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Inside Politics

Trump Reiterates Demand for Travel Ban; Trump Undermines His Own Defense Over Travel Ban; Trump Aide: Travel Order About "Protecting Americans"; Former FBI Director James Comey Testifies in Three Days; Trump Blames Dems for Empty Jobs; Tillerson: U.S. Will Not Keep Allies at "An Arm's Length." Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired June 05, 2017 - 12:30   ET

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

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[12:30:00] UNIDENTIFIED MALE: -- and treasured values.

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JOHN KING, CNN ANCHOR: Despite what Kellyanne Conway says at the Supreme Court, the justices are going to put more weight on what the president says as opposed to what anybody who works for the president says including Secretary Kelly who's trying to be a good soldier there and spin this in a way favorable to the president.

Now if Kellyanne Conway would say don't believe John King because he works in the mainstream media, maybe she'll believe her own husband. Who put this out on Twitter, George Conway III. These tweets may make some people feel better, but they certainly won't help OSG", that's the Office of Solicitor General, "get five votes in the Supreme Court of the United States which is what actually matters. Sad."

So Kellyanne Conway's husband, an attorney here in Washington saying the president of the United State is undermining his own legal case by going on Twitter.

MOLLY BALL, THE ATLANTIC: And someone who was up for and almost took a job in that office in fact. So he knows (inaudible), he's a very well respected conservative litigator. And what the president is doing really is making life more difficult for his own administration on multiple levels. This is only one of the issues where he's doing that.

But, you know, all of the courts that have considered the -- to use the president's word travel ban so far have taken into account the president's campaign rhetoric. You know, what Jeff Sessions said on the campaign trail, intent matters when the court looks at how to define this action. And the courts are going to take into account the president's intent. He's in a lot of ways digging himself deeper when he goes off like this.

MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL REPORTER: It wasn't just his Homeland Security secretary who said it's not a travel ban. Sean Spicer from the White House podium said don't call it a travel ban repeatedly. And, as you guys -- as you know from being there Donald Trump's criticizing basically his own staff for making -- having that message.

SHANNON PETTYPIECE, BLOOMBERG NEWS: I thought the most striking thing about these tweets is the divide it showed between him and his staff, you know, saying that the Justice Department should have done this. That they shouldn't have introduced this watered down thing and that we should go to the Supreme Court and do this.

RAJU: He signed it.

PETTYPIECE: Yes. And, you know, you can tell them what to do in the travel ban. You can tell the solicitor general what to do like, you know, but it's just this pushes this perception of, you know, the staff trying to protect him and keep the president away from himself.

KING: And to your point, another one of the president's tweets this is morning was that the Justice Department should have fought and should continue to fight, I think was the contest of the tweet for the original. The original travel ban which was later watered down. The original one is what was called clearly by the courts an unconstitutional religious test.

Again, the president said that days before the Supreme Court will consider this case. If you are arguing against the administration, yes, you use your law school arguments, but you also just holdup the president's tweets that says that the president himself says he wants this, right?

DAN BALZ, THE WASHINGTON POST: This series of tweets today make one think of a government organizational chart in which you have the president and then everything else in the government and no line connecting up to the president or the president in a sense isolating himself from everything that's being done in his government on his behalf which he's been complicit in. As you said, he signed the watered down version of the travel ban.

KING: It becomes comic sometimes to see people who work closely with the president, who are loyal to the president, who are paid by the taxpayers of the United States government, go on television with the White House behind them and say pay no attention to the words of the president of the United States. It's easy to laugh about that. It's easy to make political hay about that.

But there's something seriously wrong within this White House when they're essentially saying listen only to the -- or are they saying, listen to the president when we're able to coach him, to lead him, to protect him with a teleprompter? Is that what they're saying? Don't listen to what the president really thinks.

BALL: I think what they're saying is only look at what he does. The problem is when you are president what you say is what you do, right. Words are policy. Words are law. Words have weight.

This seems to be very much like Trump the businessman, Trump the negotiator, Trump the deal maker who thinks if you take an extreme position and then you come some way in the other person's direction that should count as a compromise. And so he's saying to the court, look, I started out over here. I've already come your way.

Of course, that's not how constitutional law works. It doesn't become more constitutional just because you feel like you made some concessions. You know, the most of the litigation he's been in so far has been business litigation where you are making a deal with the other party and what you say matters less than what ends up in the deal sheet. Again, that's not how it works when you're talking about presidential edicts.

