Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

Report: Trump Speaks After Israel Says Iran Lied About Nukes; Netanyahu Says He Has Proof Iran Lied About the Nuclear Deal; Stormy Daniels Sues Trump for Defamation. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired April 30, 2018 - 14:00   ET

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

[14:00:00] UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: I want to ask you about Iran's prime minister just gave a speech very critical of the nuclear program. Is it your decision to pull out of that deal, do you worry that sends the wrong message to North Korea to enter nuclear talks with Kim Jong-un?

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: No, I think it sends the right message. In 7 years, that deal will have expired and Iran is free to go ahead and create nuclear weapons. That is not acceptable. Seven years is tomorrow, that's not acceptable. If anything, what Israel has done today in the news conference and Prime Minister Netanyahu just gave -- I don't know if everybody has seen but I got see a little bit of it. That is just not an acceptable situation. And I've been saying this is happening. They're not sitting back idlily. They're setting off missiles which they say are for television purposes. I don't think so.

We'll see what happens. I'm not telling you what I'm doing, but a lot of people think they know. On or before the 12th, we'll make a decision. That doesn't mean we won't negotiate a real agreement. This is an agreement that wasn't approved by too many people. And it's a horrible agreement for the United States. Including the fact, Mr. President. That we gave Iran $150 billion. And 1.8 billion in cash. Nigeria would like some of that. 1.8 billion in cash. And $150 billion. You know what we got? We got nothing. Nothing. That doesn't mean I wouldn't negotiate a new agreement. We'll see what happens. But I think if anything, what's happening today and over the last little while and what we've learned. Has really shown that I've been 100 percent right.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: President Buhari. I want to ask you, you are the first leader from sub-Saharan Africa to visit president Trump here at the White House. Did you address his reported comments from earlier this year when he reportedly use vulgar language to describe African nations?

MUHAMMADU BUHARI, PRESIDENT OF NIGERIA: I'm careful to what the press says about other than myself. I'm not sure about the validity or whether that allegation was true or not. The best thing for me is to keep quiet.

TRUMP: We didn't discuss it. And you do have some countries that are in very bad shape and very tough places to live in. We didn't discuss it, because the president knows me, and he knows where I'm coming from and I appreciate that. We did not discuss it. Mr. President, can you ask a question.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Thank you. Mr. President. My name is Juliana. President Trump, I'd like to know, Nigeria is in need of Tucano aircraft to tackle the problem back home. Will you be kind enough to release at least two before 2020 to enable the country to tackle the situation in the country? How soon will you be visiting Nigeria?

TRUMP: I would like to visit Nigeria. It's an amazing country, and in some ways, I hear in the standpoint of the beauty of the country there's no country more beautiful. The first part of your question, I couldn't hear what you were saying, go ahead.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: The helicopter.

TRUMP: Oh, helicopters. We love helicopters. He likes helicopters more than I do. He likes buying helicopters. And they are buying a lot of helicopters.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: We want to know how soon --

TRUMP: Very soon.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER You'll be releasing them to the country.

TRUMP: Yes, we're getting them approved. Part of the problem is you weren't allowed to buy helicopters in our country and now you are, I worked that out. So now you can buy the helicopters that you want. They weren't allowed to buy the helicopters in our country for various reasons. They weren't good reasons. But now they get them, and they get them very quickly and they are the best helicopters anywhere in the world. We make the best military equipment in the world. And our friends can now buy that equipment, Mr. President?

BUHARI: Thank you very much.

TRUMP: Did you have a question for the president?

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: President Trump. The fight against corruption is one of the major achievements that the Nigerian government has presented to the world. The records show that the United States of America is one of the major destination countries of illicit fund and assets from Nigeria. To what extent did you discuss the need to repatriate these funds back to Nigeria to fund critical infrastructure, to cut down funding for terrorism, and also to reduce illegal immigration rom Nigeria to your country.

TRUMP: We actually have discussed all of those topics at length in the last period of time.

[14:05:00] In terms of corruption Nigeria has a reputation as you understand very well for three massive corruption. I also know that the president has been able to cut that down substantially. We talked about it, he is working on it. And they have made a lot of progress, I think they will continue to make a lot of progress. We have a lot of people in this country and frankly the country itself, that invests in Nigeria, so cutting down on that corruption element and a corrupt element is very important to us. The president will be able to do that. President.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: President Buhari, the United States import of crude oil from Nigeria has considerably gone down. Could you discuss the need for the United States to increase its import of crude oil from Nigeria?

