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Ethics Lawsuit Filed against Trump; First Formal White House Press Conference. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired January 23, 2017 - 13:30   ET

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

[13:30:00] DEEPAK GUPTA, ATTORNEY FOR PLAINTIFF IN ETHICS LAWSUIT: The framers wanted a president who was looking out only for the interest of the American people.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: You heard the attorney, the private attorney for the president when they announced how he was removing himself from his business deals. She's an attorney with a major law firm, Morgan Lewis. She said that any funds that come in, money that comes in from foreign governments to a hotel or a country club or whatever, the profits will go to the U.S. citizens, U.S. government, that will go into the U.S. Treasury. Isn't that good enough?

GUPTA: That isn't good enough. They only said that about the hotels and not about the many other foreign business interests that Donald Trump has. The problem is, you know, imagine, Wolf, that you wanted -- you needed to negotiate with the government of China, OK. You were going to hire someone to do that. Would you want to hire someone who has a lease agreement in a building where the government of China is one of his largest tenants. Someone who has a real estate deal in New York where he owes money in financing, quite a lot of money to the government of China. You would not hire that person to represent your person interests in that scenario. And similarly, the framers did not want the American people to have to hire someone who had divided loyalties to be their president or another high elected official.

BLITZER: You heard Laura, our reporter, say that one of the big problems you might have is standing. That you don't -- which is a legal term. The courts could throw it out because you have no "standing." I'm sure you're concerned about that.

GUPTA: We've thought a lot about that. No question that the standing issue is going to have to be litigated. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington is a group. This is what they do. They do good government work and all of their resources have been diverted to handling the unprecedented conflict of interest that Trump presents. And so, it's similar to if you imagine you had a business and you were putting a product out and the government did something that caused you to have less revenue, less of your product, you would have injury. You would be able to sue. It's very similar to here. Their product is the good government watchdog work that they do.

BLITZER: You might have standing if a competing hotel or country club were involved in your lawsuit, but none are involved, right?

GUPTA: No. The only plaintiff right now is the CREW organization. BLITZER: You're not seeking any financial reward?

GUPTA: That's right. We're not seeking any damages.

BLITZER: Just trying to make a point.

GUPTA: We're not just trying to make a point. This isn't a legal technicality. This is very, very real. There are Trump buildings in the center of major cities around the world, places like Istanbul, places that can be dangerous. If a terrorist organization targets one of these buildings, is the American armed forces in a position where they have to defend the private business interest of the United States president? We want a president that is only working for the American people. We want a president that isn't entangled in business deals around the world and what's even worse, we don't even know the extent of those deals because the president hasn't released his tax returns.

BLITZER: He says he's no longer involved in his business. His two adult sons are in charge. Eric Trump said this about the lawsuit, "It's purely harassment for political gain, and sad."

What do you say to those who say you're simply trying to harass for political gain the president of the United States?

GUPTA: This is not just a political lawsuit. The organization CREW, first of all, and legal team in this case includes the chief ethics official of the George W. Bush White House and the chief ethics official of the Obama White House. This is a bipartisan group of lawyers, including constitutional scholars. And we would be filing exactly the same lawsuit, raising exactly the same concerns, if you had a Democratic who was elected with these kinds of unprecedented financial interests around the globe.

BLITZER: Deepak Gupta, thanks very much for coming in.

GUPTA: Thanks.

BLITZER: Just ahead, President Trump called the Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu. What they said about meeting face-to-face about the controversial decision to move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

And remember, we're only moments away from the start of the first full-scale White House press briefing. The press secretary, Sean Spicer, will be taking questions, we're told, from reporters. As soon as that starts and he walks through that door, up to it the microphone, we'll have live coverage.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:37:27] BLITZER: You're looking at live pictures, once again, inside the White House briefing room. Any minute now, Sean Spicer will have his first formal briefing as White House press secretary. We'll have extensive live coverage of that coming up.

i want to go to Jim Acosta. He's standing in that briefing room right now for us.

Set the stage for us, Jim.

JIM ACOSTA, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Wolf, one thing we should point out, right off the bat, is this briefing room is as packed as I've seen it in some time. I've been away from this briefing room for a little while covering the campaign. This is pretty typical for what you see at the beginning of an administration. Just about every news organization that has a White House team is represented here today. That's worth noting.

We don't know exactly when Sean Spicer is going to come into the room. We expect that to happen momentarily. We haven't been given an official two-minute warning. We asked the press office if they will give us that warning as they typically do. They were unsure with that. They are still working out the kinks in this administration when it comes to dealing with us.

