Trump Defends Pardon of Arpaio.
BERMAN: Harvey threatening in Houston still getting hit hard. Today, President Trump praised how people are handling the devastation. He predicted that Congress would act quickly to approve disaster relief funding and commented historic nature of the storm. Look at this.</s>DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It's the biggest ever. They're saying it's the biggest. It's historic. It's like -- really, like Texas, if you think about it. But it is a historic amount of water in particular. There's never been anything like it. So the people are handling it amazingly well. And the people of Texas, as you know, have really persevered. And when you watch the spirit and the enthusiasm, and helping each other, the teamwork, it's really been something for people to say -- I think even in Finland they would say it's been pretty incredible what they've been able to do.</s>BERMAN: All right, joining me now with more, CNN Kaitlan Collins live from the White House. Kaitlan, what else did the President have to say about the ongoing situation in Texas?</s>KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Well, we know that the President and the First Lady are traveling to Texas tomorrow. We heard from Texas governor Greg Abbott today. He said he doesn't expect them to go to the areas that where the hardest hit, John, but he thinks they'll stay in area like, Corpus Christi, or San Antonio, so two of those and they may go back later this week including a possibly trip to Louisiana, depending on what's happening there. But as you noted, during that press conference today, the President did say that he thinks he and Congress will be able to come to an agreement on some relief funding for these flood ravaged areas. But when he asked if all of this going on with Hurricane Harvey makes him reconsider his threat to shut down the government, over funding for his boarder wall, not only did he not say no, he double down on his need for this wall saying that this is a separate issue from this funding and the wall still needed from a security standpoint and that hopefully it won't be necessary to shut down the government over this border wall, John.</s>BERMAN: And Kaitlan, the President was also asked about his pardon of Sheriff Joe Arpaio, particularly the timing which came right as the Hurricane Harvey, a category-four storm was founding the Texas coast.</s>COLLINS: Right. Not only did it come during that Friday night, it was also the same time that he directed the Pentagon to begin implementing his ban on transgender service members. And at the same time as the ouster of one of his most controversial aides in the White House, Sebastian Gorka. But today, the President insisted that he was not trying to bear the news of his pardon of the sheriff. Then he was actually trying to highlight it. Listen to what he said.</s>TRUMP: In the middle of a hurricane, even though it was a Friday evening, I assumed the ratings would be far higher than they would be normally. You know, the hurricane was just started. And I put it out that I had pardoned, as we call -- as we say Sheriff Joe. Sheriff Joe is a patriot. Sheriff Joe loves our country. Sheriff Joe protected our boarders. And Sheriff Joe was very unfairly treated by the Obama administration, especially right before an election, an election that he would have won. So -- and he was elected many times. So I stand by my partner Sheriff Joe, and I think the people of Arizona who know him best would agree with me.</s>COLLINS: We actually know in fact there are a lot of people in Arizona who do not agree with this pardon. One of those people being Senator John McCain, others being members of the President's own party, House Speaker Paul Ryan, also criticized the move. But what's clear from today, John, is that the President does not regret pardoning the sheriff.</s>BERMAN: No, not at all. All right, Kaitlan Collins for us at the White House tonight. Joining me now, Ana Navarro, Michael Caputo, Jeffrey Toobin. You know, Jeffrey it was notable in the President's defense of the pardon what he did not talk about at all, which was the law, that Sheriff Joe Arpaio was convicted of breaking, contempt of court, nor, you know, what the court had ordered him do, which was to not violate the civil rights of Latino residents of Arizona.</s>JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Right. And this was a long, continuing drama in Phoenix. There had been many challenges to Arpaio's rule. And the one that really stuck was that he was accused and found to have conducted immigration round-ups. That included lots of people who were not illegally in the country. A judge told him to stop. Not only did he continue, he brazenly defied the court and said, I'm going to continue any way. That's what led to the contempt of court finding. And that's what he was about to be sentenced for. And that's what ended as a result of the pardon. That legal process.</s>BERMAN: And again, not discussed at all by the President. As far as I could tell, up until this point. Michael Caputo, what the President did talk about, though, was how many other bad pardons presidents have made in the past. It was almost as if he was saying look, there's a hall of shame out there for presidential pardons, and this one is in a long line of controversial presidential pardons. Is that a good defense?</s>MICHAEL CAPUTO, FORMER TRUMP CAMPAIGN AIDE: Well, it's not a good defense, but it's a fact. If you're pardoning someone, they are in some criminal jam-up or they've been already in jail. We saw President Obama free FALN terrorist who was responsible for deaths and hundreds of bombings.</s>BERMAN: You're doing it, too.</s>CAPUTO: We saw it, you know -- well, absolutely. Listen, pardons are, by their very nature, controversial. And I think that President Trump, while a lot of people disagree, especially on CNN, about this pardon, you know, he was looking at an 85-year-old man who had never been in trouble in his life who he felt and a lot of people in our camp feel was railroaded by a weaponized Department of Justice. And at 85 years old, you know, convicted of a misdemeanor and what we thought was an unfair trial. He should have been in front of a jury to begin with. They were trying to put him behind bars. And I think the President in a lot of ways had compassion for Joe Arpaio, it's the kind of compassion that a lot of people on the side of the President agree with.