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Merkel: Terror Concerns Do Not Justify Trump's Ban; World Reacts With Suspicion To Trump's Ban; Trump To Announce Supreme Court Pick Tuesday Night; From "Total Shutdown" To "Extreme Vetting"; Two Powerful Men With Very Different Speeds

Aired January 30, 2017 - 12:30   ET

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

[12:30:02] JOHN KING, CNN ANCHOR: -- 10 Downing Street says, "There are no plans to cancel the planned Trump's state visit later this year". France's president criticized the refugee policy and the restrictions in his weekend call with President Trump. And today in Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel said, "The travel restrictions suggested to her a fundamental shift".

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANGELA MERKEL, GERMAN CHANCELLOR (through translator): The necessary and decisive fight against terrorism is in no way justifies general a suspicion against people's certain believes. In this case people of the Muslim faith or from a certain origin. These actions according to my beliefs are against the core idea international aid for refugees and international cooperation.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: The question is, does the White House care that Britain, France, Germany, and others say, this is the wrong way to go or he made clear in his inaugural address. "I'm going to do these decisions, America first. First and foremost, my decision is going to be made based on what I think is best for America."

MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL REPORTER: And I think that speaks -- I think a lot of his supporters are happy about that. That's what he campaigned this week. He said in his inauguration, there's a significant chunk of the country that voted for him on because of those, those calls. But you, you take the things that he has been doing on the international stage. And this is creating some real fears around the world not just on the refugee policy, pulling out of the TPP, threats to impose terrors on companies that shift jobs overseas.

There's a fear that the United States is retreating in the world. That is worried about it self and not going to engage on international stage. Now, that may play well with Donald Trump's base, but how does that work for the countries' foreign policy on some key issues especially when we need the cooperation on fighting terrorism overseas or another international trade issues. That's the open question. Does he did -- did he shift because any of these or does he dig in? JACKIE KUCINICH, THE DAILY BEAST: He certainly won't shift of anything Angela Merkel says. I mean that's someone that he has -- it has gone after for there refugee policy. He specifically said, that that -- yeah. He said it's a disaster. So when it comes to that, I think he would say something like consider the source. They've had some problems and we're not going to have them.

KING: Back to the -- I guess for me its back to the same question I had about Congress. This is just a, you know, a rough beginning, and you move on, and you move to the next issue. And if you start with a clean slate or is it, you know, yes, maybe he thinks and, you know, Angela Merkel's policy is a disaster. It's a critical security and economic relationship with Germany. Whether we're dealing with Russia, whether were talking about other big issues. And so, is the well poisoned?

REID WILSON, THE HILL: And this is what we're talking about in terms of rolling out an executive order and making sure that everybody who is involved knows what's coming. Is he even more critical on the international stage, where diplomacy stops wars and making sure that your -- that everybody knows what's about to happen so that nobody is terribly embarrassed. Consider what's happening with Mexico at the moment. There's this spat that caused President Pena Nieto to cancel his trip to the U.S. and his meeting with Donald Trump.

The, the Mexican Government and the American government have worked so closely together in the last 20 years. And that has produced results on everything from international trade to the drug war which has essentially gotten a lot better because the Mexicans are working with the Americans so much on issues like stopping international drug trafficking.

If you suddenly pick a fight with somebody and those ties get frayed, that's not good. All the walls in the world, you know, I'm reminded of the old cartoon that shows, you know, the 30-foot wall next to Bob's 32-foot ladder store. You know, every -- all the walls in the world are they're not going to stop a whole bunch of drugs coming into the U.S. if the American government is not continuing to work with the Mexican government to stop those.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Right.

KING: One of the White House explanations is to why they did this at the White House, they didn't fully informed their own agencies, never mind bringing in the Congress in. They said that, you know, they needed to act secret and quickly because you can't give the bad guys a heads up that you're going to do this. My point to that is, if the bad guys were watching the campaign, maybe they thought this was coming.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, UNITED STATES PRESIDENT: Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our countries' representatives can figure out what the hell is going on. We're going to do territories. We're going to not let people come in from Syria that nobody knows who they are.

