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tv   Anderson Cooper 360  CNN  May 17, 2019 5:00pm-6:00pm PDT

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see what's next for her. >> thank you so much for sharing that with us, kate. don't miss our hour long champions for change special. it airs saturday night at 8:00 eastern. thank you so much for joining us. ac 360 begins right now. good evening. attorney general william car, the nation's top law enforcement officer, the person you would hope would be fair, rational is fuelling the flames of conspiracy. he's doubling down without evidence on his comments that there were unauthorized spying on the trump campaign. this on the same week it was revealed barr tapped a prosecutor, making it the third investigation into the investigators, something the president has pushed for over and over and over for years. now maybe the investigators will find something or maybe they won't. but in the meantime, mr. barr seems to be content with chumming the waters of conspiracy. here's some of what he told fox
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news. >> you also said back in april that you thought there was spying going on in the trump campaign. when do you think that started? >> well, i'm not going to speculate about when it started. we're going to find out when it started. i have been trying to get answers to questions and i found a lot of the answers have been inadequate. i have also found that some of the explanations i have gotten don't hang together. so in a sense i have more questions today than i did when i first started. >> you're not going to speculate, but there was spying. what does that mean that he just said? it could mean everything. it could also mean nothing. that's the point. the hole there is so big you can back up 1,000 conspiracy trucks and fill them up. here is more of what he said. >> i think people have to find out what the government was doing during that period. if we're worried about foreign influence for the very same reason, we should be worried about whether government officials abuse their power and put their thumb on the scale. >> abuse their power and put their thumb on the scale. in a separate interview "the
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wall street journal," barr appeared more certain. he said government power was used to spy on american citizens. of course spy is a loaded term with nefarious connotations. but according to the fbi counter intelligence would be the proper term focussed on russian attempts to influence the election and infiltrate the trump campaign. george papadopoulos had relayed to a russian diplomat to help the campaign by releasing thousands of hacked democratic e-mails, which was alarming to the fbi and should be to everyone because they were already aware of the russian efforts to influence the election. according to reporting, they sent an undercover investigator to find out what pop dhe knew. he throws out the word spy and rolls on, which he's done now a few times since assuming the office of attorney general.
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there's something totally new he said that stands out. >> i think if i had been falsely accused, i would be comfortable saying it was a witch hunt. >> so that's the head of the department of justice saying he'd be comfortable calling a department of justice investigation into russian meddling a witch hunt, a phrase clearly designed to light up the pleasure centers in president trump's brain. >> the witch hunt continues. >> it is a total witch hunt. i have been saying it for a long time. >> it's a witch hunt. that's all it is. >> a witch hunt. >> witch hunt. >> so far this thing has been a total witch hunt, and it doesn't implicate me in any way. >> joining me someone else who had a front row seat into the russia probe, form er fbi generl counsel jim baker. so you have barr doubling down on the term spying backing up the president's use of the word witch hunt and saying that government officials may have put their thumb on the scale. you were at the fbi during the time period he's talking about.
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is any of that true? what do you think when you hear him say that? >> i have several reactions to it. first of all, my thumb was not on any scale one way or the other with respect to politics. that we just weren't focussed on the political outcomes of all the stuff going back to the hillary clinton investigation. that's not what we were doing or trying to accomplish. when i hear all this, yeah, i mean, at one level i'm concerned about it. but on another level you really -- i think we all have to focus exactly on what the attorney general is saying. and when you really start to listen to what he's saying, i think it's actually less alarming than some folks would think. and, you know, and this coming from somebody in the cross hairs of all these different investigations that you referenced. >> explain how it is less alarming. >> well, if you listen to what he says literally and take it seriously, then he's saying he has questions. and that's fine. the attorney general of the united states should have questions about what the fbi is doing and what the intelligence community is doing and the attorney general is responsible
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for conducting oversight of those entities. and i think that's great. >> and what about the witch hunt? he's saying if i was wrongly accused, it would be okay to call it a witch hunt. >> well, i have read that statement, and he made, i think, a similar kind of statement in the past. again, i think if he's looking at it from the president's perspective, he's looking at it if the president thought that he was, you know, the subject of an investigation unfounded he would call it a witch hunt. again, i think if we look at, and i have every interest to look closely at what the attorney general is saying. i think if you look at it closely, i think it's -- to me, it is less alarming when i think about it. now, look, i have worked for the attorney general in the past. i can't say i know him well. but i have worked for him in the past. i have respect for him. i have taken a lot of grief because of that statement i just made and have repeated a few times. so i get that. but anyway, i'm less alarmed about it, i think, than other
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folks. >> i mean, this is why we wanted to have you on, to get your perspective. i want to play something else the attorney general said about the investigation here. the thing that's interesting about this is that this was handled a very senior level of these departments. it wasn't handled in the ordinary way that investigations or counter intelligence activities are conducted. it was sort of an ad hoc small group. >> is that in line with your understanding of how the investigation was handled? there is, you can listen to that, and if you are inclined to have an ominous interpretation of it you can think, this small group at the top were trying to get president trump. >> yeah. i mean, so i was in that small group. and we kept it small out of an -- in an effort to make sure that we didn't have leaks from within the organization and that we would protect the political process and protect the integrity of the investigation.
