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Tillerson: Attempts to De-Nuclearize North Korea May be Lost Cost; Trump Budget Boosts Military Spending, Cuts Dozens of Agencies; 2 Top Intelligence Committee Members: No Evidence of Wiretapping of Trump Tower; White House Press Conference Soon. Aired 1:30-2p ET
Aired March 16, 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] WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: The travel ban affects six Muslim-majority countries but most of the Muslim world, including the largest Muslim countries, are not impacted. Your reaction to that?
REP. ANDRE CARSON, (D), INDIANA: Well, I think in many ways, I think it undermines our effort. I think it exacerbates the sentiment of islamophobia. I think it fuels the flames of an anti-immigrant sentiment. I have to remind people all the time, nearly 40 percent of our Fortune 500 companies in this country are headed by immigrants. And so to undermine the very foundation upon which this country has been built, immigrants, it's to effectively dismantle America as we know it.
And so what Mr. Trump is doing is he's hurting the relationships that we have, our national security partners, our international security partners, and he's fueling an anti-American agenda and a terrorist agenda by doing these very acts.
BLITZER: Steve Jobs' father was an immigrant from Syria. That has been well pointed out over these past many months.
All right. Congressman Andre Carson, thanks for joining us.
CARSON: What an honor. Thank you.
BLITZER: Thank you.
Coming up, the intelligence community believes North Korea will undertake a new round of nuclear testing. Why the Secretary of State Rex Tillerson says attempts to de-nuclearize the country may be a lost cause. We're going live to the region.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[13:35:26] BLITZER: U.S. intelligence is picking up fresh and very concerning activity inside North Korea right now. It's leading the Defense Department to believe that Kim Jong-Un is preparing to launch a new round of missile testing. The news comes as the U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson makes his first big trip to Asia. He's in Tokyo right now, just across the Sea of Japan, from North Korea.
CNN's Will Ripley is joining us live from Tokyo. Will, you've been to North Korea, what, 10 times over the past few
years. Tell us what you're learning. What's Secretary Tillerson now saying where you are about North Korea?
WILL RIPLEY, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Here in Tokyo, Secretary Tillerson giving his first press conference overseas saying the United States needs a new approach when it comes to North Korea. He notably criticized the previous three administrations, Democrats and Republicans, over the way they've handled North Korean policy. Listen to what he said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REX TILLERSON, SECRETARY OF STATE: The diplomatic and other efforts of the past 20 years to bring North Korea to a point of denuclearization have failed. So we have 20 years of failed approach.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
RIPLEY: He's making those comments at a time there is new intelligence. Satellites are showing activity on the ground at North Korea's ICBM launch site. Also, there the potential for another nuclear test. You have the perfect storm right now which could lead to more provocative action, Wolf. You have the military exercises between the U.S. and South Korea happening right now. You have a major national holiday, their biggest of the year, coming up in about a month, a time when North Korea often likes to project power domestically and abroad. But yet, what we're not hearing here in Tokyo is specifics from Secretary Tillerson, how he actually plans with the Trump administration and allies here in Asia and around the world to slow North Korea's nuclearization.
BLITZER: We've been told President Trump has been told and believes that North Korea may be the gravest national security threat facing the United States right now.
Will Ripley, in Tokyo, thanks for that report.
Coming up, budget backlash. The Trump administration looks to boost defense by making major cuts to more than a dozen agencies. So what does -- does it have a chance of passing? Is it dead on arrival? We'll discuss.
Also, health care, wiretapping, travel bans -- those are just some of the topics that are likely to come up at today's White House press briefing. Sean Spicer will be briefing reporters shortly. We'll bring it to you live.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[13:42:25] BLITZER: Just moments ago, President Trump left the U.S. capitol walking down the stairs with the Irish prime minister, the House speaker. You see Congressman Peter King over there. A lot of lawmakers wearing green ties today. The president was there to deliver remarks at the Friends of Ireland Luncheon. The event has become a St. Patrick's Day tradition dating back to 1983 in the Reagan administration. The president there with the Irish prime minister, Edna Kenny. They're posing there. The press shouting questions. Not many answered before walk away. Let's listen for a second.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Mr. President, what are you going to do next with the immigration --
(CROSSTALK)
REP. PAUL RYAN, (D-WI), SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: Thanks, everybody. Appreciate it.
