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Inside Politics

Obama Cautions Trump on Twitter Use; Trump Fires Back at Meryl Streep; Conway talks about Trump's Heart. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired January 09, 2017 - 12:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:00:20] JOHN KING, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome to INSIDE POLITICS. I'm John King. Thanks for sharing your time on a beautiful day here in the nation's capital. We hope you enjoy our new view, a spectacular view, as we count down now just 11 days until the inauguration of President- elect Donald Trump. Our new set just steps away from the Capitol steps, where the president-elect will become president of the United States one week from Friday.

Speaking of the president-elect, pushing back this day after being attacked at the Golden Globes last night by Hollywood icon Meryl Streep. Mr. Trump insisting he was not mocking a reporter with a disability back when he launched into this on the campaign trail.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT-ELECT OF THE UNITED STATES: Written by a nice reporter. Now the poor guy - you got to see this guy, ah, I don't know what I said. Ah, I don't remember. He's going like, I don't remember. Oh, maybe that's what I said.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: We'll talk a bit about that.

Plus, it is a huge week in politics, and it includes the first Trump news conference in more than five months, confirmation hearings for several of his most important and most controversial cabinet choices.

Now, the Russia hacking report certain to come up at some of those, and Trump's fellow Republicans are openly suggesting the president- elect is naive when he plays down the Kremlin election meddling and predicts better relations with Vladimir Putin.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R), MAJORITY LEADER: I don't think it's all that unusual for a new president to want to get along with the Russians. I remember George W. Bush having the same hope. My suspicion is, these hopes will be dashed pretty quickly. The Russians are clearly big adversaries.

(END VIDEO CLIP) KING: And President Obama's last act. A big farewell speech tomorrow night. Reflections on his eight years in office and, listen here, some candid advice to the very different man about to succeed him.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: My hope is that the president-elect, members of Congress from both parties, look at, where have we objectively made progress, where things are working better? Don't undo things just because I did them. I don't have pride of authorship.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Oh, not to be too cynical, but good luck with that.

With us to share their reporting and their insights, CNN's Manu Raju, Julie Hirschfeld Davis of "The New York Times," Jackie Kucinich of "The Daily Beast," and CNN's Sara Murray.

President Obama preparing to say good-bye, the big farewell address, tomorrow night in Chicago. And as he prepares to fade away, he's sharing his thoughts on the new guy.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: You know, I've enjoyed the conversations that we've had. He is somebody who I think is not lacking in confidence, which is, I think -

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS, ABC NEWS: Some say that about you too.

OBAMA: Well, that's what I'm saying. It's probably a prerequisite for the job, or at least you have to have enough craziness to think that you can do the job. I think that he has not spent a lot of time sweating the details of, you know, all the policies that -

STEPHANOPOULOS: Does that worry you?

OBAMA: Well, I think that can be both a strength and a weakness. I think it depends on how he approaches it. If he - if it gives him fresh eyes, then that can be valuable, but it also requires you knowing what you don't know.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: I am in a million or more ways fascinated by this moment. You have a two-term president fading from the scene. As George Stephanopoulos rightly noted, he's got a pretty healthy ego too. And he talks about all politicians do and all presidents do at this point. But you have a man preparing to leave the White House, giving the interviews like this, the big speech tomorrow night to say good-bye, clearly trying - oh, let's go up to New York City. Donald Trump, the president-elect, speaking at Trump Tower. Excuse me. Here we go.

QUESTION: Mr. President-elect, can you tell me about the meeting on Friday with those intel agency officials. There were some questions about your relationship with

TRUMP: Well, we'll talk about that on Wednesday.

QUESTION: But who do you trust more, though, Julian Assange or the NSA or -

TRUMP: We'll be talking to you very soon.

QUESTION: How did you meeting go with (INAUDIBLE)?

QUESTION: Mr. Trump, (INAUDIBLE) that Russia was doing the hacking and ordered -

TRUMP: We'll talk to you about that at another time.

QUESTION: Can you tell us about -

TRUMP: We're going to - yes, we had a great meeting. It's jobs. You just saw what happened with Fiat, where they're going to build a massive plant in the United States, in Michigan, and we're very happy. And Jack and I are going to do some great things.

JACK MA, CEO, ALIBABA: Small business.

TRUMP: Small business, right?

MA: We will focus on small business.

