Lewandowski on Michael Cohen's role with Trump organization

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Lewandowski on Michael Cohen's role with Trump organization

Former Trump campaign manager and author of 'Let Trump Be Trump' tells 'The Story' that President Trump's personal attorney is a problem-solver.

This is a rush transcript from "The Story," April 16, 2018. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

MARTHA MACCALLUM, FOX NEWS CHANNEL HOST: Hello there. Thank you very much, Bret. Breaking tonight in New York City where we have new details on the fight to protect attorney-client privilege between the president and his lawyer that played out in dramatic fashion in a downtown courtroom today. Much of that drama was provided by this individual, Stormy Daniels and her attorney, who made very dramatic entrances and exits today. Although, in some aspect, it wasn't clear why they were there.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STORMY DANIELS, PORNOGRAPHIC ACTRESS: My attorney and I are committed to making sure that everyone finds out the truth and the facts of what happened. And I give my word that we will not rest until that happens.

MICHAEL AVENATTI, ATTORNEY TO STORMY DANIELS: I think there is significant danger to the president. The president trusted -- the president trusted Mr. Cohen as his fixer for years.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MACCALLUM: So, all that aside, when you cut to the heart of the legal matter here. The search of Cohen's property which James Kallstrom, the former Assistant Director of the FBI, says he believes is indicative of an FBI that he no longer recognizes.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAMES KALLSTROM, FORMER ASSISTANT DIRECTOR OF THE FBI: All of a sudden, they ratcheted it up 1,000 percent and conduct something that is very seldom -- I can't remember anything like this happening. So, I think they're out of control.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MACCALLUM: So, as a federal judge rules that prosecutors can review evidence that was seized from the attorney's home, Michael Cohen. But what are they really actually after here? And what does this have to do with, if anything, with the 2016 election? Chief National Correspondent Ed Henry wraps it all up for us tonight with the breaking news this evening from the White House. Hi, Ed.

ED HENRY, FOX NEWS CHANNEL CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Martha, great to see you. Certainly, a lot more drama today. But Michael Cohen did walk out of court with at least a partial win. Because let me explain exactly what they were saying about those documents. Basically, now the prosecutors will have to turn over the documents seized in all of the raids to Cohen and his legal team, so they can review the materials and figure out what is privileged material and what is not. That is something that Cohen was pushing for. It's going to take a while because we also learned today, the government seized about ten boxes of documents.

So, Cohen's team is going to get a chance to lay out which ones pertain to President Trump, maybe other clients, and then all sides will come back to court and battle over what is covered by attorney-client privilege and what is not. Judge Kimba Wood denied Cohen's motion for a temporary restraining order to keep prosecutors from going through these seized documents. Because the judge said, such an order is simply not needed right now. So far, the government is not going through these records while all of this gets sorted out. That pause is good news for Cohen, but he's still dealing with all kinds of problems and fallout.

Pornstar Stormy Daniels, as you noted, and her attorney, Michael Avenatti, showed up at today's hearing. They were pushing for documents about her alleged affair with the president to be made public. There were also documents involving a second Cohen client, Elliot Brody, who resigned his post at the Republican National Committee last week after it was reported he played a former Playboy model he had impregnated. And today, it was revealed, a third Cohen client is Fox's Sean Hannity. Now, Hannity quickly made clear the work Cohen did mostly involve advice over real estate, though that fact did not stop Daniels and her attorney from trying to jump all over this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DANIELS: For years, Mr. Cohen has acted like he is above the law. He has considered himself an openly referred to himself as Mr. Trump's fixer.

AVENATTI: I said last Friday and this weekend that Michael Cohen was radioactive. And that anybody that was associated with him in the last 20 to 30 years should be very, very concerned. What we witnessed earlier in the hearing with the disclosure relating to Sean Hannity proved my point exactly. He is radioactive.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HENRY: But Sean Hannity tweeted the following: 'In response to the following speculation, let me make it clear that I did not ask Michael Cohen to bring this proceeding on my half. I had no personal interest in this proceeding and, in fact, asked that my de minimis discussions with Michael Cohen which dealt almost exclusively about real estate not be made a part of this proceeding.' Now, the next step will come this Wednesday when the U.S. attorney is going to have to come back to the judge and explain how long they think it will take to turn over these materials from the raid to Cohen and his legal team. Some are estimating it might take a couple of weeks, and Cohen is pushing for a special master to come in from the outside and look at what's privileged and what's not -- he hasn't gotten that yet, but he's pushing for it. Martha.

