Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

FBI Has Publicly Released A Highly Sensitive FISA Requests For The First Time Ever; The Director Of National Intelligence Dan Coats This Weekend Is Apologizing; President Trump Is Frustrated With The Lack Of Progress With North Korea; Share Rider Now In Hot Seat; Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke Is Facing Possible Violation Of Laws Against Hiding Or Falsify Public Record; Aired 7-8p ET

Aired July 22, 2018 - 19:00   ET

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


(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

[19:00:00] CARTER PAGE, FORMER TRUMP CAMPAIGN ADVISOR It's just so misleading going through the 400 plus Page documents, you know. Where do you even begin?

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST, STATE OF THE UNION: Did you ever advise the Kremlin or worked with the Kremlin on anything?

PAGE: Look, Jake, I -- no. I have never been an agent of the foreign power by any stretch of the imagination. You know, I may have -- back in the G-20 when they were getting ready to do that in St. Petersburg, I may have participated in a few meetings.

TAPPER: But you did advise the Kremlin? I mean, I want to make it clear. You did advise the Kremlin back in 2013 or 2012, somewhere in there?

PAGE: Jake, that's -- it's really spin. I mean, I -- I sat in on some meetings. But, you know, to call me an adviser I think is way over the top.

TAPPER: Except in the 2013 letter you wrote that -- it says quote "over the past half year I have had the privilege to serve as an informal adviser to the staff of the Kremlin in preparation for the presidency of the G-20 summit next month where energy issues will be prominent point on the agenda." That is August 2013. That's yourself calling yourself an informal adviser to the Kremlin.

PAGE: You know, informal having some conversations with people. I mean, this is really nothing and just an attempt to distract from the real crimes that are shown in this misleading document.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ANA CABRERA, CNN HOST: Page was a foreign policy adviser to the Trump campaign. And about one month before the 2016 election, the FBI asked a court for permission to surveil him saying it believed quote "Page has been be the subject of targeted recruitment by the Russian government and that he had been collaborating and conspiring with them adding there is probable cause that such activities involved or are about to involve violations of the criminal statutes of the United States."

This is the first time the government has ever released documents seeking wiretaps of an American under the foreign intelligence surveillance act or FISA. And there is a lot we can't read because it has been blacked out. But the President wants the American people to believe that these documents quote "confirm with little doubt that the justice department, the department of justice, and FBI misled the courts. Witch hunt. Rigged. Scam."

I want to bring in CNN's Ryan Nobles live in Berkley Heights, New Jersey, near the President's Bedminster golf resort where he spent the weekend.

Ryan, that tweet is misleading. Explain why.

RYAN NOBLES, CNN WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: It's very much misleading, Ana. And that is because it appears as though the President is kind of picking and choosing the parts of this 400 page FISA warrant application to try to further, you know, zero in on his broader point that he believes the Mueller investigation is tainted and was the result of a conspiracy.

And the President is essentially making the argument that was this dossier which was compiled with information from various sources but one source in particular that was designed to glean as much information as possible about the connections between Donald Trump and the Russian government were the bedrock of this FISA application.

But if you read in other parts of the warrant that, is completely contradictory. Take a listen to what it says in another section.

It says quote "source number one's reporting has been corroborated and used in criminal proceedings and the FBI assess that's source number one to be reliable. The FBI speculates that the identified person was likely looking for information that could be used to discredit candidate number one's campaign."

So the President has been, you know, working for a long time to discredit the Mueller investigation. And one of the principle ways that they are trying to do that is to try and show that there was this conspiracy behind obtaining the search warrant with Carter Page. But he doesn't look at the whole picture here, Ana, which is often a problem with President Trump.

CABRERA: Ryan, the President's tweet again just moments ago, he asks why he wasn't warned about Russian interference as he goes back to contradicting his intelligence agencies and calling this all a big hoax. But he was warned, wasn't he?

NOBLES: Yes. He was, Ana. And he seems to forget that. He doesn't talk very much about the fact intelligence agencies sat down with him and briefed him in August of 2016, you know, shortly after he had secured the nomination for the Republican party that they were concerned that the Russians were attempting to meddle in the election.

