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CNN Source Says Low-Altitude Cruise Missiles Used In Saudi Oil Attack; Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) Comments On New Kavanaugh Allegation; House Judiciary Will Hold First Impeachment Hearing. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired September 17, 2019 - 10:00   ET

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

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JIM SCIUTTO, CNN NEWSROOM: A very good Tuesday morning to you. I'm Jim Sciutto.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN NEWSROOM: And I'm Poppy Harlow.

This morning, both the United States and Saudi Arabia say they are confident that cruise missiles were used in that strikes on those Saudi airfields. This is new information. This comes from a source close to the investigation who tells CNN that the missiles approached at low altitude assisted by drones.

SCIUTTO: It's a big question because it would be an act of war.

Now, as U.S. investigators work with the Saudis to identify the missiles definitively and find out who launched them, both countries believe there is a high probability they were launched from an Iranian base near its border with Iraq.

Joining us live from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, CNN International Diplomatic Editor Nic Robertson.

Nic, tell us what they're saying here about responsibility and what they're not saying.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Well, what they're saying officially is that Iran made the weapons, Saudi officially is saying they haven't figured out where those weapons were fired from.

But a source with knowledge of the investigation says there's high probability that they've now figured it out that they were fired from Iran, that they did fly the short distance across the border into Iraq, over Kuwaiti airspace, through Kuwaiti airspace and into Saudi Arabia and then on to those oil facilities.

Now, part of the calculation and part of the assessment of responsibility of take-off location and the weapons systems themselves, we understand, is being developed through a joint Saudi and U.S. military weapons expert investigation. What they have at their disposal is more than we might have surmised over the weekend.

We all saw the plumes of smoke coming out of the oil facilities, we all saw those sort of what looked like, for all intents and purposes, pinprick strikes on the top of some of those oil facilities, just big holes in the roofs but with not a lot destruction damage. You know, 19 different targets hit, we were told.

But what we have no discovered from the source with knowledge of the investigation is that not all these low-flying cruise missiles with a sort of drone technology bolted on, if you will, made it to the target. Some of them feel short in the desert north of these oil facilities.

And that has provided the investigators, U.S. and Saudi investigators, with equipment that hasn't been fully damaged and destroyed and burned out. And it's that equipment, what they're be able to see on the ground, what they're able to see when they take it apart, a better forensic examination that has led to this that it is Iranian-made weapons technology.

Now, of course, it will take more than that to pinpoint the take-off and launch point, which is now high probability in Iran, but this has been a big lead for investigators.

SCIUTTO: And the question is what is the response. Is it a military one? Nic Robertson in Saudi Arabia, thanks very much.

HARLOW: Let's go now to Jeremy Diamond. He joins us from the White House.

Good morning, Jeremy. These attacks are putting the president in a peculiar place. On the one hand, he talks about being tough on Iran but he's also reluctant obviously to get into another conflict in the Middle East. Stephen Collinson, I think, put it well in his piece this morning. Look, the president is trying to sort of thread the needle, avoid looking weak but also avoid a Mideast conflict.

JEREMY DIAMOND CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: That's right. And once again, we're seeing those two competing instincts in the president's head playing out very much in public, as he often does when he is debating these kinds of issues. It was only a few months ago back in June that we saw the president fighting those two competing instincts once again when Iran downed that U.S. drone.

And now, what we're hearing from the president on this latest attack against Saudi Arabia is that he wants this to be investigated first, he's holding back on really giving his full-throated allegation of any kind of Iranian culpability, but at the same time, he is still trying to sound strong, still trying to project this muscular foreign policy.

Listen to him yesterday in the Oval Office.

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DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: I don't want war with anybody but we're prepared more than anybody. The United States is more prepared than any country in the history of -- in any history if we have to go that way. As to whether or not we go that way, we'll see.

I'm not looking to get into new conflict, but sometimes you have to.

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DIAMOND: So on the one hand there, you have the president saying we don't want to get into a new conflict but at the same time we're prepared to go to war with Iran if necessary. And this is the kind of debate we've seen play out in the president's head.

Meanwhile, we've seen U.S. Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, very quickly blaming Iran on Saturday just hours after that attack actually took place

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And he described the attack not just as an attack not just on Saudi Arabia but as an unprecedented attack on the world's global oil supply. And this, of course, all comes as we're getting more and more information about the responsibility for this attack and the president though holding back.