MACCALLUM: Ed, thank you very much. Joining me now, Corey Lewandowski, former Trump Campaign Manager and Author of 'Let Trump Be Trump: The Inside Story of his Presidency.' Corey, good to see you tonight. I mean, you know, I guess, according to Michael Avenatti, you would fall into the category of somebody who has spent a lot of time around Michael Cohen over the past 20 or 30 years. He thinks that you should be very, very concerned. Your thoughts.

COREY LEWANDOWSKI, FORMER TRUMP CAMPAIGN MANAGER AND AUTHOR: Well, I'm not very concerned and I've been very clear I have nothing to be concerned about. But look, this is an issue that is one of did the FBI do something inappropriately, did they seize material which falls under attorney-client privilege, and if so, are they going to return that information before they look at it so that Mr. Cohen and his legal team have the opportunity to decipher what is privileged material and what isn't privileged material? And we should be very concerned right now that we have an FBI which is raiding the personal attorney of the president without respect to what is or may be attorney-client privilege material.

MACCALLUM: Well, James Kallstrom, who's the former Assistant Director of the FBI, who you just -- we just played a little bit of what he had to say today, he was interviewed by Neil Cavuto. And he made it very clear that he, he said, you know, when you look back at this case, Mr. Cohen was cooperating, he was providing the documents that he was asked to provide. And he felt that this search and seizure of his property was unfounded. And he said this is not the FBI that I know and that I worked in. Now, that being said, talk to us a little bit about Michael Cohen's role in the Trump organization, because he has been called the fixer. What does that mean? What did he do?

LEWANDOWSKI: Well, Michael Cohen served for a number of years, probably a decade or so as the executive vice president of the Trump organization. And part of the things I can tell you my interaction with Michael, one of the things that he worked on behalf of the Trump organization was when there was a problem on an airplane engine, he had to go and work to get the problem resolved. So, as a fixer, he was a problem solver on behalf of the organization when it came to business issues that affected the organization, whether it was in negotiations with vendors, whether it was individuals who were doing business with the Trump organizations, making sure that those contracts were in place. That's the fixer that I know Michael Cohen to be; an individual who, on behalf of the Trump organization, was making sure the contractual obligations were held to that these individuals or companies were doing business with.

MACCALLUM: Well, I mean, you saw Stormy Daniels there and she claims that, you know, that he was kind of a tough guy and a fixer, and that when she dealt with him, that was the way that she found him to be. We know that he was also involved with Elliot Brody, who was this other GOP financial backer. And Sean Hannity has said, as we just saw in Ed Henry's piece that he's talked to him about real estate and other issues, not in a, you know, solidified kind of attorney-client relationship. You know, what about that side of what he did? Did he say, you know, Mr. Trump, I'll take care of this for you? And you know, you don't need to know about it?

LEWANDOWSKI: You know, I've never seen that side of Mr. Cohen. And to be clear, I never worked at the Trump organization, I was at the campaign. They were two legally separate entities on two different parts of the building. But you know, what it sounds like Sean Hannity has said was, Michael Cohen was a friend and he called him for advice, never paid him, never had a contractual obligation. If that's a crime, if that makes you a client in the world of the FBI, then we have to be very concerned because, you know, many people call attorneys for simple questions, simple advice, simple requests. That doesn't mean you have attorney-client privilege. So, we have to be very careful about that.

MACCALLUM: You know, as somebody who was very involved in the campaign and, you know, I think is still close to the president and discusses things with him, you know, this is the -- and it really goes to these questions of assumptions. Because you know, now, you can say someone's name in this courthouse and suddenly they're swept into some sort of maelstrom that connects them to criminality, and I think we just all have to take a deep breath and step back here for a moment and see what the facts are in these cases. But according to an editorial writer in the New Yorker, this is the week that we know with increasing certainty that we're entering the last phase of the Trump presidency. He says, it doesn't feel like prophecy, it feels like a simple statement of apparent truth. He says, I am unaware of anybody who has taken a serious look at Trump business, business, who doesn't believe that there is a high likelihood of rampant criminality. Your reaction to those comments?

LEWANDOWSKI: My reaction is if you didn't just mention this individual and what he wrote that nobody in the planet would ever see it, because they're a failing publication nobody reads. And here's the thing, right, this is the mainstream media trying to drag them --

MACCALLUM: You know as well as I do that that sentiment is all over the place right now from some media outlets.