Obviously, there will be questions for Sean Spicer at this briefing. On Saturday, we had that impromptu briefing at 5:00 in the afternoon that was not really a briefing. It was a statement. Unusual statement for many reasons. One of which is that usually, Wolf, as you know, the White House press secretary, when he comes into this briefing room, he answers questions. What happened on Saturday was Sean Spicer came into this briefing room, lashed out at the news media over reporting on crowd sizes for the inauguration, and then left without taking any questions. So, we had lots of other questions to ask on Saturday.

There's the executive order that was signed by the president on Friday dealing with Obamacare. There are lots of questions about that of course. There are the questions about these communications between the national security adviser, Michael Flynn, and the Russian ambassador reported on in the "Wall Street Journal" and now confirmed by CNN.

The other things, Wolf, that we'll be looking at, obviously, is this issue of Donald Trump resigning from his businesses. The director of strategic communications here at the White House, Hope Hicks, confirmed to me or told me earlier this morning that, yes, Donald Trump did resign from his businesses and that process was completed on or before Inauguration Day. We have not received any documentation backing that up yet. So, we'll be asking for and hoping to see that documentation. So, lots and lots of questions.

Of course, the president spoke with the prime minister of Israel over the weekend. There are questions as to how soon or whether or not the U.S. embassy in Israel will move from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

The list goes on and on, Wolf. We're waiting to find out when Sean Spicer will come out here. Will he take those questions and will we get answers we're looking for?

[13:40:16] BLITZER: A couple technical questions. Curious, will they give us what they call the two-minute warning to get ready for this briefing? ACOSTA: That is something that we asked. We asked are we going to

get a two-minute warning today? We were basically told they weren't sure about that yet. So, one of the things that we're going to be working on as we move forward here is some of the formalities that come with covering the White House and the White House press corps.

For example, this door that is over here on my right behind sort of the podium and as you enter what we call lower press where the deputy press secretary sit. That door is typically open during business hours here at the White House. Reporters can go back there. They can talk to deputy press secretaries, try to get answers to their questions. There's even a hallway that goes from that office up to the White House press secretary's office so during the Obama administration, Wolf, as you know reporters could go in there and talk to deputy press secretaries but go past Secret Service that has a desk in that hallway, and go up and talk to josh earnest, the White House press secretary for President Obama. Will that be the same in this new administration? Will we have that same sort of ground rule in effect for us? We don't know the answer to that question, Wolf, because it's Monday. Donald Trump was just inaugurated on Friday. We're still sort of working through some of the kinks. And, obviously, there are these tensions that were created over the weekend when Sean Spicer came out - well, first, when the president of the United States went to the CIA and accused us of misrepresenting things, and then Sean Spicer as well.

Looks like we're getting started here. Kellyanne Conway just walked in the room. Hope Hicks just walked into the room. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who will be the principle press secretary, the daughter of Mike Huckabee, is in the room. And so, it looks like we're gathering and will get started shortly.

BLITZER: Another quick question as we await Sean Spicer's arrival. i take it the usual seats for various news organizations, that has remained the same as it did during the Obama administration, is that right?

ACOSTA: That's right. The seating chart that's normally in place from one White House to the next, which is managed by the White House Correspondents Association, that has not changed. Right now, I'm in the CNN seat. The little bronze plaque that is below that seat still says "CNN." I don't believe those have been removed and we're sitting in our seats according to that organizational chart.

Of course, you ask that question because that's a question floating around in journalistic circles: Could this new administration, potentially, because they are upset with the coverage and so forth, rearrange the seating chart and move us out of the briefing room and so forth. I have not gotten any kind of word that any of that is in the works. I think a lot of that is just talk. And for the moment, Wolf, we're hoping that after a weekend of some pretty tense moments between the press and the White House press office that perhaps we'll iron over some of those things and just get down to business.

BLITZER: Yeah. He's going to walk in, we're told, any moment now, and open up with a statement and then answer reporters' questions. This could go on for a while i suppose.

It's interesting that some of the top aides, including Kellyanne Conway, among others, are already seated there alongside that wall. They're getting ready for this important news conference as well. I'm sure a lot of people will be watching, including the president of the United States. I'm sure he'll be watching as well.

ACOSTA: I bet he will.

BLITZER: Just guessing right now.

There's enormous pressure on Sean Spicer right now following what happened on Saturday, right?

ACOSTA: That's right. As we talked about all weekend long, Sean Spicer came out, he went after the news media for its coverage of those inauguration numbers. He did accurately point out that there was some misreported that happened Friday night when it was reported by a White House pool reporter that an MLK bust had been moved out of the Oval Office. That was a mistake made by the reporter who was in the room at that time. That was corrected. And Sean Spicer accepted that apology when that reporter apologized on Twitter. That much was accurate. But some of the other things that Sean Spicer said about how the inauguration numbers --

BLITZER: All right, here he comes.

