Ex-Doctor Says Trump Dictated Glowing 2015 Health Letter; Pence Praises Ex-Sheriff Joe Arpaio, "Champion" Of The "Rule Of Law"
BERMAN: All right. This morning, a CNN exclusive, the doctor who penned that glowing letter saying that Donald Trump will be the healthiest person ever elected to the presidency now claims that that letter was actually dictated by Donald Trump himself.</s>HARLOW: It's a pretty stunning development. Alex Marquardt broke the story. He joins us now. I mean, it really sounded like the president, right, his words, the healthiest person ever to be president, but now we know that it actually came from the mouth of the president, according to his doctor.</s>BERMAN: He has the best words.</s>HARLOW: The best.</s>ALEXANDER MARQUARDT, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. Good morning, John and Poppy. That's right. If you listen to the language and look at the language, it might not come as an absolute shock that it was actually Donald Trump's wording and phrasing that was behind it. You know, CNN had asked Dr. Herald Bornstein in 2016 when Trump was running for office whether he had written it and he said yes. Now he is changing his story a little bit. He's putting a finer point on it. Now what he told us right here, right outside his office, just off of Park Avenue is that Donald Trump dictated this letter to him, the exact quote was he dictate that whole letter, I didn't write that letter. And the way that he said it went down was he was in the car coming here to the office, driving across Central Park with his wife, and on the phone with then-Candidate Trump in December of 2015 and Trump was dictating to him what should go into that letter and Bornstein was responding, saying, all right, you can include this, you can't include this. Bornstein then came to the office, wrote it up, signed it and the Trump office then picked it up and that's the letter that we then came to know and have been talking about all these years. Let's just remind our viewers what was in this extraordinary letter. He wrote -- Trump wrote, if elected Mr. Trump, I can state unequivocally will be the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency. Now John and Poppy, Dr. Bornstein did admit that he took some creative license with this letter. He used what he called some of his dark humor and he compared it to the movie "Fargo" saying it takes the truth and moves it in a different direction.</s>BERMAN: Fleeing the interview. He's fleeing the interview. All right. Alex Marquardt, I just quoted "Fargo." I'm not sure that Dr. Bornstein did. Let's bring back the panel, Ron Brownstein is with us, Errol Louis as well. Errol, look, on the one hand the fact that Donald Trump dictated this letter is the least surprising thing ever. On the other hand, shouldn't it be surprising that a candidate for a president of the United States self-diagnosed his -- fake self-diagnosed his own relative health?</s>ERROL LOUIS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, look, throughout the campaign there were indications that there was more than the usual amount of artistry in this campaign, right. When he came down the escalator to announce his candidacy, there were a lot of cheering people there and later came out that they were extras that were hired the way you hire movie extras. It didn't really change all that much. He has done, from time to time, he's done these interviews we know from his precandidate days where John Barron, a publicist who sounded a lot like Donald Trump would call people and -- call journalist and spread all kinds of different rumors that were always favorable to his client, Donald Trump. There is no John Barron. You know, somebody actually tried to run it down and looked in different companies and so forth, there is no such person and if you hear the audio, it's obviously Donald Trump. This is who he is. This is what he does. A lot of people knew it well before election day.</s>HARLOW: So, what happened after this doctor, the president's doctor wrote the letter, but also said that the president uses Propecia to grow his hair, some of the president's aides went to his office, took files, paper work of the president's, et cetera. He didn't much like that and now he's lashing out against the president, but this is not as John reminded me this morning exactly the equivalent of assault. This is not the physician that came up with the polio vaccine. This guy's got credibility issues.</s>BROWNSTEIN: Well, first of all, I'm wondering whether it was "Fargo" the movie or series as you were talking. But look, I think, you know, on the one hand, there is a danger of becoming numbed to these kinds of serial expressions of lying and misdirection and accepting it as par for the course when that is a really dangerous thing to do given the gravity of the words of a president. On the other hand, it isn't really true that the public completely ignores this. If you asked yourself, why is Donald Trump's approval rating somewhere around 40 percent when unemployment is around 4 percent when you would expect it to be significantly higher? The reason overwhelmingly is that you have somewhere between 55 percent and 60 percent of the country that believes it on personal grounds, values, morals and the way he comforts himself. He is simply not fit to be president. So, on the one hand, there is clearly, as he has said, an audience that will stick with him no matter what and do not view these kind of violations and more important violations of norms like interfering and threatening law enforcement as a reason to abandon him. On the other hand, it is wrong to say that the country is simply ignoring it. I think if you look at the polling very clearly those doubts are the reason why he is so much below what you would expect given the conditions in the economy.</s>BERMAN: All right. Errol Louis, there was a moment that caught a lot of peoples' eye yesterday in Arizona. Vice President Mike Pence was at an event and former Sheriff Joe Arpaio he was in the room. Remember, Arpaio was convicted of contempt of court for refusing to stop racially profiling Hispanics. This is what the vice president said.</s>MIKE PENCE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: I just found out when I was walking through the door that we were also going to be joined today by another favorite, a great friend of this president, a tireless champion of strong borders and the rule of law, spent a lifetime in law enforcement, Sheriff Joe Arpaio, I'm honored to have you here.</s>BERMAN: All right. I'm honored to have you here, Errol. President Trump did pardon Sheriff Joe, but that doesn't eliminate, you know, the fact that he was convicted for the crimes he was convicted of. How do you take?</s>LOUIS: Yes. Well, it's very sad because there was -- there were deaths in custody in the lockup. There were people who were frankly tortured. There was rampant misconduct that led to the investigation which in turn led to the crimes of which the Sheriff Joe Arpaio was convicted. It is a very sad day when simply because he's politically popular you'll find someone like the vice president of the United States heaping praise on someone who, for a lot of people, frankly is despicable. I mean, what went on, on his watch was a disgrace. It was a disgrace. People lost their lives and their dignity, and it didn't happen once or twice, it happened over and over again, and he built a political career on that kind of behavior.</s>BROWNSTEIN: I agree with everything Errol said, there's a political twist here which is that former Sheriff Arpaio is one of the three Republican candidates in the Senate primary to fill the open seat by Jeff Flake. Republican leadership overwhelmingly would refer Martha McSally, who is kind of the more center right, although she's pushing it conservative, you have two people from the Trumpian right, Kelly Ward and Joe Arpaio. There was a recent poll that showed Kelly Ward ahead which is a pretty ominous result for the Republican leadership because I don't think she can win a general election and perhaps they were promoting Joe Arpaio as a way of splitting that far right Trump vote and given Martha McSally a better way to come through the center and be the opponent against (inaudible).</s>HARLOW: All right. Ron, Errol, appreciate it. Thank you, guys. So, four days, $100,000, a potentially one very big political scandal, the new question surrounding EPA Chief Scott Pruitt and a pricey trip to Morocco arranged by a lobbyist.