LEWANDOWSKI: But this notion that the presidency is coming to an end is such hyperbole and so egregious. Look what this president has been able to do in first 15 months, you exclude the great work of getting Neil Gorsuch confirmed through the U.S. Senate. The greatest tax cuts, the largest tax cut of our nation's history. Unemployment rate for Hispanics and African- Americans at the lowest of recorded history. We're finally moving the country in the right direction. The stock market again today, record numbers. You know, when is the mainstream media going to understand that the American people, 60 million people are so happy that this man is the elected president of United States? And just remember -- just remember what James Comey said. He let the public opinion polls dictate his ability to reopen the Clinton investigation. There used to be an old T.V. show called 'Dragnet' and it was just the facts, ma'am. And that's not what happens anymore. We let the mainstream media deliver their own narrative. And what that is doing, it is driving a bureaucracy, which is out of control that this president is trying to rein in.

MACCALLUM: Well, you know what, it's worth mentioning, that the president was in Florida today, he was talking about the tax cuts. He looked very calm, you know, for somebody who apparently is, you know, swirling into the final days of his presidency according to some folks and he seemed pretty focused on the job. So, we'll see. Corey, thank you very much. Good to see you tonight.

LEWANDOWSKI: Thank you.

MACCALLUM: Here now, Judge Andrew Napolitano, Fox News Senior Judicial Analyst. And when you talk about just the facts, and just the legal realities, what do you see here today?

ANDREW NAPOLITANO, FOX NEWS CHANNEL SENIOR JUDICIAL ANALYST: I think the judge made a terrible mistake. The legal realities are that the government was ordered to make two sets of copies of everything it seized and give one set to the president's lawyers and one set to Michael Cohen's lawyers so that they can challenge whether each document is subject to privilege. In order to challenge it, it has to be exposed to the government. So, the government prosecutors who are going to want to prosecute Michael Cohen, for all we know want to prosecute the president, will be able to see the contested documents at some point in this litigation. The judge should have gone through the documents herself or with her magistrate judge and she should have decided what was privileged, give it back to Mr. Cohen because this belongs to your client, Donald Trump, this belongs to your client Elliot Brody and decide what was relevant to the FBI seizure. But this prolonged process of each side getting to look at the documents, and lets the government look at the documents as well.

MACCALLUM: I mean, here's one of the obvious concerns with that. I mean, you look at what we have seen already coming out of the FBI. You have a former FBI director and a former deputy director who've both been accused of leaking things to the press for their own benefit. So, now you've got all of this material that's falling into the hands of prosecutors. I guarantee you that this stuff is going to get out. This is not going to live in a box where people evaluate it.

NAPOLITANO: I think that's what Jim Kallstrom was referring to you. Not only the very rare -- if it happens once in your career as a prosecutor or judge or an FBI agent, that the lawyer offices raised, not only that, but the fear of the leaks as well. I do believe that's what he's driving at. But think of the hardball tactics. When is the last time we heard in this whole investigation of the FBI showing up at 5:30 in the morning, when they raided Manafort's house? And what was Manafort doing? He had been cooperating with them. So, they, just like the prosecutors here in New York, must have said something to a federal judge. We don't know what it was, to trigger the signing of these warrants and permitting them to be executed before the sun came up.

MACCALLUM: Well, as many have said, it better be good, right? I mean, if they have reason for these searches and seizures, you know, to protect their own reputation, it better be good.

NAPOLITANO: For better or for worse, we're going to find out. So, the president makes a point when he says whatever to the attorney-client privilege?

MACCALLUM: Thank you, judge, always good to see you.

NAPOLITANO: You're welcome.

MACCALLUM: Coming up here tonight, Russia makes good on its promise of retaliation in response to the missile strikes in Syria. The question now: will the White House take this battle between super powers to the next level? Trump versus Putin and what happens now. Then, brand new questions being raised about the story that is being circulated by James Comey. The man who once believed to be the prosecution's star witness against President Trump. Did he put the special counsel's case in jeopardy with all of these television appearances? Karl Rove, Mark Penn, and former FBI Special Agent Nancy Savage with their take on last night's interview and, boy, are we going to go through this? And also, the comments that were made like this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAMES COMEY, FORMER FBI DIRECTOR: I think impeaching and removing Donald Trump from office would let the American people off the hook and have something happen indirectly that I believe their duty-bound to do directly.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MACCALLUM: Fired FBI Director James Comey getting rid of backlash today from the interview. And on top of that, there are questions about how strong a witness he can be now for the special counsel given this huge media tour. Judge Napolitano just said moments ago, he's surprised that he's undertaking this media tour in the middle of this investigation. But he's going to be on 11 T.V. shows in the next two weeks. Typically, a star witness is instructed to stay mum until it's their time to tell their side. In fact, to that end tonight, Gowdy, Goodlatte and Nunes, they want to clear a few things up.

