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President Heads To Arizona; Trump Lays Out Afghan Policy; Ryan Says Trump Messed up with Remarks; Trump Denounces Hate and Bigotry; Trumps Afghanistan Plan; Interview wtih Rep. Mike Coffman. Aired 1- 1:30p ET

Aired August 22, 2017 - 13:00   ET

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


WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, I'm Wolf Blitzer. It's 10:00 a.m. in Phoenix, 1:00 p.m. here in Washington, 8:00 p.m. in Jerusalem. Wherever you're watching from around the world, thanks very much for joining us.

Right now, President Donald Trump is wheels up. He's on his way to Arizona. The president continues to march to his own drum as he follows up on last night's nationally televised address on Afghanistan with a campaign-style rally in Phoenix later today.

In his speech last night, the president admitted he has changed course on Afghanistan, saying he originally wanted to pull all U.S. troops out of Afghanistan and the war there for the United States. But now will actually increase the United States' military footprint in an effort to try to win the now 16-year-old war. The longest war in U.S. history.

But the president offered little in the way of specifics of his plan, choosing instead to talk broadly about the need for increased efforts in the region and from Pakistan and India, specifically, to try to get the job done.

But while last night's address was scripted and the president seemed to largely stick to that script, tonight's rally in Arizona could be very different. The president and his affinity for affirmation will be on display in the campaign-style rally in a state he won in the 2016 presidential election.

And if we've learned anything from past events like this, the president's off-the-cuff comments will be aimed at revving up his base.

Our Boris Sanchez is joining us now from Yuma, Arizona ready for the president's arrival. So, Boris, what can you tell us about his itinerary, his plans for this rally and the guest list?

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Wolf. As you said, this is going to be a campaign-style rally here in Phoenix. One of several the president has held since the inauguration. It's actually going to be the furthest west that Donald Trump has gone since becoming president.

And we should expect some familiar faces on hand with him. The vice president, Mike Pence; his chief of staff, John Kelly.

It's also notable who is going to be absent from this rally. Arizona's two Republican senators, both John McCain and Jeff Flake, have been very critical of the president. Both of them had some very harsh words for him after his response to the violence in Charlottesville at that press conference in Trump Tower one week ago.

And the president didn't hesitate when responding to that criticism, specifically from Jeff Flake. He took to Twitter last week saying that the Arizona senator is weak and a non-factor in the Senate. And praising his potential GOP primary opponent Dr. Kelly Ward.

It's unclear whether or not Dr. Ward is going to be on hand for the rally tonight or if the president will endorse her or even bring her up.

Another name that was not invited to this rally that pertains specifically to Arizona, the man known as America's toughest sheriff, Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who, as you know, Wolf, was found guilty earlier in the year of continuing a program that a judge declared illegal because it racially profiled Hispanics.

Now, the president has said that he's seriously considering pardoning Sheriff Joe Arpaio. The 85-year-old told CNN that he has not been invited to this rally but that he would be more than happy to join in if he were invited.

There's another uninvited guest that you are likely to hear from, Wolf. A large group of protestors is expected to be on hand. Many of them were mobilized after that off-the-rails press conference at Trump Tower last week. You will likely hear from them.

We have heard from the mayor of Phoenix who asked the president to delay this rally, in light of the response that he's gotten in his remarks on Charlottesville.

We've also heard from the chief of Phoenix police who says that her officers are ready for anything -- Wolf.

BLITZER: All right, Boris, thanks very much. Boris Sanchez getting ready for the president's first stop in Arizona in Yuma.

I want to bring in our political panel. Chris Cillizza is with us. He's a CNN Politics Reporter, Editor-at-Large. Abby Phillips is a CNN Political Analyst, a White House Reporter for "The Washington Post." And CNN White House Reporter Jeremy Diamond is with us as well.

Chris, it looks like that speech last night, very disciplined, very organized. You can criticize it. You can praise it. But it does seem to have the influence of his new White House chief of staff, General John Kelly.

