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Obama's on First Overseas Trip after Trump Elected; Obama to Greece: NATO is Absolutely Vital; Obama Travels to Greece Post- Election. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired November 15, 2016 - 09:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[09:00:00] CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: And good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me.

At any moment now, we're expecting President Obama to hold a news conference in Greece, the first stop of his final trip abroad as leader of the free world. Ironically, much of President Obama's mission is to serve as a liaison for his successor. Mr. Obama will likely address allies that President Trump will also honor U.S. commitment to NATO and its long-standing loyalties in Europe and Asia.

We begin this hour in Athens then where CNN's Michelle Kosinski is traveling with the President. Good morning, Michelle.

MICHELLE KOSINSKI, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Carol. Yes, just think, over this past year as the President's been on all of these foreign trips, one after the other, meeting with key allies, one thing he's been doing is reassuring them that he didn't think there was going to be a Trump presidency. And he described other leaders as rattled at that prospect. Well, that's not how things turned out.

And so now, his goal is to reassure them but in much different ways. And one of those aspects that they've been worried about is, of course, NATO. I mean, you could say, given Russia's activities and other things going on, touching on Europe, there's never been a more important time for NATO since World War II. And some of the things that were said on the trail, for example, Donald Trump casting doubt on whether the U.S. would continue to defend its allies.

Well, now, the President says that when he sat down with Donald Trump last week, Trump did express a commitment to NATO. So that's one of the things President Obama will use as he's speaking to these world leaders throughout his trip. Here's part of what he said earlier today. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I want to reaffirm not only our appreciation for the Greek people in that alliance but underscore how important we consider the Transatlantic Alliance. It continues to be a corner stone of our security. That is unwavering, and it is something that provides significt continuity even as we see a transition of governance in the United States. Across Democratic and Republican administrations, there's a recognition that the NATO alliance is absolutely vital.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KOSINSKI: So, at a press conference yesterday before he left on this trip, the President said a lot post-election. It's really the first time we've heard him speak extensively. And he said things like it's important to let Donald Trump make his decisions, and then America will eventually decide whether that leads to progress or not. That Donald Trump has exhibited a willingness to think about other things like allowing parts of Obamacare to remain, and that's a source of optimism for President Obama.

So he's walking this line, he's wanting to convey some optimism and some reassurance. But, of course, he can't really ignore the things that he himself said on the trail about Donald Trump, namely that he is unfit to serve as President. And, of course, the press isn't going to let him forget those things, so he was asked directly about some of those statements.

And President Obama conceded that, sure, he has concerns, that sound bites are not policies, that there are parts of Donald Trump's temperament that might not serve him well but he needs to recognize and correct those. But what he wants to convey on this trip is U.S. policies will continue, the U.S. relationships with these other countries will remain strong. Carol.

COSTELLO: All right. Michelle Kosinski reporting live from Greece. And, of course, when the President pops out of that mansion along with the Greek President, we'll take you back to Greece.

KOSINSKI: OK. Thank you.

COSTELLO: President-elect Trump has talked to world leaders himself. Vladimir Putin called Trump to offer his congratulations. The two men pledged to improve relations between the U.S. and Russia. Sunlen Serfaty has more on Trump's outreach and his possible pick for Secretary of State. Good morning.

SUNLEN SERFATY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning to you, Carol. Yes, no Secretary of State pick yet. But we do know, according to sources, that one of the top names that keeps coming up when we look at this shortlist here of potential contenders for Secretary of State is Rudy Giuliani. He, of course, has been a fierce advocate of Donald Trump, a loyal aide by his side for many months throughout this campaign, but he, of course, has no specific foreign policy experience. That said, it is almost like he is campaigning for this job, certainly pushing for it.

He appeared at a "Wall Street Journal" forum last night where he talked several points during his speech that he would be interested in this job. He talked about how his foreign policy vision aligns with Donald Trump's. But it was really this moment that really stood out to us, when he also was talking about John Bolton, former U.N. Ambassador under the George W. Bush administration, how he is also in the running. Here's Rudy Giuliani.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GERARD BAKER, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, WALL STREET JOURNAL: John would be a very good choice. Is there anybody better?