Once and for all, they want to get a copy of these famous classified notes that James Comey kept on his meetings with President Trump or he said they're not classified but, on the notes that he took, on his meetings with President Trump. The former FBI director openly discussed those notes in public and he used them to write the book, and these three gentlemen on Capitol Hill have set a deadline of tonight for the Department of Justice to please turn those over. They've been frustrated by the lack of cooperation that they're getting on this from the DOJ. Chief Intelligence Correspondent Catherine Herridge live in Washington with the latest tonight. Hi, Catherine.

CATHERINE HERRIDGE, FOX NEWS CHANNEL CHIEF INTELLIGENCE CORRESPONDENT: Thanks, Martha. The deadline came and went last hour with no indication from the three house committee chairman. The Justice Department handed over the Comey memos. Lawmakers want access to all seven memos after some were leaked to the media by a friend of Comey, they talked last night on ABC News.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS, ABC NEWS ANCHOR: The president tweeted innumerable times calling you a leaker, what's your response to President Trump?

COMEY: Look, it's true. I mean, I'm (INAUDIBLE) testified about it, that's how people know about it. I gave that unclassified memo to my friend and asked him to give it to a reporter. That is entirely appropriate.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HERRIDGE: But the Republican Senate Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, who has the powerful judiciary committee says it was not appropriate because at least one of the leaked Comey memos likely contain classified information. The senator's investigators found four of seven Comey memos contain classified intelligence at the secret or confidential level. On Fox earlier today, another Republican called out Comey claiming a double standard.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. JOHN RATCLIFFE, R—TEXAS: Law professors and reporters can see those, but members of congress, including the chairman of the Intelligence Committee and the Judiciary Committee with security clearances haven't been able to see them. So, I think that's an outrageously untenable position. We demanded that we see them. And I think that we will get to see them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HERRIDGE: And we also learned today the reporting to Comey, as well as the FBI and Justice Department's handling of the Clinton email case is expected next month with a request officially for testimony from the Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz on May 8th, Martha.

MACCALLUM: Catherine, thank you very much.

HERRIDGE: You're welcome.

MACCALLUM: Here now with more, Karl Rove, former Senior Adviser to President George W. Bush and a Fox News Contributor; Mark Penn, the Presidential Pollster and Adviser to Bill and Hillary Clinton who wrote a very interesting editorial on all of this recently. Thank you, gentlemen, good to see both of you tonight. You know, a lot of things struck me watching this interview. The first of which would be that it seems that James Comey based pretty much all of his assumptions about how he was going to go forward publicly with this case on the premise that he believed that Hillary Clinton was going to win. So, my question is why was that assumption even a factor? If you're doing an investigation, why do you need to do it within a frame work of saying, well, because I thought Hillary Clinton was going to win, I did this or I did that, Karl?

KARL ROVE, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR AND FORMER SENIOR ADVISER TO PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: Consider if he thought Donald Trump would have won, would he have operated in a different manner?

MACCALLUM: Great question.

ROVE: And look, this is -- Comey's entire story continues to fall apart. If you read the transcript of last night's interview, I mean, he's confronted with well, why did you take it upon yourself to make the decision not to prosecute? That's not the FBI director's prerogative. You don't under law and procedure have no right to do that. So, why didn't you leave it up to the Department of Justice and why didn't you allow Attorney General Lynch to recuse herself and pass it on to her deputy? He said, 'I suppose a reasonable person might have done that.' But he was acting in the -- in favor of 'transparency.' So, it's just mystifying how he sanctimoniously stands up there and suggests that he's done this all with a great concern for ethics and the truth when he really is being driven by personal considerations about how is the election going to come out and how am I going to look.

MACCALLUM: Let's look at this question from George Stephanopoulos about why he decided not to empanel a grand jury.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEPHANOPOULOS: And to those who say you should have brought Hillary Clinton before a grand jury?

COMEY: We would prefer with a subject of an investigation to do an informal interview, a lot more flexibility there. They're still required to tell the truth.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MACCALLUM: Mark, I'm just curious. I'd love to follow up on that question and say, you know, what kind of flexibility did you get from not putting her in front of a grand jury?