CHRIS CILLIZZA, CNN POLITICS REPORTER, EDITOR-AT-LARGE: Well, John Kelly has been in the job for about three weeks now. We've seen a lot of undisciplined Donald Trump between then and now, including his comments about Charlottesville. BLITZER: But the speech last night was very disciplined.

CILLIZZA: The speech last night was disciplined. He stayed on message. He stayed on prompter. It would've been odd if he went way off prompter. It was a formal speech, not really a campaign rally. He usually goes off prompter when he's interacting with folks, as opposed to just giving a speech.

What we've seen, though, with Donald Trump is a series of false starts. A series of theoretical reset buttons pushed only to have a day later, two days later or a week later, either via Twitter or via a rally, him return back to, sort of, who we know him to be as a candidate which is he likes to play with the crowd. He likes to throw red meat to his base.

[13:05:15] This is an interesting test, given the back-to-back. If he is able to do this in Arizona; if he is able to avoid relitigating Charlottesville in some way, shape or form; if he's able to stay away from, you know, controversial topics, I would be somewhat impressed and, frankly, surprised. Because we've not seen his capacity to do that in the two-plus years he's been both a candidate and now president.

BLITZER: Because everybody is bracing for a very different Donald Trump tonight in his rally in Phoenix, Abby, as opposed to what we saw last night when he read deliberately from those two teleprompters on each side of his lectern?

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN POLITICS ANALYST: Right. I think one of the reasons he does these rallies is because his aides know he needs to be taken out of the box sometimes and taken out of the White House and out in the public. And feeds off that. Needs it to feel comfortable in this position.

The problem is that too much freedom can sometimes be a little bit of a bad thing. It causes him to really react to the crowd. I think the protests outside to the degree that he will know they are there might be another source of problems for him.

But just to go back briefly to a point you made, Wolf, earlier. You know, one of the interesting things about John Kelly and his role in that speech yesterday was maybe less so what was said and just how they got to the point where he was giving a speech about Afghanistan.

He didn't tweet his decision on Afghanistan. It didn't really leak out of the White House. And that's why you saw people like Paul Ryan praising the process, even more so than the decision that was made.

BLITZER: The president in his speech, Jeremy, last night, he did something rather unusual for him. He acknowledged that he was going against his long-time instincts. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALXD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: My original instinct was to pull out and, historically, I like following my instincts. But all of my life, I've heard that decisions are much different when you sit behind the desk in the Oval Office.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Yes, it's basically easy to say something if you're a candidate or a private citizen. A lot more difficult to implement that as other presidents have always learned once you're in the Oval Office.

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Yes, it was a rare moment of reflection, albeit a scripted moment of reflection from this president.

But I think that this White House is, kind of, trying to have it both ways on this. You know, they're trying to say, have the president out there saying, listen, I know that I had said in the past I wanted to withdraw from Afghanistan. But now, I'm changing my tune.

And then, you have Michael Anton, the spokesman for the National Security Council saying on a call this morning, actually, no. That's not true at all. The president is sticking with exactly what he talked about during the campaign. He didn't run as a passivist. He didn't run as an isolationist.

So, this White House really is trying to present it both as, this was a thoughtful decision from President Donald Trump who is different from candidate Trump. And yet, at the same time, argue that there is no ideological incoherence here.

BLITZER: Like a lot of folks, I went to Breitbart to see how the reaction would be there. His former chief strategist now in charge of Breitbart, Steve Bannon. There was one headline suggesting flip-flop, another suggesting just more of the Obama administration policy. You've seen all of that.

CILLIZZA: Yes, look, Steven Bannon lost this fight to H.R. McMaster and others, including John Kelly as it relates to Afghanistan. Steve Bannon is a big believer in a lot of what Donald Trump said on the campaign trail. Which was, why are we spending so much money in blood and treasurer there? What are we doing there? We need to get out. Barack Obama doesn't know what he's doing.

So, I don't think we should be surprised at that. I also think that -- look, I think Steve Bannon is, and time -- and Breitbart will at times be good for Donald Trump and at times bad. In a way, they have something very similar in common, unpredictability.