KING: Right. And so a lot of people thought the president was finally getting to a court where he might have a better chance because of the composition of the current Supreme Court of the Untied States. I want you to listen this.

This is Sebastian Gorka, another one of the president's aides on television this morning. My colleague Chris Cuomo trying to ask him pretty clearly, the president call its a travel ban. The people pressing the case in court say it's not a travel ban. Why the discrepancy?

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[12:35:01] SEBASTIAN GORKA, DEPUTY ASSISTANT TO THE PRESIDENT: I'm not going to fall into the trap of us being the spinmeister when CNN is one of the greater purveyors of fake news. The fact is, it's been the same since the beginning. From the first E.O. to the second E.O., it's one thing Chris. It's about protecting Americans. And if anybody out there has a problem with us trying to keep Americans safe, then they need to look in the mirror and they need to ask themselves whether they are the purveyors of fake news.

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KING: So if you don't agree with the president of the United States or you raise legitimate questions about the Homeland Security secretary and all the lawyers say this, the president says 180 degrees different, you're purveying fake news. You're not actually -- you're not asking questions in a democracy about your leadership.

RAJU: It was -- the question was about what the president said on Twitter. It was nothing really beyond that. And it was an effort to side step and runaway what the president is tweeting about.

It goes back to your underlying point. What should we listen to coming out of not just the president but also the White House. If they say -- you know, if they constantly runaway from what the president is saying and at times Sean Spicer even said, I can't guarantee that everything that I'm saying out of the White House podium is going to be a 100 percent accurate because sometimes I even talk to the president of the United States. So he doesn't know what is true that's coming out of the White House.

KING: Well, the American people -- I know some of them I didn't but the American people elected Donald Trump president of the United States not Kellyanne Conway or Sebastian Gorka. President's words matter. Up next, in just days the FBI director may provide an answer to this question. Did the president of the United States try to stop or slow the investigation into Russian election meddling?

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[12:40:33] KING: Welcome back.

Big questions in Washington this week including this. Did the president of the United States try to shut down or at least water down the investigation into Russian election meddling? Did he ask the FBI director to back off his former national security adviser? Did he separately ask top intelligence officials to publicly dismiss suggestions that any Trump associates had improper election contacts with the Kremlin? Is talk of such collusion just talk or is there proof?

This is a big week in Washington if you're looking for the big answers. The former FBI Director James Comey testifies before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday.

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SEN. MARK WARNER (D), VIRGINIA: I want to know what kind of pressure, appropriate, inappropriate, how many conversations he had with the president about this topic? Did some of these conversations take place even before the president was sworn in? And I think Jim Comey deserves to have his in effect day in court since the president has disparaged him so much.

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KING: A day before that on Wednesday, the same committee will hear from the director of National Intelligence and the head of the National Security Agency.

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WARNER: There is a lot of smoke. We have no smoking gun at this point but there is a lot of smoke. That the president also talked to both of them in terms of asking them to downplay the Russian investigation. That would be very concerning to me.

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KING: It is interesting, we're three days away from the Comey testimony, but the town is on edge and there are huge stakes for the president, Dan. If the FBI director sits there and goes through his memos where he says, yes at dinner the president said pledge your loyalty to me. Yes, in a subsequent conversation he asked me if I could drop the investigation into National Security Adviser Michael Flynn.

If those are the answers we get from Director Comey which is what his associates say is the truth, what happens? BALZ: It's an explosive moment, John. I mean, we have to go back a long time to think about a moment of testimony in which somebody was going directly against and after the president of the United States on a matter as significant as we're going to have this week with Director Comey. I mean, everybody seems to know what he's going to say, because so much has been leaked already about what he has and what he wants to say. But we haven't heard from him directly.

And that moment elevates it well beyond all the stories that have happened so far. I don't know whether there will be any ultimate conclusion from an event like this. There often isn't. But it is going to be very, very worrisome for the White House almost no matter what he says.

RAJU: And one of the questions is how much can he say and will it undercut Bob Mueller, the special counsel's own investigation which presumably is looking into the circumstances around James Comey's firing. We know that Comey and Mueller have discussed this. Have he set any limits about what he can say? And questions about what the White House may try to do to prevent if anything about Comey will say by exerting his executive privilege, questions about whether they can actually effectively do that. But today Kellyanne Conway would not rule that out.

KING: Let's listen to Kellyanne Conway (inaudible) because again, administration officials are very careful when they talk about almost anything now. You ask them just about any question and they say it's up -- you know, final word will come from the president. In part, because it's -- well, they'll talk to the president about this. This isn't the final answer. We know the president often changes mind.

But here's Kellyanne Conway and the question, would the president try to say I have executive privilege? Therefore -- because James Comey worked for the executive branch, this is a private conversation, I don't want him to testify about it in public.

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Does the White House plan to assert executive privilege or any other legal maneuver to prevent such testimonies?

KELLYANNE CONWAY, COUNSELOR TO THE PRESIDENT: The president will make that final decision. But if Mr. Comey does testify we'll be watching with everyone else.

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KING: I think a lot of people will be watching. But there's a lot of people think that there's no way on legal grounds, because the president has talked about it so much publicly. Because he's tweeted about it, because he has publicly had conversations about this. It would be pretty hard to say only I can talk about it, Comey can't.

BALL: Well, I'm not a lawyer and I don't understand all of the workings of executive privilege, so I would not presume to make that judgment. But I think the bigger issue as Manu was saying is going to be what Director Comey feels at liberty to say based on his conversations with the Special Counsel Bob Mueller who presumably in the course of his own investigation wants to keep certain things as part of that. So I think there's -- it's also going to turn into a larger I think referendum on James Comey and his tenure.

Because there are so many questions, because one thing that the president has said that is true is that Comey was widely disliked by both Democrats and Republicans for different actions that he has taken. You could say that's because he proved his independence. But there's going to be a lot of questions about a lot of different things from Jim Comey's tenure that I think are going to come after.

[12:45:03] PETTYPIECE: Yes. There's some people in the White House who think this might not necessarily be catastrophic for them. That this may be an opportunity for Republicans to try and poke holes in Comey's statements. To say well, if you felt, you know, the investigation was being interfered with, why didn't you do something, why didn't you resign, why didn't you say something.

So, this could give the president's defenders in Congress a moment to really go after Comey. So Friday the official word was they were reviewing whether or not to use the executive privilege. Reviewing it seriously. But -- so legally but also politically.

KING: But my understanding from Comey associated is that he is prepared to say, look, the president didn't want -- I told the president I can't do that. I told the president I would not shut down the investigation. I told the president we had to go forward.

And I knew the president was new to Washington, I thought he was just getting up to speed on how this works. He's strong willed because of his private business experience. As long as he didn't go round me, and didn't try to interfere with the investigation, I was sort of willing to take the hit, you know, and take those (inaudible).

That's what I'm told Comey is going to say, we're going to see. But on the big question, the president on the advice of his lawyers, he's saying less and less about this for the most part. Back on May 18th, the president was directly asked the biggest question.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did you at any time urge former FBI Director James Comey in any way, shape or form to close or to back down the investigation into Michael Flynn? And also as you look at --

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: No. No. Next question.

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KING: Not a lot of wiggle room. No. No. Next question. So, yes, Comey may face some restrictions but if he is allowed to summarize his memos or reads from memos and his answer is yes to that question, we have a problem in town, don't we? BALZ: We have a big problem. And the other aspect of this is not simply what might have been said in those conversations but then the decision to fire James Comey and what President Trump said after firing to Lester Holt on NBC when he said he had Russia and the Russia investigation, he was thinking about that when he fired Comey. So, that's -- I mean, that's what Bob Mueller is going to have to try to resolve as he waives these issues.

KING: And watch the politics of this. I just want show Darrell Issa, a Republican from a district in California that can swing back and forth. Listen to his take ad then right after that we'll get you a Democrat from a red state. First, Darrell Issa.

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REP. DARRELL ISSA (R), CALIFORNIA: I support the fact that former Director Comey is coming before the select intelligence committee. Whatever direction that Director Mueller goes, that we just respect the fact that he's a career professional trying to find it. He may go toward Trump. He may go forward Flynn. I mean, now that we can predict he will.

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What's the big question that you have for the FBI director?

SEN. JOE MANCHIN (D), WEST VIRGINIA: The question that's being asked by West Virginians is, if you knew or if you thought there was obstruction of justice, why didn't you act on it?

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KING: It's interesting to see the politics of this. Joe Munchin up for reelection next year, a state Trump won West Virginia by 42 points. Joe Munchin, the Democrat being cautious there saying well, Mr. Comey why weren't you more forthcoming if this really happened. The Republican in a swing district sounding much more like a Democrat saying hey, if Comey and Mueller are on to something, follow the facts.

RAJU: Yes, I think his testimony (inaudible) both sides something to point to. The question is, when Comey is going to be asked directly, did the president try to obstruct justice? What is his response to that? Does he give wiggle room in any way? Does he give the White House some cover by saying I don't think so? Or does he say this is something the investigators right now and I can't make the determination.

That's going to be a key moment of the hearing and both sides will be talking about that afterwards.

KING: Well, I suspect we'll get a fair amount of that. That judgment is not mine any more but I think this. We'll see.

Everybody sit tight. Next, President Trump is a tough talker especially regarding terrorism, but what's he really getting done?

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[12:51:52] KING: Welcome back.

One more from the president's morning tweet storm today. At Fox and Friends, "Dems are taking forever to approve my people including ambassadors. They are nothing but obstructionists. Want approvals."

Again, that is at a minimum, misleading. Yes, Democrats are using stalling tactics to drag up the confirmation process for many Trump nominees. But the biggest reason so many big government jobs are vacant is because the president and his team, some 150 days in, have been so slow to fill them.

There are 442 senior government positions for which this administration has not named a candidate including some big positions dealing with terrorism and Homeland Security. The FBI director is a vacancy now. That's relatively new one. The TSA chief also open, as is the National Counterterrorism Center director.

When this one came up this morning, it was interesting because the president has a point. If -- when he nominates people, the Democrats use everything at their disposal to slow walk it. But on some of the big jobs, it's not the Democrats. It's the personnel apparatus -- I don't know what to call it, if the White House has not named people. And this has been a problem from day one. Why isn't it getting better?

PETTYPIECE: Yes, the Democrats can't stall something if they can't get a name to stall. So, a few things have been going on internally in the White House. There's been a lot of vetting, maybe you can call it extreme vetting to try and, you know, really make sure they're getting people who are going to be loyal to the president and his agenda. That's disqualified a few people like in Treasury who they thought weren't align enough with the president's ideology. It's difficult with finding people in some cases.

You mentioned an FBI director. That's kind of walking into a difficult job. At this point, a communications director is going to be not a difficult job to fill. So, that and the lack of people. And then the people he nominated, a lot of them have big conflicts. They come from the business world so their finances are tied up and they can't get them through the ethics review.

RAJU: This is a significant impact especially if he cannot get legislation through Congress. If he wants to do things administratively to his own agencies, he needs people to implement them, to propose them, to draft the stuff and to push it internally. I mean, he does not have those positions filled, he can undercut what they can do without Congress.

BALL: Right. Because you have the big high profile jobs, the director level jobs but a lot of what's really missing is that second tier that do require confirmation but who really run the agency on the day-to-day basis. Those deputy secretaries, those assistants, all of the people.

And in a lot of cases this has also been a result of clashes between the president's cabinet and the president himself where someone like, say, Jim Mattis at the Pentagon wants a certain assistant secretary and it's nixed by the White House and so they go back and forth. And that affects the functioning of the entire administration.

KING: And to those in the big jobs, I want to pivot a little bit here in the sense that Secretary of State Tillerson has been traveling. He's in Asia right now. You had the president publicly lecture NATO then you had the president pull out of the Paris climate accords which had broad global criticism after that.

Listen to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson when asked the question, is the United States running away from its traditional alliances.

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[12:55:05] REX TILLERSON, SECRETARY OF STATE: So in terms of addressing those concerns, this is how we address it. Is to travel to the region, to meet with our counterparts, and to talk about all the issues that are important to them. So I think -- I hope the fact that we are here demonstrates that that is certainly not this administration's view or intention to somehow put an arm -- put it at arm's length the other important allies and partners in the world.

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KING: He says and he used his arms and said, Dan, that's not our intent, but that's how if you talk to NATO allies after the president's public lecture if you see the condemnation of the Paris decision, that's how a lot of them feel.

BALZ: Absolutely. And Secretary Tillerson and Secretary Mattis can travel the world and make reassuring statements as they do wherever they go. And the president of the United States has the ability to undercut that in one tweet or in one speech at NATO where he didn't mention Article Five. I mean, there are any number of examples in which he has in one way or another contradicted what his people are saying.

KING: It's another case in which we have the secretary of state essentially saying, listen to me not my boss. But we'll see how that plays out.

Thanks for joining us in the Inside Politics. Just minutes away now from the White House briefing. The Deputy White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders will take the podium in just a few minutes. Wolf Blitzer will be in the chair here to take you there when it happens.

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WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, I'm Wolf Blitzer. It's 1 p.m. here in Washington, 6 p.m. in London, 8 p.m. in Moscow. Wherever you're watching around the world, thanks very much for joining --