The Trump Administration Calling For The Entire Affordable Care Act To Be Thrown Out; President Trump Says Releasing The Full Report From Mueller Would Not Bother Him At All; Several Democratic Lawmakers Claimed That They Had Seen Clear Evidence Of Collusion Between The Trump Campaign And Russia.
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: ... happen to another president again.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The Pentagon authorizing $1 billion to begin new border fence construction.</s>REP. NANCY PELOSI, (D) CALIFORNIA, SPEAKER OF THE U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES: The wall is ineffective, expensive, immoral.</s>SARAH SANDERS, PRESS SECRETARY: We have a national security crisis. The president is doing his job in addressing it.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In a dramatic reversal, the Trump Administration is now trying to get all of Obamacare struck down.</s>TRUMP: Some of the things we've come up are much less expensive.</s>UNIDENTIFED MALE: The past two years have been assault(ph) by the Trump Administration on American's healthcare.</s>ANNOUNCER: This is "New Day" with Alisyn Camerota and John Berman.</s>ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN HOST: Good morning everyone. Welcome to your "New Day." Overnight, a stunning reversal by the Trump Administration calling for the entire Affordable Care Act to be thrown out which could leave millions of Americans without health insurance. We have much more on that in a moment for you but first, to an update on the Mueller report. President Trump says releasing the full report would not bother him at all but it apparently bothers Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell who blocked a resolution calling for the Mueller report to be made public. McConnell says the attorney general has promised to do it and should not be rushed. Democratic committee chairmen in the House set a deadline to receive the full report by next week. So after being cleared of collusion by the special counsel, the president and his allies are looking to exact political revenge for the Russia investigation. President Trump not naming names, but calling them, quote, "treasonous people who are guilty of evil deeds and should be investigated."</s>JOHN BERMAN, CNN HOST: All right, as we just mentioned, the Justice Department is taking action to completely strike down Obamacare. This is a big deal. It happened overnight. It could affect millions of Americans who rely on Obamacare for health insurance including coverage for pre-existing conditions, including people getting coverage under Medicaid expansion. This is happening; we're paying close attention to it. Also the Pentagon notified Congress that it has authorized the transfer of $1 billion to build some 57 miles of fencing or other barrier improvements on the border with Mexico. The top military brass on Capitol Hill today, they will no doubt be questioned about that. Joining us now, Abby Phillips, CNN White House Correspondent; Susan Hennessey, former National Security agency attorney and a CNN national security and legal analyst; and Seung Min Kim, White House reporter for "The Washington Post" and a CNN political analyst. A lot of moonlighting going on here. A lot of people working more than one job at one time.</s>CAMEROTA: Side hustles.</s>BERMAN: I'm going to say - I'm going to say, I've got no side action going on here.</s>ABBY PHILLIP, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I only have one job, John.</s>BERMAN: That's fantastic. You do it so well and because you put your full attention on this, Abby, I'll go to you first. Look, the president, he's tweeting out, I don't want to read it out loud because it's not worthy of it but clearly on the attack, clearly sees this as an opportunity to take the offensive. My question is how much will he go? How deep will he go here and for how long?</s>PHILLIP: We really don't know the answer to that, but it is obviously a pivotal question. I think there was -- there is a thinking that if President Trump could sort of move beyond the Russia probe, he could really start to capitalize on some of the things that are going well in his administration, like the economy, for example, but instead, as you can see, President Trump is fixated on the probe itself. He wants to turn the tables on the people that he thinks have been persecuting him for two years and he wants to go on this political crusade against the investigators. He has a lot of ability to do that. It is interesting to see a lot of his republican allies on the Hill, who sometimes are the ones to say, "You know, Mr. President, let's focus on the economy, let's focus on things that voters want to talk about." Some of the same people are saying, "We need to look at the Obama Administration. We need to go back to see what Loretta Lynch was doing when she was attorney general under Barack Obama," and so I think there is -- a lot of encouragement for President Trump to urge the DOJ to look into some of the stuff, to declassify documents, that people have been urging him to declassify related to the Russia investigation and if he goes as far as he can go, I think we could be entering yet another period of intense political acrimony that is basically going to extend the feeling of this Russia probe. It is going to be almost as if Robert Mueller had never finished his conclusions. We're going to be back to the same sort of political infighting we had for two years, I think.