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Trump Comments on Missing Journalist; Rubio on Storm Damage; Trump Gives Private Presser. Aired 8:30-9a ET

Aired October 11, 2018 - 08:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:32:17] ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: There are new developments in the story that we've been covering, the disappearance of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

So President Trump is now addressing this morning calls for him to confront Saudi Arabia over what happened to Khashoggi when he went into the Saudi consulate and never came out. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: That is very, very seriously. I don't like it at all. Now, you know, you don't have American citizens, but that in this case doesn't matter. I don't like it. I don't like it with respect to reporters. It's a terrible, terrible precedent. We can't let it happen. And we're being very tough. And we have investigators over there. And we're working with Turkey and, frankly, we're working with Saudi Arabia. We want to find out what happened. He went in and it doesn't look like he came out. It certainly doesn't look like he's around.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What's at stake?

TRUMP: But he went in and he came out maybe --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What's at stake with U.S.-Saudi relations, sir?

TRUMP: I would say they're excellent. I've told them, they've got to pay for their military. You know, Saudi Arabia has a -- is a very rich country. And for years and years -- there would be in Saudi Arabia if there wasn't a United States because we've protected them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: All right, joining us now to talk about this, we have CNN's senior political analyst John Avlon.

It couldn't be more complicated, John.

So, but the president said a lot of -- he went farther just there in talking about this than he has for the past ten days since this journalist went missing.

JOHN AVLON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes.

CAMEROTA: He said, first of all, he acknowledged that he's a journalist, a "Washington Post" columnist, and this cannot happen. You can't silence or snuff out journalists, he seemed to be saying, those you disagree with, that sounds like what happened with the crown prince in Saudi Arabia because Khashoggi was disagreeing with his policies. And he said he's not an American, but he is a U.S. resident.

AVLON: Yes.

CAMEROTA: And so there are -- the stakes are very high here.

AVLON: The stakes are very high. And the president did farther this morning in those comments because to date he's really been trying to avoid confronting the issue because relations are so close between the Trump administration and the ruler of Saudi Arabia, which highlights the fact that this is a big deal story, not just because of the moral outrage and the murder mystery, but because of big power politics. The Trump administration all in supporting the 33-year-old crown prince known as MSB. He -- Saudi has been a client of the United States, a close relationship for a long time. But they now play a more central role in the Trump administration's strategy for the entire Middle East. There are military, there are political and deep personal relations. And MSB is known as a reformer, but he has autocratic instincts. And now they're going to be forced to confront that because if these reports are true, there's -- the Magnitsky Act exists and the Senate can invoke it and the administration will need to take action that could lead to sanctions.

CAMEROTA: This would be complicated even without interpersonal intertwining, which is already what's happening with the Trump family and the crown prince. This would be complicated geopolitically given all the ripple effect with Iran, with Yemen.

[08:35:07] AVLON: Absolutely.

CAMEROTA: I mean this would be complicated for any U.S. president. But then add, on top of it, that the Trumps have become very close to this crown prince. Jared Kushner --

AVLON: In particular.

CAMEROTA: Has been socializing with him, has involved him in various deals. Here's how "The New York Times" describes it. Kushner championed Prince Mohammed, who's 33, when the prince was jockeying to be his father's heir, had dinner with him in Washington and Riyadh, the Saudi capital, promoted $110 billion weapons sale to his military and once even hoped that the future king would put a Saudi stamp of approval on his Israeli-Palestinian peace plan.

AVLON: I mean that is a multi-layered relationship, from trying to broker arms deals, to, you know, drinks with the crown prince and partying on his yacht and wherever else. But these relationships are deep and complicated. And if the Trump administration effectively is forced by Congress to confront Saudi Arabia about this act, it will have ripple effects because they've been depending on Saudi to be a check on Iran. There -- the U.S. has gotten involved in the border war with Yemen. These relationships run deep. And yet the Magnitsky Act, which the Senate can invoke, would require the administration to investigate and possibility put on sanctions.

You heard yesterday the president say, oh, we certainly don't want to mess with our arms deals. That would be bad for American business. The question is, does he see bigger principals at stake? Because this is not an administration that's gone to the mat for human rights.

CAMEROTA: The Magnitsky Act has gotten a lot of play because that also was brought up during the Trump Tower meetings with the Russians.

AVLON: Yes.