HARLOW: Jeremy, thank you very much for that reporting.

SCIUTTO: Joining us now live from Capitol Hill, this is Senator Lindsey Graham speaking to Manu Raju.

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-SC): But the target list I would put on the table if there is a military strike would be the Iranian oil refineries. Nobody is talking about invading Iran but we want to make them pay a price for trying to disrupt world order. I think their refineries will make them pay that price.

MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: And what's your reaction Democrats saying it's time to impeach Brett Kavanaugh?

GRAHAM: I think The New York Times reporting was clearly right, verify it later, that after the correction was made, you still call for the impeachment of Brett Kavanaugh, that says more about you than it does about him. Nadler said we're not going down that road. Durbin, to his credit, said this is not where the Senate should be going.

It's presidentially-driven politics, I think. The people are calling for impeachment. The loudest voices are running for president. And I've always wondered if you do this as a presidential candidate, how do you expect your nominees to be (INAUDIBLE)? They need to think through this. Do you really want to impeach somebody based on a New York Times report that's proven to be wrong? And if this is the only way you can prove you're a real contender for the Democratic nomination, then that says a lot about where we're at as a country and I think, eventually, it helps Trump.

RAJU: Thanks, I appreciate it.

SCIUTTO: Senator Lindsey Graham there commenting among other things on the possibility of retaliation against Iran for possible -- a strike that U.S. and Saudi may be coming close to blaming Iran for.

Let's talk now with Anne Gearan, White House Reporter for The Washington Post.

First question, Anne, there, you hear Lindsey Graham speaking of the possibility of a strike on Iranian oil refineries as a reasonable retaliation if it's determined that Iran was indeed behind these attacks on Saudi facilities. You cover the White House. What is the president's appetite for military action here? Because he has been very much on the fence in his public statements back and forth and we know just a few months ago he pulled back from retaliation for an Iranian attack on a U.S. asset, it shot down a U.S. drone. Does the president want military action here?

ANNE GEARAN, WHITE HOUSE REPORTER, THE WASHINGTON POST: Well, Jim, the short answer is, no, he doesn't. He would prefer to avoid it, I think very clearly prefer to avoid it. And he said so yesterday.

He is caught between a couple of political imperatives here. One is to respond to what Lindsey Graham was referring to there, which was a serious attack on an ally, Saudi Arabia, and a serious attack on the global oil supply. Those are things that any president would not take lightly and this one has particular reason to be concerned about.

And, on the other hand, he has his own political impulses here, which are against foreign intervention, against anything to do with widening U.S. involvement and conflict in the Middle East and pleasing those supporters who believed him when he said when he was running in 2015 and 2016 that he would end U.S. endless wars and bring troops home. He hasn't done that. He doesn't want to head into re-election next year with a new conflict on his hands in the Middle East that he helped make.

HARLOW: And your piece yesterday foreshadowing a lot of this, sort of the needle he is trying to thread is great and you talked about dual instincts here for the president. Lindsey Graham tweeted earlier this week about the potential of attacking those Iranian oil refineries. He just said it again to Manu Raju. But then you have another Republican in the Senate, Mitt Romney, who is saying it would be a grave mistake to have U.S. intervention and escalation like this. So there is the divide in the party.

The question is who has the president's ear more on this?

GEARAN: Well, Poppy, we are daily trying to figure that out. The main influence on the president on this issue really does appear to be Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who, as you will recall, was the first U.S. official to call Iran out by name, just, you know, within hours of the attack over the weekend.

The president has been more reluctant to actually 100 percent pin it on Iran and he has sent Pompeo to Saudi Arabia. We think he'll go fairly soon for some on-the-ground discussion. And I do not expect the president to make a final decision about what he will do and maybe not a final determination that Iran is to blame until Pompeo gets back.

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HARLOW: Anne Gearan, thank you so much. Great reporting. Thank you for joining us with that analysis.

So we're just about three hours away from the House Judiciary Committee holding its first official hearing on what it is now officially calling an impeachment investigation in the president.

Two former members of the president's administration and his former campaign manager have all been subpoenaed to testify today. Two of those will be no shows. The White House says Rick Dearborn and Rob Porter have immunity because of executive privilege. Corey Lewandowski is going to show up though.

