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Bernie Sanders Talks Gorsuch Nomination; Details of Top House Intelligence Members Meeting as Senate Continues Russia Investigation; Trump Deputy Chief of Staff Out; Ivanka Trump Joining White House; Chinese President to Meet Trump Next Week; Government Partners with AT&T to Build Broadband for 1st Responders; Ryan Worried by Trump Tweet on Obamacare Repeal; White House Press Briefing. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired March 30, 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] SEN. BERNIE SANDERS, (I), VERMONT: So I believe somebody will object. I think that we should obey the current rules. And it should require -- we should require 60 votes for Gorsuch's appointment.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: But then you know the Republican majority leader could do the, what's called the nuclear option, change the rules, which would require a simple majority.

SANDERS: Well, I would hope that he doesn't do that. The Democrats also have power to do that. Democrats did change the rules for a lot of reasons, and I supported that. But what Democrats said is when you're dealing with a lifetime appointment to the United States Supreme Court, such an important position, it should be bipartisan. It should be -- it should require 60 votes. I hope Mitch McConnell remembers that and maintains that situation.

BLITZER: Senator Sanders, thanks so much for joining us.

SANDERS: Thank you very much, Wolf.

BLITZER: Coming up, the breaking news we're following, we've just learned that the House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes and the ranking member, Adam Schiff, they have met. We have details about how that meeting went. We'll update you.

Also, the breaking news this hour, President Trump's deputy White House chief of staff leaving her job at the White House. We have new details behind this staffing shakeup at the White House.

All this likely to be covered, by the way, in the White House press briefing, which begins any moment now. We'll have live coverage of Sean Spicer's briefing. He'll answer reporters' questions.

Lots going on. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:35:13] ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news. BLITZER: There's breaking news in the very partisan battle on the House Intelligence Committee. The Republican chairman and the ranking Democrat, they have just met. Here's what the Democratic Congressman Adam Schiff just said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. ADAM SCHIFF, (D-CA), RANKING MEMBER, HOUSE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE: I think it was certainly not an easy meeting, but an important meeting. And we're also trying to go forward with the hearings. We have agreed to go forward with the closed hearing that the chair requested with Directors Comey and Rogers. We have also asked the chair to go along with our request that the hearing we had agreed to, which was scheduled with Sally Yates, Directors Clapper and Brennan, also go forward.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: That's Adam Schiff, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee.

Let's discuss this, and a lot more.

Gloria Borger, you're with us.

There's a lot going on in this entire investigation. Not only in the House side. They're trying to make some peace there. Senate side, they're going forward, not only with today's open hearings, but with quiet closed door hearings they're going to be having, including with the president's son-in-law, Jared Kushner.

GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: Right. We don't know that's been scheduled yet and we don't know when in the sequence it's going to come, but I've been told by a source familiar with what Jared might say is that he is going to see is he met with the Russian ambassador and with the official at a Russian bank, Sergey Gorkov, because he was trying to establish a back channel at that point during the transition to Putin. And they were trying to find the right person to engage with on establishing that back channel. So first he meets with the ambassador. Says to the ambassador who should I meet with? And the ambassador suggests this gentleman, Gorkov. Now, if anybody had done a Google search on Gorkov, they would have found out that he is with the bank that has been sanctioned by the United States government, and he has direct ties to Putin. Apparently, I was told that did not occur at the transition, that Gorkov was not vetted, that Jared Kushner met with him as a result, that sanctions were not discussed, that personal business dealings were not discussed. But that Jared wanted to find this back channel, and that when Rex Tillerson became tapped as secretary of state, that no longer needed to be done because of course Tillerson had --

(CROSSTALK)

BLITZER: What you're learning is Ambassador Kislyak, the Russian ambassador, he recommended the so called back channel, through this back channel? BORGER: Through this banker, Gorkov. Then Kislyak wanted to meet

with Jared Kushner again and Kushner said, I don't need to, so he sent a low-level staffer to meet with the ambassador the next time.

BLITZER: Interesting.

Let me go to Jeff Zeleny over at the White House in the briefing room.

Jeff, multiple breaking stories we're following, including this White House staff shakeup. Update our viewers on that.

JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Indeed, Wolf. We do expect to hear that shortly here at the press secretary when Sean Spicer has his daily briefing.