MARK PENN, PRESIDENTIAL POLLSTER AND ADVISER TO BILL AND HILLARY CLINTON: Well, look, I think his statements and his interviews are quite mystifying. I think he has to defend against people from the Hillary campaign saying he sabotaged that, from the Trump campaign saying he sabotaged that. And he just believes he had the hubris to make these decisions on the basis of politics, polls, his own standing. Remember, Hillary would presumably have been his incoming boss. And I find now, he's completely blown the credibility of the FBI in this book that he's issued to make millions of dollars here, not just in the public interest. It's really quite shocking.

MACCALLUM: Nancy Savage is with us. We had a little trouble establishing her line, but I want to bring her in. She's a former FBI agent. Nancy, thank you for being with us today. I want to play this one about how he was able to draft the exoneration memo prior to interviewing Hillary Clinton. Let's play that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEPHANOPOULOS: President Trump says you were writing the conclusion even before you interviewed Hillary Clinton. That is just wrong.

COMEY: Anybody who's actually done investigations knows that if you've been investigating something for almost a year and you don't have a general sense of where it's likely to end up, you should be fired.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MACCALLUM: Nancy, what do you think about that?

NANCY SAVAGE, FORMER FBI AGENT: Well, it doesn't make too much sense to me. I mean, if you're still actively investigating and you're interviewing the subject, you've already made your decision before you know what she's going to say, especially when she was not forthright from all reporting on a number of issues in the interview. Just doesn't make any sense to have made the decision before you do really your first subject interview.

MACCALLUM: Yes. And Nancy, I also find it interesting giving the time frame because when asked about the investigation, the Russia investigation, which has also been going on for a year, he says, well, you ought to know where you are by the time you're a year into it. And yet, he says, you know, it's possible that this happened, it's possible that that happened. That seems like these two things don't add up.

SAVAGE: No, it just doesn't make any sense that you're already drafting essentially what's a declination request. I mean, this thing should've been investigated in the field offices instead of up at FBI headquarters on the seventh floor with them calling the shots. That's just not standard protocol for us at all, and it does not serve the FBI well. It's not how we do business. I don't know what he was thinking by doing this. To try to justify it after the fact is just egregious. I guess our members -- I represent a lot of members of retired and former FBI agents. They're also very unhappy with his lack of professionalism. These are matters that he's discussing that are still under active investigation in a variety of venues. And he's out there publicly in a public discourse on them.

MACCALLUM: Nancy, just quickly, do you think it was right that he was fired?

SAVAGE: You know, I don't know all the nuances on that. But obviously, they were not working well between -- we're an executive branch agency. You've to work with the president and you got to work with the administration. And if you're not able to do that, you know, they're going to have to have a parting of the ways. The methodology was not perfect in terms of how he was fired.

MACCALLUM: It's very interesting. I want to play one more on impeachment.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

COMEY: I think Impeaching and removing Donald Trump from office would let the American people off the hook and have something happen indirectly that I believe their duty-bound to do directly. People in this country need to stand up, go to the voting booth and vote their values.

MACCALLUM: Karl?

ROVE: Is he working for the Democratic National Committee now? I mean, here's a guy who claims to be above politics and makes an extraordinarily political statement like that. Here's a guy who claims to be the only honest guy in town and his book is rife with misstatements and misdirection. And personally, it's amazing to me, here's a guy that says when he meets with the president and the president tells him about the salacious dossier, and Stephanopoulos says, well, did you tell him that it was funded by his political opponents and he says that he did not because it wasn't necessary for my goal which was to alert him that we had this information. Why did you need to alert him that you had this information and not tell him that it came from his political opponents? Is it because you wanted to have leverage over him to be able to say, Mr. President, we've this very ugly file on you but don't worry, as the FBI director, I'm going to contain this for you. I mean, just a remarkable performance.

MACCALLUM: Mark, final thought.

PENN: Yes, well, look, I definitely think that that means that he doesn't really think that there is a case for impeachment. And therefore, he's saying, oh, don't impeach Donald Trump, vote him out. I actually agree with that. If you don't like Donald Trump, vote him out. Let's stop using this criminal process that really is out of control. I think we're almost back to 1998, and Stormy Daniels just like Monica Lewinsky all over again. And we've got to stop this and actually elect people whom we like and throw out people we don't.

MACCALLUM: Thank you all. Go ahead, very quickly.

SAVAGE: Yes, it is important to note, you know, that there were not -- Mr. Comey was not forthright in terms and the FISA applications were not forthright in terms of who funded all of the information in the dossier, which is extremely pertinent to whoever is reviewing it in terms of how valid it is.

PENN: I believe withholding that fact would've ended it. Had he told Trump that in January, in his first meeting, it would've ended this whole thing then and there.

