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Trump Undermines GOP Leadership, Strikes Deal With Dems; NYT: Trump Jr. Says He Wanted Russian Dirt To Determine Clinton's "Fitness" For Office; Trump: U.S. Is Prepared As It Can Be For Irma

Aired September 07, 2017 - 12:30   ET

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

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[12:30:02] REP. PAUL RYAN (R), HOUSE SPEAKER: He wanted to make sure that in this moment of national crisis where our country's getting hit by two horrible hurricanes, he wanted to have a bipartisan response and not a food fight on the timing of the debt limit.

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JOHN KING, INSIDE POLITICS HOST: In Washington, we call that spin. Now we also call that taking one for the team a day after the President abandoned his team. There's a shocking decision in every way. What the President did, when he did it, how he did it, even where he did it.

The Republican President took the side of liberal Democrats Pelosi and Schumer on issues embedded in Republican DNA, spending and the debt. He did it entering a key stretch for congressional action on a half dozen key issues maybe more. And he did it in the Oval Office humiliating Speaker Ryan and the Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. After the White House senior staff had assured the Republican leadership, the President was on board with their plan.

If a picture says a thousand words, look at this one. The President and Senator Schumer embracing. To Republicans, it's betrayal. Prove to many of them, their President is not to be trusted. Bust as the President, all he saw were smiling faces.

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DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We had a great meeting with Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi, and the whole Republican leadership group. And I'll tell you what, we walked out of there, Mitch and Paul, and everybody, Kevin, and we walked out and everybody was happy. Not too happy, because you can never be too happy, but they were happy enough.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: It is to say the least an interesting day in Washington. With us to share their reporting and their insights, Politico, Seung Min Kim, Olivier Knox from Yahoo News, The Weekly Standard, Michael Warren and Margaret Talev from Bloomberg Politics.

It is just a hard one to fathom. Speaker Ryan putting his best public face on this, but heading into this stretch with all the work they need to do -- I mean, I was joking with the staff this morning. There's a little football game tonight I might be watching. This is like Tom Brady taking the first snap, and just flipping the ball to the chiefs and saying, go. Have it. It's all yours.

SEUNG MIN KIM, REPORTER, POLITICO: I mean, let's remember, Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi made that offer early in the morning on Wednesday and not even what, three hours later it was done like that. And Paul Ryan had actually gone out to reporters and said, look, a short-term debt limit extension not a good idea. A lot of Senate Republicans and House Republicans were telling reporters as the White House meeting was going on that this is something they would not accept. And yet, you know, very abruptly the President of their own party went around them and took that deal.

KING: So people look down, and they say this is going to make tax reform harder. This is going to make debt ceiling harder. We're going to have to do debt ceiling twice for Republicans. You have to do it short term when they do it again. The whole lot of things when you look at the particular issues, to me the bigger question is, if you are a Republican member of Congress heading into a very critical period of votes, then into a very dicey midterm election season, do you have any faith in your own president that your president switched sides in the middle of the game.

MICHAEL WARREN, SENIOR WRITER, THE WEEKLY STANDARD: Yes. But why should -- I mean, why should anybody really be surprised? This is sort of the President's M.O. I mean, he's never had a really deep connection with the Republican Party on those issues. You said, you know, that were part of the Republican DNA. Well, Trump is not a Republican by DNA. You know, he sort of adopted this party.

And this is something that I think is brewing to the last couple of months. You have the failure of repeal of Obamacare. That something that I think the President felt stung on. And ever since then, he's, I think, been putting distance between himself and the establishment Republicans on the Hill.

MARGARET TALEV, SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, BLOOMBERG POLITICS: Yes. I've been trying to figure out -- we talk a lot about Trump's instincts for tactical moves rather than strategical moves. And to use your football analogy, if you move the ball five yards every play you would eventually probably get touchdowns.

So his instinct is always to go the short game instead of the long game and hope that the long game will work out. But is there a strategy here? And what is he signaling if there's a strategy? Is it that he wants to start doing things with Democrats and -- or is that just a one-off play? And what does it say about how he intends to deal with Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell?

He's obviously really frustrated with them. Feels betrayed by both of them. Doesn't feel that he needs to have loyalty to them. Seemingly this move would anger the conservatives and the folks even to the right of the Speaker and of Mitch McConnell. But possibly it emboldens them.