QUESTION: Mr. Trump, there's been some (ph) talk -

QUESTION: And what about your confirmation hearings coming on -

TRUMP: They're going great. Confirmation's going great.

QUESTION: They haven't started yet.

QUESTION: Which of your nominees are you most worried about?

TRUMP: I think they'll all pass. I think every nomination will be - they're all at the highest level. Jack was even saying, I mean, they are the absolute highest level. I think they're going to do very well.

[12:05:01] QUESTION: Is there some concern about Jeff Sessions in particular?

TRUMP: No, I think he's going to do great. High quality man.

Thank you, Jack.

MA: Thank you so much.

TRUMP: (INAUDIBLE).

QUESTION: Can you speak a little bit more, Mr. President-elect, I know you're going to talk more on Wednesday, but about your - KING: President-elect Donald Trump, a bit of a surprise, coming into the lobby of the Trump Tower to say hello, or good-bye, I guess, there to his guest, Jack Ma, the CEO of Alibaba.

We'll get back to President Obama in a minute, but we've got a - the president-elect pops into the rally (ph) there.

Sara Murray, you've spent a lot of time around the president-elect. He's having these meetings. He's - this is another opportunity for him to say, see, since my election, there are a lot of businesses who think they're going to get a better tax climate, they're going to get a better pro-business environment and they're moving jobs into the United States. Do we read much more into that?

SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICS REPORTER: No, I mean he tends to do this when he feels like he has an impressive guest and when he feels like he wants to have a photo op of the two of them in front of the camera together. That's the best way to get that photo op, when he's working at Trump Tower. His ideal situation is someplace like Mar-a-Logo or Bedminster, where he can be far enough away to not have to talk to the press, but still have them see his impressive guests. You'll note there that he didn't answer any real questions about his feelings about Russia or the hacking or anything else that's really leading the news there. But it is an opportunity for Donald Trump to say, look, as president-elect, I'm bringing all these influential business figures in to see me. More like we saw a couple of weeks ago, Kanye West.

MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER: It's actually a surprising amount of restraint, too, for Donald Trump going before the cameras, asking - being asked just about Julian Assange and about the Russia hacking and deciding not to take the bait, not to answer questions when he has not answered really any questions about those issues. But it just shows you how it sort of raises the stakes for this week's news conference, the first in six months, since July 27th. What is he going to say, not just about those issues, but where is he going to come down on Obamacare, does he want a repeal to happen, a replacement to happen right as the repeal happens and any number of issues going forward, because he has not answered questions on those topics.

KING: Right.

JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS, "THE NEW YORK TIMES": But it's also an example of how he really likes to take these questions on his own terms. So he'd rather address some of these issues over Twitter, where he has, you know, his own platform that is unfiltered and his words and in no dissent.

JACKIE KUCINICH, "THE DAILY BEAST": Exactly.

DAVIS: Or at the news conference where, you know, he's going to be selecting who he calls on and the set of issues that he's going to be talking about are what he wants to be talking about today. This was, as Sara said, you know, about his high-profile guests and all of the progress he thinks he can make as president in trying to bring jobs back. But if this is not the venue where he wants to take this question, he just won't take it. On the other hand, he will take a call from a reporter in the middle

of the night or sometimes unsolicited call a reporter in the middle of the day to - when he feels like it's to his advantage to do so.

KING: Well, that is - that is it. We're going to get to this throughout the hour. But that is one of, again, I mentioned at the top of the show, I'm fascinated in a million ways at the moment. We have a two-term president leaving. We have a new president who has Washington on edge, including his own party, coming in, in just 11 days.

And he's getting a lot of advice. He's getting a lot of advice from Republicans. He just met with the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell. We'll talk about that in a few minutes. He's getting a lot of advice from his own people. He's getting a lot of advice from outsiders, whether it's on Russian hacking or when and when not to answer questions.