It is not necessarily in Steve Bannon and Breitbart's interests to bash Donald Trump all the time nor it is in their interest to advocate for him all the time. Donald Trump is a deeply unpredictable candidate, deeply unpredictable president. He values that. He said that that's important to him. He thinks presidents make a mistake being too predictable.

So, I don't think we should be surprised by that Breitbart response. At the same time, if he, in Arizona tonight, gives a what we know as a Trumpian campaign-style rally, I guarantee you, the Breitbart coverage are be positive.

BLITZER: If he starts talking about the wall. If he starts talking about immigration. Issues like that?

PHILLIP: Yes, I think that that's right. I mean, one of the reasons he's going to Arizona in the first place is because of the symbolism of visiting. He will be at the wall. He will be visiting that and have an opportunity to talk about it.

But I do think that this issue of Afghanistan and how we deal with foreign wars is so profound, about the Trump administration. And Breitbart is, in a lot of ways, correct that Trump bought into this war last night.

[13:10:03] He, essentially, acknowledged that it was not going to end anytime soon. And so, I don't think that issue is going to go away, because it's underling it as all about who is Trump and is America first going to survive now that Steve Bannon is no longer in the picture?

DIAMOND: And this is another risk that this rally has tonight which is the fact that this is a president who is probably aware of the way that Breitbart covered this. Is probably aware of the fact that his former chief strategist, Steve Bannon, is unhappy with him and ready to go out and knock him on this Afghanistan decision. And he now needs to go out tonight and reassure his base.

He needs to rally his base. And one of the ways that he does that, often, is by making controversial statements, by going out on a limb, by showing them, again, this off-the-cuff persona who captivated millions of Americans during the campaign.

So, the risk is that the president, in trying so hard to reassure his base, goes too far, in terms of making controversial statements and getting himself into hot water.

BLITZER: It'll be important to see how he deals with the very sensitive issue of children brought here to the United States, as little kids by undocumented parents. Whether he allows these so- called dreamers to stay in the United States, legally, have some sort of legal status. Or if he goes back to some of the comments he made during the campaign, that anybody who came here illegally has to leave and then come back very quickly.

CILLIZZA: On dreamers, look, Donald Trump's taken a hardline on virtually everything, (INAUDIBLE) immigration. But on dreamers, he has acknowledged this is a very difficult issue.

BLITZER: Right.

CILLIZZA: That there are no easy answers for. He's been, by far, his most moderate on that piece.

BLITZER: But that will irritate some of that base if he --

CILLIZZA: Oh, absolutely. BLITZER: -- if he goes ahead.

CILLIZZA: And this is the constant back and forth, yes.

BLITZER: The policy of President Obama who said these dreamers should be allowed to not worry. They should be able to stay here. They grew up here in the United States. They should be allowed to stay.

All right, everybody, stand by. We have a lot more coming up.

Tough words from the House speaker, Paul Ryan, over President Trump's response to Charlottesville. We're going to tell you what he had to say and the reaction to that.

Plus, the Democrat strategy for 2020, banking that at least one Republican will challenge Donald Trump for the GOP nomination.

The panel returns, right after a quick break.

[13:12:48]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:16:13] (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. PAUL RYAN (R),WISCONSIN, SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: It was not only immorally ambiguous, it was equivocating.

JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: The people who applauded his remarks on Tuesday were David Duke and (INAUDIBLE) Spencer.

RYAN: Yes, that's right. That's why I said those remarks -- he messed up on Tuesday. He was right on Monday and he was right just about an hour ago. I think we were -- he was wrong on --

TAPPER: When he was reading from podium --

RYAN: Yes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: That was the speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, during a town hall last night with Jake Tapper here on CNN commenting on President Trump's response to the recent violence in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Let's bring back our panel to discuss, Chris Cillizza, Abby Phillip and Jeremy Diamond.

Jeremy, he acknowledged that the president messed up. It's not often you hear a speaker of the House speaking about a president of the same party acknowledge that that president, quote, "messed up."

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: That's right. And those comments speak to the degree to which Donald Trump messed up, to use the speaker's words, in this instance. And so yesterday we heard the president, again, return to his scripted remarks and make unifying remarks about not directly Charlottesville but essentially the state of affairs in the country right now.