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so it was intentional to keep it small, but i would submit it was more lawful and appropriate reasons that we kept it small and didn't bring in sort of armies of people. >> but the idea that it wasn't the normal channels of a counter intelligence investigation. >> no, it wasn't normal. we were investigating a political -- people connected to a political campaign in the middle of a presidential election. so, no, there was nothing normal about that. so we were trying to figure out how to deal with a very abnormal situation in a way that was lawful and consistent with our prior practice and the way we would handle a counter intelligence investigation of a threatening foreign power, russia. >> is it formal for the attorney general ral of the united states to use the language the president uses? it seems there is a method or a reason that he would be using the exact same words that the president uses or buzz words,
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spying, witch hunt, collusion. i mean, does that strike you as odd? >> well, i have been reflecting on that. i mean, i guess -- i have advised attorneys general in the past of both political parties. and one of the things i always stressed was the critical importance of the credibility of the attorney general of the united states to all americans. and, so, i guess i would just urge caution by everybody with respect to the language that we use, how it can be misinterpreted and how it can be spun, right? i mean, i think that's what i'm trying to say here, i guess. i would listen to the attorney general's words and ignore the spin that some people are trying to put on it in a negative way of how he thinks because it is not easy to discern how he thinks other than to say he wants more information. >> he's not an idiot and he knows the president who hired him uses the term witch hunt over and over again and he knows
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the president likes the term spying and likes people around him to believe what he believes. you know, i understand, you know, obviously general barr picks his words carefully. he has thought this out. >> well, you know, anderson, i don't know. i haven't spoken to the attorney general. i can't say. if i were advising him, i would just advise him to be cautious about it and to think about how the population is determining what he says because of its similarity, i guess, to what the president has been saying. >> the attorney general also said that there was, quote, some strange developments during the period of time during election day and the inauguration including that january 6th meeting between president trump and the intelligence chiefs. do you know what strange developments he's talking about? >> that i don't know. i mean, that meeting at trump tower was very challenging. the director of the fbi at the time, jim comey and the rest of
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the senior team was very concerned about it. we knew that there was a risk that what we were informing the president elect, president-elect trump about, the salacious allegations in the dossier. we did not want to convey to him that this had any kind of analogy to fbi improper activities in the past in the hoover era in particular. so we were worried about that, and that was very stressful, frankly, to try to figure out how to deal with that. >> i want to play something else barr said. >> well, i think it is a laughable charge, and i think it's largely being made to try to discredit me partly because they may be concerned about the outcome of a review of what happened during the election. >> is that what you think, the accusations are about? he's talking about the review by
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the attorney in connecticut, i assume, not the inspector general investigation. >> i'm not really sure exactly how to understand that particular statement. yeah, there are these multiple reviews going on. it is not quite clear to the public exactly who is doing what and why we have all these multiple reviews. i can speculate on that, but it is not clear to me exactly what he was talking about there. >> lastly, this morning the president tweeted my campaign for president was conclusively spied on, nothing like this has ever happened in american politics, a really bad situation. treason means long jail sentences, and this was treason. he's talking about jailing them. we have said this before. it does bear repeating. that is not a normal accusation from the president of the united states. >> no, not at all. and it's quite alarming. from my perspective, i have said it before, there was no treason or attempted coup. there was nothing illegal or
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unethical or immoral going on that i was aware of. i would have found a way to stop it, quite frankly. the use of that word is alarming. i have written elsewhere that when the president -- if you look at article two, the president of the united states makes legal determinations that are binding on the executive branch. so for him to use this loaded language, i think, is not appropriate. but i think it will largely be ignored quite honestly. >> is it something the attorney general of the united states should ignore, or should he say something about it? >> i think with some of the president's statements along this line, you know, normally what the president says should be, again, binding on the executive branch. i think this, like other statements, will be ignored. and i don't know what that means for the country in terms of the rule of law. the president again is the head of the executive branch and what he says should go, but that doesn't seem to be the case. so i don't know where that leaves us, honestly. >> are you personally -- i mean,