The Muslim ban is something that in some form has morphed into an extreme vetting from certain areas of the world. I don't want to have with all of the problems this country has and all of the problems that you see going on, hundreds of thousands of people coming in from Syria when we know nothing about them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: I mean, if you paid any attention to the campaign. And I assume the ISIS and the other bad guys did, isn't the question more why did he wait ten days?

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Right. And which is why this is -- this is a message in search of a solution basically, that they're doing this because they see that this was a big, big problem with regard to basic execution, and frankly, competence.

[12:35:07] And understanding how a government runs and how to implement something that actually probably could have gotten a lot more support than it's getting now. Given the messaging that we're hearing from the White House now about safety and about what it is just extreme vetting and so forth.

But the fact that they didn't do this ahead of time and give the agencies a heads up and give the actual boots on the ground who are trying to figure out how to implement this. A better understanding is it is -- is something that has hurt what could be something that they could have gotten.

KING: It's a great point. Is the issue inexperience, we're new at this which you can recover from. Which you recover, he did campaign on this. And we knew it was coming. It's how they did it. And I think it was more important than what they did at least in the political thought from it, is it inexperience or is it, "This is our style, my way or the highway. We're going to do this our tight in grip with the White House is going to do this and the rest of you probably could be damned".

RAJU: Look, perception is everything, especially when you are selling a controversial policy like this. And the messaging and people are interpreting this as a Muslim ban. And the White House think it's not a Muslim ban, but the fact that it's been perceived that way is in large part because they do not explain exactly what they are doing here.

And you can tell from the clips you are playing in the campaign how toxic just the idea of a Muslim ban was. That they had to change their language to the course for the campaign just sounded like extreme vetting because that sounds better than a Muslim ban. So this is a real problem if you don't sell it to the public, sell it to your own party. You don't have a clear communication strategy.

KUCINICH: The exchanged of messaging and the policy. RAJU: Yeah.

KUCINICH: In real-time.

BASH: Yeah.

KUCINICH: They didn't know what to do with people whit holding green cards. And some of them had called and know that they're included. And allegedly that was Bannon's call and now they're not. I mean this is policy like this that is this controversial doesn't usually involve on the fly.

KING: This is not the Trump organization. It's a little bigger.

KUCINICH: Right.

KING: You have to protect a lot of agencies around the world, we'll see. Everybody, sit tight. Next, tomorrow in "Primetime", President Trump will unveil his first Supreme Court choice and open yet another contentious debate.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:41:15] KING: Welcome back. Before you make plans tomorrow night, this programming note.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: We have a big decision and -- that I have made, a very big decision on the United States Supreme Court that is going to be announced tomorrow night from the White House at 8:00. A person who is unbelievably highly respected and I think you will be very impressed with this person.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: 8:00, that's 5:00 in the west coast. Stay right here. We'll watch that one. The announcement was moved up two days from Thursday. And it's a safe bet the White House is trying to compete with all the harsh reviews of the new travel restrictions. Listen here as Trump White House Counselor Kellyanne Conway tries to pressure the Democrats.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KELLYANNE CONWAY, WHITE HOUSE COUNSELOR: Here's the thing about the Supreme Court battle we're about to face -- if past is prologue, the way the Democrats in the Senate have treated our cabinet nominees does not bode well for filling that vacancy left by Antonin Scalia. It's just been terrible at the way they try to humiliate and embarrass our cabinet nominees.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Well, I think it's politics. I guess you're entitled to live in your own universe in politics but she's making a point there. The Democrats have been rough and even more rough today with the Senate leader Chuck Schumer coming out against a bunch more on the Trump nominees.

But the Republicans held up for 10 months. More than 10 months. The guy President Obama wanted to put in the Supreme Court. So it's a little disingenuous, shall we say, for Republicans to be saying, well, the Democrats better not stall or delay here, right?

RAJU: Yeah. I mean, you've seen in these court fights that each party takes the bad habits of the last party and --

KUCINICH: And the talking points.

(CROSSTALK)

RAJU: And then switch names. And they did take it a step further. So you're going to see -- I'm sure --

KING: The government efficiency. You're making a strong case here.