</s>CAMEROTA: I mean Susan, part of some of the rhetoric that we're hearing is there was this conference call with the -- some republican leaders, and I guess the RNC or the White House that hatched these talking points, about let's look into the other side, and let's go back in history and look at what some people did. I think that your point that it is maybe premature to move on from the Mueller report when we haven't seen the Mueller report yet.</s>SUSAN HENNESSEY, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY AND LEGAL ANALYST: Yes, I do think it is pretty premature. If you look carefully at that letter, that summary letter that Attorney General Bill Barr wrote, it is generally or broadly consistent with an underlying report that more or less clears and vindicates the president. It says, look, they looked really hard, they couldn't find evidence of any of this and so there is not really -- does clear the cloud of suspicion. The attorney general summary letter is also broadly consistent with the report that has lots and lots of really damaging, even devastating information about the president and his associates. They found lots and lots of evidence but it fell just below that sort of threshold of criminal prosecution. And so, until we actually know what's in the report, certainly we should accept the findings and move on from there, but this period of time when all we have is Bill Barr's very, very high level, and in some cases, quite vague and confusing summary, there's just no way to reach any conclusion sort of legally and certainly not politically about the meaning or the content of the actual report itself.</s>BERMAN: It is interesting, Seung Min, that Mitch McConnell standing in the way of at least a public statement from the Senate that they want to see that whole report. Some interference there.</s>SEUNG MIN KIM, WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: It was really interesting because the House had much such a bold statement that we all agreed this report should be released and available to the public. I imagine Mitch McConnell was just trying to buy time here for the Attorney General a little bit. The Attorney General Bill Barr indicated to Lindsey Graham yesterday in a phone conversation that he will release it as much as possible, he just has to talk to Mueller first and take care of the grand jury redactions. But definitely the next immediate fight on Capitol Hill is over how much of this report is released. You mentioned the deadline earlier, April 2, a week from today, that House Democrats have set to get the entire Mueller report and now the timeline that Lindsey Graham laid out to me yesterday when I was talking with him is maybe a few weeks. He doesn't want this to go months, he wants it as fast as possible, but Democrats that -- because so much of the impeachment question and other questions surrounding their investigations is in doubt right now because of the findings of -- from the Special Counsel. That's the next immediate fight that they'll be focusing on in the coming days.</s>CAMEROTA: Well look, it does seem as though Attorney General Bill Barr is moving a alacrity, he certainly did over the weekend, he worked all weekend. So, maybe they will be able to meet that April 2 deadline, we'll see. But let's move on, Abby, to this news, this stunning news, this morning that the Trump Administration seems to be changing it's position. It never liked Obamacare, of course. Donald Trump as a candidate promised to repeal it, but then had second thoughts about people with preexisting conditions, because there are so many millions and millions and millions of people who have coverage and have preexisting conditions. But now, it seems that they're siding with this judge who wants to get rid of the whole thing wholesale. So, what's going on in the White House?</s>PHILIP: Yes, that's -- it's really interesting that this is happening. Remember a few months ago, right before the 2018 elections when this first came up, Republicans and the Administration were like, wait a second, we really don't actually want to get rid of preexisting conditions, we really don't actually want to throw everything out and now they do. And, I think that that is actually the Republican position. Like this is what they've been trying to do since Obamacare has came into existence, so it shouldn't really be a surprise that this the position that the Trump Administration is taking, because ultimately repeal and replace has been -- it sort of requires Obamacare to go out the window. The problem for Republicans will become, if this actually happens what are they going to do? What are they going to replace it with and how are they going to address the American people about this? It could be really a huge gift for the Democrats going into 2020, this is a really pivotal issues for Democrats and Republicans don't have a good answer about what they want to replace the Affordable Care Act with. And frankly, they don't have any legislative path to replace it anyway, so it could be a case where the Justice Department is going by what the Administration's ideological position is, but from a political perspective they don't really have a plan and they don't really have a way out when it comes to dealing with the American people and what this means for them.