BUHARI: No, I can't tell the United States what to do. We have gone for crude oil elsewhere. The progress made for the United States -- I hope technology will allow them to use our crude for quality for petrochemicals.

TRUMP: I think more than maybe anything else what we discussed today was our agricultural products going into Nigeria, which Nigeria wants but we have certain barriers that don't allow that to happen. For the good of our farmers, and U.S. farmers, and Nigeria, and all of Africa, it's important we are able to sell our great agricultural products into Nigeria, that will happen, and we'll be working on that right away. Thank you ail very much, thank you, everybody. Thank you. Thank you.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: [inaudible]

TRUMP: It's possible. Very possible.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. President is the DMZ the only location you will accept as a premise?

TRUMP: It was an interesting thought. And I had that thought. We're looking at various countries, including Singapore. And we are also talking about the possibility of the DMZ. Peace House Freedom House, and there's something that I thought was intriguing, I think that some people maybe don't like the look of that, and some people like it very much. I threw it out today as an idea, I told President Moon and through President Moon we connected with North Korea. There's something I like about if, because you're there, if things work out, there's a great celebration to be had on the site, not in a third- party country. We are looking at the possibility of doing it, in that location.

We're also looking at other countries including Singapore. Everybody wants us, it has the chance to be a big event. The United States, I was talking to John Bolton about this a little while ago the United States has never been closer to potentially having something happen with respect to the Korean peninsula, that can get rid of the nuclear weapons, can create so many good things so many positive things and peace and safety for the world. We'll see what happens I often say, who knows, maybe a lot of things change. But Kim Jong-un who has been very open, and very straightforward so far. I can only say again so far, he's talking about getting rid of the site, no research, no launching of ballistic missiles. No nuclear testing and he's lived up to that for a long period of time. A longer period of time than anyone has seen. We're looking at that for a possible site. I think it would be a great celebration if it works out well. If it doesn't work out well, that's the way it goes. UNIDENTIFIED Reporter: Are you still confident the summit will

happen?

TRUMP: Yes, I think the summit's going to happen, they very much want it. I think the summit will happen, personally I think it will be a success, we will see. If it's not a success -- you got to get rid of the nuclear weapons. If it's not a success, I will respectfully leave. It's very simple. Thank you all very much, thank you.

[14:10:00] BALDWIN: My goodness, stunning times there, the president of the United States, alongside the president of Nigeria. On the nuclear beat today. Number one, the meet with the dictator of North Korea Kim Jong un. And you heard it therefrom him floating the notion of Singapore or the DMZ. Where we saw just a couple of days ago photos no one thought they'd see of the leaders of the two Koreas holding hands and stepping on the other side of that line. We'll get more into the significance of the president himself, talking about locations and hoping for a celebration.

The other huge headline this afternoon. We heard from the prime minister of Israel. Benjamin Netanyahu. Here we are roughly 12 days before the president of the United States has to determine whether he wants to stay in. The Iran nuclear deal was signed under his predecessor Barack Obama. You heard him say, it's a bad deal. You have the Israeli pm telling the world that Iran lied. That Iran lied about its nuclear weapons program. And working on a secret nuclear weapons program. Oren Liebermann is therefore us in Jerusalem with more on what the pm alleged.

OREN LIEBERMANN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You're absolutely right. Netanyahu's phrase used to be it's a bad deal. But his new one has become fix it or nix it. A phrase that was even echoed by President Donald Trump a few months back. Now it seems he's shifted to a different phase here. Very much a nix it or else perhaps implying that there are military options on the table if the deal stands as is. So, about the speech itself it was very big on drama, theatrics. It was clear that it was very carefully choreographed. Netanyahu spoke for quite some time. First in English, then in Hebrew.

Behind him on a very large monitor as you can see there is what he says is the evidence that Iran lied about its nuclear program that it was developing nuclear weapons all along. And the crucially Iran lied to the IAEA, the International Atomic Energy Agency in charge of certifying Iran's compliance with the deal itself both pre-2015, pre- the deal. And since Netanyahu built this case from the beginning, going back, even referencing 2003 in Project Ahmad which was the nuclear program back then.

Saying they claim to have frozen it then kept developing it until Iran lied in 2015 to the IAEA. That was his big strike at the Iran deal hoping to convince

President Trump to nix the deal.

You are absolutely right in pointing out the speech was in English. And that tells you who the audience was here. This was not a speech meant for the Israeli public who knows very well Netanyahu's opposition to the deal. This was a speech for Trump and Trump's base. Trump said in that press conference, you'll see what happens, it's very clear which way Netanyahu is trying to push Trump on this -- through Trump, and through his base, and perhaps even giving Trump more evidence to leave the deal. This was not a speech for the leaders of the UK, France, Russia.