So this is contradictory. It's a contradictory statement on the President on a number of points. A very important as you point out that he is once again suggesting that his intelligence agencies don't know what they are talking about as it relates to. But also, the fact that he is blaming all of this on President Obama and acting as though President Obama was the only one who knew about this potential problem when he himself was briefed on it very specifically in August of 2016 -- Ana.

CABRERA: Ryan Nobles, thank you.

I want to bring in our CNN legal commentator and former Trump White House lawyer, Jim Schultz and CNN national security analyst and former secretary at the department of homeland security Juliette Kayyem.

OK, guys. I want to start with this new tweet from the President asking why Obama didn't do something about Russian election attack. But at the same time, saying it's all a big hoax.

James, how can the President continue to defy the unanimous conclusions of his own intelligence agencies?

[19:05:17] JIM SCHULTZ, CNN LEGAL COMMENTATOR: I think senator Lindsey Graham said it accurately this morning in his television interview when he said the President frequently conflates the issue of collusion with that of Russian's meddling in the election. And I think what the President is getting at today was the collusion issue. He has denied the collusion ever occurred as it related to his campaign. That there hasn't been any evidence shown. That he's not a target of the investigation, that there has been no showing or any evidence that there was collusion.

On the other hand, there is all kinds of evidence and everyone agrees in the intelligence community that there was meddling by the Russians in this election. And I think Lindsey Graham said it, Senator Graham said it perfectly today. That the President needs to be bullish with Russia as it relates to sanctions so they know this is not going to be tolerated by the United States.

CABRERA: Julia, is that -- do you share that take away from the President's tweet?

JULIETTE KAYYEM, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: I don't think the President is allowed to be confused, you know, over a year of his presidency. A 5-year-old can figure the distinction. And I think it is, you know, people like Lindsey Graham and I understand Jim are trying to support and respect the law enforcement intelligence agencies for what they found and also rightfully defend America's democratic system in the election in 2018.

But there is no reason now to believe that the President is confused. This is purposeful. And the reason why it is purposeful is because the evidence just continually gets damming. The way I think about this case is, you know, you have evidence from benign to, you know, collusion.

Now, we are not at collusion yet. Although, some people do think that we are. But every piece of evidence since this administration started is heading in that direction. It's heading in the collusion direction. And there is nothing that Trump can claim about confusion that undermines it. The FISA release last night is just additional proof that FBI was investigating someone close to the Trump campaign although he no longer was part of the campaign at the time, Carter Page, and I should just add in the document potentially four others. So at this stage I don't think it's confusion. I think it's a way to obfuscate his potential guiltiness.

CABRERA: Or maybe sensitivity. I mean, if the President is too sensitive to separate collusion and meddling, is our safety at risk, Juliette?

KAYYEM: Yes. I think it is. I mean, I want us, you know, focusing for a variety of reasons. One, of course, it's just really hard at this stage to look at Trump's behavior towards Putin in Russia and view it in anything but nefarious light. I just don't think any rational person can look at what is going on.

And I don't just mean Russia. I also mean him -- Trump undermining the EU and NATO and others. There is no reason except for I think a bad one for the President to lean so clearly towards Putin. And then from someone from the homeland security perspective, the elections in 2018 are literally like a heartbeat away at this stage. And the fact that the President cannot see its vulnerabilities as related by the secretary of homeland security herself is, I think, is a dangerous zone we are entering.

CABRERA: Jim?

SCHULTZ: I think the President in a tweet is conflating. I don't believe he is confused. I belief he is conflating the two. And we can leave that there.

But I also like to say that the EU and how they treated the EU, he just wanted the EU to pay their fair share at that NATO conference. That's what he went in there and did. He didn't do anything out of the, you know, he did something that other folks were not willing to take on which is the United States should not be shouldering all of this burden.

