CITIZEN by CNN: Highlights | CNN Politics (original) (raw)

Jared Kushner October 22 2018 CITIZEN by CNN 01

Jared Kushner full interview with Van Jones

43:44 - Source:CNN

Our live coverage has concluded for the day. For a recap, see 5 key takeaways from the conference, courtesy of Chris Cillizza, CNN Editor-at-large.

Former White House lawyer Ty Cobb told CNN’s Gloria Borger on Monday that he does not believe that special counsel Bob Mueller’s probe is a “witch hunt,” a belief not shared by his former boss, President Donald Trump.

The comment came during a panel with Jack Quinn, a former White House lawyer under President Bill Clinton, and CNN’s Gloria Borger.

Quinn, in response to a question from Borger, lauded Clinton as the best client he has had.

Cobb, to laughter, quickly jumped in, noting that he had a “different experience.”

Cobb was more laudatory of Mueller, calling him “an American hero in my view.”

“He was a very serious prosecutor,” Cobb said. “He and I first met in the mid 80s when we were prosecuting different places and I have respected him throughout.”

Ty Cobb just showed off his cowboy boots which were specially made to include the Presidential Seal.

CNN Chief Political Analyst Gloria Borger is talking with Ty Cobb, former special counsel to President Trump,and Jack Quinn,former White House counsel to President Clintonon “The President, the Presidency and the Law.”

In May, Trump replaced Cobb, the former federal prosecutor who joined Trump’s legal team in July 2017, with Emmet Flood, who represented President Clinton in the late 1990s.

Cobb had been clashing with the President over Trump’s combative posture with special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.

Trump’s legal team is bracing for the dramatic possibility that Mueller would subpoena the President, setting up a collision that could force a lengthy court fight and test the legal limits of the President’s power all the way up to the Supreme Court.

Iconic Watergate investigative reporters Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward are talking now withCNN Special Correspondent Jamie Gangel today.

Bernstein and Woodward were both Washington Post reporters who helped uncover the 1970s Watergate scandal that brought down President Richard Nixon.

Woodward recently drew the ire of President Trump over his bombshell book, “Fear: Trump in the White House,” which provides an unprecedented inside-the-room look through the eyes of the President’s inner circle.

From the Oval Office to the Situation Room to the White House residence, Woodward used confidential background interviews to illustrate how some of the President’s top advisers view him as a danger to national security and have sought to circumvent the commander in chief.

Bernstein, a CNN political analyst, defended Woodward’s book and vouched for his former colleague’s methodology of reporting of drawing from hundreds of hours of interviews with first-hand sources and documents to back up quotes, saying it was the same method the pair used while reporting on the Nixon administration.

Trump and the White House have pushed back on the allegations in Woodward’s book, but Woodward stands by his reporting.

CNN Anchor and Chief Media Correspondent Brian Stelter is currently going one on one with A.G. Sulzberger, Publisher at The New York Times.

Right off the bat Sulzberger laid the stakes of the current moment in America, calling it an “all-hands on deck” time for journalism, which has seen a bigger decrease in jobs than coal mines in recent years, he said.

Happening now: CNN Lead Political Anchor Wolf Blitzer hosts a discussion on covering the White House with Correspondents who do it: CNN’s Jim Acosta, The New York Times’ Maggie Haberman and SiriusXM’s Olivier Knox.

Watch it live in the video player above.

Outgoing Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake gave a candid answer about how Republicans have not lived up to their promises on debt and deficit over the last two years that the party controlled the White House, Senate and House.

“Yeah. We haven’t meant what we said by in large,” Flake told CNN’s Jake Tapper about some of the comments Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker Paul Ryan made during the Obama administration. “When you look at the budgets that we have passed, you can have tax cuts if you have commensurate budget cuts of some type.”

He argued that the lack of action on the debt and deficit that there is no longer an appetite for balance.

“We have lost that,” Flake said.