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you were the general counsel. are you personally concerned that the president would like to see you and other top leadership in jail? >> of course i'm concerned, yes. absolutely i'm concerned about it. i mean, i don't feel as though -- i mean, i know that nothing happened that falls into that category even remotely. and so, you know, i feel comfortable about that. but i don't think it's good for the country. i don't think it's good for the institutions of justice or the investigative arms of the government for him to be throwing around those kind of words. it is not productive or helpful to the country. what needs to happen now is we need to be brought together to deal with this threat from the russians coming again in 2020 and we need to move forward collectively and together. >> the sentence you just spoke is not a tweet i have ever heard from the president of the united states. jim baker, thank you very much. breaking news on michael flynn. if you haven't heard this story, it is amazing.
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cnn has learned he contacted a gop critic of robert mueller while he was allegedly cooperating with the special counsel and was encouraging this critic to keep it going, to keep the pressure on, to keep talking out against the investigation. we'll tell you who that was and what he wrote to him. joe biden is said to kick his campaign into higher gear this weekend. with the field of democratic contenders now at 23, is that just too large? we'll talk it over with maggie and howard dean.
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while president trump's former national security adviser michael flynn was supposedly cooperating with robert mueller's investigation, we now know he also was contacting at least one member of congress who was publically criticizing the probe and encouraging him to keep speaking out. florida republican congressman matt gates. that is according to messages obtained by cnn.
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pamly brown is part of the team that broke this story and joins me now. >> reporter: our team has learned that during the same time michael flynn was cooperating with robert mueller's investigators, he contacted at least one member of congress that we know of who had been publically critical of the probe. that's florida congressman matt gates. he sent a couple of direct messages to gates over twitter saying, quote, you stay on top of what you are doing. your leadership is so vital for our country right now. keep the pressure on! that message was sent april 2018. that's the same evening, anderson, that gates appeared on fox news sharply criticizing the mueller probe. congressman gates says he didn't respond to the messages from flynn and did not have a prior relationship with him, anderson. >> do we know -- i mean, at this point if gates was the only member of flynn that reached out to? >> reporter: we don't know that. it couldn't be learned if flynn reached out to other members of the congress.
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we reached out to other members, particularly those that have been critical of mueller. but these messages raise questions about flynn's contact with politically powerful people following his guilty plea of the mueller probe when he was cooperating with investigators and they added this perception that has played out in flynn's courtroom proceeding that he he has vacillated between helping the special counsel and stoking mueller's critics and the republican party. >> they also point out he's probably a moron. the guy is claiming to be cooperating and is sending direct messages over twitter to a member of congress. flynn is still awaiting sentencing. couldn't this complicate things for him? >> reporter: it certainly could complicate matters for flynn when his sentencing does happen. remember, in december 2018, that was his initial appearance before judge sullivan when he was expected to be sentenced. and during that proceeding, the judge questioned whether flynn had actually accepted
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responsibility for his crime. the judge expressed skepticism and later that in hearing it was decided to postpone the sentencing. a new date has been set. so certainly, anderson, the judge could factor this in as a result of this new reporting. it is unknown if mueller's team was already privy to these messages. flynn's lawyer did not provide a comment. >> thanks to much. appreciate it. >> reporter: yep. joining me is jeffrey toobin and former fbi special agent. jeff, does this make michael flynn appear to be an idiot. >> yes. i think idiot is the operative word here because he was cooperating with mueller. >> supposedly. >> supposedly. he's obliged to tell the truth. now, it is not illegal for him to reach out to a congressman who was critical of mueller. but if you are trying to cooperate and prove yourself of value so that the prosecutor will tell the judge he's
