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Trump Lectures NATO Members on Paying Fair Share; U.K. Angered by U.S. Intelligence Leaks; Sessions Didn't Disclose Kislyak Meetings; Lieberman Withdraws Name for FBI Director Post; U.K. Bomber Likely Had ISIS Training in Syria. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired May 25, 2017 - 13:30   ET

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


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[13:33:56] DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: 23 of the 28 member nations are still not paying what they should be paying and they are supposed to be paying for their defense. This is not fair to the people and taxpayers of the United States.

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WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: That was President Trump earlier today lecturing NATO allies on their defense budgets. Another memorable moment from this, his first trip abroad as president of the United States.

Let's discuss with my next guest, Ambassador Richard Haass. He's the president of the Council on Foreign Relations and also the author of an important and timely book, "A World in Disarray." There you see the book jacket.

Richard, thanks for joining us.

AMB. RICHARD HAASS, PRESIDENT, COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS: Thank you, Wolf. Good to be here.

BLITZER: Little disarray going on today. Let me get your reaction to what we heard from the president. He was lecturing, some say, even scolding those NATO allies. What did you think?

HAASS: Well, those are the accurate words. And diplomacy is about trying to get others to do what it is you want them to do. If the goal is to get the allies to spend a bit more, this is unlikely the way to do it. They are also politicians. They have political systems to manage. I also think it's the wrong emphasis. Much more important than how much anyone spends is how they spend it. You can get a lot of defense, as you know, for smaller amounts of money if you spend that money right. I actually think it's the wrong emphasis.

One last thing, Wolf. What he said about the people and taxes and all that, the American taxpayers, that's very reminiscent of the America First message. It suggests what we do for NATO is somehow conditional, or a favor we do for them, and if they don't do what they need to do, we're not going to do what we've promised to do. I think this reinforces doubts about American reliability. [13:35:48] BLITZER: I assume also the NATO allies wanted to hear a

firm specific very heartful statement by the special continuing to support Article V of the NATO charter. Tell our viewers why that's potentially very significant.

HAASS: Article V is the bedrock of NATO. It essential says an attack on one is an attack on all. And the fact that the Candidate Donald Trump raised questions about America's commitment to NATO seemed to introduce a degree of conditionality, which he reinforced today. The fact that they didn't hear that is going to be a problem. Both what they heard and what they didn't hear was not a good day for U.S./European relations.

BLITZER: So where do we go from here? Let's talk about some of the damaging developments as far as intelligence leaks and cooperation between the U.S. and close allies like the U.K. and is real, for example. There have been some serious strains there, right?

HAASS: There's strains on that, and the only way you can do -- make good on that is to show in the future you can be a reliable intelligence partner. But we've got a number of other issues. The United States is basically in support of Brexit under Donald Trump. That raises questions about the other pillar of European security. United States has raised questions about how tough its prepared to be on Russia, which many of those countries the president was meeting today see as the principle threat to their own security. United States has been reticent to help Ukraine in many ways. You add all this up and I think what we're likely to see is something of a weakening in the transatlantic fabric. The whole idea of a trade agreement is not even on the back burner. It's off the stove. The real question is, you know, where do we go from here. And it's quite possible this will be an era in which the Atlantic alliance, which, as you know, has been the mainstay of American foreign policy in the world, will essentially no longer be nearly as central or nearly as significant.

BLITZER: You saw some of those NATO allies, the leaders there, they were not very pleased with what they heard from the president.

Earlier, the German Chancellor Angela Merkel spoke out, and she spoke out about her personal experiences living on the other side of the Berlin Wall. And she said this. Let me read to you what she said at the very end of her remarks because it seemed to me, and I'm curious what you thought, a pretty clear dig at the president: "It is not isolation and the building of walls that make us successful," she said, "but open societies that share the same values."

Did you see that as a little indirect attack on the president who clearly wants to build a wall between the U.S. and Mexico?

HAASS: I wouldn't call it as a little indirect attack. It's a pretty big indirect attack. It's also not simply a reflection to the wall between the United States and Mexico that could happen, but about American immigration policy.

Wolf, this is a very different president and a very different United States. And the trajectory of European societies is very different than the trajectory of American society, suddenly. So there's a big gap. It's very different than the president's trip to the Middle East. There, the Saudis in particular, also the Israelis were relieved it was no longer Barack Obama, someone they'd lost confidence in. Instead, it was Donald Trump. This is 180 degrees different. This is a group of people who, by and large, feel more comfortable with Barack Obama and what he represented. And this is a very different president, a different country, and you could just sense the political and almost cultural gap in the room today.

[13:39:35] BLITZER: Richard, once again, the author of an important book, "A World in Disarray." We see some of that disarray right now.

Richard, thanks for joining us.

HAASS: Good to be here, Wolf.

BLITZER: Coming up, President Trump's top pick for FBI director now withdrawing his name from consideration. Who he says is to blame. That, and a lot more when we come back.

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BLITZER: This just in to CNN. The attorney general of the United States, Jeff Sessions, is now slamming intelligence leaks after the U.K. announced it would stop sharing information on the Manchester terror attack with the United States. A brand-new statement from the attorney general says this, quote, "I share the president's deep concern and talked to Home Secretary Rudd yesterday about this matter. These leaks cannot be tolerated and we will make every effort to put an end to it. We have already initiated appropriate steps to address these rampant leaks that undermine our national security."

Meanwhile, White House staffers are moving on a plan to try to mitigate some very bad press coming from the Russia investigation. They're putting together what's being described as a war room to deal with the allegations and with future questions over possible connections.

I'm joined now by our crime and justice reporter, Shimon Prokupecz.