ACOSTA: -- that was not accurate.

We'll deal with that perhaps in just a few moments -- Wolf?

BLITZER: Here's Sean Spicer.

[13:44:30]

SPICER: Good afternoon, everyone. Thanks for coming out to our first official briefing here in the Brady Room. I was going to start with a recap of the inauguration, but I think we've covered that pretty well. By the way, just as I get started, I know that Josh Earnest was voted the most popular press secretary by the Press Corps, so after reading -- checking my Twitter feed, I shot Josh an e-mail last night letting him know that he can rest easy, that his title is secure for at least the next few days.

Let me begin by saying that the president has been closely monitoring the severe weather in the southeast. He spoke by phone with Governor Deal of Georgia yesterday and offered his condolences and support. Today, President Trump is focused on fulfilling his pledge to pursue trade policies that put America first.

The president began his day with a breakfast with key U.S. business leaders where the focus of the discussion was on job creation and growing our manufacturing base.

Business leaders who attended included Michael Dell, founder and CEO of Dell; Jeff Fettig, the CEO of Whirlpool; Mark Fields, the CEO of Ford; Alex Gorsky, the CEO of and Johnson and Johnson; Marillyn Hewson, the CEO of Lockheed Martin; Klaus Kleinfeld, the CEO of Arconic; Andrew Liveris, the CEO of Dow; Maro Longi, the CEO of U.S. Steel; Elon Musk of SpaceX and Tesla; Kevin Plank of Under Armour; Mark Sutton of International Paper; Wendell Weeks, the CEO of Corning; Chief of Staff Reince Priebus; Chief Strategist Steve Bannon; the vice president's chief of staff, Josh Pitcock; and senior adviser Steven Miller.

The breakfast was an opportunity for the president to hear directly from America's top business leaders about the challenges they're facing and take some suggestions about what policies and action can be taken to help them create jobs and grow our manufacturing base. The meeting included a really great exchange of ideas and the president has decided to reconvene the group in a month and then have them meet on a quarterly basis.

As you know, the president's vision is to negotiate fair trade deals that create jobs, increase American wages and reduce America's trade deficit. He's appointed a tough and smart number of trade experts who will fight on behalf of American workers. With that vision in mind, the president has already taken several steps today.

First, he issued a presidential memorandum withdrawing the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership. TPP is a multilateral agreement that includes the United States and 11 other countries. As the president has said many times, this type of multinational agreement is not in our best interest and he's moving quickly to advance trade policies that increase the competitiveness of the American worker and manufacturer.

This executive action ushers in a new era of U.S. trade policy in which the Trump administration will pursue bilateral trade opportunities with allies around the globe. This is a strong signal that the Trump administration wants free and fair trade throughout the world.

Additionally, the president issued a memorandum reestablishing the Mexico City policy, stating that the United States will end the use of taxpayer dollars to fund abortions overseas along with coercive abortion and sterilization practices.

Finally, the president issued a memorandum outlining executive branch hiring. This memorandum counters through dramatic expansion of the federal workforce in recent years. In particular, it prevents filling vacant positions and creating new positions except when necessary to meet national or public security responsibilities. It does not apply to military personnel and it ensures that the American taxpayers get effective and efficient government.

Earlier in the day, the president spoke with Egyptian President el- Sisi. They discussed ways to deepen the bilateral relationship and support Egypt's fight against terrorists and bolster Egypt's home- grown historic economic reform program. President Trump underscored the United States remains strongly committed to the bilateral relationship, which has helped both countries overcome challenges in the region for decades. The president committed to working -- continuing to (inaudible) military assistance to Egypt and working with Egypt to ensure that assistance most effectively supports the Egyptian military's fight against terrorism.

The president also commended President el-Sisi for his courageous steps to address Egypt's economic challenges and offered to discuss ways the United States could support Egypt's economic reform program. Finally, the two leaders discussed a visit to the United States in the future.

The president then had lunch with the vice president, where they recapped this morning's meetings and discussed next steps. They also had discussed plans to advance the president's legislative agenda to make America safer and more prosperous.

Also today, the president signed (ph) designations for acting heads of executive departments and agencies to maintain continuity in those critical positions.

At three o'clock, union leaders and front line workers will meet with the president to discuss his pro-worker agenda.

