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Trump/Abdullah News Conference; Trump Believes Susan Rice "Committed Crime" Leaking Intelligence; Steve Bannon Removed from Principles Committee. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired April 05, 2017 - 13:30   ET

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

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: And as you know, Mosul turned out to be much harder fight than anyone thought. And a lot of people have been lost in that fight.

[13:30:02] I'm not saying I'm doing anything one way or the other, but I'm certainly not going to be telling you, as much as I respect you, John (ph). Thank you.

KING ABDULLAH II OF JORDAN: Sir, I think on behalf of the president, what I saw was an early engagement by the president and his team with all of us on the -- in the region about the challenges between the Israelis and Palestinians. I had the honor of seeing the president and his team again in January where this was discussed. The president understands the nuances and the challenges. I think he has the courage and the dedication to be able to do this.

Like I said before, all of us have a responsibility to help the president push us over the finish line. And so his team has been in the region. They've been talking to all the partners and it is our job to facilitate the (inaudible) between the Israelis and Palestinians to move together and give the support to the president to be able to smooth the edges over between the Israelis and Palestinians to achieve this. And the president understands that if we don't solve the problem, how are we going to win the global fight against terrorism, which is his number one priority?

So this is a core issue that he understands and I think he has the commitment and he has my full support for this, as he does from many, many countries in our region.

TRUMP: And I have to just say that the world is a mess. I inherited a mess, whether it's the Middle East, whether it's North Korea, whether it's so many other things, whether it's in our country horrible, trade deals. I inherited a mess. We're going to fix it. We are going to fix it. OK.

QUESTION: Thank you, your majesty. You touched on the subject now, but if I ask you to look forward, how do you see the future of fighting terrorism post Raqqa and Mosul, especially the role that Jordan will play in eastern part of Iraq? And do you believe the real battle will start then?

And if I may, Mr. President, you know very well that the Iranian militias and Hezbollah has been propping the Syrian regime for a while, over few years now. Will you go after them? What message will you give them today? And will you work with the Russians to stop -- to ground the Syrian air force and to establish safe zones? Thank you. ABDULLAH: Well, the first part is that we are seeing very recently tremendous gains on the ground in Raqqa and Mosul. Again, I think as the president alluded to, it's very difficult to put timelines on this issue because the battle space is always very fluid. But I think that the war is being won on the ground.

Having said that, terrorists are on the move. They'll be on the move inside of Iraq and inside of Syria so that we have to make sure that we adapt our plans accordingly and they move beyond borders, beyond our region and elsewhere. So as we and the administration have discussed, it's this holistic approach, how do we fight them wherever they are? And I think that is the understanding. Terrorists have no respect for borders and religions and people, so it's -- the seriousness of how we do this holistic approach, as I've mentioned several times.

And what I'm really delighted is that the understanding by the president and the administration in how to deal with this globally. And I think you're seeing a move in the right direction because the policy now is being charted out and my discussions with the Defense secretary and the foreign (ph) secretary allows us to be then able to decide how we adapt ourselves in the region to be able to come in line with international diplomacy.

TRUMP: The Iran deal made by the previous administration is one of the worst deals I have ever witnessed and I've witnessed some beauties. It's one of the worst deals I've ever witnessed. It should never have been made. It was totally one-sided against the United States, and frankly, against much of the Middle East.

I will do whatever I have to do. They have a deal. It was, some people say, not done properly, even in the form of its finalization. There was no vote from Congress. There was no real ratification. But I will do what I have to do with respect to the Iran deal.

As far as ISIS is concerned, the United States will work with whoever it's appropriate to work with to totally eradicate ISIS and other terrorists. And by the way, ISIS is one group, but others have formed. Frankly, they're all over the place. We will do what we have to do to eradicate terrorism.

QUESTION: (inaudible) Iranian militias in Syria, support in the Syrian regime separate of the nuclear deal. What message do you have for them today?

TRUMP: You will see. They will have a message.

[13:35:01] You will see what the message will be. OK? Thank you.

Thank you all very much. Thank you, thank you.

[13:35:11] WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: The president of the United States and the king of Jordan shaking hands following a Rose Garden White House news conference. Very strong words from President Trump today with several implicit threats, threats against various targets in the Middle East, as well as North Korea as well. He said the chemical weapons attack that occurred in Syria in recent days was totally unacceptable he said, unacceptable to me. And it has changed his attitude. He didn't want to go details what he would do. But he said, "The world is a mess. I inherited a mess. It is now my responsibility," he says, "to deal with all the issues."

Lots to assess as the president and King Abdullah of Jordan go back inside from the Rose Garden.