He's also getting a lot of advice from the outgoing president, who, remember the history, Donald Trump tried to delegitimize the Obama presidency by questioning whether Barack Obama was born in the United States. The president, though, has tried to be polite. He's not forgetting that history, but he's tried to be more polite. Listen to him here trying to tell Donald Trump, sir, the world you're about to enter into is very different from anything you could comprehend.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The main thing that I've tried to transmit is that there's a difference between govern and campaigning. So that what he has to appreciate is, as soon as you walk into this office after you've been sworn in, you're now in charge of the largest organization on earth. You can't manage it the way you would manage a family business. You have to have a strong team around you. You have to have respect for institutions and the process, to make good decisions because you are inherently reliant on other folks.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: So, he's being very polite. His language is very measured. But if you paid attention to what President-elect Trump has done and the history with President Obama, you get the sense, he says, you can't run it like a family business. You have to have respect for institutions in the process. The president's trying to say something that's a lot more pointed than the language - than those words convey.

DAVIS: Well, it's fascinating to watch because what - what you get from President Obama is, it seems like he's really trying to leave some channels of communication open between him and Donald Trump, that he actually feels like when he leaves office, he might actually have some ability to influence Donald Trump and sort of help him figure out how to be president. But implicit in one - what he's saying is really a rejection of Donald Trump's entire approach to governing -

KUCINICH: Yes.

DAVIS: Because when he says governing is not like campaigning, Donald Trump is still, we see, in attack mode, almost constantly. He's in a defensive crouch. And that's not - that's not a way you can be president. But by saying it in that way, I think President Obama is trying to get in a much tougher critique of Trump than it sounds like he's making.

[12:10:02] KING: And the question is, will it filter through to the president-elect, because a lot of Republicans would watch that interview or watch us replay that clip and say, come on, they made the same criticism of President Obama early on, that the early Obama - or early months of the Obama White House, that he forgot that he wasn't campaigning anymore.

KUCINICH: Still, with the way Obama went into the White House, it's different. It seems like President-elect Trump really does want to shake things up. He's encouraging his nominees, who will become, in theory, secretaries, to go in and change the organizations that they are taking over. And he's going - what it seems like and what it sounds like is that he's going to sort of have a long leash. He's not going to be involved in their day to day.

So in terms of - we'll have to wait and see how much they do it, but they - they think that they have a mandate to really - to change it in a different way. To really shake things up and change the way how Washington works, which everybody says, but this seems a little different.

RAJU: And, John, it will be so interesting, Obama talking about respecting the institutions. How does he deal with the institution behind us? Congress. And the way that Obama dealt with it in 2009 is that he essentially let members of Congress write the stimulus bill coming in. He let them deal - lead on the health care approach. He did not want to come in with a heavy hand and drop a big bill and try to push it through because they thought that would backfire. They would - it's what happened during the Clinton years and they changed up their approach.

What does Donald Trump do coming in? Does he let members of Congress try to draft and write his agenda, or does he try to come up with something and try to get public support and Republican support behind that? I don't think we know that. And a lot of it also will do with Mike Pence and his role on Capitol Hill.

MURRAY: Yes, and I think it will be interesting to see how far Donald Trump is willing to put himself out there on something like repeal and replace for Obamacare. I mean we saw him firing off warnings on Twitter last week that essentially put Republicans on The Hill on notice, be careful what you replace this with.

KING: Right.

MURRAY: Be careful that you're not stripping people of all of their benefits and leaving them out there to dry. If you're a Republican on The Hill who's trying to come up with a replacement for Obamacare, that's a strong warning. That sends a signal that, look, if you guys screw this up, I'm not necessarily going to take the blame for it. I might be out there blaming members of my own party if people aren't happy because one of the things Trump is really good at is having his pulse on what is popular and what makes him popular. So if people start to reject whatever their replacement is, if there is an outcry from people about their options for health insurance going forward, I think that it's a possibility Donald Trump washes his hands and blames it on The Hill.

KING: And he's boxed them in on that point.

Before we go, you mentioned his use of Twitter. That's come up a couple times. When President Obama took office, it was a big deal. He said he was going to keep his Blackberry. If you want to rewind the tape and go back eight years, it was a big deal, he was going to keep a Blackberry so that he could keep in touch with his friends. He said he was worried about being in the bubble of the presidency. He wanted to keep that Blackberry. It concerned the Secret Service. It concerned people who worry about cyber hacking. Yes, they worried about it back then too. For Donald Trump, his social media weapon of choice, his technology of choice is Twitter. The current president of the United States saying, sir, when you actually - when you drop the elect, you'd better be careful.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Clearly this worked for him and it gives him a direct connection to a lot of the people that voted for him. And I've said to him and I think others have said to him that the day that he is the president of the United States, there are world capitals and financial markets and people all around the world who take really seriously what he says, and in a way that's just not true before you're actually sworn in as president.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: I assume he understands. I think he means the advice. And I think he actually means it president to president, if you will. But I assume he knows that you could fill a football stadium with the people that have told Donald Trump to dial it back on Twitter, and that ain't a safe bet. That's not going to happen.