MACCALLUM: Wow. I have to go. Thank you all. Great job. Great to see you all tonight. So, new battle lines being drawn in Syria between the leaders of two world powers, President Trump and Vladimir Putin. It is escalating in frightening ways really. So, the question becomes does anyone back down? What is next?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Russia must decide if it will continue down this dark path or it will join with civilized nations as a force for stability and peace.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Over a hundred missiles shot in. They didn't shoot one down. The equipment didn't work too well, their equipment. And they didn't shoot one. You know, you heard, oh, they shot 40 down. Then they shot 15 down. And I called and I've said did they -- no, sir. Every single one hit its target.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MACCALLUM: President Trump touting Friday night air strikes in Syria as a great success. And as promised, the Russians are starting to push back as they said they would. Late today, word that Syrian troops have been teaming up with the Russians to try to block chemical weapons inspectors from reaching the blast site, so that raises concerns that they may be tampering with evidence on the ground. This, as Russian President Putin promises, quote, chaos, if Syria is attacked again. And the White House weighs its options over what to do next.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NIKKI HALEY, U.S. AMBASSADOR TO THE U.N.: You will see that Russian sanctions will be coming down. Secretary Mnuchin will be announcing those on Monday, if he hasn't already. And they will go directly to any sort of companies that were dealing with equipment related to Assad and chemical weapons used.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MACCALLUM: So, on that front in terms of the sanctions, the White House says they're not ready yet. White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders saying today, quote, we are considering additional sanctions on Russia, and a decision will be made in the near future. Rebecca Grant back with us tonight, national security and military analyst and international relations expert. Rebecca, good to see you tonight. Your thoughts on whether or not this was, this stage of it, mission accomplished, which the president got some heat for even saying?

REBECCA GRANT, NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Mission accomplished, absolutely. Those missiles hit their targets. You know, think about what happened, Martha. Here, we were able to carry out a very precise strike, literally over the heads of the Russian forces in that area. The Syrian air defenses were too afraid to really activate them and use the full electronic capacity. They took unguided missile shots. And Britain, France and the U.S., they're together and created precision rubble out of what used to be a chemical weapons site. So, absolutely, mission accomplished. This was a narrow set of objectives and we accomplished them.

MACCALLUM: You've said something very interesting earlier. You say Assad may stay in power in his corner, but this whole thing makes it looks like not such a great deal to be a Russian ally.

GRANT: Right. Let's think about that map of Syria. So, we've been doing the anti-ISIS mop-up operations up in the northeast corner with our partners the Syrian defense forces and part of that large coalition. Assad has about half of the country that he had several years ago. But this is going to tell you that it's not such a great deal to be allied with the Russians. Putin took a gamble here. Moving in after Obama turned his back, and Putin has tried to stake out a new Russian presence in Syria. How is that working out for Assad? I don't think very well. Now, he's keeping him in power, but what the international community just said is Russia cannot shield and condone this kind of behavior with Assad's use of chemical weapons.

MACCALLUM: You also say that this is a strike that President Obama could have easily carried out when that red line was crossed.

GRANT: Yes. What we've heard from the reporting from 2013 is that options like this were presented at that time. And what was difficult was they were worried about what the reaction would be. Well, as it turns out, look, what happens, no losses, no casualties, excellent destruction on the ground. The T-lambs, the Jasms, B-1s, navy ships they all really did their job. Now, Trump did have the advantage in the fact that we've been running air operations there for over four years, so he knows what the environment is like. But, yeah, there's no question, this could have been done in 2013. It was really a conservative measured strike.

MACCALLUM: What do you think Putin is thinking at this point? What do you think his next move is?

GRANT: Putin has had a very, very bad weekend. And the president talked about the dark path. What we're hearing this afternoon is that Russia may be still on that dark path. The U.S. and the U.K. have come out with a cyber alert for something they call the grisly step program, this is state sponsored Russian hacking, sort of the network routers and the enterprise level and the cyber system. So, it's an alert that goes out and say, hey, check the protocols, check the ports, check the routers, the Russians may be doing some reconnaissance and weaponising for a potential cyberattack. We know they've done this kind of thing in Estonia and many other places. So, that's what up on the net tonight.

MACCALLUM: Rebecca Grant, thank you so much, good to see you again.

GRANT: Thank you.