Gloria Borger, let me start with you.

He didn't get into specifics, but he warned that the U.S. Is about to take action on several fronts.

GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: Yeah, he said, I mean, he left the presser saying, you will see. And in that was an implicit threat. He made it very clear that he has changed his attitude towards Syria and Assad.

What I did not hear from the president, which we heard from ambassador Nikki Haley earlier, was a word to the Russians. Nikki Haley said earlier that, "If Russia has the influence they claim to have some Syria," she said, "we need to see them use it." We did not hear the president talk about Russia's role in all of this. Nor did we talk about Russia using its influence with Assad in all of this. But it is a complete turnaround from Rex Tillerson, who basically said, well, you know, the people of Syria have to decide whether they want to keep Assad in power or not. So, the president didn't threaten regime change specifically. But he did do a little bit of saber rattling today without taking on Russia on this.

BLITZER: He did take on the previous administration, the Obama administration, saying, "I inherited a mess, the world is a mess." He blamed the Obama administration, President Obama, for drawing that red line back in 2013 against the use of chemical weapons in Syria but not following through. And he said that should not have happened. He said, I'm drawing my own line.

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely. Wolf, you know this better than most people because you have covered the White House and so many presidents, that at a certain point, and he actually had almost 100 days for this point to come to him, something happens in the world that stops the White House and stops the president in his tracks and has to have him shift and sort of refocus.

Now, this White House has been embellished in its own chaos and controversy. But this is obviously not a new situation, not a new crisis, unbelievable humanitarian crisis that's been going on. It's been going on for years. But it is the first time that the American people, that the citizens around the world, have seen the images that we've seen of these children on Donald Trump's watch when he is the leader of the free world. And I just think it's very instructive to see the way he reacted. He reacted the way most presidents would, just in terms his rhetoric, saying it changed me. I understand this is something that we have to deal with. Now, we don't know -- OK, but now what? We don't know how he's going to react. We don't know how he is going to make that into a policy or not. But I do think it's sort of interesting to take a step back and see how he reacts to that.

One other point I want to quickly make, the man he's standing next to, the king of Jordan, he's been dealing with this crisis since the get-go. Their country, Jordan, has absorbed enough refugees to make up about 10 percent of the population. It's not just Syrian refugees. It's refugees from all over the Middle East. Embassy International lists Jordan as the number one taker of refugees, 2.7 million people they've absorbed. How different is that notion? Obviously, they're it's in region so it's a different dynamic, but how different is that than the rhetoric we've heard from the president?

(CROSSTALK)

BLITZER: Jordan has taken in hundreds of thousands from Syria. Also, from Iraq as well.

(CROSSTALK)

BLITZER: Many of those Iraqi refugees are still there.

Sara Murray is over at the White House.

You were there at the White House conference. You're still in the Rose Garden. Sara, the president clearly has been moved by the images we've seen over the past 24 hours of those little kids who were gassed in the chemical weapons attack in Syria?

[13:39:57] SARA MURRAY, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: I think you're right, Wolf. The president brought this up repeatedly. He may have had one view of Assad when he came into the blouse but now that view is changing. Now what that will actually mean remains to be seen. The president making it clear he now deems this as his responsibility. He understands that this horrific tragedy playing out on the world stage under his watch, while he's the president of the United States, while he's the one who should be setting the tone here, but he didn't really give any indication of how he might perceive.

The other thing that was interesting that was telling was the president made no comment about Russia. He had no criticism to offer of Russia in this. This is a sharp break than what we heard from Nikki Haley at the U.N. today that the U.N. is complicit in this. Even if they do not do anything about it. We still have not heard this president make any condemnation or criticism of Russia's role in this -- Wolf?

BLITZER: People paying attention to that very closely.

Sara, stand by.

Clarissa Ward is with us as well. She spent a lot of time in Syria as well covering this conflict.

Let's not forget, Clarissa, over the past years, maybe 300,000, 400,000 Syrians have been killed in this war that's been going on. And millions have been made homeless internally and externally. What was your reaction to the words you heard from President Trump?

CLARISSA WARD, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: My reaction, honestly, Wolf, was more of the same. We have seen this movie many times before. We have heard the condemnations. We have heard the personal and I'm sure authentic accounts of how moved presidents and politicians and people in power have been to see these horrifying images of young children choking to death at the hands of a poisonous gas disseminated by their own government. But I did not see anything in the way of an indication that there would be a substantial shift on the Syria policy. I just want to draw your attention to one thing President Trump said. I'm not saying I'm going to be doing anything one way or the other, but I'm certainly not going to tell you. The indication there seems to be, I haven't made any decision yet, I am keeping all my options open. And I'm not going to be consulting the American people or the media to discuss it once I do make a decision because I know on the subject of Syria, there aren't very many good answers.

