when such work is able to get done. So this has been all great news for the Democrats. It turned the page after the Barr interpretation of the Mueller lord that they were worried reflecting badly on them. Now they can talk about healthcare which is an issue that they believed help them win back the House in the midterms. So they are very eager to talk about this. I think Republicans on Capitol Hill are a little less eager, but it certainly it seems to be something that the President wants to talk about. So I suspect we are going to be hearing a lot more about a lot of meetings, whether anything comes from them I think is far less certain.</s>WHITFIELD: Yes. And after so many failures, Ron, I mean, it is just -- why? It just doesn't seem like a potentially winnable thing for the President.</s>BROWNSTEIN: Well, look, first, he's guaranteed that repeal of the ACA, which is as its highest public approval since its passage is directly on the ballot in 2020. And there is a plan that they, you know, and Mulvaney hinted that again today, that they put forward in the administration's federal budget only last month. I mean, they proposed again to repeal the ACA, replace it with the Graham/Cassidy block grants from 2017, block grant the underlying Medicaid program itself and cut them both by $775 billion over the next decade which would, of course, revoke coverage for millions and also end the federal guarantees of pre-existing conditions. I mean, this is their plan unless they have renounce it had which they put in their own budget. And I think it's a contrast that Democrats want to have. And to Lisa's point, I mean, in 2018, healthcare was obviously critical to Democratic gains. And it was the one issue that helped them claw back some support among those critical working class white voters in the rust belt, particularly women who were so instrumental in Trump's victory. Some of those women moved back toward the Democrats. And there is a lot of evidence. It was principally around the Republican efforts to repeal the ACA.</s>WHITFIELD: All right. Lisa Lerer and Ron Brownstein, thanks to both of you. Appreciate it.</s>BROWNSTEIN: Thank you.</s>LERER: Thanks.</s>WHITFIELD: All right. Still ahead, after claiming total exoneration, President Trump continues his twitter assault on Democrats around the special counsel's Russia investigation. But if he has nothing to worry about, then why does he keep bringing it up?