There is a bit of a staff shakeup going on here in the West Wing. It's the deputy chief of staff, somebody not necessarily familiar to viewers, but very familiar inside the halls here at the White House here on Capitol Hill. This is something that really is the, you know, the culmination of one of the fallout from the collapse of the health care defeat. This is something that is, you know, coming as the White House, is trying to regroup and sort of reengage. Part of that is reengaging with the outside as well.

The deputy chief of staff here at the White House is Katie Walsh. She worked at the RNC before she came here to the White House. She'll be leaving here and she'll be going to head up one of the outside groups as a senior adviser to help the president's agenda outside of the White House.

But it is also a sign that things are not going along as smoothly here as they would like, legislatively speaking. One of the biggest defeats of this administration so far is they are trying to put things back in order and get things back on track. This is one of the shakeups. We're not sure if it's the last shoe to fall here, but it's the one that's happening right now.

BLITZER: I suspect it won't be the last shoe. There's often shakeups early on in new administrations.

But it comes curiously as Ivanka Trump takes on a major new official role, has a major office in the West Wing of the White House, not just the informal adviser. But she's now a special assistant to the president. She won't be taking a salary or anything like that, but she is now a government employee.

[13:40:04] ZELENY: Indeed. Ivanka Trump will not be taking a salary, Wolf, but she will be a top adviser. Of course, she has basically been playing that role for the last several weeks or so. She's in a lot of meetings. Her advice is certainly heard and listened to here at the West Wing. But this essentially formalizes that role. We do not believe these staff changes are linked necessarily, but Ivanka Trump is playing a very important role here at the West Wing trying to reboot and reshape and jet her father's agenda back on message here and things moving more smoothly. We'll see how that sort of plays out. But there is some grumbling from some other staff members. She can't be fired of course. So this is a new dynamic that's injecting itself into the West Wing here, Wolf, but she and her husband, Jared Kushner, another senior adviser, now the two of the most important people next to the president who obviously have his ear -- Wolf?

BLITZER: Laura Coates, I want to bring you into this, CNN legal analyst.

Any ethical or legal issues in having her, the daughter of the president, as an official in the White House?

LAURA COATES, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: It's more of an issue of perception than it is legality. They already issued a letter saying the White House does not need to follow the same anti-nepotism rules that came under JFK when he couldn't hire his brother and when Jimmy Carter couldn't hire his son as an intern. The theory being that the White House as a nonexecutive agency does not follow the same rules. However, you do have to follow the conflict laws, the interest laws, and about issues of ethics. Now that she's an employee, she's more beholden to it. The only legal recourse you have is you can't get a salary if you don't follow them. Well, she doesn't have a salary, so there's not really a whole lot of recourse you can have. Remember, Hillary Clinton back in '93 had to do the same sort of dance with the court of appeals when she said, can I serve on the task force for health reform for then-President Clinton, and they said, again, the White House as an own agency does not need to follow the nepotism laws.

BLITZER: Gloria, you've been doing reporting on the shakeup at the White House. The deputy White House chief of staff moving out.

BORGER: I think it's sort of an open secret that the folks who were at the RNC and are now at the White House have been pretty frustrated. It kind of makes the trains run on time. Health care was a disaster. It's not as organized as it should be inside the White House. Katie Walsh is somebody who was considered sort of an ultimate professional inside the White House. I was told by one source that her loss is a tremendous loss. I think she was frustrated to be very honest. And I think that Reince Priebus, Jared Kushner, and Steve Bannon were all looking for a place for her to land and this job seems to be the perfect fit.

BLITZER: The outside job.

BORGER: The outside job. You know, running this independent group is that going to provide air cover for Donald Trump's White House. It's the perfect place for her to land. I will tell you that, in talking to somebody both outside the White House and inside the White House today, they do believe it's going to be a big loss for them over there.

BLITZER: It comes at a time when there's so much going on.

Nia, I want to bring you into this as well.

The next week the Chinese president is coming to the United States. He'll be meeting with President Trump at Mar-a-Lago down in Palm Beach.

NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN SEINOR POLITICAL REPORTER: Apparently, the Chinese leader wanted to have a more informal outing. Mar-a-Lago is informal. It's a big fancy club. Golfing goes on down there. And President Trump met with the Japanese leader there.