</s>BERMAN: And it's not just preexisting conditions, it's Medicaid expansion, which effects millions of people, it's all kinds of FDA regulations, school regulations, there's a lot in here Susan, so Council, they come to you here, which is the Justice Department has taken this new position before an appeals court in New Orleans, what if the judges there agree with Administration? What happens the next morning?</s>HENNESSEY: So, I think the more significant thing is actually the fact that the DOJ has decided to reverse it's position and that's because the Department of Justice has an obligation to enforce and defend the laws, as long as there is a reasonable constitutional basis to do so. And so, whenever the department decides to suddenly sort of do a 180 about face and say, no, no, no, we're not going to defend that law anymore, it really raises the appearance of what they're attempting to do is repeal a law passed by Congress, another branch, by using the Federal courts to do so. And so, across lots of different administrations, including on very, very continuous issues, the Department has worked really, really hard to maintain this consistent position, consistent legal positions of defending in cases in which there is a constitutional basis to do so, and so, this obviously is hugely significant for the -- for the future of the Affordable Care Act. That's going to be an incredibly significant political issue. But there is also a much larger sort of basic rule of law concern here, and so that is one of the reasons why you're seeing so many especially former Department of Justice officials expressing a lot of shock and outrage that Bill Barr would come in and allow this kind of sort of departure from core department values.</s>BERMAN: He's had a big week.</s>CAMEROTA: He is busy, this is my point, he is really not wasting time. But Seung Min, I don't understand politically how it makes sense. I mean there are - I think with 52 million people with preexisting conditions, some of them are part of President Trump's base obviously. How does this make sense?</s>KIM: On its face politically, it doesn't seem to make a lot of sense, because just rewind back to the 2018 midterms and what Republicans were saying on the campaign trail, not just what the president said at his multiple campaign rallies about wanting to protect preexisting conditions, but Republicans running last year said. First of all, healthcare was the big winner and the - and the key part of how Democrats were able to win back control of the House. And in the Senate where Republicans did pick up several seats, a lot of Republican candidates were put on the defensive about their positions on the Affordable Care Act. You had Josh Hawley in Missouri and Martha McSally in Arizona who are both now senators saying no, we want to protect preexisting conditions and were kind of tied up in knots when the Democratic candidates went after them and hammering them for their party's position on repealing the Affordable Care Act. But Abby earlier is absolutely correct, you can't - you know, if you support repealing the Affordable Care Act, you also support repealing these preexisting conditions as well. And I can't imagine that some of the senators up for reelection in 2020 like Susan Collins of Maine who is - who has been a very avid proponent of these - keeping these preexisting condition protections, I can't imagine they're too happy right now with the DOJ's decision.</s>BERMAN: It's a gift to Nancy Pelosi. If Nancy Pelosi wanted to turn the focus away from Russia, she woke up this morning with a gift outside her door provided by William Barr and the Justice Department. All right, Abby, Seung Min, Susan, thank you all very much. Attorney Michael Avenatti free on bond this morning after New York prosecutors charged him with trying to extort $20 million from Nike. The former lawyer for Stormy Daniels is also facing wire and bank fraud charges at a separate case in California. CNN's Kara Scannell live in Washington with the very latest here. A lot going on for Michael Avenatti, Kara.</s>KARA SCANNELL, REPORTER, CNN NEWS: There is, John. I mean it's a stunning turn of events for Michael Avenatti. Now he's facing criminal charges on both coasts with New York prosecutors yesterday announcing a criminal case against him, alleging that he attempted to extort Nike of more than $20 million. On the West Coast in Los Angeles, prosecutors there unveiled lengthy criminal charges against Avenatti, alleging bank fraud and wire fraud, saying that he - that he embezzled more than $1 million of his clients' money and provided phony tax returns to get $4 million in loans. Now the case in New York unveiled very quickly, it started lst week when Avenatti approached Nike's lawyers, alleging to them that he had some incriminating information about the company's wrongdoing. He said he would go public with that information on the eve of Nike's quarterly earnings and as the NCAA March Madness tournament was - was taking off, saying that that would knock billions of dollars from Nike's market cap unless they agreed to pay him and an unnamed co- conspirator more than $20 million. Now Avenatti was arrested in New York yesterday afternoon as he was heading to another meeting at Nike's lawyer's offices. He was then presented in court and released on $300,000 bond and Avenatti told reporters after the court hearing that he expects to be fully exonerated.