Trump In Bedminster As Washington Braces For Rally; Trump Calls Omarosa "Low Life"; Trump: Sessions Is Scared Stiff And Missing In Action
PAUL: Well, this morning President Trump is in Bedminster, not at the White House. If he was in Washington he'd see a gathering of white supremacists pretty much right outside the White House lawn.</s>BLACKWELL: It's the same Unite the Right group that marched in Charlottesville last year. And GOP congressman Tom Garrett told CNN that Russian trolls use the internet to stir racial tensions even more after that 2017 rally, in an effort to, and this is a quote, "Hit Americans against Americans."</s>GARRETT: I sat in a closed session briefing probably two months ago about Charlottesville with the director of the FBI, amongst others, and asked if Russian inter-meddling had to do with fomenting the flames of what happened in Charlottesville. I was told, yes, it did. I asked, is this information classified? They said, no, it's not.</s>PAUL: CNN White House reporter Sarah Westwood live from New Jersey. Sarah, any reaction to that from the president?</s>SARAH WESTWOOD, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Well, Christi, President Trump has not really weighed in much beyond the tweet yesterday that he sent condemning racism. That was perhaps an attempt both to pay tribute to the pain the Charlottesville inflicted on the nation last year and to make clear his position on the white nationalist gathering today before they get under way. Now, Ivanka Trump, the president's daughter, is also speaking out to mark the one-year anniversary of Charlottesville. She tweeted, in part. "While Americans are blessed to live in a nation that protects liberty, freedom of speech and diversity of opinion, there is no place for white supremacy, racism and neo-Nazism in our great country." Now again beyond that tweet, President Trump has been pretty much silent on this one-year anniversary of Charlottesville. Other lawmakers have been speaking out more forcefully. He has no public events on his schedule today so we may not hear more from him beyond his Twitter feed.</s>BLACKWELL: And we know that President Trump is reacting to Omarosa -- her new book and Attorney General Jeff Sessions' on Twitter. Tell us more about that.</s>WESTWOOD: Well, Victor, President Trump is clearly unhappy with the sensational claims that his former aide Omarosa Manigault-Newman makes in her new book which is set to be released this week. President Trump waited on the former "Apprentice" contestant that he then hired at the White House yesterday. Take a listen.</s>DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I better not go any further.</s>MAGGIE HABERMAN, NEW YORK TIMES REPORTER: Mr. President, do you feel betrayed by Omarosa, sir?</s>TRUMP: Low life. She is a low life.</s>WESTWOOD: Now Trump has also been venting his frustrations on another topic the Justice Department and the origins of the Russia investigation, which he and his allies have sought to discredit. Trump, yesterday, accused attorney general Jeff Sessions as being a missing in action when it comes to an investigation of how the Obama DOJ opened the Russia investigation even though Sessions has recused himself from all matters related to that Russia probe. So President Trump clearly still fuming about some of his favorite foes the media and Justice Department as he wraps up his 11-day working vacation here in New Jersey -- Victor and Christi.</s>PAUL: All right. Sarah Westwood, thank you so much.</s>BLACKWELL: Joining me now Daniel Lippman, is reporter and co-author of "Playbook" at "Politico." Daniel, welcome back.</s>DANIEL LIPPMAN, REPORTER & CO-AUTHOR OF PLAYBOOK, POLITICO: Thanks for having me.</s>BLACKWELL: So after the "low life" criticism of Omarosa from the president, the natural follow-up is, the president wasn't taking them, if she is such a low life, why bring her into work in his White House?</s>LIPPMAN: Yes. This is what happens when you hire "Apprentice" stars as senior aides who are making over $100,000 on a public salary. And Omarosa kind of left a trail of damage in the White House. Aides didn't think that she may -- did any work and she would leave shoes just lying around in the West Wing. And so this book seems to be an attempt to capitalize on her stint serving the public.</s>BLACKWELL: So Sarah Sanders, the White House press secretary, she responded through a statement. The president yesterday called her a low life. Is this the extent until we learn more about the book or is there any indication that they are mobilizing for a "Fire and Fury" style response?</s>LIPPMAN: I think the White House may have learned a lesson which is don't respond every day to a new book out about the inner workings in the palace and trigger (ph) the White House because you're just going to give it more attention. I think Michael Wolff would be the first to admit that the White House's severe attack on his credibility, that helped book sales because people were wondering what is this whole thing about? And so another problem is the White House has not seen a full copy of the book which comes out this week. And so they don't really know what they are responding to when they are trying to fight back against Omarosa.</s>BLACKWELL: OK. So let's talk about the president's criticism of attorney general Jeff Sessions. He said he is scared stiff in this most recent tweet but in the past he has called him beleaguered and said he's in a weak position. Those criticisms really have changed nothing. Sessions has not rescinded his recusal. He hasn't intervened in the Russia investigation, has not pushed for a second special counsel to look into -- to Hillary Clinton. What's the benefit here? I mean, the slams are ineffectual here.