If it creates pressure on especially Ryan, the potential for a challenge to the speakership and invitation for more aggressive primary challenges in February when the real new debt ceiling limit comes due. There are a lot of possibilities to spring out of what the President's done if he's in any kind of position of strength heading to the New Year to actually exercise any of those things.

KING: What a lot of Republicans are worried about is he confuses their base heading into a mid-term cycle. The President won't have their back if they do cast tough votes. And the question is, was this a one time thing yesterday?

The President, he's mad at Paul Ryan. He doesn't like Mitch McConnell. He decided I wanted get a win. I want the next couple weeks to be good. I want to get my Harvey money, that we might need Irma money. Let's get the debt ceiling raised. Let's get a spending. So let's make and look like Washington has attack together for at least a month. The Presidents gets that. The question is what about the long term.

[12:35:03] Just today, if you're a Republican out there saying what happened here? Just today Nancy Pelosi says she called the President. She said, you know, a lot of the DREAMERS out there are nervous. You're going to kick them out of the country. You should reassure them, Mr. President, that you won't.

President Trump tweets, "For all those DACA that are concerned about status during the six-month period, you have nothing to worry about. No action." Meaning, the government won't come after you during those six months. Nancy Pelosi had a press conference this morning. Just look at her face. The Democrats are kind of happy today.

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REP. NANCY PELOSI (D), MINORITY LEADER: And I was reporting to colleagues. I said, this is -- but I ask the President to do and boom, boom, boom, the tweet appeared.

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KING: She's literally the only person in D.C to have shown any control over his Twitter account.

KIM: Yes.

OLIVIER KNOX, CHIEF WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT, YAHOO! NEWS: I think that --

KING: Bravo.

KNOX: I think there are short and long-term ramifications here. I don't know that the Dems are that thrilled about this particular win except for what it means in December when all these comes together again. Every single time, you vote on the debt limit. That's an incentive for the Democrats to ask for more.

KING: Right.

KNOX: We did not couple this request with anything on DACA. It is a, you know, a clean proposal. I think to your point, though, I think he did something here. If you look at -- if you saw (ph) in the 2017, you can't look at their own as a true majority party. They break apart on all these major issues. Repeal and replace wasn't because Democrat (INAUDIBLE) because Republicans couldn't get their act together.

I wonder if Donald Trump looked at the fall and say God, you know what I really don't want? I don't want a quote/unquote Republican shutdown. I don't want a quote/unquote Republican default. I want to get through this phase of September. I want to get through this phase of October. We'll fight this other battles later.

For every Democrat that votes for this and to Republican who doesn't have to. There are ways to gain advantage from this. But let's not pretend that we're suddenly discovering that the President can sometimes be vulnerable.

KING: And if the President wants to be bipartisan, he could have done that right out of the box. We might have an Obamacare fix. We might have an infrastructure bill? You might have big achievements. He decided to be out of the box. The timing of this is what makes it so weird.

I just want to read something quickly from Erick Erickson, who's a conservative, not always a Trump fan, so let's be clear about that, writing in his post from the resurgent today. "Remember there are two parties in Washington, the stupid party and the evil party. Occasionally get together to do something that's both stupid and evil and the press heralds it as a bipartisan accomplishment. We are on the road to stupid and evil more expeditiously because of what president Trump just did."

I mean, I'm laughing about this but this whole -- the confusion that Donald Trump has caused since day one of his entry (ph) in politics. He confused the Republican Party then he won its nomination. He's different in every way. This is the conversation around this town today ranges is rangers from, you know, from overboard. Some Republicans reviews too and said betrayal. More to your point is like what tomorrow?

WARREN: Yes. But I think the President does have a sense for what sort of grass roots Republicans or sort of the base of the Republican Party feels which is they don't like Paul Ryan. They don't like Mitch McConnell. They don't like idea of the Republican establishment. And Donald Trump.

KING: And they want Washington to work. That's one of the reasons he won.

WARREN: That's right. I think Donald Trump is very good at sort of exploiting that kind of almost visceral hatred among Republicans for their own party leaders. And he's doing a very good job of exploiting that here.