“This one less so,” Flake said. “But I have said, I am on record, saying I hope someone runs in the primary against the president. I think Republicans need to be reminded what it means to be conservative.”

Sen. Jeff Flake told CNN’s Jake Tapper on Monday that “there are times” when it feels lonely for him in the Senate given his newly found role as a vocal Republican Trump critic.

“There are times. There are times,” he said to laughs at CNN’s Citizen Conference.

Flake explained the lack of Republican outrage to some of Trump’s false and inflammatory comments to “fatigue.”

He argued that Republicans can’t respond to every tweet or comment Trump makes – “That takes all the time and you can’t expect that,” he said – but there are moments when it is required, citing when Trump applauded Rep. Greg Gianforte’s assault of a journalist earlier this month.

“That is something we ought to speak up on,” he said.

Republican Sen. Jeff Flake on Trump’s tweet claiming there are “unknown Middle Easterners” who are “mixed in” with the migrant caravan:

CNN Anchor Jake Tapper is now hosting a conversation with Arizona Republican Sen. Jeff Flake entitled “Lessons Learned in Washington.”

Flake, a frequent critic of President Donald Trump, announced his retirement last October in a blistering speech on the Senate floor that bemoaned the “coarsening” tenor of politics in the United States.

In his speech, Flake denounced the “complicity” of his own party in what he called an “alarming and dangerous state of affairs” under Trump, blaming the President for setting the tone. He assailed a “flagrant disregard for truth or decency” and attacked a “regular and casual undermining of our democratic norms.”

Flake’s decision not to seek re-election means Flake joins retiring Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker as an outspoken critic of Trump with nothing to lose in the year before 2018’s midterm elections.

Flake has long expressed major policy differences with Trump. He refused to endorse Trump in the general election, and published a book last year sharply critical of Trump titled “Conscience of a Conservative: A Rejection of Destructive Politics and a Return to Principle.”

Outgoing Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel emphatically said he had no interest in running for President during an interview with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria.

“I can tell you with 100% certainty, I have no interest,” he said in response to a question about running for the nation’s top job.

Zakaria followed up, “Ever?”

“Ever,” said Emanuel. “You said run for it. I have no interest in doing it. Never.”

Emanuel announced earlier this year that he would not run for a third term as Chicago’s mayor. He said on Monday at CNN’s Citizen Conference that he did so because he just didn’t have the energy to pour himself into four more years running the sprawling city.

“It has been 16 straight years, 5 Himalayan mountains and I am allowed to say, in a third term, no disrespect, Chicago is not Phoenix and Albuquerque, and you have to be all in 100%,” he said. “You owe the public 4 years of 100%. After those 16 years, I had about a year, year and a half.”

Zakaria opened the interview by asking Emanuel why President Donald Trump doesn’t like Chicago.

“Donald Trump doesn’t seem the like Chicago,” said Zakaria.

“Well guess what,” Emanuel responded. “Chicago doesn’t like Donald Trump.”

CNN Host Fareed Zakaria will now interview Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel on the current state of politics.

Emanuel announced in September that he will not seek re-election for a third term. He was elected the Windy City’s mayor in February 2011, becoming the city’s first Jewish mayor. He was reelected in 2015.

Before he was mayor, Emanuel served as a US congressman representing Illinois’ 5th District for three terms and later worked as President Barack Obama’s chief of staff for nearly two years.

Emanuel has also gone up against President Donald Trump as mayor, declaring his city a “Trump-free zone” and criticizing Trump’s immigration policies. Under his leadership, Chicago sued the Justice Department last year over its policy to withhold federal grants unless sanctuary cities comply with immigration enforcement.

We’re back from lunch. Take a few moments to catch up on the key developments from this morning’s conversations.

Read

We just posted the full 44-minute conversation between Van Jones and Jared Kushner on our YouTube channel.

See it here:

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said a Democratic majority in the House would use subpoena power “strategically” if House Democrats win a majority in 2018.