BLITZER: All right. There you have it. The president heading back to the White House.
Speaking of the White House, we're standing by for the White House press briefing set to get under way just a few minutes from now. One topic sure to come up, the president's new $1.5 trillion budget proposal which he calls a blueprint to make America great again. A big feature of that budget plan, a $54 billion increase in U.S. defense spending, paid for by stripping money from 19 other agencies. Some of the biggest cuts directed at the Environmental Protection Agency, Departments of Labor and Agriculture.
Here's how the director of the Office of Management and Budget, Mick Mulvaney, described drafting the proposal.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MICK MULVANEY, DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT & BUDGET: We came at it, wrote the budget by going through the president's speeches, going through the interviews he'd given, and talking to him directly and finding out what his priorities were. We took those words, those policies, and turned them into numbers.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BLITZER: Let's discuss with our CNN political commentator, Washington correspondent for the "New Yorker: magazine, Ryan Lizza; and Maya MacGuineas, the president of the Committee for Responsible Federal Government.
$1.1 trillion budget. That's what to correct the number, $1.1 trillion. This is a proposal made by the executive branch of the U.S. government to Congress. They have to appropriate the money.
RYAN LIZZA, CNN POLITIAL COMMENTATOR: That to right. They have to appropriate it. And this will be greeted with a lot of controversy up in Congress. You have one wing of the Republican Party like Paul Ryan and the people around him who will say, well, what about entitlements, Medicare and Social Security? Maya will say something about that, too. This doesn't touch that. And that's an absolute promise Trump made during the campaign he'd not touch entitlements. Puts him at odds with the more traditional Libertarian-leaning Republicans in Congress.
But then on the other side you have big cuts at the State Department and for international diplomacy, and you have a lot of foreign policy hawks who like the defense increase but say, wait a second, if America is going to be strong in the world, you can't touch the State Department in this way.
And then the massive cuts in discretionary spending, a lot of programs for the poor. You'll have a lot of Democrats who will complain about those cuts.
And the one question for the White House is, how does this fit in -- how does this budget help the people that the Trump victory was premised on?
Same question about the health care bills. How does it help the white working-class base that Trump promises to be a champion of? That's the big question I have.
[13:45:48] BLITZER: How do you see it?
MAYA MACGUINEAS, PRESIDENT, COMMITTEE FOR RESPONSIBLE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT: The budget is supposed to be the whole fiscal picture of the entire government and where we're headed. Both what we're going to do in the current year and where we're headed over the next decade. The thing about this budget, it's called a skinny budget because it's the president's first budget. It makes some very large changes to some very small parts of the budget. It increases defense spending, it pays for that by cutting domestic discretionary spending, but it doesn't say a word about taxes and doesn't say a word about infrastructure, one of the bigger issues, and it doesn't say a word about entitlement reform, which is going to be the key to getting the debt under control.
What we do know is, in the beginning of the budget, Director Mulvaney talks about how the debt is a crisis, and they are promising not to add to the deficit. Not adding to the deficit is not going to get the debt under control, but the real concern is when you put out a full budget, something they'll do in a couple of months, how are these numbers going to add up? He's been talking about very large tax cuts. More spending on infrastructure, not touching on entitlements. That adds up to a picture that makes the debt much worse. You'll get a lot of resistance on these individual cuts and you'll have a fiscal picture that may be much worse.
BLITZER: He says he can't do tax reform until the health care issue is resolved. That has to come first.