CABRERA: Jim, let me ask you about the President's other tweet today. He continues to celebrate the release of this FISA warrant application. And we laid out some of the findings and it was Ryan Nobles. But he has been tweeting and proves his campaign was spied on, that the FBI acted inappropriately. But Senator Marco Rubio, a Republican, a lawmaker, currently in Congress said that's just not the case.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. MARCO RUBIO (R), FLORIDA: Yes. I don't think they did anything wrong. I think they went to the court. They got the judges to approve it. They put -- laid out all the information and there was a lot of reasons unrelated to the dossier for why they wanted to look at Carter Page and Carter Page was not a key member of the Trump campaign. But -- and the Trump campaign said that. (END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: Jim, like Rubio said. Trump's tweets really are not supported by what it is in that warrant application. It is 412 Pages long. Do you think the President actually read it?

SCHULTZ: I looked through it. And I have to tell you, there wasn't much to look through. It was largely redacted. And the redactions were pages and pages long. So it wasn't 400 pages of information.

And I think what wasn't redacted was largely conclusory in terms of targeting and things that they found as it related to Carter Page were largely conclusory without the facts because those facts were redacted.

So it is hard to pass judgement from one way or another from a document that we didn't see what the court saw. But I get Senator Rubio's point that, look, if the Russians are targeting Carter Page and they believe that he was vulnerable or that there was some vulnerability there, sure, that may be something they want to consider. But let's not forget the one thing that was left out of that application is the fact that the DNC partially funded the dossier which a dossier which the factual findings in that dossier have been challenged time and time again. And, again, conclusory and have not been reliable.

[19:10:48] CABRERA: But actually, that just wasn't left out of the dossier. In fact, there, I believe Ryan maybe read the quote. But if we missed it, let me read it to you. I mean, it says the FBI speculates that identified you person was likely looking for information that could be used to discredit candidate number one's campaign. Sure it doesn't name the DNC.

SCHULTZ: That's right.

CABRERA: It doesn't name anybody specifically. But it doesn't -- there really are not any names of American within this besides Carter Page and George Papadopoulos. And so, there they do point to a political agenda as part of that dossier's source. And the other piece there, James, is that that the dossier is not the only piece of evidence to obtain this warrant. And that is evidence through this FISA warrant application that was released.

SCHULTZ: But we haven't seen that evidence. And we haven't had that available to us because it's largely redacted. And it's a far cry from saying OK this was a political document to a document that was funded by the DNC in this Presidential cycle. It's just not the same.

KAYYEM: Can I just make it clear to viewers? I can just make it clear to viewers how big of a deal to release this? And the reason why is because what the Republicans have been saying is there is no basis for a FISA surveillance. And what we see in this, whether conclusory or not, is actually there was factual findings, not just the dossier but multiple ones that focus on Carter Page and four others. We don't know who the four others may be. That that not only allowed the application but, of course, the renewal that's we keep seeing. The FISA court has to renew these and that's based on facts. I think the other thing that is just -- you know, this is a legal document.

(CROSSTALK)

CABRERA: Hold your thought for just one second, thought, because those we know also worth pointing out, were made by judges who were all appointed by Republican administration, by Republican Presidents.

KAYYEM: That's exactly right. It's the same process that you go before the court as well. And I think, you know, there is another story here which is just really I think just a shame and sort of damning towards the House Republicans and the House and Devin Nunes and, of course, Paul Ryan.

Devin Nunes has created or try to create a story that suggested, right, that this was all based on the dossier and the FISA application. He knew that was not true when he made those statements. And when the House intelligence committee came out with the report. That to me is -- that is on Paul Ryan at this stage. I mean, if, you know, Paul Ryan could have gotten rid of Devin Nunes as a head of a House intelligence committee, a committee that wants, you know, in my world, you know, the fact that House intel committee is like this is just shocking because you never seen anything like this.

And I think there is going to be political consequences. The legal ones, of course, are harmful to Trump. But the political consequences are ones that I really think Paul Ryan really, you know, needs to explain it to the American public. Why Devin Nunes' lied and then is allowed to be head of what was -- once was a bipartisan committee that looked at intelligence, nonpolitically to defend you and I and everyone else.

CABRERA: Juliet Kayyem and Jim Schultz, I have to leave it there, guys. Thank you so much. Really appreciate both of you for being here.

Coming up, the challenges of working for a President who does what he wants when he wants.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAN COATS, DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE: Say that again.

