Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

Pentagon Leaders Contradict Biden's Claims on Afghanistan Withdrawal; Brian Laundrie, Parents Went Camping Before Petito Reported Missing; New Revelations from Former Trump Press Secretary Book. Aired 9:30-10a ET

Aired September 29, 2021 - 09:30   ET

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

[09:33:45]

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: President Biden's top military advisers are back on Capitol Hill this hour for a second day of tough questions on the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Here are the facts on one of the most notable revelations from Tuesday's testimony. Generals Mark Milley and Frank McKenzie said they personally supported keeping a small number of troops in Afghanistan, 2500, past the president's withdrawal deadline. That appears to contradict what Biden told ABC News in August.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEN. KENNETH "FRANK" MCKENZIE, COMMANDER, U.S. CENTRAL COMMAND: I recommended that we maintain 2,500 troops in Afghanistan. I also have a view that the withdrawal of those forces would lead inevitably to the collapse of the Afghan Military Forces and eventually the Afghan government.

GEN. MARK MILLEY, JOINT CHIEFS CHAIRMAN: My assessment was back in the fall of '20 and remains consistent throughout that we should keep a steady state of 2500 and it could bounce up to 3500 maybe.

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS, ABC NEWS: Your top military advisers warned against withdrawing on this timeline. They wanted you to keep about 2500 troops.

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: No, they didn't. It was split. That wasn't true. That wasn't truth.

STEPHANOPOULOS: They didn't tell you that they wanted troops to stay?

BIDEN: No. Not in terms of whether we were going to get out in a timeframe all troops.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Your military advisers did not tell you, no, we should just keep 2500 troops, it's been a stable situation for the last several years, we can do that, we can continue to do that?

[09:35:03]

BIDEN: No, no one said that to me that I can recall. (END OF VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: Now White House press secretary Jen Psaki told me there is no contradiction, that the president was merely saying no one argued a continuing U.S. Military presence would stabilize the country for the medium and long-term.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEN PSAKI, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: There were recommendations made by a range of his advisers, something he welcomed, something he asked them to come to him clear eyed about, to give him candid advice. There was no one who said five years from now we could have 2500 troops and that would be sustainable. And I think that's important for people to know and to understand.

Ultimately it's up to the commander in chief to make a decision. He made a decision that was time to end the 20-year war.

(END OF VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: She is, of course, right. That it is ultimately the president's call. However, the White House publicly projected a sense of unanimity among Biden's advisers on a full withdrawal when clearly there was not. It was only after Kabul fell that the president and his military leaders were all on the same page to stick to the August 31st deadline and not extend that deployment any further. Those are the facts.

ERICA HILL, CNN ANCHOR: And it is important to remind us all of them.

Let's bring in our David Sanger, White House and national security correspondent at "The New York Times."

David, as we look at this, and there has been a lot made, right, and, Jim I think going through it is so important to remind us how we got to this point and why it is getting so much attention this morning. Is that revelation damaging to the United States?

DAVID SANGER, CNN POLITICAL AND NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Well, I think the damaging part is that there is this clear space between the memories of the generals about how this played out and the memories of the president. There was no doubt from the beginning, reading "The New York Times," listening to CNN, that he was getting a lot of military advice that you could keep 2500 troops there, that we hadn't taken casualties, and while those troops were not combat troops, they added to a sense of stability and gave some psychological reassurance to the Afghan troops.

So we knew this debate was taking place. The fact that the president decided that -- to try to present a view of unanimity, as Jim said there, that's the surprising card here. Of course there wasn't unanimity on this. Had there been unanimity on that question, troops would have been out long ago when President Trump wanted to get them out last year. SCIUTTO: David Sanger, we saw Republican senators, Josh Hawley one of

them, but also Cotton asked whether they considered resigning, Milley, Austin, others or should resign. Now, there is some politics in that, imagine that at a hearing. But I wonder, is that a legitimate question? And more broadly, why hasn't anyone in the administration at the senior level acknowledged major missteps here and said it is on me?

