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Inside Politics

Trump Criticizes McConnell; Debt Ceiling Deadline Looms; New Attack on McConnell and Ryan; Trump Mocks Media; Ryan Rejects Government Shutdown. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired August 24, 2017 - 12:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:00:32] JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Welcome to INSIDE POLITICS. I'm Jake Tapper. John King is on a well-deserved vacation.

Cue the Elton John, because "sorry" seems to be the hardest word in Washington these days. The president ramping up a public feud with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, mostly over Twitter, of course, as fears grow about the future of the Republican agenda.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R), MAJORITY LEADER: I'm often asked, what is being the majority leader in the senate like? A little bit like being a groundskeeper at a cemetery. Everybody's under you, but nobody's listening.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Plus, he said what? Republicans react to the president's threat to shut down the government if he does not get funding for the border wall.

And, whiplash anyone? A different day, a different audience and the return of teleprompter Trump reading lines that are within the bounds of normal president's discourse.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We are not defined by the color of our skin, the figure on our paycheck, or the party of our politics. We are defined by our shared humanity, by our citizenship in this magnificent nation, and by the love that fills our hearts.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: With us to share their reporting and insights, CNN's Sara Murray, Olivier Knox of "Yahoo! News," "The Weekly Standard's" Michael Warren, and Laura Meckler of "The Wall Street Journal."

Let's start with not surprisingly a tweet from President Trump this morning. Quote, the only problem I have with Mitch McConnell is that after hearing repeal and replace for seven years he failed. That should never -- capitalized -- have happened. The two men have not spoken in a couple of weeks, we're told, after a

phone call turned into a profanity filled screaming match over the issue of Russia, with President Trump reportedly frustrated that McDonnell was not doing enough to protect the president in these various investigations into possible collusion. The president also was angry about the Russia sanctions bill. Frustrations that he also shared with Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker, according to Politico, trying to convince the Tennessee Republican that the bill, now law, sanctioning Russia was not good policy and could damage his presidency.

We are also learning of a call with Republican Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina, who's working on a bill to protect Special Counsel Bob Mueller from any attempt by Trump to fire him.

Let's bring in senior congressional reporter for CNN Manu Raju for that part of the story.

And, Manu, what have you learned about this call and the relationship between Trump and McConnell?

MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL REPORTER: Well, Jake, Mitch McConnell doing everything that he can to avoid a public back and forth with President Trump, even as the president himself continues to go after the Senate majority leader. Remember the last time that McConnell has spoken publicly about Trump was on August 9th when he made rather mild criticism against the president saying that he had excessive expectations coming in as president. Perhaps he didn't realize the art of legislating and that he can't really set deadlines to get things done.

And as we know now from our sources that tell us that that really set off the president, who went on this tirade against Mitch McConnell, really laid into him. More so about the issue of Russia than about health care, despite the president's own tweet this morning.

Now, what we do know is that both men, at least their staffs, want to move forward. Mitch McConnell realizes they have a very ambitious agenda. Things that they absolutely have to get done to keep the government open, to raise the national debt limit, other things as part of the president's agenda, like tax reform. So they have to at least put this feud behind them and get on the same page politically.

But if the president continues to go after him, I'm told by other Republican senators, it's going to be a lot harder to get their party focused on one thing if they're constantly feuding, Jake.

TAPPER: And, Manu, the president's also on Twitter this morning to talk about the advice he says he gave Republicans about raising the debt ceiling. What did he say and what's the truth behind it?

RAJU: Yes, that's right. In fact, the president making some surprising comments here on Twitter, saying that I requested that Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan tie the debt ceiling legislation into the popular VA bill that just passed for easy approval. They didn't do it. So now we have a big deal with Dems holding them up, as usual, on debt ceiling approval. Could have been done so easy. Now a mess.