</s>MICHAEL AVENATTI, LAWYER: I have fought against the powerful, powerful people and powerful corporations. I will never stop fighting that good fight.</s>CAMEROTA: All right, we will continue to follow this one. Kara, thank you very much. So Reuters is reporting that a preliminary report on this month's crash of an Ethiopian Airlines jet will likely be released this week. A source tells CNN that Ethiopian authorities have handed over portions of the flight voice and data recordings from the black boxes to U.S. embassy officials. The Boeing 737 Max 8 jet crashed two weeks ago, just minutes after takeoff, killing all 157 people on board. And there's a new report in the New York Times, it says that these two unnamed pilots conducted tests in a flight simulator to recreate what they suspect went wrong with a Lion air jet found - they found, these pilots, that they had less then 40 seconds to override the automated system to avoid a disaster. All 189 people onboard died in that Boeing jet when it crashed in Indonesia five months ago.</s>BERMAN: Not much time to save a lot of lives.</s>CAMEROTA: 40 seconds. I mean those simulations are so important to see if this actually will work, even if you know what's happening.</s>BERMAN: All right. Several Democratic lawmakers claimed that they had seen clear evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, so what do they have to say now that the Mueller report seems to say there's not enough evidence to make a criminal case here. We're going to ask that man you see on the screen, next.</s>BERMAN: In his report - in his summary of the Mueller investigation Attorney General Bill Barr quotes the special counsel as saying, "the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities". So that sentence is causing some democratic lawmakers to have to explain what they have previously said about allegations of collusion.</s>SEN. RICHARD BLUMENTHAL, (D) CONNECTICUT: The evidence is pretty clear that there was collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians. The evidence is there, whether they have enough of it to bring criminal charges is another issue entirely.</s>BERMAN: Joining me now is Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal from Connecticut. Senator, thanks so much for being with us. We just played sound of you and we played it in its entirety, which I think is important. However, I do want to ask, you say you saw clear evidence of collusion. Was that statement wrong?</s>BLUMENTHAL: That statement was absolutely right and we need to see the Mueller report, not just the Barr summary of it; full transparency and disclosure are critical. The American people deserve it. They paid for that investigation. They need to know all of the evidence and facts that led Robert Mueller to his conclusion and his reasoning because what he concluded was that there was, in fact, insufficient evidence to establish beyond a reasonable doubt and charge a crime, which as I said in the sound that you played was an open question. But, very importantly, John, he did not, and I repeat not exonerate the president on obstruction of justice and the two are closely related because obviously criminal intent, which is essential to committing and charging a crime, may have been lacking because of that obstruction of justice and that's why the American people need to know all of the facts.</s>BERMAN: Specifically, specifically though on collusion, and, again you were an attorney general for a long time which you like to remind us, do you trust Robert Mueller that there was not enough evidence to make a criminal case on conspiracy or coordination? Do you take him at his word? I respect deeply Robert Mueller's judgment as a very experienced and erudite attorney but I want to see how close the evidence came to meeting that high standard of beyond a reasonable doubt and so should the American people because even if there are no criminal charges, remember that this attack on our democracy is what prompted the investigation at the outset, the Russians attacking our democracy and the Americans who were potentially complicit in it -- top Trump campaign officials who shared polling data with the Russians.</s>BERMAN: But hang on - but hang on - we - we -- according to the footnote in this report, you said Americans who were complicit in a coordination according to Robert Mueller, the definition we were given here, does include a tacit agreement, which would be cooperation in this case or complicity in this case. So there is some indication that did not take place here, Robert Mueller believes that did not take place.</s>BLUMENTHAL: That's Barr's summary. We need to see the report.