I mean, the president took responsibility, certainly, for the decision, but in terms of carrying out that decision, is it a legitimate question to ask why no resignations?

SANGER: It is a very legitimate question. So I thought one of the most dramatic moments of the hearing yesterday was when General Milley was asked, why didn't you resign, and he basically -- his answer came down to I am -- I was carrying out a legal order from the president of the United States, didn't really make a difference whether I agreed with it or disagreed with it. Once the commander in chief made the decision, I was there to go execute it as best I could.

At one moment he said, you know, his father didn't have a choice to quit at Iwo Jima. My dad was at Iwo Jima, and I asked him about it the other day, and he said he didn't have a choice either. So I mean, I thought that was a fairly -- a fairly convincing answer.

For the staff, I think there is a very legitimate question about whether or not the United States made a very big mistake by not getting the interpreters, others who had helped the U.S. out of the country before that deadline which could have avoided that mad dash and which we got 124,000 people out, but obviously left a lot of people there. And that should have started clearly back in April when the president made his decision to get out.

HILL: You know, it was very clear yesterday too in the hearing when asked, you know, we heard, yes, there was belief that the U.S. standing in the world has been damaged here. Can that be repaired, David?

SANGER: Yes, it can be repaired. But it's going to take a while. People said the same thing when we left Vietnam without having achieved our strategic goals. And I thought the most dramatic moment yesterday was when General Milley said we -- this was a strategic defeat.

[09:40:01]

And clearly it was. And people are going to remember that. I think a lot of American allies are going to question whether or not the U.S. would really be around for the long term because they heard a sequence of American presidents say we would be and, of course, in the end, we weren't. And I think a good number of American adversaries, what they're going to read from that is, the United States does not have an appetite anymore, maybe for some very good reasons, to sustain a long struggle overseas, which is not directly related to core American interests.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

SANGER: And I don't think anybody is watching that more carefully than the Chinese.

SCIUTTO: And probably the Taiwanese, right, as a result as well.

SANGER: That's right.

SCIUTTO: Saber rattling about an invasion. David Sanger, always good to have you on.

SANGER: Great to be with you.

SCIUTTO: We are learning new details about the fugitive fiance Brian Laundrie, his activities after the death of Gabby Petito and before he himself went missing including a camping trip he took with his parents.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:45:40]

SCIUTTO: An attorney for Gabby Petito's family says he is doubtful that Brian Laundrie's parents will help in the FBI's ongoing search for him. This as the timeline of events after Laundrie returned home to Florida without Petito is becoming more clear and raising a lot of questions.

HILL: Yes. That's for sure. County officials now confirming Brian Laundrie and his parents stayed at a campground some 75 miles from their home just days after he returned from that cross-country trip without his fiancee.

CNN national correspondent Athena Jones joining us now with the latest on the manhunt and these new revelations as well -- Athena.

ATHENA JONES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right. Good morning, Erica. It is -- there have been a lot of questions about what was going on between September 1st when Brian Laundrie returned to his parents' home, the home he shared, he and Gabby shared with his parents in Florida without Gabby in her van and September 11th when her parents reported her missing. Now we're learning a little bit more about what was going on.

We have a whole timeline. We won't go through the entire thing. But the most interesting revelation came just yesterday that the Laundrie family spent September 6th through 8th at a campground about 75 miles north of their home in North Port. It was in Pinellas County. This is according to registration papers that were provided by county officials. It was the Fort de Soto campground.

They stayed at a water front lot and there are papers showing that Roberta Laundrie, Brian Laundrie's mother, was registered at that campsite. The family attorney has also confirmed that Brian was with his parents at that campsite during those days and left with them. So we have a little bit more information about some of what was going on between the 1st and the 11th. It doesn't necessarily shed light on where Brian Laundrie is right now, but it does fill in some blanks.

We also heard from Gabby Petito's parents, two sets of parents, her mother and stepfather, her father and stepmother, gave a press conference yesterday out on Long Island. It's the first time we were hearing from them since they memorialized Gabby Petito on Sunday. And they spent a lot of time thanking law enforcement and the media and people all around the world for the support that they have given the family.