Now, the reality of the situation, Jake, is that the reason why they couldn't do a debt ceiling increase is part of the VA bill and that this would have cause a major revolt among conservatives, particularly in the House. A number of Republicans would just not -- would not go along with such an idea, which is why the Republicans leadership really didn't even broach this notion of moving forward on a debt ceiling increase as part of a, a separate package. In fact, that's what a lot of people dislike about Washington, sneaking in very controversial measures as part of a very popular bill, why the leadership didn't broach that subject.

[12:05:27] But now, Jake, a very different task ahead for the leadership to raise the national debt limit. As we know, the Treasury secretary, Stephen Mnuchin, has privately suggested that he doesn't want any strings attached to that. That they raise the debt limit without any conditions. Some Republicans are open to that idea. Democrats are -- want to go that route, but conservatives want some reforms as well. So a very difficult issue ahead. Perhaps the president right now recognizing that and passing the blame on Capitol Hill, Jake.

APPER: All right, Manu Raju, thank you so much.

Let's talk about this all with our panel.

Sara, let me start with you.

You know, I can't recall any president feuding this much with a Senate majority leader, even if they were of different parties. Like this is -- forget the Twitter part of it. The things he has said publicly, the president, about McConnell, are astounding.

SARA MURRAY, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: It is astounding. And it's really confusing to people who are watching on The Hill and who know that, obviously, there is a very robust legislative agenda coming up. The president wants to get things done. And they sort of scratching their heads and say, doesn't he understand that this is not going to make things easier? That attacking McConnell, saying mean things about Jeff Flake, trying to primary Republicans you don't like, these kind of fights are not going to make your life easier.

But we also know that the president doesn't let jabs like this drop. So when he saw McConnell say, you know, he's sort of learning governing. He had these outsized expectations. I don't think anyone who knows the president thought, oh, he's just going to let that one slide. He's not going to have any feelings about that. So it's kind of funny to watch their two staffs try to recalibrate in the wake of this and say, no, no, they're going to meet after August. Everything's going to be fine. I can't imagine that all of a sudden they're going to get together in a room and everything is going to proceed swimmingly.

The president's brain doesn't work like that. He doesn't get over grudges like that. And, oh, yes, by the way, Russia, that was the other thing that he talked to Mitch McConnell about. You know, he put out a tweet saying it was all about health care. That's the only reason I'm upset with McConnell. It's not that. It's also the probes into Russia that we know the president can't get out of his brain.

TAPPER: And that's -- and that's, in fact, what Manu says his reporting suggests was the thing that actually animated President Trump, that he was so angry about in that phone call that was profanity filled by President Trump was that McConnell was not doing enough, or anything, really, to protect the president in all these probes. Of course, it's not McConnell's job to protect the president.

OLIVIER KNOX, "YAHOO! NEWS": It's also a little ironic given what we know about McConnell's resistance to the Obama administration making public the case against Russia in the middle of the election year. He appears to have played a rather large role in protecting Donald Trump from that situation last year.

You're right, it's not his job. There's been an interesting uptick in the last couple of months of the president referring to Republicans as "them" and "they." He has the Republican base, which is very skeptical of its leadership. He's run again -- he ran against Washington rite large. He's now distancing himself from the defeats and from the problems in Washington again because he's in campaign mode again.

The really interesting thing to me is watching how this risks fracturing the Republican base. When he says, I support Jeff Flake's challenger and both Mitch McConnell and Cory Gardner, the Colorado senator who's running the Republican -- to retain their majority, come out and say, no, no, no, no, Flake's our guy. I really want to see how that plays out because in past contests you've seen say a Tea Party candidate siphoning just enough support off of an establishment candidate to hand a seat to a Democrat.

TAPPER: That's what happened in Missouri with Todd Akin. If that all plays out. The Democrats actually sent money to Todd Akin to make him the nominee. Not the exact thing, obviously. McCaskill was an incumbent.

You have some reporting, Michael, on why this idea -- which on its face doesn't sound like such a bad idea, what the president talked about, attach raising the debt ceiling to a very popular bill to reform the V.A. why that didn't work.