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cooperating, please, you know, consider that. >> and show you actually do regret what you did, it is odd you would reach out to congressman gates of all people. >> who remains one of the most strident critics of mueller. so it is just very strange. and a judge hearing about this may ask flynn, well, what else were you doing? who else were you in touch with? that's why the best advice lawyers often give their clients is just shut the hell up and don't create more problems for yourself than you already have. >> i mean, the judge was already kind of skeptical of flynn's, you know -- i don't know of his cooperation as much as his being regretful. >> yes. remember that when he originally went in for his sentencing hearing the judge was not happy, especially with his lawyers suggests the fbi had somehow
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entrapped him and accused him of treason, i believe, in the hearing and walked that back. and then said why don't you go work with the government a little bit more? i suggest you do a little bit more and then come back because you may not want me to sentence you right now. so what's happened now is that he's basically cast into doubt, as you mentioned, the sincerity of his guilty plea, which i think mueller would also have some issues with. but i think this also explains trump's behavior. he has continued, you know, until now to continue to be very positive about flynn. and he did the same thing with manafort. we know that both of them were two-timing mueller in their own ways. manafort was lying to mueller when he was cooperating. i think it also casts a little bit of light on why trump was so comfortable with them and not with somebody like michael cohen. >> this message is also potentially part of an either subconscious of obvious campaign
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for a pardon because aligning himself with gates who is a very strong trump supporter, a harsh critic of mueller, as of course is trump, a lot of what defense lawyers have done, whether it's manafort's lawyers, flynns lawyers has been to try to ingraciousuate themselves with the president so that regardless of what mueller says, we guardleguara pardon could solve all problems. >> we talked to james baker who said, look, if you listen to the actual words he says, he's sort of looking at things from president trump's perspective. he's not saying necessarily that it is a witch hunt. he's saying, you know, if i was wrongly accused i would be understandable to call something a witch hunt. >> he couldn't be using those words at all. they're simply unprofessional for someone who is the attorney general of the united states. if there is misconduct in the investigation, then that should be investigated and he shouldn't
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really comment on it until those findings are out. he is making a mischaracterization of what actually went on. >> called spying or something. >> remember that president trump was actually never under investigation until he fired james comey. personally as either a counter intelligence investigation or obstruction of justice investigation. so this whole idea that he was falsely accused and therefore felt justified in acting out in this way, he was not only not accused of anything but he was reassured by james comey he was not being accused of anything. this is about what russia was doing to try to interfere in the election that was made clear to him. and so for barr to keep using this he was falsely accused, i would behave the same way, that's just a lie. and he keeps saying it. >> but they were clearly concerned. he must have been. if he wasn't concerned about himself or didn't need to be concerned about himself, he was probably concerned about somebody in his campaign. >> well, i found the interview astonishing. the attorney general is shawn
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hannity. and shawn hannity is the attorney general now. to listen to him repeat every talking point, including that the president cooperated in an unprecedented way with this investigation when he didn't even answer oral questions from the investigation, it was just i found astonishing. >> and no questions about obstruction of justice. thank you very much. the field of democratic presidential candidates has reached nearly two dozen so far. i don't know who else is going to join with former vice president joe biden to date. does that make the road ahead for democrats easier having all these people or harder? that's next. national... it's kind of like playing your own version of best ball. because here, you can choose any car in the aisle, even if it's a better car class than the one you reserved. so no matter what, you're guaranteed to have a perfect drive. [laughter]
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this weekend joe biden will shift into a new phase. he will speak at a major rally in philadelphia tomorrow where he will be looking to roll out policy proposals according to aids. biden has a commanding lead in the field of 23 candidates. that's right. 23 candidates are vying for the nomination. a field that democrats think is too large. could make it harder to take on
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president trump. some perspective now from former vermont governor and maggie habermann. biden is maybe only kicking this into high gear, but the president has been treating him as the presumptive nominee or at least going after him very hard. >> yes, and to the concern of a lot of president's aids. >> why? >> because the president is -- they all agree that biden is someone they have to worry about. they're looking at his poll lead and his numbers right now with black voters in the democratic primary which suggest that he could have some staying power. they know they have to deal with him. they don't think the president should be the one doing it. it just elevates biden. it gives them the aura of a general election candidate very early as opposed to somebody who will have the other democrats attacking him and it will help him raise money. it creates all sorts of pluses for biden. it creates negatives for the
