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Trump Criticized Over Revealing Details of ISIS Operation; How Trump's Lies Get More Dramatic Over Time; Trump Blasts Former White House Chief of Staff. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired October 28, 2019 - 15:00   ET

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

[15:00:08]

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN HOST: Welcome back. You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

The impeachment inquiry suffers a no-show today. Former Deputy National Security Adviser Charles Kupperman defied a subpoena, making way for another major showdown in court between the White House and Congress.

Kupperman is key here, because he was actually on that critical July 25 phone call between President Trump and his counterpart in Ukraine. He was also number two under John Bolton, who, according to past witnesses, Bolton was greatly alarmed over the pressure being put on Ukraine to conduct political investigations.

But instead of sitting up there in front of House committees and revealing what he knows, Kupperman filed suit, asking a judge to decide if he should follow a congressional subpoena or the White House directive to stand down.

The Democrats running this impeachment inquiry say the lawsuit is no excuse for Kupperman's no-show, and they are threatening him with contempt. They also say that, if the White House can continues to pull back witnesses, this will only add their case for impeachment.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D-CA): You know, it's hard to say what other senior officials will do. I'm sure they will get like instructions from the White House. And if they do and they fail to appear, they will be building a very powerful case against the president for obstruction, an article of impeachment based on obstruction.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Senior legal analyst Jennifer Rodgers once worked as a federal prosecutor in the Southern District of New York. She is now a lecturer at Colombia Law School.

So, Jen, nice to have you back.

All right, so, on the one hand, you have Kupperman, who's basically saying, no, not showing up, going to let this play out in courts. Adam Schiff says, no, not letting this play out in courts. We will just add to this as a potential obstruction article of impeachment.

Who comes out on top?

JENNIFER RODGERS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, I think that the White House comes out on top, because the Dems can add all they want to the obstruction count on the impeachment case, but they want that information. They want the American to hear what happened here. They don't just want to have the American people hear about the stonewalling.

So, unfortunately, this is another case I think of the Trump White House using the courts as part of their obstruction and part of their stonewalling. And it's not the courts' fault, but it takes a lot of time to litigate things.

So they're just throwing things into the courts knowing that, by the time all of this gets resolved, it'll be too late.

BALDWIN: Do you think -- not a lot of people maybe know who Charles Kupperman is, but they certainly are familiar with his former boss John Bolton, and they share an attorney.

And I know John Bolton is a key witness. He hasn't been subpoenaed, but he has been asked to answer some questions. Do you think that the lawyer will do the same thing with Bolton?

RODGERS: Well, it sure sounds like it.

And, frankly, they don't even have to share a lawyer right now that this is all out in the open. You can see other political appointees saying, hmm, maybe that's a way to proceed. Maybe I will just say no, but I shouldn't be held in contempt because I'm actually filing a random weird lawsuit, which, by the way, is not the way, procedurally, you would do this, if you weren't trying to be obstructionist.

You would file a motion to quash the subpoena, which wasn't done here, which makes you wonder kind of, you know, what that was all about. So, yes, I expect both Bolton and maybe others to try to use this tactic if in fact they don't want to come testify.

BALDWIN: Over the weekend, "The Wall Street Journal" was reporting that -- we remember Ambassador Gordon Sondland had testified in front of House committees last week. And what we now know is that he said, yes, there was a quid pro quo, but it was specific to whether or not Trump would grant a meeting to Zelensky.

And this was, of course, before the Bill Taylor testimony, which, according to members of Congress, filled in a lot of those missing pieces of the puzzle. How significant, though, is that admission from the ambassador to House Democrats?

RODGERS: Well, it's huge. I mean, this is what they're piecing together, right? It's essentially a bribery case. It's a quid pro quo. There was a trade of this -- massive amounts of military aid for what

Trump wanted, which was this investigation into his 2020 opponent. So every piece of the puzzle that says, yes, that happened, that's how it was set up is incredibly damning evidence for the White House.

BALDWIN: All right, Jen Rodgers, thank you very much on that.

Now to President Trump going after his former White House Chief of Staff John Kelly for suggesting that he is not up to the job. So let me just lay this out for you.

Many pointed to Kelly as one of the proverbial adults in the room when he was serving at the White House. And so now he's revealing what he told the president before he resigned.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN KELLY, FORMER WHITE HOUSE CHIEF OF STAFF: I said, "Whatever you do" -- and we were still in the process of trying to find someone to take my place.

I said: "Whatever you do, don't, don't hire a yes-man, someone that's going to tell you -- won't tell you the truth. Don't do that, because, if you do, I believe you will be impeached."

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Kelly also saying that he feels -- quote -- "bad" that he left Trump and left the White House.