I also thought it was very interesting to hear from King Abdullah. He was almost a little bit soft on Syria. I expected to hear him come out much more harshly on the subject of this chemical weapons attack. I think what you're seeing here is policy playing out, as horrified as people are, it's a situation that it's so complex and convoluted in Syria that everyone still wants to pass the buck. And to utter these drab attitudes that it's up to the international community to come up with a solution. We all know that's not going to happen unless we see decisive leadership. And I didn't see any indication that President Trump is going to provide that -- Wolf?

BLITZER: He said this gas attack, this sarin gas attack against the civilians that crossed many lines for me it crossed many lines.

I quickly want to go to our international diplomatic editor, Nic Robertson, for what we heard today.

Go ahead, Nic.

NIC ROBERGTSON, INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Wolf, a couple things. One interesting thing was to hear how King Abdullah on several occasions framed the Israeli-Palestinian issue as a core issue in the region. And even President Trump was talking specifically about Assad and Syria and how to tackle that, King Abdullah got his line in that the Palestinian-Israeli is a core issue. And if you don't deal with that core issue, then you will continue to have a problem with ISIS. So his framing, what is in his back yard, a huge and combustible issue that's not getting better at the moment, and potentially stands or has for a while under the Trump administration, looked as if tensions might escalate further, and are to some degree, and he's framing this, to President Trump, as you must deal with this issue, the Palestinian-Israeli issue, because if you don't, you'll never get rid of ISIS. I think to the point that Nikki Haley was making at the U.N. earlier what we've heard, Russia must show its willingness to tell us how to stop this, well, look, that's what the Obama administration and Secretary Kerry were doing several years at the United Nations, the peace talks in Geneva, continually constructing situations for two and a half years, where Russia was obliged to put its pressure on Assad. Every time they were going to do that, they seem less likely than ever before that they would do that right now.

This is what really jumped out at me, Wolf, to really echo what Clarissa was saying there, there isn't the language, there was nothing in the proposed resolution of the United Nations that says you must cease and desist. We insist that you don't do this again. There was nothing that this language. It was very much a message without heat.

[13:45:17] And to President Trump's point that he is dealt a weaker hand in Syria, because of President Obama, certainly, we can see the situation that Russia took advantage when President Obama didn't back up his red line. So President Trump has been left with fewer cards to play with. But the pressure will be on him to deal with it far more astutely than perhaps other issues on his plate, because he, too, may be judged in international affairs by how he measures up to what he said today. Lines have been crossed, it's his responsibility, he will have to do it because he created his own red line here -- Wolf?

BLITZER: Yeah, he says, I now have this responsibility. "It is now my responsibility." He said, "I have -- he said I now have to -- it crossed -- the Syrian gas attack, it crossed many lines for me. Crossed many lines."

Nia, the president also made it clear that his views changed based on what we're seeing, clearly, he's suggesting what he saw with the gas attack, has forced him to change his views about maybe a U.S. response to the brutal situation in Syria.

But take a look how dramatically it may have changed. Back in 2013, he tweeted this -- he was a private citizen at the time when President Obama issued his red line to the Syrian regime -- "President Obama," he said, "do not attack Syria. There is no upside and tremendous downside. Save your powder for another and more important day."

That was what he said then. But now he seems to be moving in a very different direction.

NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER: He does seem to be moving in a different direction. And it's really unclear why. It's not like Assad is, all of a sudden, a war criminal. It's not like, all of a sudden, this war has broken out. And he's doing tremendous harm to his country and the citizens of that country. So that is, I think, odd. He's acting as if there's new information that has changed his position. But the question is what is the new position, right? He criticized Obama for being weak in the statement he put out about Syria. He criticized him for being aloof in doing nothing. But what does Trump do? What does it mean to be strong for Trump in the opposite of Obama? What does it mean to be resolute? We don't really know. In a lot of ways, he has boxed himself in by saying he's made this tremendous shift in terms of how he sees Assad. A couple days ago, he said Assad could stay in place. Does it now mean the approach to Assad is very different. As Gloria mentioned as well, does he push Russia, which has been an

ally of Russia -- yeah, does he push Russia to move in a different direction and stop giving cover to Assad? We don't really know. We do know that this president has a tremendous learning curve. He's not really steeped in this issue. My goodness, he has a huge crisis on his hands and he's got to do something.