MACCALLUM: So, he was once the frontrunner to win the Republican nomination for president. See him right there in the center spot at the debate. Then, this happened and it turned the Republican Party upside- down. Now, three years later, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker says the party is due for another huge wake-up. One that most do not see coming. He will tell us what it is when he joins me next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: We should do well. History says that when you win the presidency, that party doesn't do so well in the midterms because people get complacent. They get complacent. We cannot be complacent.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MACCALLUM: President Trump encouraging his supporters to stay engaged ahead of the midterms, that sentiment echo just days later in Wisconsin when a liberal candidate won a seat on the state Supreme Court. Governor Scott Walker tweeted this. 'Tonight's result show we are at risk of a blue wave in Wisconsin. The far left is driven by anger and hatred, he writes. We must counter it with optimism and organization. Let's share our positive story with voters and win in November.' It comes as a brand new national poll shows Republicans have their work cut out for them. Democrats intensity, as we put it, in poll land is stronger, 66 percent, 49 percent for the Republicans. Exactly the opposite of what we saw back in 2010 when there was greater intensity on the Republican side and they saw big gains. So, joining me now, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, a Republican running for his third re-election. Governor, good to see you tonight. Thank you very much for being here.

GOV. SCOTT WALKER, R—WISC.: Great to be with you. Thanks for having me on, appreciate it.

MACCALLUM: You know, I look back, we showed video of you standing in that center spot when there was a huge stage full of Republicans who are running for president, and President Trump at that point, his numbers were lower than yours, so he was off to the side. And then you were the first person to drop out. You kind of sized up what was going on and cut your losses. What did you see back then that made you make that decision?

WALKER: Well, I just saw where things were headed in many ways with the national media and said I love my job as governor. I want to focus on that. And, what I see in many ways is similar what I see right now. There's a national push by -- not everyone, but many in the media suggesting there's going to be this blue wave, not just in Wisconsin, but across America. As I mentioned in that tweet that you reference, I think the left is overwhelmingly driven by anger and by hatred. We see it in the rhetoric against me, against the president, against anyone associate with the Republicans. And I think the only way to counter that is not with more of the same but with optimism and organization. We were just out again this weekend organizing people across the state to join us at scottwalker.com and to get a positive message out about how our common sense conservative reforms are actually working. But the wake-up call is we can't assume that people know that, even though we've got record low unemployment in the state. Many other Republican-led states across America are sitting in the same situation. We cannot assume that people know about it. We've got to get that message out.

MACCALLUM: Well, this kind of goes through your tweet. Let's play this sound bite by Congressman Keith Ellison.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. KEITH ELLISON, D—MINN.: Women are dying because we are losing elections. We don't have a right to lose a damn election. We have to win. We have to win.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MACCALLUM: I don't know what he was referring to there about women dying because they're losing elections, but it's pretty dramatic.

WALKER: Well, you know, but it's one of those where, you know, we see day after day these stories out there and a lot of it is focused on, not just on Syria, which is important, you've just been talking about, but some of these other issues that, at least, some in the Washington elite think are important. When I talk to people around the state of Wisconsin, not only at the state level but nationally, they want to hear more about how the tax cuts are going to benefit them and their family. In Wisconsin's case, a typical tax-paying family will see mom and dad working, two kids at home, will see a $2,508 reduction in their income taxes to the federal government because of what President Trump and Republicans in the congress did.

But, people, largely, don't know about that because there's all this other attention on things out there. I think as Republicans, as conservatives, as common sense conservative reformers, we cannot see ground to the left just because anger and hatred is a pretty powerful motivator. We've got to counter and say, remember how things were years ago under Obama and under many of the Democrats leading states like mine. Things were not very good. My state is a good example. Unemployment when I ran in 2010 was 9.3 percent. Today, it's the lowest ever been below 3 percent for the first time in history. Our reforms are working, but we can't be complacent about it as the president said. We've got to get out and share that message.

MACCALLUM: Yeah. There's another poll that shows tightening in the race, Democrats 47, Republicans 43. And it's also interesting, the president was talking about tax cuts today. You talked about tax cuts now. I mean, these are the things that actually matter to people and how they live their lives. The market was up today. It's been all over the place, of course, in recent weeks. But, you know, you're in another tough race for yourself. You survived a recall vote, and now you're up in another tough race, you know. Do you think you're going to be able to eek it out?

WALKER: Oh, I think this is one of them that it's tough not only because of the anger and hatred on the left and, obviously, motivated, not just the president but me. But you can see all this money. You know, Eric Holder was in our state before the state Supreme Court race. He doesn't care about the Supreme Court. He was here because he was getting ready to target me. We saw Tom Steyer, the billionaire extremist on the far, far left. He was in Wisconsin just last week. And, of course, the big union bosses are targeting us yet again, which is again why we are recruiting people to go to scottwalker.com and get our message out.