Netanyahu knows all he has to do is convince Trump to leave the deal and the deal itself is done. That's what we saw on display here. There are two phrases we heard over and over again, secret. Netanyahu talked about Iran's secret nuclear program and their secret weapons development. And Iran lies.

BALDWIN: Oren, thank you in Jerusalem. Let's go back to the White House, to our chief White House correspondent Jim Acosta. We know the president spoke to Netanyahu over the weekend. He met with the secretary of state just yesterday that seemed like a speech for an audience of one.

JIM ACOSTA, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: That's right. As Netanyahu knows, the best way to get your message across to the president is to talk on national television. What happened here today is a tale of two nuclear deals. If you go by what president Trump said, he's inclined to believe the case presented by Netanyahu. He watched a portion of it and seemed inclined to believe what the prime minister was saying. At the same time, he seemed to be amping up expectations that he's going to have these high stakes talks with Kim Jong-un. He was asked at the end of this news conference.

[14:15:00] A reporter shouted a question to him. About whether or not those talks should take place on the border of north and South Korea. The president sounded positive about that option the only thing he's going to be satisfied with, when it comes to a deal with the North Koreans is to have the complete removal of the nuclear weapons from the Korean peninsula. That's something we're going to have to keep our eye on.

A lot of topics were covered here. I think one thing that's going to come out of this news conference, the president said he's not going to apologize for his rhetoric during the campaign. He was asked about this receipt crick. He went on and said, listen, he thinks the U.S. immigration laws are weak, pathetic and so on. And so, I think that is going to make a big splash today. As the president is making it clear about what he thinks. When it comes to Muslims coming into the United States. The caravans of migrants seeking asylum. He didn't even apologize or deny the fact that some African nations are shithole countries as he got in trouble for a little earlier this year. A lot of speculation, and rising expectations, I would say, Brooke about these high stakes talks he plans to have with the dictator of North Korea.

BALDWIN: What did he say, Nigeria is the most beautiful country he's ever been to?

FAREED ZAKARIA, CNN HOST: Some people say that Nigeria is the most beautiful country in the world. I have to confess, people have said many things about Nigeria over the years I don't think anyone has said that. In South Africa, maybe, Botswana. That was one of those classic shall we call it a Donald Trump exaggeration.

BALDWIN: Fareed Zakaria, host of "GPS", Jim just hit the headlines. I want to hone in on Netanyahu and what we saw a while ago. You say the Israeli PR campaign is alive and well.

ZAKARIA: What's interesting as was mentioned is, Netanyahu gave the speech in English. It was very visual. That was the main event. It was all done camera ready, there were slides, blown up perfectly, just right for our cameras. And the heart of the allegations are really about the past they are the -- that Iran was developing or trying to develop some nuclear weapons capabilities at points in the past, and deceive the IAEA about it about some of that is probably true. It was true of North Korea as well.

Many of those countries have been in those stages. The most important case for the Iran deal, since Iran has signed the deal, it has adhered to the deal that is the view of the IAEA which has inspectors everywhere from Iran's mines to laboratories. It's the view of the U.S. intelligence community. It is the view of all European intelligence communities. That piece Netanyahu wasn't talking about. He brought up this issue of the past the way he described it, and I think it's cleverly done. It's not about what's happening now, it's about documents from 7, 8, 10 years ago.

BALDWIN: Do we know because Netanyahu alleged when the IAEA was inventorying what Iran had before the 2015 deal was signed, they lied then, and do we know, have they lied since?

ZAKARIA: We don't know that, because the IAEA are the only ones that could confirm or deny that. We do know the IAEA is there, everywhere, with cameras. So, it is the IAEA's job to certify whether or not the deal is being followed. I believe they have six times certified that Iran is following the deal.

BALDWIN: Why would the U.S. potentially pulling out of this Iran deal be a good thing for Israel or make Israel feel safer.

ZAKARIA: I think it's difficult to say whether it would make Israel safer. Netanyahu has a particular view which is not shared by the members of the Israeli intelligence community, at least the ones I talked to who are in favor of the deal.

[00:20:00] Netanyahu's view is that it gives Iran the ability to in the long run develop nuclear weapons, the deal has a time limit to it. It is important to point out that the time limit is often, frankly, they're just being deceptive about it. President Trump said in seven years Iran can develop nuclear weapons. That's not true at all. The deal expires.