MICHAEL WARREN, "THE WEEKLY STANDARD": Well, this was publicly -- Mitch McConnell was talking about it. Republican leaders were talking about it. A couple of articles were written about it. And as Manu says, the Freedom Caucus, the folks on the conservative side, debt hawks, they said no way. And it kind of make sense, actually, right? They -- this is -- they don't want to be voting against veterans if they don't want to raise the debt ceiling.

So I'm struck by that because that sort of makes logical sense that it would be something that Donald Trump might even be aware of. So this tells me that this is a continued attack that the president's making on Republican leadership. This is a part -- he's meaning to do this because he's trying to drive a division between himself and the leadership of the Republican Party, because the truth is, as you say, Olivier, the Republican base doesn't like their leadership. They don't like the establishment.

It's a very weird situation where you have Trump trying to essentially remake, you know, the infrastructure of the party. The RNC is looking much more Trumpy than it did a year ago, while at the same time a lot of the power brokers within the Republican Party are in the Senate, in the House, and he's pushing them away. I just don't know how sustainable it is, but it's happening.

[12:10:14] TAPPER: You know what's interesting, Laura, is the idea of like who is the establishment, who is the elite right now given the fact that President Trump, who ran as an outsider and is, you know, was an outsider, but is now, of course, the president of the United States. He actually kind of ruminated on this in his speech. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I always hear about the elite. You know, the elite. They're elite. I went to better schools than they did. I was a better student than they were. I live in a bigger, more beautiful apartment. And I live in the White House, too, which is really great.

I think -- you know what? I think we're the elites. They're not the elites.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: That's interesting.

LAURA MECKLER, "THE WALL STREET JOURNAL": Well, you know, he's always had this, like, bifurcated message where, you know, appealing to people who rejected (INAUDIBLE) saying I'm the most successful of them all. And, you know, you want to be like me. You want to be rich like me. You know, back me. Be on my team. So I think he always tries to kind of have it both ways in that respect and more of the same.

And the more he can -- you know, the more he can distance himself from I -- from the -- I think he views the Republican establishment much as he views the media. And, you know, it's all -- it's him against the world. And come with me. Be on my team. We will take them all. So the problem, of course, he runs into is that he actually does need all of these institutions to actually get anything done. So -- you know.

TAPPER: We should also point out that McConnell wasn't the only one that the president attacked today. He also retweeted an eclipse meme. Let's put that up. It's -- there, the best eclipse ever. And it's President Trump blocking President Obama.

And he also lashed out at the former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper for questioning his fitness for office the other night saying, quote, James Clapper, who famously got caught lying to Congress, is now an authority on Donald Trump. Will he show you his beautiful letter to me? So we had teleprompter Trump in Reno at the American Legion Convention. Lovely remarks. Honored a Medal of Honor winner in the crowd, et cetera. But now he's back on this front.

MURRAY: Yes, I mean, this is pretty much how it goes with Trump. I mean I was in Phoenix with him the day before the beautiful American Legion speech and he was not teleprompter Trump. There were teleprompters, but there were also notes in the president's pocket and he came ready to talk about something else.

And this is how it goes. Look, he can deliver a speech off the teleprompter. I'm sure it was impressed upon him that you're speaking at the American Legion, you're speaking to veterans. Like, you've got whatever you needed to get off your chest the night before, so let's stick to the script and get through this.

But also, he's not appearing in front of the cameras today. So he knows if he wants to say whatever he wants to say, best way to do it is on Twitter. And this is why it's so hard to work for this president. This is why aides don't want to predict what he's going to say in speeches because you don't know. You don't know if he's going to, you know, tell you, I'm not going to pardon Sheriff Joe Arpaio, but I am going to go on stage and hint that a pardon is coming later down the road. It's an impossible position when you're someone working in this White House and dealing with a man who still believes he is his own best communicator. That is not going to change.

TAPPER: All right, we're going to take a very quick break.