LIZZA And that's partly just through a very complicated parliamentary process, the way that they have ordered health care in the reconciliation instructions and then tax reform. So that's -- the congressional budget process is very complicated. And they've ordered those two things. And they can't do tax reform until they do health reform, which is why the time line is so important. If that lags, the -- it's like it could be a whole train wreck with Trump's legislative agenda. They won't ever get to tax reform.
But as Maya pointed out, there's a lot missing in this budget. Trump has called for a trillion-dollar infrastructure proposal. No information about what that would look like or how it would be paid for, the wall, the border wall --
(CROSSTALK)
BLITZER: He is asking for a few billion dollars to start construction of that border wall with Mexico.
MACGUINEAS Yes, for this year, 2017, the budget would add to the deficit. They don't pay for the additional spending in this year. And he's asking for more money for defense and more money for the wall.
I'd like to add another political challenge I think they'll have. The Republicans, for past couple of years, have insisted that their budgets achieve balance within a decade. You now have a situation where I don't see how they're probably going to get to balance. For the first time that their budget isn't just messaging, it's about governing, we don't have a picture of how those numbers are going to add up. It looks like this year the deficit would be worse under this budget.
BLITZER: Maya, thanks very much.
Thanks to Ryan, as well.
Coming up, two travel ban defeats in federal courts, a health care plan in jeopardy, the Obama wiretap controversy, a budget plan facing serious backlash. So what is the president going to do next? We're standing by for the White House press briefing. We're going to have live coverage of that once it begins.
Stay right where you are. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[13:51:27] BLITZER: Live pictures coming in once again from the White House. White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer getting ready to hold the daily hearing. We're told Mick Mulvaney, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, will actually open up the briefing and talk and the president's proposed budget which has just been released. We'll have live coverage of all of that coming up.
In the meantime, we're following developments, including the second major defeat for the president on his travel plan, also the health care plan seemingly on life support right now, rejection of his claim of the wiretap by President Obama, and a budget proposal that some Republicans are also calling dead on arrival.
We're also just getting in this breaking news, very important breaking news from the Senate Intelligence Committee. We're just learning that the Select Committee on Intelligence chairman, Richard Burr, and vice chairman, Mark Warner, made the following joint statement regarding evidence that Trump Tower in New York City was wiretapped during the 2016 election. Let me read it to our viewers. Very important information. Quote, "Based on the information available to us, we see no indications that Trump Tower was the subject of surveillance by any element of the United States government, either before or after Election Day, 2016."
I want to bring in our political director, David Chalian.
All right. The president is being firmly rejected by the Republican chairman, the ranking Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, saying he was totally wrong in those allegations he made nearly two weeks ago. Those four tweets when he made these brutal accusations against President Obama.
DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Look at the word you read, surveillance, they didn't specifically say wiretapping, which the White House has been hung up on that word. This it is broadest rebuke of what Donald Trump claimed that we have seen to date. And we heard from the House intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes, the ranking Member Adam Schiff. Now the Senate, both Democrat and Republican there, in a very strong, broad wording here, that basically there was no surveillance of Trump Tower.
BLITZER: No wiretapping. The president admits himself there was no wiretapping in his interview with FOX News. He's talking more broadly, he says, about surveillance --
CHALIAN: But that's not what he initially said.
BLITZER: No. When he tweeted. And I've got those four tweets. I've been carrying them around with me for almost two weeks. Let me read a couple of them. "Terrible. Just found out that Obama had my wires tapped in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism." That was at 6:45 a.m. At 6:49 a.m., "Is it legal for a sitting president to be wiretapping a race for president prior to an election turned on by a court order. A new low." I'll ready two more. "I'll bet a good lawyer could make a great case out of the fact that President was tapping my phones in October just prior to the election." Finally, 7:02 a.m., "How low has President Obama gone to tap my phones during the sacred election process? This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy."
Now we have the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Republican Richard Burr, of North Carolina, and the ranking Democrat of Virginia, Mark Warner, of Virginia saying -- let me read it -- "Based on the information available to us, we see no indications that Trump Tower was the subject of surveillance by any element of the United States government either before or after Election Day, 2016."