ANDREA MITCHELL, NBC NEWS ANCHOR: You -- Vladimir Putin, coming --.

COATS: Did I hear you? Yes. Yes.

MITCHELL: Yes.

COATS: OK.

MITCHELL: Yes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[19:18:23] MITCHELL: Vladimir Putin is coming to the White House in the fall.

COATS: Say that again.

MITCHELL: You -- Vladimir Putin coming to the White House --

COATS: Did I hear you?

MITCHELL: Yes.

COATS: Yes. OK.

MITCHELL: Yes.

COATS: That's going to be special.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: The director of national intelligence Dan Coats this weekend is apologizing for his initial awkward response to the news President Trump had invited Putin to the White House for a second summit in the fall.

In a statement just last night Dan Coats said this. Quote "some press conference coverage has mischaracterized my intentions in responding to breaking news presented to me during a live interview. My admittedly awkward response was in no way meant to be disrespectful or criticize the actions of the President. I, and the entire intel community are committed to providing the best intelligence to inform and support President Trump's ongoing efforts to prevent Russian meddling in our upcoming elections."

So that may be their goal, but breaking again tonight, the President is reversing course again. Calling the issue of Russia election interference all a big hoax.

Joining me now is CNN political commentator and senior columnist at the "Daily Beast" Matt Lewis and associate editor and columnist for "Real Clear Politics" A.B. Stoddard.

So Matt, just days ago, the President had to issue a clarification for his comments in Helsinki and now this it's a hoax tweet?

MATT LEWIS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: This is what he always does though. Remember, in Charlottesville, he says both sides were, you know responsible. Then he comes out and reads a prepared statement cleaning it up apologizing. And then a couple days later, he reverts back to where he started.

This is the pattern. It's the exact same thing. He will end up where he started in Helsinki because that was what he really believed. When he cleaned it up, when he read the statement, that's not what he believed. This is where he really is. Or at least this is the political instinct. This is the authentic Trumpian instinct.

[19:20:31] CABRERA: A.B., did that tweet just show Trump's true colors, his true beliefs?

A.B. STODDARD, ASSOCIATE EDITOR/COLUMNIST, REALCLEARPOLITICS: Matt is more than correct. He not only doesn't say on positions very long like policy positions on an immigration bill on the floor of the House let's say like a month ago. But he also does not like to back down. So we all anticipated it after he made that clarification the other day at the White House that he would in fact go back to his original position. And it is not at all surprising for people who have been following. A lot of Trump supporters don't actually follow him on twitter, interestingly enough. And they don't like his tweets and therefore don't follow it. But it is a tradition of his to -- if he's forced to back down redouble down in the days that follow.

CABRERA: Do you think we will see backlash from Republicans on the hill, Matt?

LEWIS: No. I think now they are trying to move on, you know. They dealt with this. They have had to deal with this. They have been questioned about it. President Trump said this. What do you think? They don't want to stay talking about Russia. They are going to try hard to change the subject.

No, I don't know if Donald Trump will let them. That's the problem. It's interesting. You know, you think that Donald Trump would want to change the subject from Russia. But he likes to bring it back up. And he does it oftentimes via twitter.

CABRERA: We heard that sound bite from Dan Coats there at top. And now sources are telling CNN that the White House spoke to Coats 45 minutes before his appearance in Aspen. No one gave him a heads up about this invitation.

A.B., can he continue to do his job effectively?

STODDARD: This is the interesting question. I was really surprised to see him release a statement expressing his, you know, apologies about the confusion. I think the apology should be made to the director of national intelligence on Monday night of last week after the comments in Helsinki when the President name checked Dan Coats, a public servant with an impeccable record, a man of integrity and sort of hung him out to dry, people were questioning whether Dan Coats that night in the day that's followed could stay in the job and should he resign because of this kind of insult and the fact that President ignores him doesn't consult with him. And they allow him to be interviewed at the Aspen seminar and allow him to be stunned by news about a follow up summit?