CAMEROTA: That was, perhaps, the rouse of why they were there or whatever. The lawyer, the Russian lawyer wanted to talk about, she claimed. But now it comes into play because this bipartisan group of senators, how often do we get to say that, is demanding that President Trump be more assertive and aggressive with what to do about this.

AVLON: Because if the U.S. doesn't take a strong stand -- and this is exactly why the Magnitsky Act was passed. You've got 22 senators, 11 Democrats, 11 Republicans, sending a letter to the president to invoke it. If the U.S. doesn't back it, and if they let this slide, an American resident allegedly murdered in a consulate in Turkey, a NATO ally, this would be terrible for world order. Those are the stakes. And the U.S. provides the backbone in a world order. And so whatever personal and financial relationships there are, some principals need to trump those consideration, need to be consistent and clear, otherwise it's chaos out there.

CAMEROTA: Here's what the former ambassador to Yemen is saying about this. It does seem like the Saudis are less concerned about U.S. views than ever before, both because they assume Trump won't care and because they think they don't need U.S. approval.

I mean, as though they're being emboldened.

AVLON: That's exactly right. And that is the real danger of these closeness of relationships. Some people can take it as license. And our own Elise Labott reporting out today following up that it's possible that the U.S. had intercepted cables showing that the Saudis wanted to lure Khashoggi back. And if that's the case and there was not a -- the duty to warn was not communicated, that's an additional complication and a degree of culpability.

CAMEROTA: John Avlon, thank you very much for helping to explain all of this to us.

OK, we'll have much more of the storm coverage and Hurricane Michael's devastation coming up next.

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[08:42:13] JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, John Berman, live in Panama City, Florida. You get a sense of the devastation behind me. This was a building that

was simply pushed over and crushed into small bits by the force of Hurricane Michael. We're getting a sense from the sky now. We have drones up. You can see the devastation on the ground. It is extensive.

Joining me now by phone is Republican senator from the state of Florida, Marco Rubio.

Senator Rubio, thanks so much for being with us.

I know you've been watching all morning, getting a sense of just how bad the situation is, just how much damage was done. Your reaction as you see these pictures?

SEN. MARCO RUBIO (R), FLORIDA (via telephone): Well, it takes me back to my second year in college. That was 1992. And that was Hurricane Andrew came right through Florida, south Florida, where I lived. And some of these images just from the drones that have been put up this morning are reminiscent of some of that. And, obviously, we'll learn more in the next few days. Right now we're kind of relying on some of the media photos that are up, some of our friends and colleges, local government on the ground. And the reports -- look, I don't want to be breaking -- I haven't seen it myself yet, but just from what I'm hearing from locals, and these are not people prone to hyperbole, Panama City has catastrophic damage. Someone told me, quote, Mexico Beach is gone.

And it's -- this is going to take a lot of money and a lot of time to sort of rebuild and obviously the federal government is going to have to be a big part of it. So I'll be -- I'm going to head to the headquarters of FEMA now to try to get more insight into sort of all the particulars and then fly into northwest Florida and then try to assess it myself with, of course, not getting in the way.

But I think we're only beginning to learn. This still reminds me -- it takes me back to that, you know, when -- living through Andrew myself and so you woke up -- and I'll never forget the initial reports were, it's not so bad, and then the further south one got, the more you realized, oh, my goodness, this is a community altering event.

BERMAN: You know, it's a reasonable comparison. Hurricane Andrew is a reasonable comparison because this storm made landfall two miles per hour short, the wind speeds, of a category five storm. The most powerful storm ever to hit the Gulf Coast. And one of the most powerful ever to hit the United States, period.

And we've been talking about the damage from the storm surge, and that may be the case down in Mexico Beach. We just don't have a sense yet of how bad that is. You just told us you've been hearing Mexico Beach is gone. But the wind damage that we're seeing here in Panama City, and the amount of buildings, structures that were just destroyed, and the trees down everywhere, you know, there is a wide scope of destruction here, senator.

RUBIO: There is. And the rebuilding, of course, will be expensive because it will be rebuilt to the new code that we have in Florida post Andrew, which is costlier, safer, but costlier than some buildings that might have been grandfathered in.

But the bigger point is that, you know, one of the things that makes this part of the state so attractive is access to the water. You know, Panama City, Panama City Beach, more of a resort area. Mexico Beach kind of a hidden gem, old Florida. That's tough to rebuild. You know, it takes time to bring that back up.