MACCALLUM: Thank you, governor.

WALKER: But, they're going to keep doing it. We need to understand, we've got to get a positive message out. We've got one. We've got a plan for the future.

MACCALLUM: I hear you.

WALKER: Republicans would do well to pursue that.

MACCALLUM: Thank you, governor, good to see you tonight. Thanks for coming on.

WALKER: Thank you.

MACCALLUM: So, coming up next, it is no secret that California is a sanctuary state. But now their city -- San Diego, the second biggest city in the state is really fighting back. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MACCALLUM: There's a civil war of ideas going on in California where the rebellion against Governor Jerry Brown's sanctuary state legislation is heating up tonight. These counties back the law that protects illegals and these want it overturned. And that list is growing. Now, San Diego, the second largest city in California is going to take a big vote tomorrow night, potentially to overturn the law. Our next guest is leading that fight, former San Diego city councilman, Carl DeMaio, I've spoke with him earlier and asked him how it looks?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CARL DEMAIO, FORMER SAN DIEGO CITY COUNCILMAN: Well, it's going to be close, because, obviously, there's a lot of misinformation out there. There're groups out there who are trying to make this about racism. They're trying to make it about even immigration. Look, we are proud of the fact that America is built on immigrants. We're a welcoming country. San Diego County is basically indicative of that. We have so much diversity and tranquility in this county. But this is not about racism, it's not about immigration, it's not even about illegal immigration. Sanctuary cities and sanctuary states are about whether we want to shield criminals. Whether we want criminals re-release into our communities to commit more crimes. And, you know, who's for that? The only people who are for that, are the criminals and Sacramento politicians who are trying to play the race card in politics.

MACCALLUM: So, if you buck this trend and you do not back this law, what will happen, you know, in terms of ICE and in terms of homeland security? Because Jerry Brown has already said that with this law in effect, he believes that those two entities should not be prevented from doing their job.

DEMAIO: Well, the reality is, is that the sanctuary state and sanctuary city laws make it very difficult for federal law enforcement to do their jobs. And it actually puts that risk -- the very people that the Sacramento politicians saying that they're trying to safeguard, like the dreamers. Now, law enforcement has to go out on widespread raids. And so, some people who are not criminals may be caught up in that. Now, what we need to do is focus our efforts on getting criminals off the street and getting them deported, so that they cannot commit more crimes. And, I think that we are going to get San Diego County on record against sanctuary state. We're going to have two-punch strategy. First, we're going to challenge the law in court. That's obviously underway right now with the attorney general's lawsuit. And then, we're going to do a citizen's initiative on whatever remains standing after the court battles, so that we can actual repeal sanctuary state and make sure that we can work collaboratively, local law enforcement and federal law enforcement working together to keep our communities safe.

MACCALLUM: You know, it's fascinating when you look at the map that we've just put up, and you see how divided the state of California has become. I'm just curious what your feel is. For people who may have, you know, been long traditionally Democrat and liberal and who have supported these ideas like giving illegals, and you have 2.3 million illegal residents or illegal people in the state of California, who they said, yes, you know, let's give them a driver's license, let's give them tuition assistance. Do you sense that they are getting tired of what they have been providing and that, maybe, they're kind of in the mood for a change?

DEMAIO: Oh, Martha, I think we are now seeing a second class of citizen created in California. And the second class of citizen are people who are law-abiding taxpayers, they're treated differently than almost everyone else. The criminals, people who are not hear legally, people who don't pay taxes. I think a lot of folks, Democrat, independent, they're getting fed up as well. And I think that you are going to see a real solid response in California. A correction, if you will. And I think people are wisening up to the fact that these are pretty extreme policies.

MACCALLUM: I mean, even Jerry Brown had said he will send National Guard to the border. So, we'll see where it goes. And we'll be watching the vote tomorrow night. Carl, thank you so much. Good to see you tonight.

DEMAIO: Thanks -- absolutely.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MACCALLUM: Well, there's now pouring of love and support flowing towards Barbara Bush tonight. Some wise words from the former first lady herself, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MACCALLUM: Finally tonight, Barbara Bush in our thoughts and prayers. She's said to be in failing health, but nonetheless in great spirits surrounded by her family in her Houston home. And with that image of the Bushes, we leave you tonight with this quote from the first lady. To us, family means putting your arms around each other and being there. That's the truth from a smart lady and that is our story for tonight. We'll see back here tomorrow. Tucker is up next.

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