This is absolutely getting what you asked for. And then he heard chatter from the west wing calling into question whether or not his job was safe, whether the President might fire him for sort of going rogue in his interview with Andrea Mitchell Friday. And so he scrambled to contain this by putting out that statement where other people are just fuming thinking that Dan Coats should walk away. I hope Dan Coats doesn't walk away from this job. I hope he doesn't

lose this job. He is good at this job. He is serving the national strategic interests of the United States of America when the President did not on Monday in help Helsinki. But this is the burning question. What is going to happen to Dan Coats?

CABRERA: We just saw the President and first lady arriving back at Joint base Andrews there as they make their way back to the White House following a weekend in Bedminster at his golf resort there. The President we saw waved to the media. He did a fist pump. Appear to say thank you or something along the lines if I were to be a lip reader.

Matt didn't appear to take any questions. So there is a brand new "Washington Post"/ABC News poll I want to bring up. It shows only 33 percent of Americans approve of how President Trump handled his meeting with President Putin while 50 percent disapprove. And now we have this invitation for Putin to come to Washington in the fall with the midterms looming.

Matt, what kind of problem could that create for a congressional Republican?

LEWIS: Well, I think it's so funny because, you know, Donald Trump may be this is three dimensional chess. Maybe Donald Trump is brilliant and it's all going to fall into place for him. But it seems to me pretty stupid, OK. I think that Donald Trump had a real winning issue which was the Supreme Court. Now he is going to -- there are going to be confirmations hearings for Brett Kavanaugh. I thought he should have picked a fight on that.

Pick Amy Coney Barrett, forced Democrats in those, you know, North Dakota, Missouri, you know, those Trump leaning states to decide whether they are going to pick a fight over the Supreme Court or not.

Instead, what does Trump do? He picks a nominee that I think is going to sail through confirmation and he changes the subject to Russia, to Vladimir Putin. And he is on the wrong side of it. This is a new cold war. And now all of a sudden the Republicans are the dupes. The Republicans are, you know, it's totally goes against everything. Like if you grew up like me watching "Red Dawn" and the "Rambo" movies, the KGB, they are the bad guys. I don't know what Trump is doing here.

[19:25:11] CABRERA: A.B., final thought?

STODDARD: I can tell you congressional Republicans made it perfectly clear that they hope this follow up summit never happens. They are trying to dissuade the White House privately from, a, having it happen and, b, near the midterm elections and, b, letting the President have another private meeting with anybody let alone an adversary like Vladimir Putin. So in their view they are actually hoping that it goes away. We will see what happens.

CABRERA: We'll see. A.B. Stoddard and Matt Lewis, thank you both.

STODDARD: Thanks. LEWIS: Thanks.

CABRERA: Coming up, the President loved the Bastille day military parade that he saw in Paris. And now, we are getting new details about a big spectacle of that will enfold in Washington come November. Stay right there.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:30:16] CABRERA: When he emerged from the summit in Singapore, President Trump famously declared that North Korean crisis had been largely solved. But tonight "the Washington Post" is reporting the President is venting frustration over the lack of progress on reaching a deal.

Let's talk it over with lieutenant general Mark Hertling, CNN military analyst and former army commanding general Europe and seventh army.

General Hertling, thank you for being here. Was this Trump's mission accomplished moment when he went out there after the summit and basically said we have a deal, there's nothing to worry about anymore?

LT. GEN. MARK HERTLING, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: He certainly wanted it to be his mission accomplished moment, Ana. And it was part of that narrative. It's a marketing tool. But anyone who is a serious Korean watcher who knows how the North Koreans negotiate and obfuscate and the way they have patterned of engagement with other nations would have second guessed all of this happening. And in fact, many of us did.

It's unfortunate because that was just a meeting between two people. When you talk about the history and the trends of North Korea, there have been multiple other folks who have wanted to have that moment but they soon learned that it's very difficult to do that with any of the Kim family whether it be Kim Jong-un or his family or grandfather. They have all been guilty of this kind of actions.

CABRERA: When I say mission accomplished moment, we all think back to President Bush and what happened with the Iraq. Obviously, that didn't go the way it was planned. But I mean right now as we look at the reality with North Korea, the President's frustration about the lack of progress is not unfounded. U.S. negotiators, we know if they stiff resistance from the North Koreans, including canceling meetings, demanding more money, failing to maintain the basic channels of communication, where do you see this going?