RAJU: Yeah, exactly. So, the Democratic calculation is going to be interesting here, because whoever Donald Trump picks likely conservative justice is going to replace Antonin Scalia. The balance -- ideological balance is not going to shift. So if you are the Democrats, do you go all the way and try to go all out and try to derail this nomination? And then if you do that, perhaps Mitch McConnell, the majority leader, will use the so-called nuclear option, blow up the filibuster and get the nomination confirmed.

KING: Right.

RAJU: And then you lose a filibuster for the next Supreme Court fight who, perhaps, if one of the more liberal justices were to retire, then that there will be a significant shift for the courts.

KING: A lot of conservatives think Justice Kennedy wants to retire.

RAJU: Exactly.

KING: He is the swing vote. He is the swing vote.

(CROSSTALK)

RAJU: He can move to the right. So, Democrats have to -- it's not -- it's a risky --

KING: It's a short play and a long play.

KUCINICH: They haven't really picked their battles when it comes to these. I'm curious to see what they to do here because they haven't picked their battles when it comes to the cabinet nominees. A lot of people have been in 11 when in reality it's probably a lot of them are just Republican orthodoxy. Not all of them, obviously.

So, it will be interesting to see what the calculus there because if they say every single person is bad and, you know, against the republic -- I think they'll be -- the people will be less likely to take them seriously and they won't have a grassroots movement that isn't sort of the usual suspects behind them.

BASH: Ironically, I think that there is going to end up being a connection between the quick liberal and, frankly, a lot of mainstream outcry about these travel restrictions and the supreme court pick, because I think it was very telling when the minority leader Chuck Schumer was having his press conference yesterday and he was basically being heckled by somebody saying why are you supporting the president's cabinet picks which you're hearing from a lot of Democrats because some of the early national security picks did get broad bipartisan vote.

[12:45:00] The pressure among the Democratic base on the Democratic leaders is growing, and I think that they got a lot more fuel because of this travel restrictions in that it will potentially make them feel emboldened or, frankly, pressured to oppose the Supreme Court nominee even though it might not be in their best interest because it's just replacing a conservative for conservative and they might want to hold out for --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right.

BASH: -- when there really is a swing vote.

WILSON: And look the fight over confirmations have been escalating for 30 years since Robert Bork in sort of began this modern era of every single nomination that's contentious. It's gotten worse, to Amanda's point. Everybody seems to escalate the Republicans when he they take charge, they do a little more than the Democrats did. When the Democrats take charge, they do a little more than the Republicans did and vise versa.

Remember that Eric Holder got 17 Republican votes when he was confirmed. Loretta Lynch got fewer than 10. And Loretta Lynch was probably less controversial than Eric Holder. The Democrats, though, have not scored any big wins in these confirmation fights. They haven't been able to knock anybody off of their pedestal. George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton all lost cabinet nominees before they were actually confirm. Donald Trump doesn't look like he's going to. Democrats can escalate all they want, but they haven't scored --

KING: Quickly show our viewers to see. I want to quibble show our viewers before we run out of time, the two leading candidates. So there's no guarantee it's from this list, but we're told by inform forces two leading candidates, one of them is Thomas Hardiman, he's a Third Circuit Court of Appeals, excuse me, 51 years old, a young man there, sits on the same court as Donald Trump's sister. So Donald Trump is getting good information on Judge Hardiman.

Another favorite Neil Gorsuch, he's 49 years old. Two very young men here. He is a judge in the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals. He clerked for Justices White and Kennedy. So if you are trying to impress Anthony Kennedy, you might go there.

But again, we're never certain with these. You get words from inside that these are the favorites of judge close to Jeff Sessions. The attorney general nominee also that's prior on the list.

But if we think Washington is juiced up now, Friday morning, Thursday night, right?

RAJU: Yeah. And the pressure is going to be on moderate red state Democrats, whether they go along because to Dana's point, it will be hard for the Democratic leaders to say no to their base. It will be hard for the liberals, of course, they going to come out guns blazing, but where do those moderate Democrats were up for re-election in those Trump states. Five from very red states. Ten from Trump states like Florida and Pennsylvania that he won who are up for re-election in 2018. They feel pressure with their base or do they feel pressure to be more moderate and be more pragmatic.