RUDY GIULIANI (R), FORMER MAYOR OF NEW YORK CITY: Maybe me. I don't know.

(LAUGHTER)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[09:05:09] SERFATY: So a funny moment there as Rudy Giuliani clearly very interested in this job. Also, when you're looking at another top post to be filled, Secretary of Defense. There's a lot of buzz right now about Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions, who, too, has been a real Trump loyalist from the start, one of the biggest aides who has advised him throughout his campaign. Although, sources also telling my colleagues, Dana Bash and Sara Murray, that he is also being considered in a top way for potentially Attorney General.

So a lot of movement, a lot of news, Carol. We do know that Trump and Mike Pence are meeting later this morning to go over some of these top last names.

COSTELLO: All right. Sunlen Serfaty, thanks so much.

So President Obama facing world leaders as anxiety over a Trump presidency grows. Does that make what he says a little later this morning all the more important?

With me now to talk about that and more is Nancy Soderberg, former deputy National Security adviser at the White House and former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. Errol Louis is a CNN political commentator and political anchor for New York 1. And Dana Bash is our CNN chief political correspondent. Welcome to all of you.

All right. So, Dana, before we delve into what President Obama might say about Mr. Trump in Greece, Donald Trump is tweeting this morning.

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: I saw.

COSTELLO: You saw? OK. And he's talking about the Electoral College. So, just about a half hour ago, Donald Trump tweeted this, quote, "The Electoral College is actually genius in that it brings all states, including the smaller ones, into play. Campaigning is much different!"

And then here's another one from a little bit longer ago. Two minutes before that one, as a matter of fact, quote, "If the election were based on total popular vote, I would have campaigned in New York, Florida, and California and won even bigger and more easily." So he's tweeting this as these protests continue across the country.

BASH: Well, that, but also he's tweeting this as the day after or a few days after Mitt Romney lost in 2012. He reamed the Electoral College as, you know, this horrible institution, which he actually stood by in an interview that aired just this past weekend after he won, saying, no, I'm not going to change my opinion about the Electoral College just because I won.

It seems to me -- I don't think I'm going out on a very far limb here -- that our President-elect is probably watching news, reading, and seeing that the protests are going on, and more importantly that the Democrats are saying what he had said about the Electoral College when the shoe was on the other foot.

Having said that, look, the Electoral College is something that is going to be very, very difficult to change. And the Democrats who are saying that they want to change it probably should remember that they had a huge Electoral College advantage going into Tuesday night, and they blew it. They blew it. I mean, they blew it. They lost the blue states of Michigan and Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, states that had been blue since the '80s because they lost their core voters to Donald Trump.

COSTELLO: I mean, I can't argue that. That's absolutely true. But, still, Errol, there's all these protests going on across the country. They don't seem to be stopping. There's another big one planned in New York City today. Also, there's a change.org petition going around with 4 million signatures from people who want to change the Electoral College system to the popular vote system.

So in light of all of that going on, right, it's time to reunite the country. Do these tweets help?

ERROL LOUIS, POLITICAL ANCHOR, NEW YORK 1 NEWS: Well, of course not. And Donald Trump and we should all start getting used to this. I mean, I think, we all saw it quite a bit during the campaign season. Maybe the public hasn't really sort of figured this out yet, but Donald Trump's opinion about a lot of things depends on whether or not it's good for Donald Trump, right?

So the Electoral College is an abomination in 2012 because that suited his interest then. The Electoral College is just fine now because he won and it suits his interest now. That's what his talk about a rigged system when he was behind in the polls was all about. Now, the system unrigged itself after he has won.

So, for the demonstrators though, I think they have to maybe not go down that same path and take the other side of that, but think more seriously about, you know, what they really want and what they really want to do. I mean, there is a lot of stuff being shouted out there on those protest lines and a lot of it has to do with his past statements. A lot of it has to do with some of the advisors that he's got around it. A lot of it has to do with the policies that he has proposed, especially things like the immigration removal policies.