They did not answer a lot of questions about any of the details of the investigative details about their relations or interactions with the Laundrie family, both before and after Gabby went missing. Here is one thing that they're lawyer Rick Stafford did say. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RICK STAFFORD, ATTORNEY REPRESENTING GABBY PETITO'S FAMILY: The Laundries did not help us find Gabby. They sure is not going to help us find Brian. For Brian, we're asking you to turn yourself in to the FBI or the nearest law enforcement agency.

(END OF VIDEO CLIP)

JONES: So they are still calling on Brian Laundrie if he's out there to turn himself in, but not answering any questions. Gabby's father Joseph Petito refusing to even answer whether or not he thinks Brian Laundrie is still alive, but they're talking about wanting to keep Gabby's name and keep her light shining for the rest of the world, and so they're starting a foundation in her name, but they plan to focus on helping with missing persons cases -- Jim, Erica.

HILL: Athena Jones, thank you.

Stay with us. We'll be right back after this break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:53:17]

HILL: Former president Trump repeatedly claimed that no former president had been tougher on Russia than him. Details in a new book by former Trump press secretary Stephanie Grisham, though, once again calling that statement into question.

SCIUTTO: Yes. You might say outright contradiction. Grisham claims that during a 2019 meeting on the sidelines of the G-20 summit in Japan, Trump told Putin, quote, "OK, I'm going to act a little tougher with you for a few minutes, but it's for the cameras. And after they leave, we'll talk. You understand."

CNN's Kate Bennett joins us now.

Kate, I mean, this to me, really one of the most notable ones here because of course, you know, Trump has said repeatedly no one tougher on Russia than Trump.

KATE BENNETT, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Right.

SCIUTTO: Despite an enormous amount evidence to the contrary. And here's one that gets to that very personal relationship between the two.

BENNETT: Yes, I mean, it's interesting. As always, forward facing is different than what's going on behind the scenes. The truth is sort of not always present in the Trump administration. It certainly wasn't with Putin. Grisham had a couple other details, though, that Putin seemed to have the upper hand in those meetings by using a little bit of psychological warfare. He coughed a lot during the meeting to the point that Grisham was like, what's wrong with this guy? And then, you know, she was that this a psychological thing because Trump was a germaphobe.

SCIUTTO: Wow.

BENNETT: And so he coughed throughout the meeting. They also put in a very attractive translator hoping to distract Trump. So certainly again it's this like, you know, very -- you know, Trump doesn't like to be perceived as weak, but really the behind-the-scenes relationship was very, very different as most things there.

SCIUTTO: And not just on Russia. We learned more.

BENNETT: Right. So certainly, you know, one of the other revelations was about that mysterious trip to Walter Reed in 2019.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

BENNETT: And no one really knew what it was about. Apparently it was just a colonoscopy, which is a routine medical procedure for people over the age of 50. He didn't want anyone to know nor did he want to be put completely under as lots of patients opt for during that procedure because he didn't want Mike Pence to have to step in, as the 25th Amendment says.

[09:55:11]

So he only took a sedative to do that and never talked to the public about it, never used it as a teachable moment or anything like that. You know, and then of course Grisham also writes about the marriage behind the scenes of the first of couple, how those revelations were frustrating, made the first lady angry, made her more independent and more sort of on her own than, you know, before those revelations came out. So lots to get into in this book for sure.

SCIUTTO: No question. And by the way, a lot of those storylines consistent with other inside accounts of the way the president operated.

BENNETT: Right.

SCIUTTO: Not just with Russia, but on things like not wanting to project weakness in any way.

Kate Bennett, thanks so much.

BENNETT: Thank you.

SCIUTTO: Erica?

HILL: Shutdown showdown, Democrats facing two key battles. The clock is ticking over the next 48 hours. President Biden working to get his own party -- in line, rather. So will it happen? We're live next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:00:00]