[13:50:00]

Attendees include Tom Flynn of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters; Sean McGarvey, president of the North American Building and Construction Trades Department; Terry O'Sullivan, general president of the Laborers; International Union of America -- of North America; Mark McManus, the general president of United Association; Donald Mullins (ph), Steamfitters United Association Local 602; Frank Spencer, United Brotherhood of Carpenters; Doug McCarron, general president, United Brotherhood of Carpenters; Mark Coles of Ironworkers Local 5; Joseph Sellers Junior, the general president of the Sheet Metal Workers Union/SMART Union; Thelma M. Matta (ph), the Heat and Frost Insulators and Allied Workers (ph) Local 24; Mark Urkowski (ph), United Association Local 5; Steven Dodd, the Sheet Metal Workers Union/SMART Union, Gary Macino (ph) the Sheet Metal Worker's Union Smart Union. The President has been honored to received tremendous support from union working men and women on election day and he's dedicated to growing and deepening their support. And he made it a priority to meet with these union workers on our working day one, here in the White House. The off shoring or American jobs and lack of economic growth in recent years, has hit American workers particularly hard. And the President's top priority is to retain and attract American jobs, which have already seen happening through his actions on carrier, Sprint, General Motors and so many more.

At 5:00 the President will host a bicameral (ph) bi partisan meeting with leaders here at the White House, will include the Vice President, the Senate Majority leader, the Senate Majority Whip, the Senate Minority leader, the Senate Minority Whip, the House Speaker, the House Majority leader, the House Democratic leader, the House Democratic Whip, the White House Chief of Staff, our Chief Strategist, Chief of Staff to the Vice President, and Chiefs of Staff from those respective offices.

The purpose of the meeting is to get the President's agenda moving through congress. The American people are frustrated with the lack of progress here in Washington and the President wants no delay in addressing our most pressing issues. He's taking every step -- opportunity to forge strong bonds with congressional leaders on both sides of the aisle. One of the other subjects that's sure to come up is the status of his nominees during this meeting.

It's important to note that at this point in 2009, President Obama had seven of his nominee's confirmed on day one and five more in the first week. As it stands today, we have two. Democrats even held up the confirmation of CIA director Mike Pompeo, needlessly leaving one of our most important national security agencies without its top leader on day one. It's time for Senate Democrats to stop playing political games with the core functions of government and to allow President Trump's unquestionably qualified and talented group of cabinet nominees to get to work on behalf of the American people.

Rounding out today's schedule, after the reception that I mentioned, he will have dinner with -- oh we have a meeting with the House Speaker Paul Ryan. They will discuss the Republican legislative agenda and strategy going forward. Early in the day the President nominated former New Mexico, congress woman Heather Wilson as the next Secretary of the Air Force. She grew up in Key New Hampshire and made history as part of the third U.S. Air Force academy class that included women.

She earned her master's degree and Doctoral degrees as a Rhode's Scholar at Oxford in England and then served as an Air Force officer in Europe during the cold war and on the national security office under President George H W Bush.

As you know we're all about big viewerships and large audiences here. So I want to tell you about an effort that we're undertaking here in the press briefing room to offer up more access to a group of journalists from around the country.

Beginning later this week, I'm excited to announce that we're going to have four -- what we call skype seats, live here in the briefing room. This will open up the briefing to journalist's who live beyond 50 miles of the Washington D.C. area and to organizations that don't currently have a hard pass. As always any organization iis welcome to apply for a day pass. But we're excited to open up into the field and fold here, a diverse group of journalists from around the country, who may not have the convenience or funding to travel to Washington. I think this can benefit us all by giving a platform to voices that are not necessarily based here in the belt way.

Looking ahead, the president will have a breakfast tomorrow with the auto industry, including heads of GM, Chrysler and Ford. He looks forward to hearing their ideas, on how we can work together to bring more jobs back to this industry in particular.

On Wednesday the President will host a swearing in ceremony from new Secretary of Homeland security, General James Kelly -- John Kelly. And then on Friday he will do the same for Secretary Mattis at the Department of Defense. On Thursday he will travel to Philadelphia to attend the Republican House and Senate retreat. And on Friday he will welcome his first foreign head of state, British Prime Minister, May. With that I look forward to taking your questions.

Daniel Halpern, New York Post?

QUESTION: Thank you. When will the -- when will you guys commence the building of the border wall?

SPICER: When we what?

QUESTION: When will you start the building of the border wall?

SPICER: I think that the President has noted that this was a serious priority of his throughout the campaign. He has already started to work with congress on the Appropriations avenue of that. And so he is doing everything he can to direct agencies and congress to commence with that work as soon as possible.

QUESTION: What about with Obama Care, are you guys enforcing the mandate or not?

SPICER: Enforcing the mandate?