Shimon, the Attorney General Jeff Sessions, he's at the center of this latest storm over his security clearance forms because he did not specifically spell out his meetings with the Russian ambassador to the United States. What's the latest?

[13:45:18] SHIMON PROKUPECZ, CNN CRIME & JUSTICE REPORTER: That's right, Wolf. This is the FS86 form that people who entered the government and would need security clearance fill out. It's supposed to list all of your -- any foreign contacts, all of this. We learned yesterday that Sessions, when he was filling out the form, did not list any of his contacts, foreign contacts and specifically with the Russians. We then went to the Department of Justice and asked questions about it and they basically told us, we were told by the FBI that we didn't need to do this, that this was just --

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BLITZER: That's what Sessions was told.

PROKUPECZ: That's what Sessions was told, that he wasn't required to put in all of these contacts. Obviously created a bit of kind of some noise, because, again, we're hearing about contacts that administration people had with the Russians, which they have not always been forthcoming about. So now it's raising some concerns on the Hill. And folks over at the Hill now want to question Sessions again about, you know, some of the contacts that he may have had with Russians.

BLITZER: And they are acknowledging at the Justice Department that the attorney general did not specifically spell out any of his meetings with the Russians.

PROKUPECZ: Yeah, they acknowledge it but the reasoning seems odd. In the people that we've talked to who are familiar with these forms find it odd that the Department of Justice would blame the FBI. An FBI investigator was helping Sessions fill out this form and the Department of Justice told us that this investigator said you don't need to list all of the contacts. And we've talked to a lawyer who deals with these matters, deals with FS86 forms, and that lawyer even said it's kind of odd for someone to say you don't need to include this.

BLITZER: Former Senate Joe Lieberman now has withdrawn his name for consideration as the next FBI director. What are you learning?

PROKUPECZ: We're learning that he wrote a letter basically to President Trump saying he was withdrawing. He's blaming it on, because he -- because Trump is now hiring Mark Kasowitz to represent him outside of the White House and to deal with some of the questions that may come up in the investigation into the Russian meddling and potential obstruction of justice. Rumors sort of -- we had heard just over the weekend that he was no longer being considered but it was interesting to see that today Lieberman admitted that he withdrew his name from consideration.

BLITZER: He was a partner in that same law firm.

PROKUPECZ: That's right.

BLITZER: So there could have been a conflict. That was the explanation.

PROKUPECZ: That's right. Right.

BLITZER: And so Lieberman is not going to be the next FBI director.

PROKUPECZ: That's right.

BLITZER: They're working on that. Any other -- do they seem to be get going closer.

PROKUPECZ: We don't know. But I can tell, people at the FBI are pretty happy to hear Lieberman will not be the next FBI director. They were concerned about the position being politicized and a former politician taking that job.

BLITZER: Shimon, thanks very much. Good reporting, you and your team.

Coming up, a U.S. official says the Manchester bomber likely received ISIS training in Syria months before the attack. What about his connection to Libya? We have a closer look coming up at how ISIS is trying to regain strength in that region.

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[13:52:21] BLITZER: As the story behind the Manchester bomber unfolds, we're now getting a closer look at ISIS in Libya. Officials say 22-year-old Salman Abedi traveled to Libya for three weeks before returning to Manchester and carrying out the deadly attack. A preliminary investigation shows that Abedi likely received ISIS training in Syria months before the bombing as well.

Let's go to our Pentagon correspondent, Barbara Starr.

Barbara, you've been doing reporting on this. We focus on the fight against is in Iraq and Syria but there's a battle going on in Libya as well.

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, Wolf, not to be ignored, that's exactly right. There's still several hundred is fighters believed to be in Libya. The U.S. last year pushed them out of Sirte, a coastal city that had been their stronghold, pushed them south with a bombing campaign. But they're still down there, said to be regrouping, said to be trying at least regain their footing.

So one of the lines of inquiry now, when Abedi went to Libya before the Manchester attack, did he make contact with ISIS there? That's a key line of inquiry.

Back it up several months, and now this new information that he also traveled to Syria where he may have gotten some training, raising additional questions. This is actually something that French officials had hinted at a few days ago, and now U.S. officials say they are looking at this thread of intelligence as well along with the British in the lead.

If he went to Syria, if in fact he got training, support there, this would indicate a much longer trail of radicalization for him and it would indicate that somebody, some intelligence service somewhere missed the fact that he had done so much traveling to questionable places. Why did they miss the signals, how did he get out of these areas, how did he get back into the U.K. with nobody asking any questions -- Wolf?

BLITZER: Yeah, it's very significant. And it helps to explain why they no longer believe this is simply some lone individual who was inspired to carry out a terror plot like this, but it was part of a much wider plot. And I think it explains why the U.K., the British government has gone on its highest state of alert right now, fearing that another attack could be imminent, right?

STARR: Well, that's right. You know, what you have to assume in these attacks, in the investigations right from the beginning, is you don't have all of the pieces of the puzzle. There may be others out there. One of the key things we have seen time and time again in terror attacks, investigators look at the fragments of the bomb device, they try and determine how it can be made, would this bomber have had the capacity to do it all on his own, and if he did not, who is out there that might have helped him -- Wolf?

[13:55:17] BLITZER: I know the U.K. intelligence community, law enforcement community is very concerned right now about leaks from U.S. officials. They are holding back on providing a lot of the details of their own investigation. They are deeply irritated. You heard it from the British Prime Minister Theresa May earlier today.

Barbara Starr, at the Pentagon. You'll stay on top of this story for us. Thank you very, very much.

And that's it for me. Thanks very much for watching. I'll be back at 5:00 p.m. eastern in "The Situation Room."

Up next, in our next hour, new details on the U.K. bomber, the leaks in the investigation that have so deeply angered British officials.

The news on CNN continues right after a quick break.

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