“As I said, it is about bringing people together,” Pelosi told CNN’s Dana Bash of the strategy she hopes to employ.

She went on to say, however, that the power is also a useful tool when negotiating on other topics.

“Subpoena power is interesting, to use it or not to use it,” she said.

She later ensured that a Democratic House “will exercise our oversight.”

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi told CNN’s Dana Bash on Monday that she is “pretty comfortable” she will be Speaker again if Democrats win the House in November.

“It is up to them to make that decision, but I feel pretty comfortable where I am,” Pelosi said on her caucus.

A number of Democrats running in 2018, looking to curb Republican attacks, have pledged not to vote for Pelosi for Speaker if they win their House seats, leading some in Washington to believe Pelosi could help deliver the House to Democrats and lose her leadership position.

Pelosi went on to list why she deserves to be speaker again after saying she is not usually comfortable with self-promotion.

“I am a great legislator,” she said. “And one reason I am is because I recognize the contributions of others, our committee chairs and all the rest.”

Pelosi declined to say whether she would only serve as Speaker for a short term, something she suggested in an interview earlier this month.

“I am not going to make myself a lame duck. I wouldn’t advise that my sisters,” she said, looking at women in the audience.

She added: “I think that I have a special understanding, institutional memory, knowledge of the substance, knowledge of the legislative process that holds me in good stead for now. We will see what happens in the Presidential coming up.”

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said on Monday that Democrats would easily win the House but added that she can’t say that will be the case in two weeks because “you never know.”

Pelosi went on to say that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell recently gave Democrats “a gift” by saying that “entitlement changes” would be on the table to tackle the debt and deficit if Republicans hold the House and Senate.

“I think it’s pretty safe to say that entitlement changes, which is the real driver of the debt by any objective standard, may well be difficult if not impossible to achieve when you have unified government,” the majority leader told Bloomberg News earlier this month.

“This election more than anything is about health care,” Pelosi said, responding to McConnell. “I don’t know what he was thinking.”

NOW: CNN Chief Political Correspondent Dana Bash will interview Democratic Leader of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi on the upcoming midterm elections.

She just opened their conversation stating, “If the election were held today, Democrats would handily win the House.”

Pelosi is a divisive figure, and has faced growing calls within her caucus for her to step aside. If Democrats win the House majority, they will hold the speaker’s gavel for the first time in eight years, and will have to decide whether to elect Pelosi, a 30-year House veteran and the last Democrat to hold the speaker’s gavel, or to bring in new blood.

She made history as the first female speaker of the House after the Democrats won the majority in 2006, and maintained her perch as the top House Democrat when her party became the minority again in 2010.

But she is also a politically-charged target on the campaign trail, with dozens of Democratic candidates saying they wouldn’t support her as speaker while a handful of current Democratic incumbents also call for a new generation of Democratic leadership.

Those dynamics have fueled many Democrats, in the run-up to Election Day, to privately discuss backup plans – with some predicting Pelosi might not secure the votes she needs among her colleagues to be the next speaker, even if she were to lead her party to a major victory this fall.

The Trump administration is approaching Saudi Arabia’s explanation for Jamal Khashoggi’s death with “our eyes wide open,” senior adviser Jared Kushner said on Monday.

“I think the president is focused on what’s good for America,” Kushner told Van Jones at the Citizen by CNN festival. “What are our strategic interests. where do we share interests with other countries, let’s work toward those.”

He said the White House would need to balance applying repercussions for Khashoggi’s killing with a raft of partnerships with Saudi Arabia.

Kushner said it was too early to say whether Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, with whom he’s cultivated a close relationship, had taken his advice to remain transparent in the investigation into Khashoggi’s death.

“The world is watching,” he said. “This is a very very serious accusation. A very serious situation. To be sure you’re transparent and to take this very seriously.”

“We’ll see” if he takes that advice, Kushner said.