WILSON: One thing the Republicans learned when Mayor Garland was President Obama's appointee to fill a seat is that voters don't care that much, you know. Chuck Grassley, the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee was supposed to be getting a lot of heat for not bringing out Merrick Garland's confirmation. The Democrats ran a candidate name judge against her just to highlight that. He won with, what, north of 60 percent. Somewhere around 60 percent of the vote.

KING: Where is that machine that turns out those candidates?

WILSON: Voters don't necessarily care.

RAJU: The base cares.

WILSON: Will those red state Democrats pay attention to that, or will they --

KING: It's also interesting to see prime time from the White House, the president's communication skills as he does this for the first time from the White House.

Our reporters share from their notebooks next, including the inside scope on two powerful men who share most of the same goals, but operate at very different speeds.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:52:34] KING: We surround our table with reporters, not pundits for a reason so we can close by asking them to share a little nugget from their notebooks. OK, you want to go to the political news just around the corner, Jackie.

KUCINICH: So, William Pryor is the third justice that could be under consideration for the Supreme Court spot, and there's been some chatter in conservative circles about a particular decision that he cited with a transgender woman who was suing her boss for discrimination. He was in favor of that decision for her.

Now, I'm told that if he is the nominee, he might be asked about it, but it's not going to be a deterrent for conservatives and the fact that he is very strong against Roe V. Wade world and Trump, anything else that -- any other decisions even if they're negative according to conservatives.

KING: See if that when happens and he keep calling Obamanation (ph).

KUCINICH: Yes, he did.

KING: Manu?

RAJU: All right, John, last week at the Fairy Retreat (ph) where Republican privately met to discuss their schedule. But Paul Ryan, House Speaker, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell both talked about how they viewed the year turning out. Paul Ryan very ambitious, talked about getting major things done by the August recess, including repealing, replacing Obamacare, getting the tax reform done, the significant chunk by then, and getting the repeal of Obamacare done, actually moving through the house by March.

Now, Republican senators are dubious of that, including senate majority Mitch McConnell who actually in that presentation tried to tamp down expectations saying, we need 32 Republican senators, we need 60 to do a lot of major things. The Senate operates much slower then the House. We have to confirm nominees as well. It really shows how the two chambers operate at much different paces. There are different rules.

And if they are not able to get a lot of things done from the Senate, there's going to be a lot of tension from House Republicans who want to follow that running (ph) timetable. It's one of the major things they have to work on.

KING: The tortuous and the hare come to mind. Reid?

WILSON: So, as of this morning, Maine is the eighth state in the country that has legalized marijuana for recreational purposes. And this has an implication for federal policy as well. There are now 93 members of the House of Representatives who represent states where marijuana is legal for recreational purposes, and that's going to matter when certain riders come up that might not allow the Justice Department to prosecute states where marijuana is legal. Those measures narrowly have failed in the last couple of years, but even Republicans who don't like legalization tend to vote in favor of these things because they don't want the Justice Department suing their home states.

KING: Makes me curious as to why you are so well informed on this.

(CROSSTALK)

KING: Dana.

[12:55:03] BASH: Well, Republicans in Congress who are pushing to really punish Russia for meddling in America's elections talk to some who are really angry that apparently when President Trump spoke for the first time with Vladimir Putin over the weekend, he made no mention of that at all.

And the fact that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell over the weekend left the door wide open to Congress passing additional sanctions on Russia gives the people who are behind the bipartisan legislation to do just that, hope, because of course it is McConnell who schedules the vote on anything in the Senate especially this.

So, I'm told to expect lawmakers who want to toughen sanctions to step up their rhetoric this week, not just against Vladimir Putin, but against President Trump for being too easy on Vladimir Putin.

KING: We'll watch how that plays out. I'm going to close now with the notebook with the programming just like the president. 8:00 tomorrow night, the president's first Supreme Court pick. Special coverage right here on CNN. We'll being back here at noon eastern tomorrow. That's it for us today. Wolf Blitzer right here after a quick break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)