KING: And also done a very good job of -- you're right. There was not a ton of loyalty in that reservoir to begin with for the President among Republican leaders but I think it's empty.

WARREN: Yes.

KING: Everybody sit tight. Up next, the President's son face-to-face today with senators investigating the Trump campaign team's contacts with Russia.

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[12:42:35] KING: Welcome back. In just a moment, the President of United States just talked about preparations for Hurricane Irma. We'll bring you tape in a moment, but we're also watching Capitol Hill today where the President's son, Donald Trump Jr. facing questions from Senate investigators behind closed doors. This is the closest of the Russia investigation have come to the President himself.

The focus today, that Trump Tower meeting between Trump Jr., Russian lawyer and other close campaign aides. The New York Times has paid (ph) a copy of Donald Trump Jr.'s prepared statement to that Senate Committee in which Trump Jr. says he took the meeting because he wanted dirt to help determine Hillary Clinton's quote fitness for office. He also says he intended to talk with his lawyer about the quote propriety of using any information he learned at that meeting.

Our senior congressional reporter Manu Raju joins us live. Manu, a big day for Donald Trump Jr. and part of an escalation of these committee investigations to try to get what I'll call the inside players.

MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL REPORTER: Yes, that's right. And Donald Trump Jr. has spent more than three hours behind closed doors with staff of the Senate Judiciary Committee going through that opening statement, which really did not deviate too much from what he has said publicly.

But what I'm told from senators who have attended the staff meeting, who have listened in that there are still a lot of questions that they want answered. Dick Blumenthal, the Democratic Senator from Connecticut, just emerge (ph) to that meeting. I just had a chance to speak with him and he said that Donald Trump Jr. has been answering questions but still there are people they want to interview, people who were elsewhere at that meeting and other names that have been brought up through the course of this session including Jared Kushner, the President's son-in-law and Paul Manafort.

Now the question is whether or not they move forward with the public hearing something Democrats are calling for about the chairman of that committee. Chuck Grassley told me earlier today that he has not made a final decision yet on having a public hearing.

Now, John, this comes as several committees are ramping up in investigations including the Senate Intelligence Committee which was told yesterday by Facebook that Russian actors have purchased ads on Facebook to try to influence the elections. I had a chance to talk with Mark Warner, the top Democrat on that committee who said that the question now remains whether or not any Trump associates were involved.

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RAJU: Do you have any reason to believe that the Trump associates were involved in any way with those ads on Facebook?

SEN. MARK WARNER (D), VIRGINIA: Yes. Again, one of the questions that I have asked, and I don't have any answer yet, is that particularly if we determine that there was also geographic targeting of these ads to specific areas or key swing areas, you know, I can understand how the Russian would the technology to do that.

[12:45:08] But how would they have the political knowledge, particularly when you take a state like Wisconsin where, frankly, the Democrats weren't even aware enough it was fully in play. I don't have the answer to that question yet, but I hope to get that answer.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

RAJU: So that's the question that the Senate Intelligence Committee wants to explore whether or not Trump associates were involved in any way. I had a chance to ask Richard Burr, the chairman of that committee, whether or not they would look further into the issue of Facebook. He did not want to comment on this. But it does show, John, that several committees, the Senate Judiciary Committee today with Donald Trump Jr., Senate Intelligence Committee which also wants to talk to Donald Trump Jr. down the line and other actors (ph).

They have a lot more work to go. This is I'm issue that's not going away anytime soon for the Trump administration, John?

KING: Manu Raju for us live on Capitol Hill. Let's bring in to the conversation. I'm going to interrupt us in a minute or so, we'll listen to the President of United States at the White House talking about Hurricane Irma.

But the fact Donald Trump Jr. in this statement obtain by the New York Times says, I wanted to take this meeting. I want to see if they had dirt. It would undermine Hillary Clinton's fitness for office, but then he also says and I knew if it was any good I was going to talk to my lawyers about whether it was proper to use it in the campaign.

Paul Manafort and Jared Kushner were also in this meeting. Senior people involved in the campaign. That tells you something. That tells you that at least he had something going on in his head saying maybe I shouldn't be doing this in the first place.

TALEV: Yes. So, this represents yet another new chapter in sort of changing explanation for --

KING: I'm sorry, Margaret, I need to interrupt you. The emir of Kuwait and the President of the United States. Let's listen. TRUMP: Thank you very much.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. President, you know Florida very well, how concerned are you about Hurricane Irma?