What a rebuke of the president coming the day after his interview last night on FOX on which he doubled down on his accusations
[13:55:05] CHALIAN: Right. Yesterday, on FOX, he was still trying to worm his way out of the lie about wiretapping, and that word, saying you're going to see in next couple weeks, something is going to come out. So surveillance more broadly.
Remember, these two Senators, House members we heard from yesterday that's half of what we call in Washington the Gang of Eight, the people briefed with utmost intelligence. So these are full authorities on this. They are providing a path to the president where he can no longer justify not retracting those tweets, apologizing for accusing Barack Obama of a crime. The White House is in such a pickle. The president looked like a third grader in that interview yesterday trying to squirm out of a lie.
(CROSSTALK)
BLITZER: Let me play the clip. This is the interview in which he doubled down on his accusations in the FOX News interview. Let me play that excerpt.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
TUCKER CARLSON, FOX ANCHOR, TUCKER CARLSON TONIGHT: On March 4th, 6:35 in the morning, you're down in Florida, and you tweet, "the former administration wiretapped me, surveilled me at Trump Tower during the last election." How did you find out? You said, I just found out. How did you learn about that?
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I've been reading about things. I think it was January 30th, a "New York Times" article that talked about wiretapping. I think they used that exact term. I read other things. I watched your friend, Bret Baier, the day previous where he was talking about certain very complex sets of things happening and wiretapping. I said, wait a minute, there's a lot of wiretapping being talked about. I've been seeing a lot of things.
Now, for the most part, I'm not going to discuss it because we have it before the committee, and we will be submitting things before the committee very soon that hasn't been submitted as of yet. But it's potentially a very serious situation.
CARLSON: So 51,000 people retweeted that. So a lot of people thought that was plausible. They believed you. You're the president. You're in charge of the agencies. Every intelligence agency reports to you. Why not immediately go to them and gather evidence to support that?
TRUMP: Because I don't want to do anything that's going to violate any strength of an agency. We have enough problems.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BLITZER: The president could simply say, I made a mistake, I want to apologize for smearing him the way I did, let's move on. We're not hearing that.
CHALIAN: We're not hearing that. It's just not OK for the president of the United States to make this unsubstantiated claim. Obamacare repeal and replace, getting this travel ban through courts, getting his nominee, Neil Gorsuch, on the Supreme Court. There's no end to the list of things he should be focusing on and pushing through on his agenda and this is a complete distraction from that.
BLITZER: Do you see he could potentially do what I just said, maybe a lot of his supporters would maybe like him to do and go against the grain of his normal activity and apologize publicly to the former president? CHALIAN: If past is prologue, that's not normally what we get from
Donald Trump. Apologizing for things doesn't seem to be in his vernacular much.
BLITZER: The accusations in the four tweets were very, very tough accusations.
David Chalian, thanks very much.
A reminder, we're standing by for the White House press briefing. It will be coming up live.
In the meantime, the news continues right now with Brooke Baldwin.
BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: BLITZER: All right. Here we go. Top of the hour. I'm Brooke Baldwin. You're watching CNN. Thank you for being with me.
You have been looking at live pictures from the briefing room at the White House. Sean Spicer will be stepping behind the podium. We'll take it live.
He has a lot to answer to today. Today, the administration's cup runneth over, is one way you can put it. President Trump mired in conflict and controversy on multiple fronts, including the revised travel ban rejected by the courts again, his party's health care plan in peril, His budget blueprint is turning Washington on its head.
And two major headlines came out. First, the joint statement from the Senate Intelligence Committee about the president accusing former President Obama of wiretapping him. Quoting both the chairman and co- chair here, Senators Burr and Mark Warner, quote, "Based on the information available to us, we see no indications that Trump Tower was the subject of surveillance by any element of the United States government either before or after Election Day, 2016." That's a big deal.
Number two, speaking of breaking news, serious new questions about whether President Trump revealed classified information on television.