But this will be a tough conversation. It hasn't been exactly on good relationship that this president established from the get-go with the Chinese leader. Had to sort of walk back this idea of recognizing China and pledge that the United States would recognize the One China rule. And Donald Trump has also talked about currency manipulation. He said that China is raping this country in terms of currency in trade. This will be a tough, I think, conversation, and maybe it's best that it's at Mar-a-Lago.

BLITZER: Everybody stand by.

Once again, the White House press briefing is about to begin with Sean Spicer.

But we're also following right now a major announcement from the U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross. Today, Ross announcing the government has partnered with AT&T to build a broadband network for first responders.

Our congressional correspondent, Sunlen Serfaty, is joining us with details of this announcement.

Sunlen, I understand this idea was born out of the 9/11 Commission, is, that right?

[13:45:05] SUNLEN SERFATY, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Wolf. This is a big problem that was identified on 9/11 among first responders that the network went down and they weren't able to fully communicate with each other as they handled the crisis. So this was one of the main recommendations of the 9/11 Commission.

What it does is it sets up a high-speed network for first responders to use as they deal with crises. AT&T is backing this up with over $40 billion for the effort. They'll be in charge of building out and developing the network that will be overall 50 states.

At the Department of Commerce, earlier, the secretary really celebrating this as a big win for public and private partnerships.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WILBUR ROSS, COMMERCE SECRETARY: Today is a landmark day for public safety across the country. And is a prime example of the incredible progress we can make through public private partnerships.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SERFATY: With that investment and the build out of this network, officials tell me, this will create 10,000 new jobs over the next two years. It is a 25-year contract, so the potential for many more tens of thousands of jobs are on the table. The first responders I talked to said this is a big win for them. It will make their job much easier once they get the network and get the technology at their fingertips.

BLITZER: Sunlen, thank for that update. Sunlen Serfaty joining us in Washington.

Another important development, Jackie -- I want to bring you into this as well -- an interesting tweet this morning from the president. I'll read it to you, "The freedom Caucus" -- those are conservatives in the House -- "will hurt the entire Republican agenda if they don't get on the team and fast. We must fight them and Dems in 2018." That's the president.

The Speaker Paul Ryan, at the same time, is saying in a new interview he's worried that the president might decide, you know what, let's go work with the Democrats on health care reform, repealing and replacing Obamacare. All these very awkward signals.

JACKIE KUCINICH, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Awkward signals and missing steps. There's no evidence that Donald Trump has even attempted to reach out to Democrats. And then there's the mixed messages. Join the team or -- not even or -- join the team, we're going to fight them and the Democrats. That's not really a good rallying cry if you want to bring someone over to your team. So far, a couple Freedom Caucus members have pushed back, calling him a bully saying that they don't really need to go along with his agenda. When you look at their districts, they don't. Like Mark Meadows, came home to basically a ticker-tape parade for opposing the health care bill. So he needs to give them more incentive, not less incentive, to work with this White House. So far, we're really not seeing that.

BLITZER: Everybody stand by.

They're running a little late over there at the White House. We'll have live coverage of the press briefing with Sean Spicer. That's coming up. He's about to speak and answer reporters' questions.

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:52:26] BLITZER: The live picture is coming in from the White House briefing room. Momentarily, the White House press secretary, Sean Spicer, will come to the lectern, take questions from reporters, likely face questions on what's going on in the Senate and House Intelligence Committees, their investigations into Russian meddling in the U.S. presidential election. Live coverage coming up.

There's one reason, Gloria, why this briefing is running more than 20 minutes late. It was supposed to start at 1:30 p.m. eastern. It's getting close to 2:00 p.m. now. There's a major new story in "The New York Times" that's just been posted. Two White House officials help give the Republican Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Devin Nunes, intelligence reports, and "The New York Times" names these two officials, a senior intelligence official at the National Security Council and a lawyer who works on lawyer national security issues in the White House counsel's office. And I assume there will be plenty of questions to the White House press secretary on this, because these aren't just some low-level anonymous officials. These are major players in the national security area at the White House.

BORGER: They are. And you know, Devin Nunes has refused to answer questions about who his source was. He was seen as -- the cloak-and- dagger stories on the White House grounds, going to a secure location to look at documents. The question is whether these documents did in fact come from the White House itself, and if that's the case, was that because they wanted to change the story line. The story line being from the investigation into transition officials and potential relationships or discussions with the Russians, and to a story about unauthorized leaks and peoples' names being unmasked and incidental intelligence, and the rest of it. And Nunes has been talking about the unmasking more than he has been talking about the story that the Senate intelligence made very clear that they are going after today. And that's why he's been criticized so much. And by the way, I believe that today he's on a trip to California.