QUESTION: Yes, the Obama care Mandate? Kelly ...

[13:55:00]

SPICER: I think -- look the President has made it clear that he's going to work with congress to -- and part of the discussion that he's going to have tonight with some of these leaders, and then again with Paul Ryan, is how we can work to implement the -- both the repeal and the replace aspects of this.

Jennifer Wishen (ph)?

QUESTION: Of all the policy, or actions that a President could have taken today, he chose to reinstate the (inaudible) policy. What message is sending here? Does he see the elimination reduction of abortions as an American value? And also here at home, can full (ph) life American's expect him to put his signature that will defund planned parenthood.

SPICER: Well I think the president, it's no secret, has made himself- made it very clear that he's a pro-life president. He wants to stand up for all American's including the unborn and I think the reinstatement of this policy is not just something that echoes that value but respects tax payer funding as well. And ensure that we're standing up, not just for life, for life of the unborn but also for tax payer funds that are being spent overseas to perform an action that is contrary to the values of this president . And I think continue to further illustrate, not just to the folks here in this country, but around the world what a value we place on life. Jennifer Rodriguez (ph).

QUESTION: Janet (ph).

SPICER: Janet (ph). I'm sorry. QUESTION: Thank you. What did Mr. (ph) Curtis (ph) mean when he said

that he would work through Congress to get special something - we don't what it is (inaudible) recipients? And when can we expect that to happen? And also when can we expect the White House Spanish site to be back up?

SPICER: OK. Two questions. Let me start with the latter first. As you know, we hit the ground running on day one. There was a lot to do and we had done a lot of work on the website to make sure that we were prepared to get as much information up as fast as possible. We are continuing to build out the website, both in the issue areas and then that area. But we've got the I.T. folks working overtime right to continue to get all of that up to speed. And trust me, it's just going to take a little bit more time, but we're working piece by piece to get that done.

On the DACA piece. I think the president has been clear that he was going to prioritize the areas of dealing with the immigration system, both building the wall and making sure that we address people who are in this country illegally. First and foremost, the president's been very, very clear. That we need to direct agencies to focus on those who are in this country illegally and have a record - a criminal record or oppose a threat to the American people. That's where the priorities going to be and then we're going to continue to work through the entire number of folks that are here illegally. But right now the clear focus is on that.

Blake Burman (ph) Fox.

QUESTION: Hey Sean, I want to ask you two questions money (ph) related. The president campaigned on a corporate tax cut rate of 15 percent and today when he met with the business leaders, he had mentioned that the tax rate would drop to somewhere between 15 to 20 percent. Is he moving the goalpost there in anyway? And my second question is on government spending, there have been reports that you might be looking at $10 trillion over the course of 10 years. Is that accurate? And would you be willing to wrap up entitlements to get there?

SPICER: Well I think first, well I'll take the other one first on entitlements - or on spending. Look, I think you saw this with the hiring freeze. There's been frankly, to some degree, a lack of respect for tax payer dollars in this town for a long time and I think what the presidents showing through the hiring freeze, first and foremost today, is that we've got to respect the American tax payer. They're sending us a ton of money, they're working real hard.

Some people are working two, three jobs just to get by. And to see money get wasted in Washington on a job that is duplicative is insulting to the hard work that they do to pay their taxes. And I think that that comes into your question, in overall spending as well. We've got to look at how we're spending the American people's tax money.

And so what the work that the landing teams have been doing is going into these agencies and departments and talking about way that we can create greater efficiencies, eliminate duplicity and find - maximize the tax dollar. So it's more a question instead (ph) of (ph) just cutting, it's about how do we spend and respect the American tax payer dollar more than - more - more going forward.

April Ryan?

QUESTION: Fifteen to 20 percent? Sorry (ph).

SPICER: Oh, I'm sorry. Look, the presidents a very successful businessman and negotiator. He's going to sit down and work with Congress to get the best deal possible for American businesses so that they can hire more people and we expend - and we can grow the economy. So he's going to work with Congress on that rate but he understand better than anybody how to negotiate a great deal. And right now he's going to negotiate the best deal on behalf of the American worker and on behalf of the American businesses that are hiring them. That was a lot of the focus that went on today, talking to these companies. And it was interesting, the meeting was only supposed to last an hour, it overflowed another hour in the Oval Office and he kept asking them what ideas do you have to grow this economy? What is preventing you from hiring people?

SPICER: What regulations are stopping you from conducting more business? What are the ways that we can give you more market access into other countries around the globe? And I think that's what his focus is going to continue to be, is how do we create a tax and regulatory environment that grows the economy and benefits the American working?

[14:00:00]