[08:45:14] But it's not just the sort of property damage. It's economic damage. I mean this has done economic damage. This is the life blood of the economies of these communities. And it's going to be awhile before that -- those industries are going to be producing revenue and jobs. So what happened after Andrew is people moved. I mean they just left. A lot of them moved north to Broward County and never came back. And it's taken 20 some odd years for south (ph) Dade (ph) to recover. And I just hope that's not the case here. And so, obviously, we're concerned about it.

But people are going to need to understand, I mean, this is not one of these things that we're going to scoop up and pick up and turn this around in 48 hours. I mean this -- this is going to take -- this is a multi-year recovery effort. We've got to rebuild the electric grid. This is not restoring power, this is -- from what I'm hearing this morning from Panama City, they have to rebuild the electric grid based on some of the damage that -- that I've been -- that's been described to me.

BERMAN: No, again, it does look bad here. We are only beginning to be able to assess it.

You know, senator, we were speaking to people in the run up to this storm. It did seemed like a lot of people decided to stay, even though there were the warnings. Yes, it accelerated quickly, and some people felt it came out of nowhere over the last five days, by they were given three days' notice.

Are you concerned that people are becoming jaded, almost numb to the calls to evacuate?

RUBIO: I don't think so. I think what happens often, especially in the Florida Keys is a good example. You've got folks that have been there for a long time, generations in particular. You know, Apalachicola's an example of that. You've got families that have been there for three or four generations. They have lived through multiple storms and so their view of it is, you know, I've -- I've lived through storms before. I can live through this one.

And then there's another factor which we need to take into account, OK? There's some people that just can't. They don't have a car. Or they're not in physical condition to evacuate. Or they've got pets that they're not going to leave behind. I mean there are people that they're not not leaving because they're stubborn. They cannot leave. And I'm fearful about that part, too. And that is a vulnerability that I think Irma exposed a little bit in some areas. And I hope that as the day goes on and search and rescue operations go on, we don't learn stories about people that didn't leave because they couldn't afford to and, as a result, lost their lives. That's a vulnerability we have that really needs to be addressed. And we tried working on that a little bit this year. It's one of the lessons of Irma. But, obviously, haven't -- hopefully not a big factor in this one. We'll find out. But it's clearly something that needs to be addressed.

BERMAN: You know, Senator Rubio, you've lived through these storms, as you know it yourself. We know you're on your way down here to take a look at the devastation firsthand. Thanks so much for being with us this morning. Appreciate it, senator.

RUBIO: Thank you. Stay safe.

BERMAN: You know, Ali, you've heard it, Alisyn, the reports coming in, you know, not good. Not good. And we really need to hear from some more of these communities along the coast that were closer to the highest wind speeds and the greater storm surge.

We are getting reports in. And what we are seeing is frightening enough. We've been looking at this building behind me all morning, which was a grocery and an office space. I think we have a before and after picture.

CAMEROTA: We do.

BERMAN: We got our hands on some Google imagery of what it did look like before. You can see, this was a building. This was a cinderblock, sturdy looking building. It did not and could not withstand the force of this hurricane.

CAMEROTA: John, it's incredible to look at those images that we just found from Google Earth because that just looks like, you know, a standard shopping center, regular building. And the idea that that is just -- that was 24 hours ago and that that's what you're standing in front of now. That just incredible debris field that we're looking at behind you. I mean that tells the whole story right there of how hard it will be for all of these people to rebuild.

BERMAN: Yes, and it's not just this story. This is just one of what are hundreds and perhaps thousands of stories this morning all along the Gulf Coast, Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: All right, John, thank you for much for all of the reporting down there. Obviously you've been so helpful to be all of our eyes and ears while you've been on the ground there. So, thank you.

We do have other news to get to.

"New York Magazine" reporter Olivia Nuzzi gets a private Oval Office press conference. It was very interesting, to say the least. What happened in the Oval Office? Why was the president so interested in talking to her? She's going to tell us, next.

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[08:53:31] CAMEROTA: Weird is one way to describe what happened to Olivia Nuzzi at the White House on Wednesday. The "New York Magazine" reporter was personally called into the Oval Office and ended up having a private interview with President Trump and many of his top officials. She writes about the experience for the "New York Magazine's" new Intelligencer site.

And Olivia Nuzzi joins us now.