And -- but the problem is that we've already heard from Donald Trump. We've heard him speak from his heart. We've heard him speak when he was offer prompter, when he was frustrated with the state of affairs in the media at the moment. And I hate to say it, but I've seen this movie before and this is what we're looking at again potentially tonight as the president heads to Phoenix to host a campaign rally. What is not just a campaign-style rally, but actually paid for by his re-election campaign. We risk seeing the president here, once again, dive back into this issue. The hope, of course, among his aides is that he won't and perhaps will let his comments from yesterday stand as his final word on the subject.

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes, I think here's the problem with a president like Donald Trump. You know when he's speaking from the heart, as Jeremy said, and you know when he's being scripted.

And last night really struck me as kind of, you know, it was a little odd because you know what Trump is like when he really feels something, he thinks it's important, he cares about it. He speaks very differently than how he did last night. And I think that's why you can't just put something on a teleprompter and undo the damage of Charlottesville.

And, frankly, you know, Paul Ryan is putting it out there, "he messed up." But, you know, what now? What are the consequences for that? And I think there are actually a lot of Republicans who want Trump to do more than he did last night, who want him to genuinely speak from the heart in the same way that he did about the so-called good people at those white supremacist rallies.

I think the damage is not undone. I think this is going to be a problem for quite some time. And I think even Paul Ryan's comments are not going to be enough to put this issue to rest.

BLITZER: Because he did open his remarks last night in front of the military personnel who had gathered there at Fort Myer, just outside of Washington, D.C., in Arlington, Virginia. And there was a crowd of military personnel, whites, blacks, Asians, I'm sure, you know, Catholics, protestants, Jews, Muslims, gay, you know, everybody was in that audience. The military is very well integrated. He looked out at that crowd and he said, a wound inflicted upon a single member of the community is a wound inflicted upon all of us.

Strong words. Words he should have said earlier. But he used that occasion before he got into the Afghanistan policy to speak about healing this nation, which is significant.

CHRIS CILLIZZA, CNN POLITICS REPORTER AND EDITOR-AT-LARGE: Yes, I thought he did it in a deft way, too, in that Jeremy's right, he never came out and said, you know, Charlottesville, OK, I screwed up, and here's my attempt to make good on that. He talked about the military, which made some sense given his audience, as you point out, Wolf, in given the subject matter, and used the military as indicative of the need for a broader unity.

BLITZER: Because the military is very well integrated.

CILLIZZA: And that we have to -- no one going to combat, it's not Democrats and Republicans, It's not liberals -- it's not black and white, it's one unit. I thought that was quite nicely delivered by him.

[13:20:14] The problem is, or the potential problem is, is that Donald Trump seems to always take one step forward, two steps back. One step forward, two steps back in that, as you heard Paul Ryan say, I like what he said on the Monday. Didn't like what he said on the Tuesday. Liked what he said an hour ago. We'll see about what he says ten hours from now.

And that's always the problem here is that most politicians, the way that you get to the White House is incredible adherence to message discipline. If you cover a campaign, one of the most brutal things is all they do is give the same speech over and over and over and over again. Donald Trump is not that guy, which in a way made him appealing as a candidate, but makes it so difficult, I think, to project forward as to what he will say tonight in Arizona or a week from now. Because what we've seen in the past is, Donald Trump, yes, for a day -- Abby mentioned this -- yes, for a day, maybe yes for a week he stays off of Twitter or doesn't tweet anything controversial. But he always sort of cycles back to who he's been most of his adult life.

BLITZER: What do you think, Jeremy? Will he refer to Charlottesville in his speech tonight in Arizona?

DIAMOND: It's impossible to predict. That's one thing that I've learned covering Donald Trump for the last two-plus years is you never predict anything anymore.

BLITZER: Because a lot of his fellow Republicans would love to hear him say, I'm sorry. I apologize. I made a mistake. Here is what I feel in my gut about the KKK, about neo-Nazis, about white supremacists. They are not very fine people.