</s>LIPPMAN: Yes. And they're also -- they also provide grist for Robert Mueller and his investigation. "The New York Times" did report that they are looking at Trump's tweets constantly criticizing DOJ and the investigations team that that is part of obstruction. And I think Sessions, you know, when he did that recusal, he was looking at -- way down the line, years ahead in terms of what history books would write about him. If he was going to be the attorney general who stopped a lawful inquiry into Trump's behavior in the campaign, that would tar his place in history. He wanted to be seen as an ethical person and that is why he recused himself. He was a huge surrogate on the campaign and he probably views this as disloyalty by the president who actually has a good relationship now with Rod Rosenstein. He told -- Trump told "The Wall Street Journal" about a week ago that Rosenstein is fantastic. So Trump kind of goes hot and cold on his staffers.</s>BLACKWELL: Let's talk about this photo op because that's what it was billed as with the president yesterday and Bikers for Trump. Jeff Mason, with Reuters, summed it up this way. "Bikers meet in clubhouse because of rain. Press pool brought in. Trump asks crowd if they like the media. Shouts erupt, including suggestion that press be sent out in the storm. President calls former staffer a low life. Event ends." This probably isn't the way they wanted it to go, but bring in the media to slam the media.</s>LIPPMAN: Yes. I think this is kind of a -- that is a normal day in the White House. That is a slow news day when just that happens and not a million other crazy things. And so, you know, you're actually going to see a bunch of major newspapers, including "The Boston Globe," in the next couple of days, issue a -- denunciation against Trump's attacks on media. They're kind of coordinating to say that we don't deserve that this type of treatment that we are valued part of democracy and we are just trying to do our jobs and hold power accountable whoever it is.</s>BLACKWELL: Daniel Lippman, good to have you back. Thanks so much.</s>LIPPMAN: Thanks, Victor. And later this morning, the president's attorney Rudy Giuliani is on "</s>STATE OF THE UNION WITH JAKE TAPPER," 9: 00 a.m. Eastern right here on</s>CNN. PAUL: CNN has exclusive reporting that Twitter admitted the fringe media organization info wars violated its rules but did not remove the problematic tweets from their Web site. We will tell you what we have learned.</s>BLACKWELL: We have got some really terrifying video showing people inside a Las Vegas store as they hid from an active shooter. The video shows a little girl and her father hiding underneath a clothing rack. You see them here. This is at a Ross store.</s>PAUL: The alleged shooter was a security guard there. Police say he got into an argument with his manager, left and came back with a gun. Thankfully no one was hurt. The suspect was shot by police though when he left the store. He is still alive. And picture this. You go to the outlet mall, casual day of shopping and when you return to your car -- this. Six cars. Yes. Swallowed up by a sinkhole. This is outside an outlet mall in Lancaster at about 60 miles outside Philadelphia.</s>BLACKWELL: So one woman who was in her car at the time says, it felt like an earthquake. That is understandable. No one was seriously hurt though. Good news there. Officials say they cannot remove the cars until they are sure that area is stable. And having worked in Florida for seven years, these pop up occasionally and the worst thing you can do is approach one of these too soon and then another chip falls off --</s>PAUL: Sure. And then you go down with them.</s>BLACKWELL: You're going down into the hole with it.</s>PAUL: Wow.</s>BLACKWELL: All right. Now exclusive reporting from CNN. CNN found that far right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and his fringe media organization InfoWars violated Twitter's rules. That's after the company defended keeping the accounts on its sites saying they did not violate the rules. But Twitter was forced to admit the violations but says it will let InfoWars stay on the platform.</s>PAUL: And soon after CNN's investigation was published the tweets disappeared from the social media Web site. With us now CNN money senior media reporter Oliver Darcy. OK. Oliver, tell us more about how this happened and what's happening now.</s>OLIVER DARCY, CNN SENIOR MEDIA REPORTER: Yes. Twitter really continues to stand alone here. Earlier this week we saw Apple, Facebook, YouTube scrub their platforms of content related to Alex Jones and his fringe media organization InfoWars but Twitter did not do that. At the time, the CEO Jack Dorsey he said that Alex Jones had not violated the Twitter rules and that if he did, Twitter would enforce those rules. But we conducted an investigation here at CNN earlier this week and found there are repeated violations of Twitter's term of services by Alex Jones and InfoWars. He had tweeted things that were degrading towards Muslims, that were degrading towards members of the gay and transgender community, that were engaging in harassments of individuals, and so on and so forth. After we published our story Twitter came back the next day and they said that we now see that there were violations of our rules. However, Twitter is still not taking any action at least nothing meaningful that we can see. The InfoWars and Alex Jones' accounts are remaining online for now.</s>BLACKWELL: So what's the new reaction from others especially other users of the platform?</s>DARCY: I think people are confused. They're seeing a lot individuals say, what is the purpose of having rules if you're not going to take a meaningful action to enforce those rules? And the violations that Alex Jones and InfoWars, that they committed on the platform, they are not really very small violations. These are repeated violations over a long period of time and, like I said, doing things that degrade individuals based on their religion or their gender identity. So you have a lot of people wondering today what is the purpose of the rules if they are not going to be enforced.</s>BLACKWELL: All right. Oliver Darcy, continue to watch it. Thank you so much.</s>DARCY: Thank you.</s>PAUL: Thank you, sir. Listen, a terminal cancer patient has won a landmark case against one of the most popular lawn care products. The multimillion dollar outcome here and here is the catch. Whether there could be more cases to come.