SCIUTTO: And our Manu Raju is speaking to Corey Lewandowski now as he prepares to go testify before.

Manu, actually, I suppose you have just spoken to him. What did he have to say?

RAJU: Well, I didn't speak to him about the upcoming hearing, guys, but we do expect this to be a pretty combative hearing with this witness, Corey Lewandowski. Last time he appeared a separate committee, the House Intelligence Committee, the House Democrats questioned him about some of the activities that occurred during the Mueller investigation, things that occurred during the White House.

He did not serve at the White House. He refused to answer those questions, even cursing at Democrats. Democrats telling me today they expect a very combative, fiery require performance by Lewandowski. The question is, ultimately, what will he say.

Now, in the letters that were sent from the White House to the House Judiciary Committee last night, it says that they will not allow him to speak about any topics outside of what was in the Mueller report. They're saying those could breach confidentiality rules, even though Lewandowski never served in the White House.

So expect Democrats to object to that. Also expect him to raise serious concerns about the immunity that the president -- the White House says that former White House aides, Rick Dearborn and Rob Porter have, that will prevent them from showing up today. They're actually not showing up, defying a congressional subpoena.

But, ultimately, the question today will center around what detailed in the Mueller report, the president apparently asking Corey Lewandowski to approach Jeff Sessions, then attorney general, to limit the scope of the Mueller investigation. Those matters will come up.

How Lewandowski ultimately responds remains to be seen. But we do know that Lewandowski is already tweeting this morning saying that he says that he plans to make clear that, in his view, there is no obstruction, in his view, there is no collusion. That's going to be a refrain issued over and over again. And, of course, guys, Lewandowski preparing for a potential Senate run. The president himself saying that he would back him if he were to run for the Senate in New Hampshire.

So expect a lot of theatrics today. Ultimately, we'll see what Democrats and Republicans learn from this testimony.

SCIUTTO: Lewandowski repeating the president's language there, no collusion, no obstruction, although that's not, in fact, what the Mueller found. It found half the amount of evidence of obstruction of justice.

HARLOW: Manu, thank you. We'll see what happens in this hearing. We appreciate it.

We do have a lot ahead this hour.

A huge crowd turns out for Senator Elizabeth Warren in New York last night, this as other 2020 candidates are taking different approaches to getting their message out. We'll discuss.

SCIUTTO: And the president is expected to address the homeless crisis in California when he visits the state today, but it's an issue with real people at the center of it. We're going to hear from one of them.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It means it can happen to anybody.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It can happen to anybody. No one is -- it's not someone else's problem. It is a problem we all could face.

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[10:15:00]

SCIUTTO: This morning, sources are telling CNN that there is a high probability the attack on a Saudi oil field originated from an Iranian base near the Iraqi border. Those sources also say that drone- assisted cruise missiles were used in the strike. American investigators are now working with the Saudis to definitively identify those missiles.

I'm joined now by Wyoming Republican Senator, former -- a member rather of the Foreign Relations Committee, Senator John Barrasso. Senator, we appreciate you taking the time this morning.

SEN. JOHN BARRASSO (R-WY): Thank you, Jim.

SCIUTTO: So, first question, again, the administration has not made a final determination here, but there appears to be evidence there citing of Iranian involvement here. If that is established definitively, do you believe the U.S. should retaliate with military action against Iran?

BARRASSO: Well, number one, I spent time this morning going through the entire classified briefing on what happened. I believe Iran was the source of the weapons, the missiles and the attacks on Saudi Arabia.

In terms of an attack, which was your question, as of this point, no. I think we need to continue with the sanctions. They are biting, they are punishing, they are making a difference.

I think in terms of Saudi Arabia, they need to be prepared because I believe they were caught completely off guard by this attack, and I think we need to continue to prevent others from buying Iranian oil.

I think what they've done with this attack is continue what they've done for a while of trying to interrupt the flow of oil around the world, driving up the prices so they can sell it. They need the money. Iran needs the money because the sanctions have been so damaging and punishing to them.

SCIUTTO: As you know, the president floated the idea of relaxing those sanctions, giving something of a lifeline, a few billion dollars in relief.