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president. >> which i wonder was biden's strategy all along. we talked about this, that he was looking over the field of democratic candidates and aiming squarely at president trump. he clearly got the president's attention. >> no question. and biden's aids are delighted by all this and said they were trying to bait the president into engagement. i think it has pleased the president's aids he's aiming for a target these days they don't consider to be serious as a threat, which is the mayor of new york city. >> a fox news poll out this week. and biden is leading the president by 11 percentage point. certainly understandable the president would take notice of that. do you put much stock in, you know, poll numbers at this stage or poll numbers in general? >> no. and the other thing is the classic problem. there are many problems with the polls in this stage. but the classic one, this is probably a national poll, and this is a 50 state race, so the polls that matter are the iowa,
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nevada, south new hampshire. it is much too early to figure this out. but biden is the real deal as is bernie sanders and elizabeth. those are the ones that right now have got some name recognition and some umph behind them. >> is 23 too many at this stage? does it diffuse things too much? >> no. because the dnc has done a good job trying to screen out people who really aren't working or aren't able to do the work. you have to have 1% in the polls, which is a pretty low bar and you have to have raised 65,000 contributors in 20 states money. so you have got to develop a base to be taken seriously. that's the way it should be. to get into the debates this summer, that's the price of admission. so that's going to weed people out right then and there. >> do you think there is dangers having so many candidates at
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this stage? >> i think it is a lot. it's dangerous for people hoping to get attention and you are having trouble with it. i was struck again not to go back to bill deblaz you, but i was struck his aids wouldn't say much money he raised. normally candidates like to put that out as a sign. >> he's the mayor of a major city. >> but, you know, i do think that once the debates begin, i think once we get to september, i think you are going to start seeing people dropping out of the race. most likely. i will say we did think that was going to happen in 2016 on the republican side. we thought that there was a game theory approach by all the republican candidates that the field will be whittled down by the time we get to january and that just didn't happen. i'm not sure what this will look like going forward. >> i would argue that they did stay in and that the rnc was
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stupid on the debate panel. if you don't get the minimum requirement of the kinds of things the dnc is talking about, you are basically not going to be on the stage anymore, and i think that's appropriate. >> how many candidates are you talking about in that case, though. how many do you think reasonably will be left? >> i think in the beginning there will be five or six that are out. if you can't raise $20 million by the time iowa starts you can't participate in this race. that's the price of admission in this race. there are a lot of people that can't do it. good candidates that can't do it. >> that still gets to about 16, which is what the republican field was last time. that's all i'm saying. i think it stays pretty populated. >> no. i'm saying five or six by june. >> interesting. always great to have you. thank you very much. take a look at what do each of these people each have in common and who have they all worked for. really remarkable report straight ahead.
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the most personal technology, is technology with the power to change your life. life. to the fullest. so far the announcement from president trump of a new merit based set of ideas for immigration reform has been met with outright rejection or polite silence from democrats and republicans. all of the people you are about to meet with undocumented. under the president's plan that prioritized highly educated and skilled immigrants. they probably wouldn't have been allowed into the country, which makes this next story
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interesting. she has been working on it for months. here it is. >> reporter: they arrived in vans. they arrived in suvs. >> hi, guys. >> reporter: most of them coworkers. some of them friends. there were 19 of them, each with a story to tell. they all took the elevator to our studio. three elevators, in fact. what were all these people doing here? all of them wanted to talk about their years of working for donald trump's golf clubs. they also all have another thing in common. raise your hand, how many of you are undocumented workers? and how many of you worked for the trump organization? raise your hand. all of you. all of them say they worked for mr. trump at his various golf courses in new york and new jersey. some for more than a decade, despite being in the united states illegally from countries including mexico and guatemala.