DAVIS: I mean that's what - that's what works for him on Twitter, and I think that's the reason that he does it. And so the idea that he would somehow be more restrained, like he told an interviewer that he would be right after the election, on Twitter when he gets into the Oval Office seems far-fetched.

KING: A little far-fetched.

Everybody sit tight.

You just saw Donald Trump in the lobby of Trump Tower. He wouldn't take a couple of questions. He said, I'll see you soon.

Up next, Donald Trump, yes, he will see us soon, holding a formal news conference Wednesday, his first in more than five months. If you got a chance, what would you ask?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:18:42] KING: Welcome back.

Some very big questions for the president-elect this week. How he plans, for example, to separate from his business and avoid big conflicts. That's one question. His 100 day legislative agenda? Well, that's another one. But when Trump meets with reporters on Wednesday in New York, don't be surprised if this comes up too.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MERYL STREEP, ACTRESS: But there was one performance this year that stunned me. It was that moment when the person asking to sit in the most respected seat in our country imitated a disabled reporter, someone he outranked in privilege, power, and the capacity to fight back. Disrespect invites disrespect. Violence invites violence. When the powerful use their position to bully others, we all lose.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: As you might expect, Donald Trump did not wait very long to respond. Early this morning on Twitter he tweets, quote, "Meryl Streep, one of the most overrated actresses in Hollywood, doesn't know me, but attacked last night at the Golden Globes. She is a Hillary flunky who lost big. For the 100th time, I never mocked a disabled reporter. I would never do that, but simply showed him graveling when he totally changed a 16-year-old story that he had written in order to make me look bad. Just more very dishonest media."

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: You could come at this a number of ways. Number one, he could have let this go. Number two, he could have said, oh, such a shame, I'm a big fan. But let me come to this point. If you're Donald Trump, you're firing back. We could get into his response in a minute. But to be in a fight with what he believes to be liberal Hollywood elitist, not a bad thing for him in terms of keeping in touch with his supporters.

[12:20:19] RAJU: Absolutely it's not a bad thing. The conservative base loves this. They don't like - they view Hollywood as out of touch, they're elitists. You saw a lot of people rallying to his defense on the right side of the aisle. But it's so interesting how quickly he responded. Not only did he tweet this morning, last night he called one of Julie's colleagues and - to push back on the phone so it would get into the press almost immediately.

So much of it is a question of, how much of it is him not having a very thick skin, or how much of it is him wanting to distract from the discussion about the agenda going forward, his conflicts of interest, Russia, you name it. His strategy sometimes - or even a strategy is him just going - his gut reaction to respond to a lot of these things.

KING: Right.

RAJU: I think that's going to be so fascinating going forward and when he assumes office.

KING: I think it's more to me, and please correct me if you disagree or jump in, it's more to me to your point calling "The New York Times," so let's - let's talk about this, is a sort of a New York City street brawler.

DAVIS: Well, and it - it speaks to this narrative of he - he wants to come in as the underdog. They're all insulting me. They're all, you know, disrespecting me and not taking me seriously. And it's ironic, obviously, because this is a man who's been in the Hollywood mix for many, many years himself.

KING: Right.

DAVIS: But it's true that his supporters do view Hollywood as, you know, a net negative. They view Hollywood as elitist liberals. And, in fact, much of Hollywood did support Hillary Clinton in the campaign. So it's not a - it's not a misplaced attempt, but, again, I think it's more about creating this narrative of being in this defensive crouch, and he's hitting back the his critics, even before he takes office.

KUCINICH: But doesn't Donald Trump want to be accepted by these people? I think there is a part of him because he is - he was at the same awards shows as them not to long ago.

MURRAY: Wasn't he a liberal Hollywood elitist -

KUCINICH: Well, exactly. I mean -

MURRAY: Just like a couple of years ago?

KUCINICH: That's the thing. And I think - I mean that's why he, to Sara's point -

KING: Right.

KUCINICH: He goes and stands in front of cameras with Kanye West. He likes being surrounded by famous people.