The response from the White House was swift. President Trump's press secretary declaring -- quote -- "I worked with John Kelly, and he was totally unequipped to handle the genius of our great president."

[15:05:02]

President Trump himself firing back, insisting -- quote -- "John Kelly never said that. He never said anything like that. If he would have said that, I would have thrown him out of the office. He just wants to come back into the action, like everybody else does."

The president reiterating that again this morning when he was asked if his response was aggressive.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Oh, I don't think it's aggressive at all. I would be surprised if he made those comments in a negative way.

But I don't think the response would be -- if he actually said that, if he actually meant that, I said what I would do, and that, I mean.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Gloria Borger is CNN's chief political analyst. And Chris Whipple is the author of "The Gatekeepers: How the White House Chiefs of Staff Define Every Presidency."

So, both of you, welcome.

And, Gloria, first to you.

Just these comments by John Kelly, what do you think?

GLORIA BORGER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, they're stunning.

It's very clear to me that he believes the president has no moral, ethical or legal compass on his own, without somebody to guide him through what he can and cannot do in the office of the presidency, that he has no understanding of the office of the presidency, and that he effectively needs a nanny to take care of him, to tell him what is legal, what is not legal, what is allowed, what is not allowed, and that without that he will run amuck.

BALDWIN: I mean, isn't this, Chris -- it's so interesting. You -- in all these -- studying and writing about all these chiefs of staff, first of all, just the overall message from John Kelly, basically, to the president was here, you're unfit for office.

CHRIS WHIPPLE, AUTHOR, "THE GATEKEEPERS: HOW THE WHITE HOUSE CHIEFS OF STAFF DEFINE EVERY PRESIDENCY": Yes, it was a pretty good shot by Kelly at Mulvaney.

And to some extent, he has a point. I mean, this is a White House, under the leadership of Mick Mulvaney, that has essentially become a cult. And they cannot tell the president no. They cannot tell the emperor that he has no clothes. All of that is true.

On the other hand, the notion that John Kelly is some kind of fearless truth-teller who would barge into the Oval Office and tell the president what he didn't want to hear, I think, is belied by what happened on Kelly's watch, everything from Charlottesville, to separating families at the border. All the stuff that happened makes you wonder.

And I think the onus is really on Kelly, and, frankly, on people like Jim Mattis, too, tell us what happened behind closed doors. If you want to be regarded as the grownup in the room, you got to come clean. You can't have it both ways.

BALDWIN: What do you -- Gloria, what do you make of Chris' point?

BORGER: Well, I agree with him. And, apparently, Kelly did promise the president that he wouldn't write a book until the president left office, but that wouldn't stop him from getting together with Mattis or Tillerson or McMaster and coming out and telling the American public what it is like to work in that White House.

And he has described it as wrestling with a bear every day. Well, it may be a little worse than that, particularly when you have a president who believes he's his own best chief of staff, who doesn't much take advice anyway, and you have Mulvaney there now, who just kind of gets out of the way, apparently. So I think it's a difficult situation. And when he's unbound, as

Chris is saying, it can -- it can really be problematic. And these people are not speaking up. We're going to have a book by anonymous coming out soon.

BALDWIN: Right. Right.

BORGER: That doesn't do anybody any good.

BALDWIN: Right. No, I absolutely, Chris, take your point that, while he was in there, look at what he allowed for.

And it does also begs the question, what did he say no to that we never knew about, but thank goodness he was there and said no?

I do want to go back to Stephanie Grisham's tweet, because the word genius, again, the quote from the press secretary: "I worked with John Kelly and he was totally unequipped to handle the genius of our great president."

I mean, isn't that proving your point that this group, this cabal around the president is all...

WHIPPLE: Yes.

Sadly, it really is almost a cult worthy of Jonestown. I mean, that's what that kind of language -- that's where it comes from. It's almost beyond belief. I mean, it's reminiscent, of course, of that surreal meeting in the Cabinet Room way back when, when Priebus was the chief of staff, and everybody tried to compete to see who could be more obsequious than the other.

But this takes it to a new level, I think. And the fundamental problem at the end of the day is not who the chief of staff is. You -- I don't care if it's Jim Baker, or Leon Panetta, or Reince Priebus or Mick Mulvaney. As Gloria says, no chief of staff can really function if the president doesn't want a chief of staff to tell him hard truths.

It just can't work.

BALDWIN: So, none of those -- he just -- you can't contain him because of who he is; is that what you're saying?

WHIPPLE: Look, I wrote the book on the White House chiefs and the subtitle was how the White House treats define every presidency, except the this one.

[15:10:02]

I was wrong about this one, because this is a president who is determined to be unleashed, who doesn't take advice. And we have now seen the results of letting Trump be Trump.