Still, the President’s son-in-law offered praise for reforms enacted in the kingdom since Prince Mohammed assumed power, saying they helped advance American interests.

“A lot of the reforms they’ve been making there to help us track down the terror financing and also to push back against the people who are perverting the religion, have been very historic over the last year,” he said. “So we’re hopeful we can keep pushing forward with a lot of the initiatives that further American interests and that push back Iran’s aggression, so we’re going to stay focused on that.”

Jared Kushner, senior adviser to President Donald Trump, said in a rare interview on Monday that the President had little patience for drawn out trade negotiations as his administration looked to revamp the country’s trade deals.

“The president did not have 3 to 4 years of patience for this one,” Kushner said to laughs about the President’s desire to get trade deals done. “He really did push us to get an outcome quickly.”

Trump campaigned on renegotiating – and, in some cases, totally pulling out of – trade deals.

Kushner said that Trump’s view on trade is that “trade deficits matter” and that “lot of what we are doing is working to protect American industry.”

Kushner argued that the United States should have gone more protectionist decades after World War II because it is “not a sustainable situation to be paying for everyone’s defense and giving everyone asymmetric access” to US markets.

Jared Kushner says the Trump administration is still working to determine all the facts surrounding the death of Jamal Khashoggi.

“Right now as an administration we’re more in the fact finding phase,” Kushner, a White House senior adviser, told Van Jones at the Citizen by CNN conference.

Kushner has cultivated a close relationship with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the kingdom’s de facto leader.

Kushner said it was important to maintain the US-Saudi alliance.

“We have to be able to work with our allies and Saudi Arabia has I think been a very strong ally in terms of pushing back on Iran’s aggression,” Kushner said.

Kushner said his advice to Prince Mohammed has been to “be transparent” in his proceedings.

Jared Kushner said on Monday that prison reform is was “very close to my heart” because his father had gone to prison when the now senior adviser to the President was young.

“There was one issue that was very close to my heart because I had a personal experience, which was prison reform,” Kushner said at CNN’s inaugural Citizen Conference after outlining the sweeping mandate he was given by the Trump when he took office in 2017.

Kushner opened up about his prison reform focus by arguing that it makes more sense to reform people in prison instead of keeping them in prison and allowing them to learn “how to become better criminals.”

Kushner, though, admitted that he had “one small problem” after he did his research on prison reform.

Trump did not campaign on prison reform, Kushner added, but – over time – the adviser said the President came around on the issue and “pushed us to see if we can be successful on the issue.”

“He also has a lot of compassion that not a lot of people get to see as much as I do and this is an issue that he really has his heart,” Kushner said. “I think he sees this as a fairness issue.”

CNN Political Commentator Van Jones is now interviewing Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law and senior advisor, about prison reform. But that’s unlikely to be the only topic.

Jones and Kushner are unlikely allies in their fight to improve prison conditions and establish programs to better prepare prisoners for re-entry into society. This May, they were both part of a group of activists and experts that met with administration officials to push further congressional action.

Kushner, whose father Charles was incarcerated for 14 months after being convicted on corruption charges, acknowledged his own ties to the matter.

“This is an issue that I had personal experience with, so I spent some time thinking about well from the White House what could be done,” he said in May, describing Trump as “all in” on a prison reform platform.

However, the movement took a blow in late August, when Trump tabled a criminal justice package pushed by Kushner and a group of lawmakers, which would have included sentencing and prison overhaul measures.

CITIZEN by CNN is a day long political forum in New York City convening thought leaders and newsmakers to foster thoughtful dialogue and lively debate about the critical issues facing the American electorate ahead of 2018 midterm elections and beyond.

CITIZEN by CNN will feature speakers and panel discussions before an invite-only audience comprised of leaders of industry across business and finance, technology, media, philanthropy, academia and non-profit sectors.

Watch it live here or in the video player above. Here’s a look at today’s agenda: