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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin

James Mattis Resigns in Protest; U.S. Military Ordered to Pull Troops from Afghanistan; Aired 4-4:30a ET

Aired December 21, 2018 - 04:00   ET

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

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[04:00:17] WILLIAM COHEN, FORMER DEFENSE SECRETARY: The president has taken a wrecking ball to every pillar of stability and security we've erected over the past 60, 70 years.

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DAVE BRIGGS, CNN ANCHOR: Frustration boiling over after Jim Mattis resigns as Defense secretary. The breaking point? The president's decision to pull troops from Syria.

ALISON KOSIK, CNN ANCHOR: The government is on track to shut down at midnight. The president vowing to follow through on his demand for a border wall.

BRIGGS: The acting attorney general defying ethics officials and will not recuse himself from the Mueller probe.

KOSIK: It's a busy morning to say the least. Good morning.

BRIGGS: Got that right.

KOSIK: And welcome to EARLY START. I'm Alison Kosik.

BRIGGS: I'm Dave Briggs. It is Friday. No ordinary Friday, December 21st, 4:00 a.m. in the East.

Amidst all of that, the president's personal score card, the Dow down 1700 points in five trading days at a 14-month low. And the president, well, it's going to make everybody feel better with this on Twitter.

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BRIGGS: I feel better. How about you, America? Here's how Meghan Mullally also on stage with the president back in '05 reacted. "If you guys need me, I'll be in a hole in the ground."

We're with you, Megan.

(LAUGHTER)

BRIGGS: We start with the president's scouting for a new secretary of Defense this morning. James Mattis considered by many the guardrail of this administration to leave at the end of February. He tended his resignation a day after the president revealed plans to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria. His departure shaking Washington, creating uncertainty at the Pentagon and at bases around the world.

KOSIK: Mattis' resignation in essence is a rebuke to many of the president's foreign policy views. Mattis using his letter to promote the importance of U.S. alliances and an unambiguous approach to adversaries to China and Russia. But no doubt, the last straw for Mattis was President Trump's planned withdrawal from Syria. Two Defense officials tell CNN Mattis was, quote, "livid."

For more, CNN's Barbara Starr at the Pentagon.

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Alison and Dave, an administration official tells CNN that Secretary Mattis decided early Thursday morning around 7:30 that he needed to go to the White House one more time, meet with President Trump and try to convince him not to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria.

Mattis was very concerned about the fate of the Kurdish fighters that the U.S. has backed. As a military man, it would be a terrible thing in his view to leave your friends on the battlefield that you had promised to stay and support. That became a big problem for Jim Mattis to leave the Kurds behind and withdraw U.S. troops.

He met with President Trump about 3:00. Expressed his views. The president did not change his mind. And Mattis had a resignation letter ready to go telling the president in that letter that he deserved someone who was more aligned with his views. That essentially means James Mattis quit under protest.

He talked in that letter about the need to support alliances, about the need to support U.S. interests around the world at a time when President Trump is taking a much more isolationist view and believes that the U.S. does not have a frontline role anymore in fighting terror groups like ISIS -- Alison, Dave.

BRIGGS: Barbara Starr, thank you.

Secretary Mattis' decision to quit stunned Capitol Hill. One conservative House Republican who supports this president wondering whether, quote, "the wheels may be coming off."

After reading the astonishing resignation letter we all recommend you read it, Senator Marco Rubio of Florida tweeted, "It is abundantly clear we are headed toward a series of grave policy errors." He calls on fellow Republicans who support Mr. Trump to help persuade him to choose a different direction.

KOSIK: Democrats are also shaken. Senator Mark Warner of Virginia tweeting this. "This is scary. National defense is too important to be subjected to the president's erratic whims." Also weighing in William Cohen, a Republican who served as Defense secretary for Bill Clinton. Listen.

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COHEN: Our credibility and our reputation for reliability has now been called into question. And the president can say I made a campaign promise. You can make a campaign promise, but some of them are made to be broken.

The president has taken a wrecking ball to every pillar of stability and security we have erected over the past 60, 70 years. He's systematically demolishing them.

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[04:05:07] KOSIK: And General Stanley McChrystal, the former commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan tells CNN, "The kind of leadership that causes a dedicated patriot like Jim Mattis to leave should give pause to every American."

BRIGGS: News of Secretary Mattis' resignation came moments after we learned the U.S. military had been ordered to begin planning the withdrawal of about half of U.S. forces in Afghanistan. It could take months to pull out the nearly 7,000 troops.

The decision prompted a dire warning for the second straight day from of the president's top Senate allies. Senator Lindsey Graham calls the American troop withdrawals as a high risk strategy. He says, "If we continue on our present course, we are setting in motion the loss of all our gains and paving the way toward a second 9/11."

Senior international correspondent Ivan Watson live with the latest in Hong Kong -- Ivan.

IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi there, Dave. The Afghan government is coming out striking a proud note about the possible U.S. drawdown of troops. The chief adviser to the Afghan president, Fazel Fazly, tweeted this, quote, "If a few thousand foreign troops that advise, train and assist leave, it will not affect our security. In the past four and a half years, our security is completely in the hands of Afghans, and the final goal is that the Afghan armed forces will stand on their feet to protect and defend soil on their own."

But the fact is, is that America's longest overseas conflict, 17 years now, is not going well, Dave. The Afghan president says that some 29,000 Afghan soldiers and police have been killed in the conflict since 2015. According to the special investigator general for Afghanistan reconstruction, a U.S. military position, the U.S. says that some 55 percent, only 55 percent of Afghan districts are in control of the Afghan government that the armed forces is 11 percent below their targets for enrollment and that 12 percent of Afghan districts are in the hands of insurgent.

Top military commanders in the U.S. have called it a stalemate and yet the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Joseph Dunford, he said he was recommending against a drawdown as recently as December 6th. And President Trump's own appointee to run U.S. Central Command he said just two days before that that if you drew down U.S. troops precipitously in Afghanistan, that the Afghan government did not have the wherewithal to defend itself against the Taliban -- Dave, Alison.

BRIGGS: Chairman of the Joint Chiefs on two major military decisions once again in the dark.

Ivan Watson, live for us. Great reporting.

KOSIK: All right. About 19 hours to go and a cold harsh reality on the first day of winter. A partial government shutdown is looking likely over Christmas. It looked like Democrats and Republicans were coming together on a short-term plan to fund the federal government through early February, that is until President Trump derailed the deal. He says, if there aren't billions for his border wall, he's not on board.

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DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I've made my position very clear. Any measure that funds the government must include border security. Has to. Not for political purposes, but for our country. For the safety.

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BRIGGS: House and Senate Republicans assured the president would sign a stop-gap funding measure. Then Mr. Trump apparently received his morning briefing from where else? FOX News.

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STEVE DOOCY, CO-HOST, FOX NEWS' "FOX AND FRIENDS": If he agrees to the CR, which would continue funding the government at the current levels, he won't get one point anything for the wall, he loses, and the Democrats will win everything they want.

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BRIGGS: So where are we now? The House scrambled Thursday to pass a spending bill that includes an additional $5 billion for a border wall. The president had to rub it in, tweeting, "Soon to be speaker Nancy Pelosi said last week Republicans didn't have the votes for border security. But she does not have to apologize."

KOSIK: OK. But here's the problem. The House bill, it's dead on arrival in the Senate. Three reasons for that. Opposition to the border wall money. There's a lot of frustration over how the president is handling the negotiations. And a lot of lawmakers, they've already booked it out of town because Christmas is right around the corner. Roughly 40 members from both parties have missed recent votes.

Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell is still hoping to head off a shutdown. He is expected to schedule a vote today to debate the House bill.

BRIGGS: If the Senate votes it down as expected, the two chambers can try to negotiate a compromise or the House could approve the Senate bill that does not include border wall funding.

[04:10:05] If that all fails, a shutdown on the Christmas holiday.

President Trump is scheduled to travel to Mar-a-Lago today for a two- week break. The White House says he will not travel if there is a shutdown.

If there is that partial shutdown, the Department of Homeland Security, the Justice Department and the State Department would be among the agencies affected. More than 420,000 federal employees deemed essential would continue to work, but their pay would be withheld until the shutdown is over. Another 380,000 would be placed on leave without pay. That includes most of the staff at NASA and the National Park Service right before the holidays. And there are real concerns about what a shutdown might do to the already rattled financial markets.

KOSIK: Yes. I said the last thing that Wall Street needs right now is a partial government shutdown. Fear has already -- had a real gripping effect on the markets this week. The Dow dropped 464 points or 2 percent on Thursday. The average has closed below 23,000 for the first time since October of 2017.

Looks like we're going back in time. The Nasdaq lost 1.6 percent. Just avoiding closing in its first bear market since the great recession. The S&P 500 tumbling 1.6 percent. So we're seeing investors still rattled by the Federal Reserve's decision to raise interest rates for the fourth time this year, despite evidence of slowing economic growth.

Worries about a supply glut, knocking oil into a bear market last month. Crude plunged 4.8 percent on Thursday to just over $45 a barrel. This is the first time since August of 2017 that oil has ended below $46 a barrel.

Investors are also moving away from risky stocks. Tesla lost 5 percent. JC Penney fell 6 percent. Twitter plunging 11 percent.

You know, what's interesting when I'm covering the markets, I'm seeing -- what you usually see is you investors buy on these debts. That these are buying opportunities. Instead, you're seeing everybody sell, grab their profits, run to the sidelines and wait until the calendar year turns because everybody seems to be really scared about buying into the market.

BRIGGS: Yes. Interesting editorial in the "Wall Street Journal" this morning about all of that.