Up next, pay for the wall or shut down the government? Are Republicans ready or willing to back up the president's threat? Stay with us.

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[12:17:34] (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The obstructionist Democrats would like us not to do it. But, believe me, we have to close down our government. We're building that wall.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: The border wall goes up, or the government shuts down. That's President Trump's message to Congress.

But let's go back. Way back. All the way back, 2013, when Republicans forced a 16-day government shutdown in an effort to derail Obamacare. Now, House Speaker Paul Ryan remembers it well. He called it a, quote, suicide mission for Republicans, and he does not want a repeat.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. PAUL RYAN (R), HOUSE SPEAKER: I don't think anyone's interested in having a shutdown. I don't think it's in our interests to do so.

(END VIDEO CLIP) TAPLPER: White House Counselor Kellyanne Conway, however, says that when it comes to the wall, the president is not going to back down.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KELLYANNE CONWAY, WHITE HOUSE COUNSELOR: He's telling Congress, he's building the wall. He expects the funding. And it's up to them. It's up to them to work collaboratively. We hope they do.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Let's take a little step backwards to the (INAUDIGBLE) DeLorean, get the flux capacitors going. 2013. Here was the mood of Republicans during the shutdown.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. DEVIN NUNES (R), CALIFORNIA: Now that we have made the jump, set ourselves on fire and made the jump, we have to -- we are now in the valley of death. We decided to go into the valley. We have to run together. We have to stay together.

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R), ARIZONA: We know how it's going to end. Sooner or later the government will resume its functions. So why don't we do this sooner rather than later?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Take a look at this poll from right after the 2013 shutdown ended. Fifty-three percent of Americans blamed Republicans in Congress.

So this is interesting because that was Republicans led by Ted Cruz forcing their -- the leadership to take on President Obama. It was a loser.

But now we have President Trump threatening the shutdown. And I suspect, Laura, that Ryan and McConnell know that even though they don't want this, they might get blamed for it.

MECKLER: Well, obviously, that's one of Trump's, you know, signature moves, as we've already seen, is to try to blame somebody else. He tried to blame them for the failure of the health care bill and I'm sure he would try to blame them in this case, too.

I'm not sure they're going to really be willing to go along with this, though, and I think it's possible that Trump does back down at the end of the day. He made similar noises in April when they were passing the continuing resolution for this year's government funding and, in fact, the wall funding was not included. And the Democrats would like nothing more than to shut down the government over this project, which is not popular broadly, and -- although it is popular with the -- with core Trump supporters.

[12:20:04] So I think this is a political loser in a way that much more than it was last time even. And the idea that -- and add to that the fact that if the government does shut down, you know, the Republicans, as a whole, will get the blame and then they'll be fighting among themselves as to which part of the Republican Party gets the blame. And, you know, I can't -- it's hard to see how that's good for anyone. And I suspect that, you know, cooler heads will prevail.

WARREN: So I talked before the Arizona rally. I talked to somebody in the White House. And this came out in September (ph) of me, how does this all work? And, well, when it comes to the budget, we'll have a continuing resolution probably for two or three months just to really being the House and Senate back in gear, get them thinking about this, and then maybe border security will be a part of this. And then, of course, the president said what he said and kind of blew things up.

I do wonder, though, if that was more sort of feeding off of the crowd's energy and sort of saying, maybe I'll do something -- maybe I'll do something crazy. And that may be what the White House official told me was more like what's actually going to happen, particularly in, you know, John Kelly's led White House.

But, again, with this president, you never know. And when a White House official goes out and says something, you can't -- they can't predict that the president's not going to say something else. And everybody in the White House just has to shift what they were doing to fit what the president said.

TAPPER: And, Olivier, as unpopular as President Trump is, and he's very unpopular, Republican leaders in Congress are even less popular. We just got a new Quinnipiac poll that just broke in this hour. Here is the disapproval of how Congress is handling its job. Among Americans, approve, 10 percent, disapprove, 83 percent. Among Republicans, approve, 17 percent, disapprove, 74 percent. That's among Republicans of a Republican Congress.