HERTLING: Well, you also have to remember that the President announced some things that were going to happen that never did. And he continues to do that in several occasions today. You know, you remember right after he said some of the remains of the Korean war dead were going to be shipped back home. That hasn't happened at all. And in fact, he didn't say there were going to be. He said they are being shipped right at this moment.

So it just gets back to the belief of a narrative versus the facts on the ground. And that's what secretary Pompeo has been trying to drive home. And he has been frustrated in it.

So where is it going to go? It's going to go a lot harder than anyone in the current administration thinks it's going to go and it's going to be increasingly difficult to get more actions. And although, we haven't had a nuclear test or a missile launch which is true, those things are still have great potential. And we have to be concerned about all of that countering some of the narrative that the President has been given the American public.

CABRERA: I'm going to pivot to another topic. Because we have this military parade that is coming up this week. CNN is reporting that the price tag of this proposed military parade here in the U.S. is about $12 million. And that is roughly the same trice price of the canceled U.S. military drills with South Korea.

So General Hertling, what do you make of it? It is a wise use of that money?

HERTLING: My personal belief and from stand point of a former military guy who hated parades, I guarantee you, Ana, that there are very few military personnel that want to do this. In fact, I would bet good money, I can take anybody to any base in the country and say how do you like parading on a national holiday and you will get about an 80 percent or higher no go vote on that.

But having said all that, too, like you said, this money seems to be about the same as what was going to be used for a Korean exercise that was canceled. Many of us thought that there would be a snap back opportunity to get that exercise back on the books. That didn't happen. We are way beyond that now.

But now this planning for this parade started back in February. That's when the President first announced it. I think there were probably many in the Pentagon that were pushing back a little bit on it. But unfortunately, when the commander in-chief wants something like this, you have to give some options.

And I wrote a piece about this that was in U.S. news and said there is a potential for a big, medium and small option. And I think what we are going to see in this parade on the -- I think it's going to be on the 10th of November versus the 11th, it's going to be somewhere in between the medium and the small. But it's still not going to be anything like he has seen in France or certainly like we have seen in Russia or Korea or China.

CABRERA: General Hertling, always good to have you with us. Thank you so much for being here.

Coming up, better than super. That's how Russia describes what happened behind closed doors at the Helsinki summit. And now Putin has an invitation to Washington. Does he have the upper hand on Trump? Your weekend Presidential brief is next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:39:28] CABRERA: The sequel to the Trump-Putin summit is in the works. Russia announced it is open to a second summit with the U.S. and press secretary Sarah Sanders tweeted that discussions for that are already underway.

The timing for that second meeting, well, this fall as midterm elections loom. This comes as we still don't know what was discussed exactly in that Trump-Putin one-on-one meeting on Monday.

And this brings us to your weekend Presidential brief. A segment we bring you every Sunday night highlighting some of the most pressing national security information the President will need when he wakes up tomorrow.

And here to bring it to you is our CNN national security analyst and counsel adviser. She spent two years in the Obama administration helping to prep for the President's daily brief.

Sam, good to have you with us. What is the setup now going into this potential Trump-Putin meeting in Washington?

[19:40:19] SAMANTHA VINOGRAD, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Well, there are two people that are celebrating post Helsinki, that is Donald Trump, he has given himself extra credit on the personal report card because he doesn't like admitting failure. And President Putin because the Helsinki summit and this post Helsinki period have really helped his objective of sowing confusion in the United States.

I think he will be hard pressed to find anyone that isn't confused right about what happened. We have no readout about what happened behind closed doors. The director of national intelligence said he doesn't even know what is going on. So we are getting most of our information actually from Russia or disinformation, in fact. And that helps Putin's goal of sewing confusion in the United States and making President Trump look less credible.

He didn't stand up to Putin in Helsinki. And all sides point to the fact that he wouldn't stand up to President Putin if he comes to Washington. And Putin is bringing his party to the United States to America sometime this fall at President Trump's invitation.