</s>BERMAN: But if it was just about the age and the sentence, he could have commuted the sentence, which is different than a pardon, saying that wiping the slate clean completely, which is what he decided to do. He made that choice. I'm just thinking that clear. Ana, one other thing the President made clear is why he chose the timing, Friday night. You were here with us Friday night when the President released this news that he was pardoning Sheriff Joe Arpaio, while a category 4 storm was making landfall. He basically said today that he was using the ratings boost from hurricane coverage to draw focus to the pardon. I'm not sure the people of the Texas coast would be thrilled that their tragedy was being used in such a way.</s>ANA NAVARRO, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Look, I think that was one of those off the cuff, stupid, flippant, you know, inappropriate comments that Donald Trump tends to make when he's not on script. One of the things that I found interesting about this press conference, that unlike to be off the rail on hinge press conference post Charlottesville, this time he came with prepared remarks. He obviously had all of those what about examples of presidential pardons by other presidents prepared and was ready to answer that question. I think you're seeing the influence of John Kelly trying to bring some disciplines to this press conference when we saw that kind of a remark. And yes, he showed compassion to his political crony Joe Arpaio. It would have been nice if he could show his compassion to so many immigrants, to the so many Latinos, to so many citizens, Latino citizens, Arizona citizens, a lot of them African-Americans, who were racially profiled, who were abuse, who had to go through civil rights violations at the hands of Joe Arpaio. Those people deserve respect, those people deserve compassion, and that is something that the President of the United States is incapable of doing because all he knows how to do is throw a bone to his base and damn everybody else.</s>BERMAN: And Jeffrey Toobin, one of the theory that's been kicked around, it's not just throwing a bone to the base, it's throwing a bone to his supporter in some kind of legal trouble, which has led people to wonder whether or not this was a sign to people who are tied up or connected to this Russia investigation saying hey, when push comes to shove, if you are charged or convicted here, I have your back.</s>TOOBIN: Well, it certainly it's a message that was heard in that way. I can't speak to what was going through Donald Trump's mind. But it is so unusual at this early stage of a presidency to conduct -- to issue a controversial pardon like this to a political ally. I mean, Bill Clinton's pardon of Mark Rich was appalling, a disgrace. Rich was a fugitive. It was on the last day of his presidency. His pardon of his brother, Roger Clinton, was on the last day of his presidency. George Herbert Walker Bush pardoned a lot of the Iran contra people at the very end of his presidency. To do it at this early stage is a sign that he's being to take some political heat to pardon his friends. I expect that Michael Flynn heard that message loud and clear, and he may benefit from it ultimately.</s>BERMAN: Any cost, Michael Caputo, to Paul Ryan, John McCain, Jeb Bush, Jeff Flake, and a list of other Republicans that you probably consider establishment Republicans coming out and saying this was a bad idea?</s>CAPUTO: My response would be yada, yada, yada. These guys are against every single thing that the President does that's -- even the least bit controversial. I don't think Paul Ryan, John McCain, or anyone else in that crowd would have thought to pardon Sheriff Arpaio or anyone else for that matter, who was headed for personal bankruptcy, who was being prosecuted by a very political Justice Department. They wouldn't have done that, but because they don't have the kind of guts to do those things. They're against Donald Trump all the way down the line. They're going to be against anything he does.</s>BERMAN: Jeffrey, in a political process --</s>TOOBIN: Let me raise this business about -- you know, this was a crusade from the Obama Justice Department. This contempt was initiated by the judge in the case. That's who brought this case. The idea that this was some kind of vendetta from the Justice Department, I mean, that's just not true.</s>BERMAN: Michael?</s>CAPUTO: Well, if you think that the judge in the Justice Department weren't communicating, you're also a little naive on that report, on that part too. We were talking about the Justice Department that met on the tarmac with Bill Clinton. This Justice Department was going right off the rails in many different ways.</s>TOOBIN: Do you have any evidence, Michael?</s>CAPUTO: And for all of us to think, this had nothing to do with us.</s>BERMAN: Hang on, Michael. Hang on Michael. You're suggesting that a federal judge colluded with the prosecution here. Do you have any evidence of that or are you just --</s>CAPUTO: No, I don't. I'm just saying that the Justice Department was very deeply involved of --</s>BERMAN: You just accused without any evidence a federal judge of some kind of collusion.</s>CAPUTO: No, that's not what I've done. What I'm saying here is that the judge was an Obama appointee. The Justice Department that brought this down on Arpaio was very -- listen, this is all about immigration and specifically illegal immigration. It is a partisan, very visceral debate with people really entrenched on both sides. And Sheriff Arpaio became a kind of vision of all of that. And this 85-year-old man who was going to be driven into bankruptcy by these proceedings, the President saw that as something --</s>BERMAN: Hang on, hang on. I'm sorry, Ana, go ahead put the last words.</s>NAVARRO: I've heard from Trump supporters the entire day about the poor 85-year-old man. Well, the poor 85-year-old man had been terrorizing Latinos and doing racial profiling in Arizona for decades now. This last time he got booted out of office, Latinos and the people of Arizona finally got themselves organized and booted this shameful official out of office.</s>TOOBIN: And he also ran --</s>NAVARRO: But he has been doing this for a long, long time. And he finally had to pay the piper and Donald Trump saved him at the last minute.</s>BERMAN: Eighty five years old is also considering, we understand running for office again.</s>TOOBIN: And he ran for re-election and lost at 84. So, you know, a limited amount of sympathy for the fact that he's 85.</s>CAPUTO: Thankfully sheriffs like Joe Arpaio who want to enforce America's immigration laws won't be afraid to do so in the future.</s>BERMAN: All right, Michael Caputo, Ana Navarro, Jeffrey Toobin. One note here the judge was appointed by Bill Clinton not an Obama appointee but a Democratic appointee, at least from a Democratic president. Up next more on the rescue effort in Houston, we'll tell you what happened to these women in assisted living facility. We'll also speak with a volunteer rescuer from a group.