So, you know, folks are going to have to try and figure out -- you know, I mean, they could shout it on the streets every day from now until the end of his first term, but you're going to have to, at some point, figure out which policies are most important, prioritize those, and then figure an angle to attack.

COSTELLO: And figure out what exactly you want. So, Nancy, do you envision Trump's foreign policy being partly worked out via tweets?

NANCY SODERBERG, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO THE UNITED NATIONS: Absolutely. I think Donald Trump is who he is. . We're going to see lots of tweets and diplomats all around the world are going to learn how to use it. But the simple truth is we have no idea what his policies are going to be because he doesn't know yet.

[09:10:01] And I think the appointments that he picks around him, whether its ideologues like a John Bolton or professionals like a Steve Hedley or a Richard Haas, will prove where his instincts are. And it's pretty clear there's an argument going on in the transition team right now, but these picks will be absolutely critical.

If you look at George Bush's first nine months pre-9/11 -- and he really hadn't thought about these issues either -- he surrounded himself with ideologues who tried to push a very anti-U.N., anti-the world kind of isolationist or bully, we're the lone superpower therefore we can rule the world, approach that is somewhat similar to some of the rhetoric you hear. And it really frankly blew up in his face. And he shifted the course much more dramatically after 9/11 and worked with the world.

And I think Donald Trump will likely go through the education of Donald Trump, hitting reality, and then you'll see a shift within the first year or two as they work that out. Unless they get it right from the start which is unlikely but possible.

COSTELLO: Well, in light of that, let's talk about his possible two picks for Secretary of State, right? So one is Rudy Giuliani, right, and the other is John Bolton. He's the former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. Bolton has called for the bombing of Iran and he is fiercely anti-Russian.

BASH: Very much so. He is the ultimate neocon. He was the ambassador to the U.N. under George W. Bush, and he is very, very hawkish with regard to those countries that you just talked about and others.

Rudy Giuliani is a very different kind of guy. And just in terms of the likelihood, I was told by somebody who is familiar with this process that what Rudy Giuliani wants, Rudy Giuliani is going to get. He was that loyal, and even in Donald Trump's darkest days, so it seems to me that he's more likely going to be the Secretary of State, you know, if that is, in fact, what he wants at the end.

COSTELLO: Well, let's just focus on that then because is he qualified to be Secretary of State? I mean, he was an Attorney General. He was the mayor of New York City. He did run for President.

LOUIS: He does have international --

BASH: Yes.

LOUIS: But he does have international experience. I mean, in his time at the Department of Justice, he was the number three there. And he was part of a very controversial policy, that you'll probably hear from protestors at some point, about whether or not people who were fleeing the Duvalier dictatorship in Haiti at the time -- it seems like ancient history but it was really important at the time. And he sort of supported a policy of having them sent back and not giving them citizenship, not treating them like refugees but treating them like economic refugees who had to be returned rather than political refugees.

It was very controversial but he was up to his eyeballs in international affairs. And this is in the '80s.

BASH: I'm not sure if this is going to be portrayed by the people who need to confirm him as a good thing or a bad thing -- I'm guessing it will fall on party lines -- but since he's been out of office, his work has taken him around the globe.

COSTELLO: OK. Let's talk to Nancy --

BASH: You know, that is not diplomacy but it's --

LOUIS: But it was security issues. Security issues.

BASH: Exactly.

COSTELLO: So, Nancy, your thoughts on that? Rudy Giuliani, if he's the most likely choice for Secretary of State, what kind of Secretary of State might he be?

SODERBERG: I think he'll be a very brash one that starts out breaking some china. I don't think he knows. He does global experience. He's at least traveled around the world. I do think he is on the shortlist, but I would caution, you never know. A president has got to balance everything, who's going to be a Secretary of State, Commerce, USTR, U.S./U.N. Ambassador.

It's not clear how this is all going to balance out. I agree if Giuliani really wants it, he's earned it. Newt Gingrich was kicked around last week when I was in the State Department. But having been on Bill Clinton's transition team, you got to do it as a whole team. So that's what's going to come out. I think Rudy Giuliani -- the world tends to be a sobering reality. It's not a zero sum game like businesses. It's in our interests to get others to work with us, and they'll find that out quickly.