DIAMOND: I think so. But I think there's two important things to remember. First of all, we know how the president loves to bash the media at these rallies, and the media has been largely carrying a lot of this coverage of the criticism of the president's remarks in response to Charlottesville. So there's the mine field number one.

The second thing is that we know that despite the outrage in Washington, we know that a lot of his comments, his initial response to Charlottesville actually resonated with the president's base, or at least a portion of the base, that views the president and doesn't see the need for this kind of knee-jerk reaction against these white supremacists, against anyone who supports confederate monuments and keeping those up. But, instead, actually support perhaps keeping up confederate monuments without supporting white supremacists and neo- Nazis. And so the president -- and this is what Steve Bannon tried to convey to the president in his last week at the White House is that, listen, you can't forget about this base. You can't forget about these people. Don't listen to Jared and Ivanka and all of those people who are urging you to moderate on this issue. BLITZER: Nothing wrong with trying to expand that base, though.

They've got a base but there's nothing wrong from a political standpoint.

CILLIZZA: And he needs to -- he needs to politically.

BLITZER: Yes.

CILLIZZA: A 37 percent approval.

BLITZER: Right.

CILLIZZA: Yes, his base is still with him, but it is not currently big enough to get him re-elected.

BLITZER: All right. Very quickly.

PHILLIP: One potential for positive reinforcement. I think he's been pretty happy with the reception for -- of his speech last night and that might actually carry through into today where he feels a little bit more positive about the media environment that he's in.

BLITZER: All right, everybody stick around.

Chris, Abby, Jeremy, guys, appreciate it very much.

The U.S. war in Afghanistan certainly has trudged on for now over 16 years, but President Trump says he knows how to win there. When we come back, we'll assess the Trump plan with the Republican Congressman Mike Coffman of Colorado. There you see him. He's standing by live. He's a key member of the House Armed Services Committee. He's a Marine Corps combat veteran. We'll discuss with him right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:27:42] BLITZER: President Trump has laid out his long-awaited strategy for Afghanistan. Last night the president spoke in very broad strokes saying he didn't want to give specifics to the enemy. Here's what we heard from Defense Secretary James Mattis today in Baghdad when he was asked about the specific numbers of U.S. troops who could be a part of this new commitment.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAMES MATTIS, DEFENSE SECRETARY: I prefer not to go into those numbers rights now. The first thing I have to do is level the bubble and count for everybody who's on the ground there now. The idea being that we're not going to have different pockets (ph) that we're accounting for them in. I'll tell you what the total number is.

And there is a number that I am authorized to go up to. I have to look. I've directed the chairman to put the plan together now. We've obviously been discussing this option for some time. When he brings that to me, I'll determine how many more we need to send in.

(END VIDEO CLIP) BLITZER: All right, joining us now from Denver, Colorado, Republican Congressman Mike Pence -- excuse me, Mike Coffman. Mike Pence is the vice president. Mike Coffman is a member of the House Armed Services Committee and Veterans Affairs Committee.

Sorry for that, congressman. Thanks so much for joining us.

REP. MIKE COFFMAN (R), COLORADO: Oh, no problem. Mike Pence is a good friend of mine.

BLITZER: I know he is.

All right, look, it sounds like nobody is ready to commit formally to the new number. There are about -- what, about 8,400 U.S. troops, 8,400 U.S. troops in Afghanistan right now. There's another almost 25,000 U.S. contractors there in Afghanistan, 10,000 of whom are U.S. citizens. How many more troops? Have you been briefed? How many more U.S. troops is the president now prepared to deploy?

COFFMAN: You know, I haven't been briefed yet, but certainly a change in the rules of engagement is very important, as well as some increased presence.

The point is to put military pressure on the Taliban, to get them to come to the negotiating table. I believe there's a path to a negotiated settlement. If, in fact, they feel that pressure. Right now they don't feel the pressure because they feel like they're winning. But I think there is a path for some governance model that does involve the Taliban.

[13:29:56] BLITZER: Because the vice president, we were just talking about Mike Pence, he was on the "Today" show this morning. He said the generals want another almost 4,000 troops. So if there's 8,400 now, that would bring it up to more than maybe 12,000 or 13,000. Is that reality enough to get the job done?