KING: Right.

KUCINICH: So I think there is - not to, you know, put him on the couch or something, but I think there is a little bit of resentment there that these people will not accept him, they've never expected him, and now he's got the power to, you know, chide them on Twitter (INAUDIBLE).

KING: And it is - it is impossible to go back and look at the video, if you looked at it at the time, of him talking about your colleague and not think he's mocking a disabled person.

DAVIS: Yes.

KUCINICH: Absolutely. If you've ever seen him.

KING: And - and - yes, if you've ever seen him and if you've ever seen what Mr. Trump did there. And maybe we should give him the benefit of the doubt, but he tweets all the time, he calls people stupid, he calls people clowns, and so he's sort of lost the benefit of the doubt in the way he handles people.

But this morning - this morning, Kellyanne Conway, who was his campaign manager, she will be his counsellor in the White House, was asked on CNN and on Fox News about this moment, especially about the campaign moment, how could you say he wasn't mocking him, and listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KELLYANNE CONWAY, SENIOR ADVISER TO PRESIDENT-ELECT TRUMP: You can't give him the benefit of the doubt on this and he's telling you what was in his heart. You always want to go by what's come out of his mouth rather than to look at what's in his heart.

I'm concerned that somebody with a platform like Meryl Streep is - is also, I think, inciting people's worst instincts.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Let's take these in reverse order. I'm concerned that somebody with a platform like Meryl Streep is inciting people's worst instincts. Hello. Donald Trump had a platform, and a lot of people say he incited people's worst instincts with some of the things he said during the campaign, including, you know in the old days we just slap them or get them out of here or things like that. And then here's one for world leaders. Listen closely to the future counsel to the president of the United States if you're a world leader.

"You can give him the - can't give him the benefit of the doubt on this, and he's telling you what was in his heart. You want to go on what's come out of his mouth rather than what's in his heart." Is she telling us not to believe what he says?

DAVIS: I think this goes back to what they said about him during the campaign, that his supporters took him seriously but not literally, and everyone else took him literally but not seriously. In some ways what she's saying is, you really can't just go on his words. You can't go on what he says. You can't watch a clip of him on the campaign trail and hold him to that. You have to really think about, what he really trying to say, what does he believe? And that's impossible. And particularly for somebody who talks about the dishonest media and we can't be trusted and no reporters can ever be trusted to sort of interpret any of this or give it any context, would they - would he really want us to be trying to look into his heart and -

KING: And - yes -

MURRAY: Well, and the other thing is, we have literally seen Donald Trump do impressions of a number of people throughout his time on the campaign trail. He has done an impression of me. I think it was actually the same day as he was impersonating a "New York Times" reporter. He did an impression of Ben Carson and his belt buckle. He did impressions repeatedly throughout the campaign. So this isn't an issue of giving him the benefit of the doubt. It's an issue of not just seeing what he was saying, but seeing what he was doing with our own eyes. And, yes, we know that politicians say one thing and do another. This was what Donald Trump was not supposed to do as an outside the box candidate. But this is a different situation there. You're seeing it. You're hearing it. It didn't seem like there's a whole lot of ambiguity there.

[12:25:03] KING: And the question is, though, that's the point President Obama was trying to make in the clip we played earlier, that there's a difference coming from the campaign and governing. When you're president and you do things like that, you can move markets or you can change geopolitical relationships. So, we'll see. We'll see. We have 11 days until the swearing in at the beautiful Capitol steps right behind us.

Everybody sit tight.

Up next, been there, tried that. More parting advice from President Obama, who, listen in just a moment, doesn't think much of President- elect Trump's affection for Vladimir Putin.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: Welcome back.

Thanks to Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump, the Obama presidency is winding down on a rare moment of bipartisanship.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We have to remind ourselves we're on the same team. Vladimir Putin is not on our team. If we get to a point where people in this country feel more affinity with a leader who is an adversary and views the United States and our way of life as a threat to him, then we're going to have bigger problems than just cyber hacking.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[12:30:04] KING: Back to Trump Tower. Sorry to interrupt there. But back to Trump Tower. Donald Trump speaking to reporters again.

QUESTION: (INAUDIBLE) 500 business -

TRUMP: It will be very, very easy to do.

QUESTION: Have you already started that process?

TRUMP: Yes, very much so.

QUESTION: What have you been doing to do that?