BALDWIN: Wow.

Go ahead, Gloria, just quickly. Close us out.

BORGER: Well, he doesn't -- I mean, and worse than that, Chris, is that I don't think he knows when he needs to take advice.

I think when -- he early on, he was interested in taking advice. And then, as he continued as president, he said, wait a minute -- and this is my reporting to people who talked to him. He said, I got this. It's OK. I don't really need a chief of staff to tell me anything, because I know how to do things. I'm counter-conventional, and I'm going to do things my way.

And then it becomes a real problem for him. And that's why, as you bring this around to the whole Ukraine issue and impeachment, this is a president who wouldn't listen to what people were telling him he ought to be saying on these phone calls with foreign leaders.

He freelanced. And then you have that phone call, I'd like to ask you to do me a favor, though, with President Zelensky, and, boom, you have impeachment.

BALDWIN: Right.

WHIPPLE: Yes, any competent chief of staff would have thrown himself in front of that phone call.

BORGER: Right.

BALDWIN: Nuff said.

Chris Whipple, Thank you very much, the man who wrote the book with this one now exception. And, Gloria Borger, thank you very much on all of that.

Coming up next: President Trump announces the death of the ISIS leader with gruesome detail and suggests it's even more significant than the death of Osama bin Laden.

I will ask a man who was inside the Obama White House when the raid took place right there in that famous photograph.

Plus, we will fact-check the president's claim in that same speech that he warned the world about Osama bin Laden before 9/11.

And, later, a not-so-friendly welcome for President Trump at game five of the World Series. We will talk about the history of presidents and baseball.

You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin. We will be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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BALDWIN: We're back. You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

Five years ago, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared himself the head of the so-called Islamic caliphate in Iraq and Syria. And, today, Baghdadi, one of the world's most wanted terrorists, is dead after a nighttime raid destroyed his Northern Syria compound just over this past weekend.

And this raid carried out by a number of elite U.S. troops took two hours and resulted in the capture of two other ISIS fighters. President Trump used his Sunday morning news conference to describe what he claims were the ISIS leader's final moments.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: He died after running into a dead-end tunnel, whimpering and crying and screaming all the way.

He died like a dog. He died like a coward.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: We should note that Pentagon officials have not confirmed that description,but Defense Secretary Mark Esper did speak to CNN about how the raid unfolded.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARK ESPER, U.S. DEFENSE SECRETARY: The president approved a raid onto the target. The aim was to capture Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. And if we couldn't capture him, then, of course, we were going to kill him.

We tried to call him out and ask him to surrender himself. He refused. He went down into a subterranean era -- area. And in the process of trying to get him out, he detonated a suicide vest, we believe, and killed himself.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Tony Blinken served as the deputy secretary of state and deputy national security adviser of President Obama. He is currently the senior foreign policy adviser for the Biden presidential campaign.

So, Tony Blinken, a pleasure, sir. Welcome.

TONY BLINKEN, FORMER U.S. DEPUTY SECRETARY OF STATE: Thanks, Brooke. Good to be with you.

BALDWIN: So, just first out of the gate, your thoughts on what happened over the weekend? And just how big is this?

BLINKEN: Oh, look, this is terrific news.

Baghdadi was a butcher. He was the head of what professed to become a big geographic caliphate. That he is gone is a very good thing. And it's a tribute to the remarkable men and women of our military Special Forces. And I'm very glad the president approved the operation.

BALDWIN: There is some anger among top Democrats, Speaker Pelosi included, who were not notified in advance of this operation over the weekend. We know that the president claims that he was scared of leaks.

But Pelosi points out Trump did notify Russia. And here is what one freshman Democrat and actually former CIA analyst, Congresswoman Elissa Slotkin, said this morning about why that might have taken place.

Here she was.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. ELISSA SLOTKIN (D-MI): You have Russians flying around. You have Syrians flying around. You have now Turks flying near their border and over into this safe zone.

So it's the right thing to do to notify, operationally, those different forces so that there's no confusion, so we don't get fired on. I mean, think of that scenario, right? Russian planes or helicopters engaging with American planes and helicopters, you just -- you don't want that scenario.

So deconfliction is something different than briefing Vladimir Putin. And it's something that the Obama administration did just as much as the Trump administration.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Just wanted to play that point for you, Tony, and then also to point out the congresswoman also said that the Gang of Eight should have been informed.

But specifically on her point about notifying Russia, does she have a point?

BLINKEN: Yes, she's right on both counts.

It was exactly right to inform other countries in the immediate vicinity, exactly so that we could deconflict, to make sure that, as our forces were going in, they weren't in danger from the Russians, from the Syrians.