TRUMP: We're very concerned. We are working very hard. We have tremendous groups of talented people there. The people of Florida are like the people of Texas, Louisiana. You've seen how the people of our country have reacted under this tremendous pressure and these horrible things that we call hurricanes. This is something that is probably bigger, not as much water but much more power than Harvey.

The governor has so far done a terrific job. I mean, they're prepared. We don't know exactly where it's going to be landing, where landfall will be, but we think we're as well prepared as you can possibly be. Many of the folks have left Texas, obviously on an emergency basis, and come down to Florida.

Puerto Rico escaped. It could have been far worse. They really escaped the brunt, but it's heading right now right directly into Florida. So hopefully it will take a turn and go east and move quickly. Right now, it's not doing that. We are with the people of Florida. And as you know, the Virgin Islands got hit very hard. Very, very hard. And we're finding out the kind of damage. It's actually -- communication is actually difficult.

We have people right now on the Virgin Islands, and we'll see how that is, but it's been hit very, very hard. I can say this. Florida is as well prepared as you can be for something like this. Now it's just a question of, what happens. It's the largest hurricane they've ever seen coming out of the Atlantic. And the winds are the strongest most importantly. This is the real problem. The winds are the strongest that they've ever seen in a hurricane coming from that region.

So, we're with everybody in Florida. We're working very hard. We have tremendous talent and really, tremendously, brave people to be there and hopefully it's going to work out all right. We'll see over the next few hours.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: -- start with the president of FEMA may be spread to thin right now?

TRUMP: Well FEMA is doing an incredible job as you all know. I mean, you've been reporting it, you've seen how incredible they are. And there's a great bravery to what they're doing. But certainly we're being hit with a lot of hurricanes. We'd never had a thing like this where you get hit with Harvey, which was about as bad as it gets certainly from the standpoint of a water dump and then you get hit with Irma and there's one right behind Irma. I guess you probably know. A smaller one, but nevertheless right behind.

I think FEMA has been -- I don't think anybody has done anything like they've done at FEMA and they have done a really good job. You see what happens in Texas and you see already in terms of what's going on in Florida.

I have to also give a special shout-out to the coast guard. The United States coast guard saved 14,000 lives in Texas. 14,000 lives. And now I think the numbers even higher than that. These people -- and they go right into the eye of the storm. You know what's been happening.

Most of you have been reporting the number is astronomical. I mean, what could have been a total catastrophe in terms of life has been obviously much less. So I just want to say that the coast guard of our country has really performed incredibly. I've never seen anything like it. I've gotten to meet them. I've gotten to meet a lot of the folks when I was in Texas and these are tremendous people.

[12:50:05] They are now shifting a lot of their effort to Florida, right in the middle of it. The difference again being these winds are tremendous. They have never seen winds like this coming off the ocean. So hopefully it's going to not hit Florida very directly but it looks like it's going to be hitting it.

All right, thank you very much, everybody. Appreciate it. Thank you.

KING: That's President Trump in the Oval Office with emir of Kuwait talking about other issues and of course taking some questions there about Hurricane Irma. The federal government's preparations for Irma which at the moment is on a path to thump the state of Florida.

As we were listening, it's striking, when you listen to the President on this. The President gets criticized from time to time when he takes a health care question, when he takes some of the sensitive policy questions, that kind of sometimes is a little scattershot, sometimes goes around, you know, and undermines his own party. Sometimes doesn't have the facts or the policy just straight.

That was an incredibly thorough briefing. Clearly, he is deeply involved in getting the latest track. Keeping in touch with the government officials, that was impressive.

KNOX: Enormously, important test of the federal government, the state government, the local governments biggest one on his watch so far. Obviously, he's very, very invested in having all of these go smoothly. But it was a very -- he speaks hurricane response, clearly.

WARREN: And I think disasters can kind of bring that out in presidents, right. It sort of calls presidents to sort of get the facts through it and really sort of reassure people. I'm sure also he knows the area well down in Florida. This is -- he's probably thinking about it on a personal level as well and that's, you know, come away with a good talk right there about hurricane response and relief.