I think there's a real concern on the domestic policy. I'm actually less concerned, which is contrary to most of my colleagues, on the foreign policy front because we are a super power but we don't run the world, we lead the world. And we can't lead her just ourselves, so we'll find, rapidly, that we need to have people with us because these are global challenges and we cannot do them on our own.

Most interesting will be Donald Trump's relation with President Putin. We've tried to reset that relationship. It did not work. I doubt Donald Trump will be able to do either when he figures out exactly which side of his goals President Putin is on.

COSTELLO: Really? SODERBERG: It's going to be fascinating.

COSTELLO: Really? Because Mr. Putin, very quickly, reached out to Donald Trump. They had a very cordial conversation.

SODERBERG: Right, because he is hoping he can get him to stop talking about human rights and democracy and ignore the fact that he's invaded two countries next to him, Crimea and Georgia, that he's, you know, exploring the Arctic much faster than we are. And he, right now, thinks Trump's not going to say anything about all that. My guess is Trump, very quickly, will begin to stand up to Putin, and that relationship will be very difficult within the first year.

[09:15:03] COSTELLO: OK. So in just about all in a minute and a half, I think President Obama will talk about democracy while he's in Greece. And then he and the Greek President will open it up to questions and reporters will probably toss some questions about Donald Trump into the mix. And what do you think the president will say?

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, considering how restrained he was on domestic soil yesterday in the Briefing Room, I can't imagine he's going to be much different on foreign soil, particularly since the way that he left for this trip to Greece. It's almost as if he's in this weird position of being Donald Trump's ambassador to the world, to tell the world, it's going to be OK. Democracy still lives in America.

COSTELLO: That's so weird.

EUGENE ROBINSON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes. I would be shocked, I would sit here at the table, if he doesn't say the words "shared interest and mutual respect." He's been saying it just about every day on foreign policy for the last eight years and I'd very be surprised if he deviated from that now. And he seems to be serious about this idea that the next president will have to sort of chart his own course and that he's not going to interfere.

COSTELLO: But here's the thing, Nancy. The world has been riveted to this presidential election in the United States. And they know how nasty it's been. And they know exactly what President Obama has said about Donald Trump and vice versa. So whenever Mr. Obama says, will people overseas believe him?

NANCY SODENBERG, FORMER DEPUTY NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER AT THE WHITE HOUSE: They will pray that he's right. That we will have a smooth transition. But they're worried. We all travel around the world and talk to people and before the election were begging us that this wouldn't come true. Now that it has come true they're holding their breath. Talking to the White House folks over the last week or so, the Trump people have reached out and said don't do anything big and bold.

I mean, Obama had a fairly aggressive agenda for his last three months in office. He can't really do much anymore because the Trump people could undo it right away and he wants to have a smooth transition. So the world's on edge about Donald Trump, no question. They read the tweets. They've watched what he says. They're nervous about it, particularly Mexico, our trading partners. Europe is always afraid that the U.S. is going to withdraw. Our NATO partners.

But reality has a very healthy way of bringing any of those rhetorics down to earth -- rhetorical comments down to earth. And I think they'll be reassured by Obama, but frankly they're going to wait and see what Donald Trump does during the transition. So far he's been sending reassuring signals that he's thinking about things, but this is a president who is fundamentally unprepared to take on these issues and he's got a lot of homework over the transition. The people he puts in place are going to send very important signals. So those of us who care about the foreign policy relationships hope he puts longstanding professionals in there whom he can trust who will reassure the world.

He could go the other way. We just don't know. And it's going to be a riveting transition for the next couple of months.

COSTELLO: It sure is. I'm going to take a quick break. Hopefully when I come back the president and the Greek president will be out there speaking. I'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:20:10] COSTELLO: All right. Finally they've arrived at the dais. Let's listen in to the president of the United States in Athens.

ALEXIS TSIPRAS, GREEK PRIME MINISTER (Through Translator): I want to thank the American president, Barack Obama, very warmly for visiting Greece. For choosing Athens. The birth place of democracy. For his -- for one of his lat stops before concluding his eight-year term as the American president.