[15:20:08]

And, at the same time, he absolutely should have informed -- the president should have informed the Gang of Eight. I mean, it's kind of ironic. He claims that he was concerned about leaks.

Well, in his press conference yesterday, the president gave an awful lot of operational detail that's pretty unfortunate, because that will be...

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: Do you think it was too much? BLINKEN: There were things that -- look, what I'm hearing from folks in uniform, the intelligence community, is, they're concerned that he -- in trying to tell a good story, which we all understand, he gave away too much.

BALDWIN: I mean, when he talked about al-Baghdadi's whimpering and crying and that he -- quote -- "died like a dog?

(CROSSTALK)

BLINKEN: Well, the number of helicopters, where they were coming from, how long it took, the kind of intelligence that we had to sort of paint this picture, all of that, arguably, was a bridge too far.

So it's a little bit ironic that he's claiming that he couldn't trust the Democrats to keep the information secret.

BALDWIN: I got you, but yet he's giving this information in this public address.

But the point about -- I was talking to a CIA operative last hour, and he was saying, specifically saying that he died like a dog, that that is only fuel for ISIS' fire in upcoming counterattacks. Do you agree?

BLINKEN: Yes, I do.

I mean, look, again, Baghdadi was a butcher, but to spike the football, to try to create this picture that is only going to be turned against us and used probably for recruiting, is just a mistake.

But the bigger picture here, Brooke, is this. When you look at what happened, it's a terrific achievement, but it would not have happened without our forces on the ground, small numbers of special operators. The president wants to pull them out.

It wouldn't have happened without our allies, including the Kurds, giving us critical information. The president betrayed them. And it would not have happened without our intelligence community developing all of this information. And the president disparages them virtually every day.

So, in many ways, what we saw, this great success, was more in spite of President Trump than because of President Trump.

BALDWIN: The president also made a claim that the Baghdadi raid outranks, for lack of a better phrase, Tony, that of Osama bin Laden, that it was bigger.

I mean, you were at the White House for that. What's your -- what would you say in response to that?

BLINKEN: I don't think the president or anyone else should be in the business of comparative terrorists takedowns. Both were very significant achievements.

I'm not going to get into the business of comparing them. I think Osama bin Laden certainly resonated powerfully with the American people, because, after all, he was the guy behind the attacks on our soil on 9/11.

BALDWIN: I mean, you were -- we have the picture. We will throw it up on the screen. You were in the room. You were in the Situation Room for that famous photo that weekend for the takedown of OBL.

What did you think when you then saw President Trump posting a similar photo of him sitting around a table?

BLINKEN: Listen, these were both significant, important achievements. And it's good, thanks to the extraordinary skill and professionalism and bravery of our folks in uniform and our intelligence assets, that we were able to get both of them.

But you have to be sober about these things. And you also have to recognize that, as important as these individuals are, getting them doesn't end the threat. And what I worry about now is that the president is going to take his eye off the ball.

And, again, pulling out a small number of special operators from Syria, that's a mistake. Dissing our allies on the ground, that's a mistake. Taking it to our own intelligence community, that's a mistake.

And it doesn't auger well for dealing with what is an ongoing threat. It's not over. ISIS is still there. And, in fact, betraying the Kurds, forcing them to deal with the Turks attacking them, instead of guarding the prisons that hold all of these ISIS detainees, that's allowed some number to escape and possibly regroup.

So that's what's really important now. As important, as significant as it is getting this one guy, we have to keep our eye on the ball and make sure that we're doing what's necessary to deal with an ongoing threat. The president's approach to this is not.

BALDWIN: Tony Blinken, I appreciate you and everything you have said here today. Thank you very much for your time.

BLINKEN: Thanks, Brooke. Good to be with you.

BALDWIN: We will see you next time.

Coming up next: CNN's resident fact-checker notices a disturbing trend in the president's false claims. They get more dramatic and exaggerated over time.

We will roll the tape.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:29:15]

BALDWIN: It is a moment that will go down in history for the Trump administration, the killing of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. But after that announcement at the White House podium, another

unprecedented moment. President Trump took questions from journalists, where he then made this claim about another terrorist leader:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: About a year -- you'll have to check it -- a year, year-and-a- half before the World Trade Center came down, the book came out. I was talking about Osama bin Laden. I said, you have to kill him. You have to take him out. Nobody listened to me.

And, to this day, I get people coming up to me, and they said, you know what, one of the most amazing things I've ever seen about you is that you predicted that Osama bin Laden had to be killed before he knocked down the World Trade Center.

It's true.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: CNN reporter Daniel Dale is with me now.

Daniel, let's -- let's start there, because the president did mention

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