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they brought with them their work uniforms and stacks of pay stubs from their former employer. jose worked as a waiter at trump's westchester golf club for ten years and often served donald trump. >> he used to come and i would serve him a diet coke out of the glass bottle into a plastic cub with ice. >> reporter: do you think he knew where you were from? >> yes. he knew i was from mexico. >> reporter: you told him. >> yes. >> reporter: do you think the president knew you were undocumented? >> i think so. >> this was an open secret. >> reporter: this lawyer represents 38 undocumented workers, including this group, all of whom worked at trump properties. he says 11 of them were quietly fired in january from trump's westchester club after the club did an audit in the midst of the government smhutdown and the fight over the border wall. the rest of the workers quit due to the toxic environment.
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>> some of these were the trusted employees of the trump family. some of my clients had the keys to, for example, eric trump's house in westchester, new york. >> nearly all of these 19 undocumented workers told us they have met donald trump. sander diaz is from costa rica and worked as a housekeeper for four years at trump national golf club in new jersey. >> i worked really close to him in his house. always i with him with melania and ivanka. i stay inside the house with all the family. they know me. i have kids. i have to go in. i have to take care of all clothes, everything in this house. i have take care. >> reporter: she believes donald trump knew she was here illegally because he has to sign off on everything at the club.
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>> how do you feel when you hear the president say that people like yourselves shouldn't be in the country? >> i feel really bad. >> reporter: all of the workers paid taxes but were not given benefits. he also worked at trump's golf course. for five years she made trump's bed and dusted off his golf trophies. >> did you ever tell the management at the golf course that you were undocumented or that you didn't have the right paperwork? she told us yes, she told her supervisors but was told legal papers didn't matter as long as she did the work. >> reporter: what documents did you show when you applied for the job? she says she didn't show any paperwork when she got the job. but in 2016 she was suddenly asked for legal documentation. she says when she told her manager she didn't have, she went to her cousin and her
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manager paid the $175 fee for her fake documents. >> there is another client i have that presented fake documents, and he was told they didn't look good enough. so they had him return three times to get fake documents that looked better. >> reporter: did donald trump know where you were from, and do you think he knew you were undocumented? she told me trump once asked her where she was from, and she told him guatemala. she says the majority of housekeepers were undocumented and that trump must havearita c golf course in westchester new york for nine years. >> reporter: what do you think of when you hear donald trump talk about undocumented workers and how you shouldn't be allowed in this country. yet, you worked at his golf club? margarita says trump is a
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hypocrit. they worked hard for him. >> he has been benefitting from undocumented labor for many years. it's sad he has been lying to the american people. >> had the trump organization had any response to what those workers told you? >> reporter: we reached out to the trump organization several times asking for a response to the fact that these allegations and also the fact that the trump organization has been employing these undocumented workers for years. we didn't get a response, but the trump organization has responded to "the new york times" which has also done reporting on this issue telling the times they have strict hiring practices and if an employee submits false documentation to circumvent the law, they will be fired immediately. that's certainly not what these workers told us. and that statement to "the new york times" doesn't answer our question, which is did donald trump know these undocumented workers were working for him as
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he was publically railing against him. most of the workers in our story are all facing deportation because there is no plan for the illegal immigrants in this country. only one of them now has legal status, but she didn't get it until long after she left trump's golf club. >> seeing all those people together is fascinating. thank you very much. china takes an aggressive new stance in its trade war with the united states. what the u.s. has to do before they will sit down for talks next. rafted. with peak season berries, creamy avocado. and a dressing fit for a goddess. come taste what a salad should be. and with panera catering, there's more to go around. panera. food as it should be. the belongingslace to we hold on to.rites. ♪ etsy knows that moments, big and small, deserve things that really matter. ♪
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the effects of the trade war against china are rippling across the country. the u.s. must show sincerity if it wants to have meaningful trade talks. this comes a day after president trump puts one of china's most successful technologies huawei technologies on a blacklist that could make it difficult to do business with companies in the u.s. and a week after slaps tariffs on goods coming from china. the question is now what? our chief correspondent just
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wrote the book on this. it's called the shadow war. jim joins us now. what does this mean long-term for this trade war? >> trump is demanding that china change and up tend it's economic model. it's an unfair one and involves stealing trade secrets from the u.s. and putting restrictions on u.s. companies operating in china but it's part of the strategy to compete with the u.s. and overtake the u.s. and use tariffs to force china to change and china is resisting that and xi jingping is leader to a country and if he's seen