BLITZER: It's his responsibility. He's now the president of the United States.

Robert is with us from the Council on Foreign Relations.

You served in the government as well, what jumped out to you, Robert?

ROBERT DANIN, COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS: What struck me is what we're seeing the evolution and education of President Trump very quickly. He came into power, he even invoked at the beginning of his comments that ISIS is his focus. That's where his policy is. But what we're seeing is say crisis in Syria from the regime, from Damascus. So he's having to recalibrate his approach because ISIS, in many way, is a symptom of a deeper problem in Syria and Iraq. He came in thinking ISIS is the problem I need to solve. And now he's seeing the problem is much, much deeper, and he's being educated. And he's also seeing that American interests in the region are much more expansive than he thought. And so someone, by his own admission, he said it in the press conference, he came in wanting to keep the U.S. out of the Middle East, but he's finding it's a lot harder than he realized. And the United States is in the Middle East, and it's going to be very hard for him to get out.

BLITZER: Right at the very end, in response to a question from the Jordanian journalist, he did say the Iran nuclear deal that was negotiated the final year of the Obama administration is the worst deal, the worst deal ever. He said, "I will do whatever I have to do". He didn't go into specifics. We heard that often from him during the campaign. But since becoming president, we haven't heard him blast this Iran nuclear deal that much at all. And it came in response to the question about Iranian support for Hezbollah militias in Syria, backing Syrian President Bashar al Assad. What you anticipate it might be doing?

DANIN: Well, up until now, he's continued to criticize the Iran nuclear deal but he's yet to come up with an alternative policy. He stood up with Prime Minister Netanyahu, and even then, did not say anything about the deal. The focus of the administration, since coming to power, has been on challenging Iran, per se, but not on undoing the deal. Even today, he gave no indication of what that might be. I see no reason to believe --

(CROSSTALK)

[13:50:17] BORGER: And he might not have an answer. Honestly, he might not --

(CROSSTALK)

DANIN: I think that's right.

BORGER: This is part of the education of Donald Trump, who told us that nobody would have any idea how complex health care is and now how complex the Middle East is.

(CROSSTALK)

BASH: Two seconds: I love listening to Clarissa Ward and Nic Robertson, the best of the best, who understand foreign policy better than anybody, trying to say, well, wait a minute, we don't know what his policy is.

BORGER: Right.

BASH: Because they weren't covering the campaign that we were covering. We know that he's not entirely sure what his policy is. And he was the most candid about that, I think, today. And it's not a surprise that he didn't say, here's what I'm going to do in the Rose Garden because he's never done that.

(CROSSTALK)

BLITZER: You know, I want to bring in our chief international correspondent, Christiane Amanpour.

Christiane, you were listening very closely, watching the president, watching His Majesty, King Abdullah of Jordon. Your thoughts?

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRSPONDENT: I've listened to all that you've been discussing in these last few minutes after the press conference, and the bottom line is that whether he meant what he said or he didn't, when the president of the United States makes a dramatic statement that does absolutely telegraph in words a change in position on Assad, the rest of the world is going to take notice. So when he says that his position on Assad has changed in the wake of this horrendous attack, people are going to want to know whether, in fact, something is going to happen to change that.

Remember, if this is an Assad attack, which most people believe it is, it is a war crime, and the president said tonight it doesn't just pass lines for him, it passes more than a red line. These are major, important words that the president has announced on live, global television, for the whole world to hear. So this is going to be a very, very pivotal moment, because if he steps back, it's going to be a double step back of what he accused President Obama of doing. If you remember, he criticized President Obama, and most of the allies criticized President Obama, for failing to take up that red line back in 2013. But actually, at the time, if you remember, Donald Trump actually said on Twitter, "President Obama, do not attack Syria. There's no outside and tremendous down side. Save your powder for another more important day."

So, you know, we have a lot of conflicting terminology and thoughts and words and policies going out. And this is such a huge, huge issue that we're all going to be waiting very closely and carefully to see whether anything comes out of what he just announced in the White House and in the Rose Garden there.

BLITZER: You're right. He certainly signaled a shift in U.S. policy, although he said he's not going to telegraph, not going to tell anyone what that -- the military or diplomatic response might be. He said just wait, you'll see.

I want to play a little clip. This is the president really once again, at least putting some of the blame on the most recent chemical attack in Syria on his predecessor, talking about the failure to react after Syria crossed that so-called red line when it used chemical weapons back in 2013. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Well, I think the Obama administration had a great opportunity to solve this crisis a long time ago when he said the red line in the sand, and when he didn't cross that line after making the threat, I think that set us back a long ways, not only in Syria but in many parts of the world, because it was a blank threat. I think it was something that was not one of our better days as a country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: At the time, the president was then a private citizen and he said that so-called red line was dumb and said the U.S. should not attack Syria.