TALEV: You see these big storms now hit two red states where he has relationships with the governors and the political structure. And, of course, he has a chief of staff with the Homeland Security experience. So he's pretty well prepped for this. And so far, the federal response has been competent. Let's hope it's competent this time around. But it's true. It's quite a contrast to some of the sort of non-storm events. And he's really focused on the details. He's really interested in the speed, the power, the most, the biggest, the threat.

KING: OK. Let's turn back a little bit to what we were just discussing with Manu Raju before he went to the Oval Office. One of the halls on Capitol Hill, in the sense that Donald Trump Jr. is now being questioned. You have a conversation, I'm not sure it's a disagreement, you know, but a conversation between Chairman Grassley and Senator Feinstein whether that should be in public. What is the sense on the Hill and sort of where they are? I saw Manu interviewed Chairman Burr the other day who said his aspirational goal is to finish by the end of the year but it sure didn't look like they were going to get there.

KIM: I mean, that isn't very ambitious of a timetable. Senator or Chairman Burr have said that repeatedly for the last several month that his goal is to get it down by the end of the year. Democrats aren't so quite so sure.

And even though we look at the Intelligence Committee as kind of the primary investigation on the Hill on this we still have the Senate Judiciary Committee investigation which is where Donald Trump Jr. is speaking today. The Chairman Chuck Grassley of Iowa, he is known as a very meticulous oversight investigator since his time under the Reagan administration. So he's going to make sure he's got every kind of, leaves no stone unturned. And that investigation could drag out for a while too. So this is certainly something that's not going away anytime soon and almost certainly not this year.

KING: Almost certainly not this year. And I just want to put up, if we still have the graphic of that 2016 Trump Tower meeting. Because Democrats for months I think way out over their skis talking about collusion without any evidence of collusion. And then one of this meeting came up which depends what happened.

You know, but Donald Trump after initially saying, you know, he took the meeting to talk about adoptions. That's what he said in an interview with Sean Hannity. Then he released the e-mail chain which made clear he took the meeting and now his statement obtained by the New York Times makes clear. Again, he took the meeting because he got a phone call, saying, this people have dirt on Hillary Clinton.

He's the President's son. He was an active player in the campaign and then he brings in to that meeting. Jared Kushner, son-in-law, Paul Manafort, then the campaign chairman and an experienced political hand that this is where the questions come from. You know, one of those adults on the left-hand side of your screen should have known better or if they were doing this, why were they doing this? And what were the relationships with those people you see on the right-hand side of the screen?

WARREN: You know, jumping to conclusions is something that Democrats have been eager to do and wanting to do throughout this whole investigation. The problem is that we keep learning new things and new information that raise more questions.

And so, when you hear pro-Trump voices certainly from the administration himself saying this has gone on too long. That we don't know -- there's no smoking gun. Well, the fact that Donald Trump Jr.'s own story changed what? Six, seven, eight times means there are more questions.

TALEV: And you can assume that there's a good chance that the reason the stories keep changing or becoming more explicit is the production of documents by everybody who's a part of the Mueller investigation. As more information goes forward to those committees, it's really important for the people who are being questioned by the committees to be or at least appear to be more forthcoming in the congressional investigations as well.

[12:55:10] KNOX: You have -- half of the news stories that I see about this investigation, they read like messages to people who have yet to be questioned. They're like, here's what we have. Like you think how contradict it if you want, don't waste our time.

They read a lot like that. Although today's reads more like Donald Trump Jr. trying to say he did nothing wrong. I think talking about being very concerned about her fitness for office is just another way of saying, I wanted to see if they have dirt?

KING: Right.

KNOX: And actually what it is.

KING: And in the past, coverage of these stories, big days like this have brought reactions from the President lashing out about the investigations. We'll see if that happens in this case.

Thanks for joining us on INSIDE POLITICS dealing with all that breaking news. See you back here tomorrow this time. President Trump in a new conference about in an hour with the emir of Kuwait. We're going to bring you that live right here on CNN. Please stay with us. Wolf Blitzer up after a quick break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Hello. I'm Wolf Blitzer. We begin with breaking news. Right now, bracing for impact in what's being called a nuclear Hurricane Irma closing in on Florida after devastating parts of the Caribbean. The states governor not telling folks --