So we are going to have a situation this fall if Putin comes where our attacker is walking into the White House while we are still under live attack and President Trump will still fail to confront him.

CABRERA: Before we get to that summit or that one-on-one meeting, we have come into Washington, the president the European commission. This is supposed to happen on Wednesday at the White House. What do you expect from that meeting?

VINOGRAD: Well, we are having a war and party, the European Union coming into the White House on Wednesday.

President Trump has instigated a trade war and a war of words against our friend. He described EU as a foe. But we have a 65-year friendship with the European Union. So I think that there is a very packed bilateral agenda for this meeting. And it's really focused on trade and not on other key issues like Brexit or counterterrorism. We have a bilateral free trade agreement between the United States and

EU. We have steel and aluminum tariffs that the President instigated. And we have this additional threat of tariffs against auto and vehicle parts. And I think that President Junker is coming near a very different position than he was a few weeks ago.

The EU signed a massive trade deal with Japan. Covers a third of global GDP. So he is probably feeling like he has a little bit more leverage. But both sides want a trade war ceasefire. No one wants to see more tariffs on auto or vehicle parts. So I think we are going to see both sides. President Trump and President Junker try to find some way out of escalating the trade war further.

CABRERA: And it's the trade war that has the President calling the EU a foe. And yet a lot of people in the national security realm are saying it's really China that is the bigger national security threat here. I know you were speaking at the Aspen security forum earlier this week. China came up. That was topic of the conversation. What is the assessment of China's goals on the U.S.?

VINOGRAD: Well, it was really incredible at a forum where we were discussing the range of threats against the United States. FBI director Chris Wray said that China is the most significant counterintelligence threat facing our country. A CIA official at the Aspen security forum said that China is waging a cold war against us. So across so many metrics. China is our biggest threat.

And President Xi has been really busy the last few weeks. He was just in the UAE where he signed a bunch of agreements and deals. And now he is in Africa. He is in Synagogue. He is going to Rwanda the first time a Chinese President has visited. And he is really investing time and money in relationships with countries that he doesn't criticize. So the media around his visits is positive. And potentially trying to pull countries closer to Beijing and away from the United States.

CABRERA: Sam Vinograd, we packed a lot in there. Good information there. Thank you so much.

VINOGRAD: Thanks.

CABRERA: Coming up, candid camera. Shocking expose -- shocking exposition involving an Uber and Lyft driver who live stream footage of his passengers without them ever knowing.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:48:33] CABRERA: This just in to CNN. We now know that none of the 17 passengers killed when a Missouri duck boat capsized last week were wearing lifejackets. This is according to a source with knowledge of this investigation. Authorities say they were working on raising the boat out of water tomorrow until Thursday during severe weather. And among the victims, nine members of the same family. A woman who survived but lost her husband, her three children, and five other relatives says no one ever told them to grab lifejackets.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) TIA COLEMAN, DUCK BOAT ACCIDENT SURVIVOR: When the captain took over, I thought that at some point he would say grab the jackets now. But we were told to stay seated. And everybody stayed seated. Nobody -- nobody grabbed them. When that boat is found, although lifejackets are going to be on there. Because nobody pulled one off. You don't, you know, you weren't supposed to grab them unless you were in distress which we were. But he told us don't. We don't need them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: Missouri's attorney general says investigators are looking into whether any criminal acts were committed. We'll, of course, stay on top of that story. Such a heartbreaking story.

What would you do if you found out your ride share driver, if you were taking Uber or Lyft was live streaming video of you during your trip without your knowledge? A driver for Uber and Lyft has been suspended for doing just that with hundreds of passengers. It happened in the St. Louis area of Missouri. The driver installed dash cams in the car to record passengers and then stream the video on an online platform called Twitch.

Joining us live to discuss is CNN Money senior tech correspondent Laurie Segall.

Laurie, this is a crazy story. What do you know about this particular incident?

[19:50:24] LAURIE SEGALL, CNN MONEY SENIOR TECH CORRESPONDENT: What would you do? I would be horrified. But I also feel like I'm a technology reporter and I should know that sometimes privacy is dead to a degree.