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backing down to a u.s. president and playing by a u.s. president's rule he'll be seen as paying the price for that at home. he is to resist this kind of pressure coming from trump. >> you write about this in your book. how the trade war is apart of something much bigger. >> it is one front in a multifront war and i think americans are away of a couple of fronts. but china deployed satellites in space. a kidnapper satellite that can pluck u.s. satellites out of orbit. china has up and created sovereign territory in the middle of the south china sea. man made islands there in the middle of territory claimed by many countries including u.s. allies. the u.s. complained about it but china has done it. it succeeded and china is
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stealing u.s. secrets every day. private sector and government sector secrets every day with great success. it's part of a strategy. they refer to it as winning without fighting. they want to surpass the u.s. they want to take what they see as their rightful position as the world super power and they're not going to let anyone stand in their way. >> we're so focused on russia obviously because of russian meddling in the last election and a lot of intelligence officials i have spoken to and interviewed talk about china as being a greater threat. >> no question. russia has a similar strategy. multifront as well. they also deployed weapons in space. they're attacking but when i ask officials which is the bigger threat long-term? they'll say short-term russia, more aggressive. longer term, china has more
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economic power, bigger population, not a declining power, a rising power and they see that as the primary threat in this shadow war. >> congratulations on the book. i have been reading it. it's really fascinating. it's called the shadow war. if you want to know what's going on with china and russia it's essential reading. it's available now. up next, the golfer in chief takes a swing on the ridiculist. is your floor's best friend. only roomba uses 2 multi-surface rubber brushes to grab and remove pet hair. and the roomba filter captures 99% of dog and cat allergens. if it's not from irobot, it's not a roomba. nueven if you try to eat well,. you might fall short in key nutrients. get more by adding one a day. it's the #1 multivitamin
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uniquely designed for men and women. one serving, once a day. one a day. and done. leaders of the democratic party. for over two years, this president has broken the law... and nothing happened. you told us to wait for the mueller investigation. and when he showed obstruction of justice... nothing happened. when this president took money from foreign governments and blocked the release of his tax returns... nothing happened. and when his administration illegally refused to testify nothing happened. now you tell us to wait for the next election? really? really? really? this is why we volunteered, raised money, went door to door and voted in the last election. our founding fathers expected you - congress - to hold a lawless president accountable. and you're doing nothing. nothing. nothing. he broke his oath of office. he's defying you. he's laughing at you. and he's getting away with it. this is our democracy. but congress is part of the system and the system is broken. we have to fix it.
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it's about golf which is not my specialty. except that one time i took a nine iron to wolf blitzer's windshield. no i'm not sorry. he knows what he did. he likes to play golf and p.j. too. since taking office the president repeatedly bashed president obama for playing too much golf made 187 visits to his resorts to play golf. he spends a lot of time with his wife and son too but he plays a lot of golf. he plays with tiger woods and a diverse range of political minds everyone from lindsey graham to rush limbaugh. and he's a good golfer. today we found an entry in the official page on the golf handicap and information network which i read every day. it shows the president recently registered a score of 68 on a difficult 18 hole course in april.
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apparently that's quite a feat for anyone never mind someone that doesn't like to walk a lot. the last score posted on his page was in october and 96. i don't know what this means but it means something. you don't have to be a generals you to know the math on 96 to 68. this database isn't the most secure thing in the world and the president's page has been messed with before. that said the u.s. golf association told us so far they found no signs of malicious activity or russian activity but the matter is under review. we also asked the white house for comment but someone is not responding. one possible theory about the president's improved game, just a theory, people are talking about it. don't know if it's true, just people are talking about it, the february summit he held in hanoi with kim jong un. his friend that sends him the big beautiful letters that president trump likes to show off. according to his official biography, kim jong il, one
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shot, 11 holes in one in his first golf match ever. i mean, how about that. it's unclear if he shared his father's fairway tips or passed them through dennis rodman. it appears the president did have one heck of a good round of golf, big, beautiful, maybe just a bit unbelievable on the ridiculist. the cnn special report the trump family business starts now. >> the following is a cnn special report. >> his business practices are opaic. there's allegations of deception. >> it doesn't mean that we're the