The presidency of the United States, the image of the United States of America around the world has changed. Even in this country where during the post-war era, Greek-American relations were -- have accumulated heavy historic burden -- heavy historical burden. And I think that it was a historic moment when during the previous visit of an American president in Greece in 1999, President Clinton recognized the errors of the U.S. as regards to the dictatorship in Greece because the Americans -- the Greek people not only relate to the ancient traditions, they have fought, they have shed blood, until recently to defend the values of democracy and freedom, which are our common values.

Therefore, Greece is now welcoming an American president who throughout his term in office has strongly defended these values, who has fought for the rights of all people irrespective of color, religion, or sexual orientation, who has worked in order to deal with climate change, a president who has integrated millions of Americans into health care, a president who has put his strength and his influence behind a humanitarian solution of the great refugee crisis, the greatest after World War II.

And I would also like to point out because this is very important to Greece. This is a president who when he had to deal with the 2008 economic crisis has led the American economy on a completely different path from the one that Europe has chosen eight years later. The result is more than visible. Quantitative easing, commitment to employment which was the choice of the United States have led to impress growth rates and declining unemployment.

While on the other side the insistence of European leaders to austerity policies keeps the European economy strapped stagnation and it therefore brings about huge political and social problems and it is in this respect that I have the opportunity to discuss with President Obama the huge challenges that our country but also the whole of Europe is dealing with. These are challenges that need to be dealt with collectively, decisively, and effectively, otherwise we will be led to backwards from a political and a social point of view.

We have -- therefore agreed that for the modern societies to have help and hope and aspirations, it's the only decline against the increasing trend in skepticism and inward looking which is a threat to modern democracies.

The international community when trying to avoid historic mistakes of the past saw this issue clearly when in 1953 and with the assistance and support of the United States of America, they settled the German debt and they linked it into a growth clause.

[09:2509] Today the strong -- Germany, which is the powerhouse of -- financial powerhouse of Europe should think in the same manner.

Greece and the Greek people have recently have to deal with the most -- the harshest consequences of the global and European economic crisis. As an economy and as a society we have had to experience a program of disastrous austerity which made the problems more acute instead of resolving them. Within a few years we have lost 25 percent of our GDP while in 2004 unemployment went up to 27 percent.

Today and despite what we had suffered, we are still standing. We were able, through great sacrifices, to avoid the threats and the threatened disaster and we are step by step restoring our economy. Today for the first time in years we are back to growth, slowly but surely we are decreasing unemployment and we are restoring confidence to the future of the Greek economy.

About 18 months ago, although we were a young government, we were asked to take very difficult decisions and with this opportunity I want to recognize publicly the role and the contribution of President Obama during those difficult moments to recognize his moral and political support he gave to my government in the effort to find a political solution.

Difficult decisions were made, not only in order to keep our country in the Eurozone but also in order to maintain the cohesion of the European Union. And I believe that our decisions were right as shown by history. We have made difficult reforms in the Social Security, in taxation, in public administration, but I have -- we have always taken measures to fight corruption, to attract investment, to create a better context for investment in Greece. We will continue to decisively promote reforms that will promote

growth and at the same time we will continue to negotiate hard in order to avoid any reforms that would undermine growth, but what is more important to all of us is that society should understand -- should feel the results of all that and to make the burden to the weak members of society lighter and also for the younger and productive generation because after seven years people cannot take anymore austerity.

The important reduction of the Greek debt, the reduction of the surpluses which are expected of us in the future and the participation of the Bank of Greece in the quantitative easing program are rightfully -- should be rightfully given to Greece and the time to do that is now. And from this point of view, I think that it is not only symbolic but it is also very important that Barack Obama is now in Athens and the day after tomorrow will be in Berlin at this very critical point in time when decisions are expected.

Decisions that not only concern Greece, they concern Europe and, therefore, the global economy. Cooperation and solidarity are necessary requirements in order to bring about the solutions that will once again bring stability to the European integration and bring it back to the track of growth. And in relation to that, President Obama and I discussed a number of important issues such as the continuation of our bilateral economic and business cooperation.