But we know, wince it has happened in Missouri and this driver talked about streaming hundreds of rides on a video platform called twitch which is a lot of gamers and a lot these people had no idea that their personal conversations were being live streamed. They are being commented on. There were lots of sexist comments, you know.

And I think the key here is that most of these drivers -- this driver didn't mention most passengers that they were being live streamed.

Now we reached out to Lyft and Uber. Both companies say the driver is no longer allowed on the platform. Lyft says that the comfort of the community is a top priority. And then I reached to Uber. And what they says was this is troubling and it was against their community guidelines. They also talked about live streaming in the comments of the driver made and those were inappropriate.

But you know, I should mention that it is legal for, you know, a lot of these drivers that sits on the Uber website. You are able to report people for safety reasons. Now, in Missouri it's not illegal to record without consent. So one party consent stay, you know. It (INAUDIBLE) varies in different places.

But you know, it will be interesting to see because I think a lot of us go into our Uber and go to our Lyft thinking, you know, I mean, I know we have our personal conversations, but the last thing we are thinking is that we can be live streamed. I think this is eye opening.

CABRERA: I never thought about whether I am being recorded or caught on camera.

Laurie Segall, thank you so much for that.

Coming up, a reversal of the reversal. President Trump flips the script and calls Russian election interference all a big hoax.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:56:42] CABRERA: It was the straw that broke the camel's back for Scott Pruitt right before he was canned. CNN and others reported that Pruitt had staffers alter and scrub his schedules, a possible violation of laws against hiding or falsify public record. And this smoke and mirrors approach to transparency may still be alive and well in the Trump administration.

However, as CNN's Sarah Ganim reports the latest offender is interior secretary Ryan Zinke.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SARAH GANIM, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): When interior secretary Ryan Zinke wants you to know what he is doing, he knows how to get your attention, riding a horse to work, raising a flag to show he is in office.

But the interior secretary notorious for public stunts has also been keeping his schedule discrete. A CNN analysis has found about a dozen instances where Zinke's calendar omits or obscured important details about who the cabinet secretary is meeting with and why. Leaving the public in the dark about meetings with lobbyists, lawmakers and groups with business before his department.

CNN even found vague terms like personal or hold used regularly and in one instance describing a meeting with a federal contractor.

NORM EISEN, FORMER OBAMA WHITE HOUSE ETHICS CZAR: It is critically important for cabinet secretaries to keep accurate calendars. He works for us, the American people.

GANIM: CNN compared email conversations between Zinke and his schedule made public through freedom of information request to the actual calendar of the interior department keeps. We found several troubling instance. In one case, a seemingly standard entry in May of 2017 meeting with Rep. Collins. It was revealed to include three executives from Delaware north, a contractor that does a lot of business with Zinke's national parks.

That same month Zinke's itinerary for a trip to Alaska notes a meeting with Mayor Harry Brower, North Slope Borough. But a briefing packet we found notes that two lobbyists were present for a firm that represents the Borough in lawsuit against the department.

REP. RAUL GRIJALVA (D), ARIZONA: This is not an accident.

GANIM: Democrat Raul Grijalva's committee oversees the interior department and he wants an investigation.

GRIJALVA: The kind of entitlement sense that they brought into the positions, I'm not going to worry about these ethics issues, what is that? That doesn't apply to me. Like hell with them. They shouldn't get the calendar. And I can meet whoever I want and nobody needs to know about it.

EISEN: Particularly given secretary Zinke's checkered history on ethics, the many allegations that have surfaced about him, it raises the question is there something to hide that is forbidden that he is engaging in under our federal ethics laws.

GANIM: In a statement to CNN, an interior spokeswoman said quote "it is very common for scheduled items to be cancelled the day of which is why something could be referred to in an email or briefing and not on the calendar released. She also said the department complies with all rules and strives towards transparency.

Now they say stripes words transparency but we haven't been given the secretary's schedule in a year. These calendars are available a long time after the events occur and only after someone files a freedom of information request, a blog that Ryan Zinke keeps called on the road with Ryan Zinke hasn't been updated in nine months.