Ahead, a top Senate Democrat says William Barr has disqualified himself from being attorney general. New uproar over Barr's memo calling the Mueller investigation fatally misconceived.

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[04:16:33] BRIGGS: Acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker rejecting advice from a Justice Department ethics official. Whitaker will not recuse himself from overseeing Robert Mueller's Russia investigation. Before his appointment by President Trump, Whitaker publicly criticized the probe suggesting on CNN last year it could be curtailed by, quote, "choking off funding." It was ultimately Whitaker's decision whether to recuse himself. The advice from ethics officials will likely raise questions from Democrats on Capitol Hill.

KOSIK: The ethics officials concluded there was no actual legal conflict, but based on Whitaker's past public comments, it was a close call and he should recuse himself out of an abundance of caution. Assistant Attorney General Stephen Boyd is defending Whitaker's decision. He notes the acting AG has not made public comments about the investigation for 16 months and has, quote, "a lot of respect for Mueller."

BRIGGS: Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, calling on President Trump to withdraw the nomination of William Barr to be the next attorney general. That request coming one day after it was revealed Barr sent a memo to senior Justice Department officials in June calling Mueller's obstruction of justice investigation fatally misconceived. If Barr is confirmed by the Senate, he would oversee the Mueller probe.

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SEN. MARK WARNER (D), INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE: It appears that the number one qualification Donald Trump is looking for in an attorney general is someone that will try to undermine the Mueller investigation. The most tacky way that he has used this memo as a way to solicit the position is at the very least unseemly.

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BRIGGS: Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein insists the Barr memo had no impact on the Mueller investigation. He says all DOJ decisions are informed by knowledge of the actual facts which he says Mr. Barr did not have, which in my opinion begs the question, why did he then write this memo unsolicited if he did not have knowledge of the facts? These are the questions that Democrats will ask before a confirmation.

KOSIK: And those are.

OK. What is being held as a bipartisan victory that House passed criminal justice reform legislation. It's a big win for President Trump who is expected to sign the measure today, 11:00 a.m. in an Oval Office ceremony. We'll see if anybody can throw some questions at them about everything else going on.

The so-called First Step Act will allow thousands of federal inmates' early released. It also eases some mandatory minimum sentences and gives judges more leeway in sentencing.

You know, what usually happens at this time of year for presidents is they sign some sort of achievement and sort of signature legislation. And the White House --

BRIGGS: This is a huge win for President Trump. He shepherded this way through.

KOSIK: Clearly being overshadowed by everything else happening.

BRIGGS: Yes.

KOSIK: By Syria, by the government shutting down within hours.

BRIGGS: Yes, listen, he could have taken a huge victory lap on this and headed off to Mar-a-Lago on a win. That didn't happen.

KOSIK: No, it didn't.

All right. Flights have slowly resumed at one of Britain's biggest airports. Drones rounded all lights for over a day, delaying hundreds of thousands of travelers.

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[04:24:09] KOSIK: One of Britain's biggest airports has reopened this morning albeit with delays. Repeated drone sightings actually shutdown Gatwick International Airport during one of the busiest travel periods of the year. The airport was closed from 9:00 p.m. on Wednesday until 6:00 this morning local time. More than 110,000 passengers were stranded. Look at that. Many planes diverted to Manchester, Heathrow, even as far away as Paris or Amsterdam. The Defense Ministry deploying special equipment to help police track down the drone's operator. So far no leads. What a mess.

BRIGGS: What a mess, you are right about that, to say the least.

OK, 68 million people here under flood watches across the eastern U.S. A storm system moving through. It may really mess up your holiday weekend travel plans.

Here's meteorologist Derek Van Dam.

[04:25:04] DEREK VAN DAM, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Good morning, Alison and Dave. Unfortunately Mother Nature has terrible timing this year. We have the busiest travel day of the year taking place today and a major East Coast storm that is going to cause travel headaches from New England all the way to the southeast. You can see on our map here all the rain and storms associated with the system basically from the Ohio River Valley through the mid-Atlantic and the New England coastline.

Be aware, there could be some travel delays at the airports as well. We have over 70 million Americans under flood watches or warnings including New York, Boston and Philly. And that's become we have the potential to see two, maybe localized four inches of rainfall over the next 24 hours. Especially just outside of New York City where you see that shading of yellow and orange.

Now in terms of temperatures, quite a roller coaster. We have one more mild day for the nation's capital and big apple. But look at the temperatures sliding as we head into the weekend. And of course we have the big day, Monday to Tuesday, where daytime highs will set you cool below average for New York City. Back to you. KOSIK: Nice and mild. Nice and mild.

BRIGGS: Yes. But not for the people like myself who have travel plans today.

All right. Thanks, Derek.

KOSIK: So it was not just another day. The Defense secretary resigns. The acting AG won't recuse himself from a probe he dissed. Markets tumbling again. Half of our troops are leaving Afghanistan. Oh, and the government? It's on track to shut down over Christmas.

All that and more, believe it or not, next.

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