(LAUGHTER)

(CROSSTALK)

HENDERSON: This is such a clumsy effort. We saw Nunes come out with this press conference saying that he had to run over to the White House and brief Donald Trump on whatever he had found, and we found out that he actually got that information from the White House. It was very easy to unmask, to use a phrase that Nunes likes to use a lot. If the idea was to help Donald Trump and sort of run point for him and interfere for him on his behalf, it really hasn't worked. And it seems like there's a coverup here, and he did seem to run interference for Donald Trump, and now the credibility of that House Intelligence Committee -

(CROSSTALK)

[13:55:23] KUCINICH: He did just meet with Schiff, the ranking member. Schiff expressed hope that they can get back on track. When you have stories like this coming out and Democratic members see that, the hope fades.

(CROSSTALK)

BLITZER: And what we had, "The New York Times" story is accurate, we're going to get reaction from the White House press secretary momentarily. I'm sure this question will be asked.

But when you have the senior director for intelligence at the National Security Council and the top lawyer who works on national security issues at the White House counsel's office briefing Nunes, who came over to the White House to get this information, these are senior players in the Trump White House, and presumably that has to be carefully coordinated.

COATES: And you are working on behalf of Trump, as an agent of Trump, and trying to feed the chairman of the Intelligence Committee about somebody who is a subject of investigation. That cannot work.

BLITZER: Here he comes, the White House press secretary.

[13:56:46]

SEAN SPICER, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: Before I get to the events of today, there's a few items I wanted to update you on, things that have happened since our last briefing yesterday.

The president spoke with Prime Minister al-Abadi of Iraq to thank him for his productive visit and meeting on March 20th. A readout of that call should have been issued after the pool last night.

Yesterday, he also notified Congress that a national emergency declared executive order 13694, regarding malicious cyber-enabled attacks will continue to beyond April 1, 2017. As you all know, this notification is required by statute in order to extend the national emergency that the past administration declared.

The president believes that significant cyber-enabled activities continue to pose an unusual and extraordinary threat to our national security and economic prosperity. And therefore, he has determined that it was necessary to continue this national emergency.

Last night, a federal judge in Hawaii put an indefinite hold on the president's executive order that was issued on national security. The Department of Justice is reviewing the ruling and is considering the best way to defend the president's lawful and necessary order.

This ruling is just the latest step that will allow the administration to appeal. Just a week ago, the U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of Virginia upheld the president's order on the merits. The White House firmly believes that this order is lawful and necessary and will ultimately allowed to move -- be -- to move forward.

This morning, we announced that the president will host President Xi of China at Mar-a-Lago on April 6th and 7th. The president looks forward to meeting with President Xi and exchanging views on each other's respective priorities, and to chart a way forward on a bilateral relationship between our two nations. They will discuss issues of mutual concern, including North Korea, trade, and regional security.

And now on to some of the events of today. This morning, the president had a meeting with Treasury Secretary Mnuchin. The secretary, along with the National Economic Council and the rest of the president's team of experts, have been meeting with and hearing from stakeholders on all sides of the tax reform debate. Tax reform has been a centerpiece of the president's economic agenda from the beginning of his campaign.

The team is weighing the best option to develop a plan that will provide significant middle-class tax relief to make American businesses more competitive. Enacting the first significant tax reform since the 1980s is going to be a serious undertaking and we are at the first stages of this process, beginning to engage with members of Congress, policy groups, business leaders, industry, constituents from around the country, and other stakeholders.

Tax reform has been a part of the political discussion for years. And accordingly, lots of people have lots of ideas about it. We intend to hear from them.

He and his team will continue to meet with those who support and oppose the various policy options as they all sit around the table, because the president is committed to delivering results that the American people and American businesses will be able to see and feel in their paychecks.

On the Hill this morning, the president was glad that the nominations of secretary of agriculture designee, Governor Sonny Perdue, and secretary of labor designee advanced out of committee. Although he's disappointed to see that Democratic senators who had previously expressed their support for Alex Acosta, the labor secretary designee, nonetheless -- while they previously supported him, seem to have stuck to a party-line vote.

[14:00:00]

The president looks forward to having them officially on the team and in the Cabinet as soon as possible.