</s>BERMAN: The special counsel defined coordination; this is a quote, "as agreement, tacit or expressed, between the Trump campaign and the Russian government on election interference." And that's - it's a direct quote. I don't know if Barr made up the quote, but I'm assuming it is a direct quote and that that is part of the Mueller report.</s>BLUMENTHAL: With All due respect, you can assume it is a direct quote. I want to see the report itself and so should the American people because the issue here, John, is not just whether there was complicity that rose to a criminal level, it is about obstruction of justice, no exoneration there, and the judgment by William Barr may have been completely improper. He indicated at the outset that he felt the President of the United States could never commit the crime of obstruction of justice. He was asked to recues himself from the entire investigation, in light of the memo and the fact he was a Trump appointee. But the point is there was evidence of collusion in the Trump Tower meeting, where top campaign officials...</s>BERMAN: Understood. Understood. But you said you do respect the finding, there is not enough evidence to make a criminal case in this instance. You've talked about the Barr letter as being, what, elegant and brazenly devious, the Barr summary, is how you describe it. My question to you, is Robert Mueller now, the investigation is over, he's out there, he's a former marine, we -- no one doubted his courage or his intentions. Don't you trust him to say something publicly or let the world know if he believes that Barr is somehow misrepresenting what his report says?</s>BLUMENTHAL: I do trust him to comment on the Barr summary. That conclusionary four-page letter done over 48 hours summarizing his work done over two years and that's why I think he should come before United States Congress and comment publically to the American people and to us. I deeply respect and trust his judgment. I do not deeply respect and trust the Barr summary, which was designed to frame the message before the information was available and he succeeded in creating headlines.</s>BERMAN: I have a couple more questions and not much time left. I do want to ask you about healthcare, because you are on the Judiciary Committee and this was a decision by the Department of Justice to say basically that they want all of Obamacare struck down in it's entirety, your reaction?</s>BLUMENTHAL: My reaction is that we need to come together on a bipartisan basis and improve healthcare, meet the challenges to rebuilding our roads and bridges, serving our veterans, building our national defense and making pharmaceutical drugs more affordable. All of those goals are undermined by this position, which would essentially take away health insurance for millions of Americans who suffer from preexisting conditions. Hundreds of thousands in Connecticut and it is a highly destructive betrayal of trust. The Department of Justice has a responsibility to defend the laws of the United States. The Affordable Care Act is one of those laws. It is, in effect, jerking (ph) it's responsibility.</s>BERMAN: And I have to ask you about horrible, horrible news we learned overnight, and this is about Jeremy Richman, the father of one of the victims at the Sandy Hook shooting in Connecticut. I know he was a friend of yours. He took his own life. I want you to tell us about your friend that we all lost and tell us now what we need to know to fight this scourge of suicide and deal with so many mental health issues.</s>BLUMENTHAL: Jeremy Richman, he was a wonderful human being and he suffered so grievously when he lost his daughter in the Sandy Hook massacre. I'm going to be recalling him today at the hearing that we have on a statute proposal that I've made in the past to take guns away from people when they're deemed to be dangerous, by a court, so- called, red flag statute. That's the kind of progress we need to make in his memory and his daughter's precious memory as well. Jeremy Richman championed the science of trying to know what triggers human violence. What in the brain causes people to want to kill others in the way that happened at Sandy Hook and he was a deeply, caring, committed, profoundly insightful and intelligent man and a dear friend to so many in the New Town community and my hearts are with -- heart and prayers are with his family.</s>BERMAN: We are sorry for your loss and we are sorry for the loss from the people in that town that have suffered so much already. Later in the broadcast we're going to be talking about issues surrounding mental health and suicide prevention. Senator Richard Blumenthal, thanks so much for being with us this morning.</s>BLUMENTHAL: Thank you.</s>BERMAN: Alisyn?</s>CAMEROTA: That is so sad. It's just so sad to hear about it from a friend and a colleague and somebody who was trying to work to better the humanity.</s>BERMAN: And they know him so well. You've -- I've heard people like Richard Blumenthal speak and other lawmakers in Connecticut speak because Jeremy Richman was so active in the community. So active in so many of these issues.</s>CAMEROTA: All right, we'll be talking about that later in the program. Meanwhile, does the Russia investigation matter to voters in 2020? Harry Enten is here with some very telling poll numbers for us next.