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Do you have believe this is an advisable step at this point, at least pave the way for broader negotiations?

BARRASSO: Well, I support the diplomacy effort that the president has made. There was going to be an opportunity next week in New York. But there are a lot of people, Jim -- and you know this, you've lived in that part of the world -- who benefit from trying to undermine diplomacy, whether it's the Houthis in Yemen. They don't want to see peace in the area, whether the hard liners in Iran, whether it's those in Iraq who have Iranian leanings.

All of those people would lose in a negotiated settlement because part of any settlement between the United States and Iran would mean less resources to those sources of terror. So it looks to me like somebody is trying to blow up any effort of people to work together to find peaceful solutions.

SCIUTTO: As you know, there was a peaceful solution, whether the president or others liked it or not, there was a nuclear deal signed to by the U.S., America's closest allies, Iran was abiding by that nuclear deal, according to U.S. intelligence assessments, but the president pulled out of it. I wonder if you see as you have this possible march towards military conflict here that, to some degree, this is a crisis of the president's own making.

BARRASSO: Oh, I don't believe at all it's a crisis as you've described it. I think that President Trump was right to pull out of the Iranian nuclear deal. I thought it was a terrible deal for the United States. It didn't stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. But specific to what just happened this weekend, that deal did nothing with the strategic weaponry, the missiles that have been fired, the cruise missiles used by Iran, all of that -- those levels armaments were not outlawed or removed by the Iranian deal.

What happened this weekend, to me, points to who Iran is fundamentally. They are a terrorist nation. They are a global threat. And we need to have a united world to isolate them, to point that out to say, look, we don't want to change the regime, we want to change your behavior and it's time to do it now.

SCIUTTO: I want to ask you about Saudi Arabia. Of course, they're involved in this. We're coming up on October 2nd, on the one-year anniversary of the brutal murder by Saudi agents of the journalist, Jamal Khashoggi.

In the wake of that, you supported legislation to re-evaluate the relationship with Saudi Arabia because you described that murder as being contrary to American values. And I wonder if you still believe such re-evaluation is necessary.

BARRASSO: I believe it is. I voted for that in the Foreign Relations Committee. The murder was brutal, was ruthless. It was done by people who were unforgiving, a dictator who had that ordered, in my opinion.

When you ask specifically about American values -- and American values are completely opposite of what happened with Khashoggi, completely, but then we look at what our American interests. And I think one of the greatest difficulties in any kind of foreign policy is working with people whose values may not be aligned with yours but whose interests do align with you. And I think that's a situation that we find ourselves in right now with our relationship with Saudi Arabia.

So, yes, I support selling arms to Saudi Arabia in their effort against Iran, who I believe is very threatening to the world.

SCIUTTO: OK. Speaking of U.S. interests here, the president made quite an interesting statement on Twitter regarding the possibility of retaliation. He said in effect -- and we put the tweet up on screen, if we have it -- said, in effect, we're going to ask the Saudis, get -- take advice from the Saudis on what terms -- under what terms we would proceed going forward.

It appears the president there is saying the U.S. should take direction on retaliation from Saudi Arabia. Is he outsourcing a key national security decision here to the Saudis?

BARRASSO: No, not at all. I spent plenty of time with the president. He's a leader through action, results, solutions. He's not going to take direction from any foreign country at all. He didn't run that way and he doesn't serve that way. So I don't believe that at all.

I think he is going to work with Saudi Arabia to see what they may need in terms to be able to defend themselves against incoming weaponry (ph), in which they were, in my opinion, completely unprepared to detect or defend against.

SCIUTTO: Yes. It appears it was quite a surprise. Senator John Barrasso, we do appreciate it when you come on our program.

BARRASSO: Thanks for having me.

HARLOW: All right, good to have him.

So ahead for us, a busy night on the campaign trail. President Trump and several 2020 Democratic hopefuls making their pitch to voters in cities across the Country.

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SCIUTTO: Now, to the 2020 race and a massive night for Senator Elizabeth Warren, not far from here in New York. She drew one of the largest crowds of her campaign so far during a rally in New York City last night.

HARLOW: Her speech focused on her plan to end corruption in Washington.

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But it was so much more than that. She took aim at one hurdle she has faced since launching her campaign, the question of electability. Take a listen to this.