There are various timelines. There's eight years, 10 years, some things go on for 25 years. The uranium mines which is where you get the raw material to process the fuel which is a crucial component. That ban goes on for 20, 25 years. Even then Iran says in the third line of the document it never commits to developing nuclear weapons. The deal is much longer and more phased than is being presented. For

somebody like Prime Minister Netanyahu, I think there's no time limit that's enough.

BALDWIN: I want to play one bit of sound from the prime minister specifically when he's saying -- when he is speaking about President Trump.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, PRIME MINISTER OF ISRAEL: This is a terrible deal. It should never have been concluded. In a few day's time, President Trump will make his decision on what to do with a nuclear deal. I'm sure he'll do the right thing. The right thing for the United States, the right thing for Israel. And the right thing for the peace of the world.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Do the right thing. Do you think based upon that entire presentation and the relationship between Netanyahu and Trump, is that a harbinger of things to come as far as the US pulling out?

ZAKARIA: It seems to be. And if you remember President Macron of France he met with a small group of journalists I was there. He said Trump didn't say directly to me, what I picked up from the body language, he intends to get out of the deal. Macron's view is that it was for Trump's domestic purposes. Trump wanted to look tough. He had always criticized the deal. Anything Obama did he was opposed to. Macron said I think it's for domestic political reasons. Macron's view was very strongly that he should stay in the deal. And that it would complicate the efforts to get North Korea to sign a deal. When you are reneging on a deal that you just sign with Iran. A deal that, you know, is frankly probably much stronger than the deal you could get with North Korea. Iran does not have any nuclear weapons. This freezes Iran at a pre-weapon stage way before the weaponization. North Korea already has a large nuclear arsenal and intercontinental ballistic missiles.

BALDWIN: Just quickly. You brought up North Korea, and you heard the president say maybe Singapore, the DMZ as far as where he will be meeting Kim Jong on. The tweet from earlier where he's essentially asking the world, where do you think I should be meeting him? What do you make of all of that?

ZAKARIA: Donald Trump remembers one of his great claims to fame, he helped organize or participate in the big boxing matches. He knows this is pay per view television he's thinking like a producer, what is the most spectacular setting, he's right. A conference hall in Singapore. It doesn't compare with being on the actual spot where the line was drawn.

BALDWIN: Thank you so much. We watch Fareed every Sunday morning here on CNN. More breaking news, Stormy Daniels is suing the president for defamation, hear her reasons next.

[14:25:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: We're back, breaking news about Stormy Daniels, she's suing president Trump again. She filed a second lawsuit accusing President Trump of defamation. CNN's Sara Sidner is in Los Angeles with a copy of that lawsuit. What are the details?

SARA SIDNER, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: She's back again. So basically, this is a defamation lawsuit. And it all stems from a tweet by Donald Trump. Let's put the tweet up so you can see and remember this. This was April 18th that he tweeted this, a sketch years later, about a nonexistent man, a total con job playing the media for fools and they know it.

Now he is referring to and you'll see down there, there's a picture. And that is the sketch that Stormy Daniels talked about on "The View" first, and that her attorney continued to talk about. That sketch you are seeing here is a man that she says threaten her in 2011 as she was talking to "In Touch" magazine. And trying to tell her story about what happened with Donald Trump in that Tahoe hotel room. Donald Trump reacted by saying this guy is nonexistent and called it con job.

Her attorney put in court papers that that was defamatory, it damaged her, and a jury will decide what will happen, but it has to reach damages of more than $75,000. In talking about damage to her reputation. It goes into details, we hadn't heard about that article. It was never published until 2018.

[14:30:00] The interview was done in 2011 wasn't published until 2018. Part of the reason why is because as we understand it, sources telling us that Michael Cohen got involved and would sue on Trump's behalf. And make sure they didn't publish that. Here is a detail that we have not heard before in the case. It says, in 2011, "In Touch" magazine heard from Stormy Daniels ex-husband. Who had approached the magazine without approval from Stormy Daniels or else she is referred to here as Stephanie Clifford.

It said that she only did the interview because they said they were going to go with the story anyway. There's a question I had in my mind in reading that. She took a lie detector test. This interview was done on the phone. We know that because we talk to the reporter who did the interview. Stormy Daniels and her own attorney put out the picture of her taking a lie detector test.

So, the question is if you didn't want to do the story, why would you go to all these steps to take the lie detector test. So that's the question that stands out for me having covered the story, but the defamation is all about Trump's tweet, his tweeting, look, that is defamatory, calling it a con job is also trying to say that she somehow committed a crime. He's filed this in New York and filed it against the president of the United States, this is the second lawsuit Michael Avenatti has filed against Donald Trump.