KNOX: Yes, that second number is a lot more important, right, because the -- that's what we're all watching because of 2018. Can they turn out their votes? That's really important.

Something that Laura said, struck a chord with me, which is that Democrats in January weren't sure which of the two opposition political strategies they were going to run, which are basically, they're doing too much or they're unable to do anything, right? I talked to a Democratic strategist a couple of days ago who said, actually it turns out we don't have to choose. We can go with they can't govern or we can go with, look, they're doing the Muslim ban, look, they're going after transgender people, look, they're -- so they feel like they've got a menu of options here.

I don't know whether Trump backs down or not. I think predicting what he does is kind of a fool's error. But right now, I mean, it's win/win. He's staying -- he's saying he's still breaking with the leadership. He's doing something popular with his base. I mean I don't think we're going to see a shutdown in September, but later on.

TAPPER: Very quickly. What are the odds that there will be a shutdown, do you think?

MURRAY: Oh, geez louise.

TAPPER: Come on.

MURRAY: I'm still going to say that the odds are low because I think if he's that committed to wall funding, then the leadership will go to him ideally with another option because I think that they know that they can't afford a shutdown. But this is Trump. Like, why do we have to -- why do we have to play -- why do you make me play these games, Jake?

TAPPER: Because I'm a bad person.

MURRAY: Yes.

TAPOPER: We're going to take a very quick break.

Are you getting whiplash watching the president lately, preaching unity one day, picking fights the next day? Just ahead, why he says his ability to abruptly changing tone is a good thing. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:27:27] TAPPER: Trigger warning for the president. We're told that he probably will not like the montage we're about to show you. It is the president over the past two weeks, at times sounding traditionally presidential, at times sounding like something else.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence.

I think there's blame on both sides.

George Washington was a slave owner. Was George Washington a slave owner? So will George Washington now lose his status?

A wound inflicted upon a single member of our community is a wound inflicted upon us all.

They show up in the helmets and the black masks, and they've got clubs and they've got everything. Antifa!

It is time to heal the wounds that divide us and to seek a new unity based on the common values that unite us.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: The president apparently had time to watch some cable news this morning. Around 9:00 a.m. he tweeted, the fake news is now complaining about my different types of back-to-back speeches. Well, there was Afghanistan, somber. The big rally, enthusiastic, dynamic and fun. And the American Legion, VA, respectful and strong. Too bad the Demes have no one who can change tones.

And, I should note, that the first versions of those tweets had some misspellings, but he did correct them.

So, can we say once and for all this is who President Trump is? That he just one day sounds this way and the other day sounds completely different? One day it's super ego. The next day it's it (ph). Is that --

WARREN: I think it's -- you have to think about it in terms of a performance. And who is the intended audience. That's clearly how he thinks about it. And he doesn't sort of think about sort of consistency and -- or really I don't think he's necessarily even tied to the words that he's saying. The tone is meant to win over the audience, or enrage the audience, or whoever the intended people he wants to hear this. And it's kind of a show, rather than a presidential statement -- a bunch of presidential statements.

MECKLER: Well, I mean, obviously, for those of us who like to look at the substance of what he's saying in there, it's -- you know, we see contradictions and we point that out. And that's our job.

But I do think it's kind of important to note also that it is a strength for him politically. He is able to talk differently to different people. And that -- and his comment about how the Democrats don't have anyone who can change tones is not -- there's not no merit to that. I mean I think that he does -- he is a gifted, political performer and that's how he's gotten to where he is.

[12:30:01] TAPPER: People keep talking about Democrats. What -- who are you talking about?

WARREN: There's another party.

TAPPER: There's another party?

WARREN: Yes.

MECKLER: There -- I think so, yes.

TAPPER: Do they have leaders?

Anyway, I'm sorry.

Let's listen to what Lindsey Graham had to say this morning about some of these moments.