Good morning, Olivia.

OLIVIA NUZZI, WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT, "NEW YORK MAGAZINE": Good morning.

CAMEROTA: OK. So you were working on a story about Chief of Staff John Kelly. You had been doing interviews at the White House. You had left the White House and you noticed a missed call from Sarah Sanders. Then what happened?

NUZZI: I had not yet walked out of the gate. I was on the kind of walkway leading to the gate when I noticed the missed call. And when I called back, Sarah Huckabee Sanders asked me to return to the White House, to her office, and she sounded very serious. And I just assumed I was in trouble for something. I assumed somebody was mad at me. And I went back there. And she looked very serious. And then she led me into the Oval Office. She said that the president wanted to speak with me. And there was really no time to prepare or game it out.

CAMEROTA: OK. And you write, I'll just read a portion of this, the president said to you, I just heard you were doing a story on this stuff. General Kelly is doing a very good job. We have a very good relationship. The White House is running very, very smoothly. I'm very happy with him. We have a very good relationship, number one.

NUZZI: Are you convinced yet?

CAMEROTA: Yes, I am. The lady doth protest a lot here.

[08:55:01] Number two, I didn't offer anybody else the job. I didn't talk to anybody about the job. And I am not looking.

OK. So, that's fine. He wanted to say his peace. He wanted to say what he felt was reality. Then what happened?

NUZZI: It just kept happening. He kept me there. I think the whole interview was 21 minutes. And while we were sitting there, Vice President Mike Pence came in. John Kelly himself came in. Mike Pompeo came in. Although he was on the schedule to have a lunch with the president. And several other people I believe came into the room also. It was Nick Ayers, the chief of staff to Mike Pence, who I was reporting on in part. It was just sort of a procession of special guest stars. It was very strange.

CAMEROTA: OK. Hold on a second because this is where it gets particularly bizarre. Because I think the impression in the United States is that perhaps the president and the vice president and the secretary of state and the head of communications and the chief of staff might have something better to do than to school a reporter for half an hour. NUZZI: Well, look, I'm not mad about it. I think any time that we can

get top officials in our government on the record in a context like that, I think it's very good for democracy and very good for all of us in the media, and I hope that it happens more often. And if you look at what the president has been doing with the press recently, he has been, I think, more visible than he was in the past. This morning I believe he was on the phone with Fox News, which isn't exactly a hard hitting interview usually, but he did speak, I believe, to Phil Rucker of "The Washington Post."

CAMEROTA: Yes.

NUZZI: He has been doing more gaggles outside at the White House. And I think that's overall a good thing.

CAMEROTA: Yes, look, I --

NUZZI: The more he's on the record, the better.

CAMEROTA: Look, for you and I, it's a good thing, OK? For journalists, it's a good thing.

NUZZI: He may have a better -- he may have more important things to do technically, but --

CAMEROTA: Well, I -- I mean, U.S.-Saudi relations seem to be on the front burner or should be at the moment.

NUZZI: Right. Right.

CAMEROTA: But they -- just the idea that all of that brain power and just that power base was all focused on getting you to report in the way that they want you to report is just a head scratcher.

NUZZI: It was very strange. Mike Pompeo, in fairness, was just sort of sitting on the couch and not really too involved in this whole thing. I'm sure he was as confused as I was. But it -- overall the scene had a very deep vibe to it.

CAMEROTA: Oh, my gosh.

NUZZI: That's being kind, frankly.

CAMEROTA: I was going to ask you about the atmosphere, because when John Kelly came in, who your article is about and whom the president was trying to disabuse you of your position that they, at times, don't get along, then -- I mean what -- how -- how bizarre was that?

NUZZI: It was strange. I mean he -- he acted, when we first interacted, like he did not know that there was an article being written, that he was not familiar with whatever was happening in that room. I found that -- I found that a little hard to believe. It was very awkward. The president asked him if he was a great president. He said that he was. So it was all pretty unusual.

CAMEROTA: Breaking news. OK, Olivia Nuzzi, that was -- that's great. The article is great.

People can read it in the Intelligencer, "New York Magazine," about your private Oval Office meeting. Thank you for sharing it with us.

NUZZI: Thank you.

CAMEROTA: All right, CNN's breaking coverage of Hurricane Michael's destruction and the aftermath will pick up with CNN "NEWSROOM" right after this break.

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