I want to bring in our CNN political commentator, Jen Psaki. She worked in the Obama White House as well as the Obama State Department.

What's your reaction, Jen, to the criticism that, once again, today, we heard President Trump level against President Obama.

JEN PSAKI, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Wolf, you've covered this issue quite a bit. I think what we're seeing here is Donald Trump is easing back into his comfort mode of campaign rhetoric of criticizing his predecessor, of criticizing Democrats. And this is a criticism that is pretty unsophisticated. It doesn't account for the last three and a half years this conflict has continued. After the decision in 2013 when President Obama did not move forward with military force, in large part, because he couldn't get approval from Congress, there was an agreement made between the United States and Russia to remove declared chemical weapons. Does he not think we should have done that? There was an international coalition that was created to go after ISIL. There's a lot that has happened since then.

But what was also striking to me, he seemed surprised that he inherited an ongoing conflict in Syria. We made no secret of that. President Obama made no secret of the fact that would not be resolved by the time his successor took office.

[13:55:27] BLITZER: Is Russia now in violation of that agreement that was worked out during the Obama administration, that all chemical weapons, stockpiles in Syria under the control of the Bashar al Assad would be removed? In other words, if a chemical attack and it ordered by the Syrian regime, would Russia be cited for potential war crimes?

PSAKI: It's an interesting question, Wolf. It's one that legal experts should explore. Russia is the signatory on that agreement, and certainly the international community will be looking to them and the facts that this happened on their watch. It's interesting that President Trump didn't raise Russia either. He

seems to have a strong relationship with Russian leadership. And one of the levers he could use, should he have the ability to pressure Russia to put more political pressure on Syria, that wasn't something completed by the time Obama left office but certainly getting a political deal done will require Russia using their relationship with Syria.

BLITZER: You were very close, still are, I assume, with President Obama. How did he react to all of the widespread criticism he received when he issued that red line and never followed up once the chemical weapons attack occurred killing a lot of civilians in Syria back in 2013?

PSAKI: Well, it was one of the most difficult decisions he made as president. And I think on reflection of it, and I have the opportunity to talk to him about this a fair amount when he was still in office, he was proud of the fact that he made the decision not to move forward because it allowed the room to have a diplomatic agreement, allowed us to remove the declared chemical weapons in Syria. If we had not done that and taken military action, it certainly would have crossed the red line or reacted to the red line, but there would likely have been quite a bit of chemical weapons left there that ISIL could had access to. There's no question Syria and the atrocities happening there at the hands of Assad, at the hands of ISIL, is one of the most challenges that any leader faced. It was certainly the case for Barack Obama, something I think he spent a lot of time talking at night, in the morning, and with his national security team.

BLITZER: I want to get your reaction, while I have you, Jen, to this interview that the president just gave with "The New York Times," the White House correspondent, Maggie Habermann, in which he says your former colleague, national security adviser under President Obama, Susan Rice, in the president's words, may have committed a crime. I think it's such an important story of our time. He didn't go into specifics. He was asked specifically, did Susan Rice, you believe, commit a crime. He said, do I think? Yes, I think. We heard yesterday from Susan Rice defending herself saying she did not leak any sensitive, classified information. But when you hear the president of the United States level an accusation like that against Susan Rice, what's your reaction?

PSAKI: Boy, it really diminishes the role of the office. What it leads me to believe is that Donald Trump doesn't know the tools that his own national security adviser may have at hand. "Unmasking" is a term that sounds mysterious and ominous. It's been around for quite some time. It's something that any national security adviser -- they can request additional information about unnamed sources and intel reports. Susan Rice was doing her job. And I think a lot of national security experts and former officials have said just that. I'm a little befuddled by why he would make that statement, given it's not a legal tool, not a political tool. It's actually a national security check in many ways.

BLITZER: Strong words from the president really going after Susan Rice.

Jen, stand by.

Gloria, another major development at the White House, Steve Bannon, the chief strategist, top adviser to the president, he has been removed from the National Security Council from what's called a Principles group, the top national security advisors. He's been removed and it comes as a surprise.

BORGER: It does. First of all, it was a surprise that he was put on that group as a member of the Principles group because he's a political strategist. Many people said, myself included, there's no place for a political strategist at the Principles table. Now we see that he's gone from the Principles table, and the White House is saying maybe he was there to be a check on Flynn, which leads you to ask the question, if --