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W.H. Doing Damage Control After Mulvaney Admits To Quid Pro Quo; Mulvaney Now Denies Quid Pro Quo After Admitting It On Live TV; Global Skepticism Over U.S.-Brokered Ceasefire In Northern Syria; Republican Lawmakers Raise Concerns About Ceasefire. Aired 12-12:30p ET
Aired October 18, 2019 - 12:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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[12:00:25]
JOHN KING, CNN HOST: Welcome to "INSIDE POLITICS". I'm John King. Thank you for sharing your day with us. So what? Then never mind. The White House Chief of Staff brazenly confirms a Ukraine quid pro quo, a key piece of the Democrats impeachment. Then he says, oh no, he didn't mean it.
Plus the President says the deal he made with Turkey is a cease-fire and is great. But Turkey's Foreign Minister says it's not a cease- fire at all and the European Union says the President again sold out the Kurds. And the simple truth is that the impeachment inquiry witnesses all serve in the Trump administration. For the President, though, it's a conspiracy hatched by Democrats.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The more America achieves, the more hateful and enraged these crazy Democrats become. Crazy. That crazy Nancy, she is crazy.
She's nuts. These people are crazy. They've gone nuts. Democrats are now the party of crazy politicians.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: We begin the hour with the fallout from the White House briefing room. The President said to be miffed at his acting Chief of Staff. Baffled is the word passed along by a source in touch with the Trump legal team.
Republicans on Capitol Hill were blind sided and alarmed. The Acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, now playing clean up after telling reporters point blank there was a quid pro quo, that President Trump froze security aid to Ukraine in part to pressure them into investigating Democrats. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) MICK MULVANEY, ACTING CHIEF OF STAFF OF THE WHITE HOUSE: That he also mention to me in the past that the corruption related to the DNC server, absolutely, no question about that. But that's it. And that's why we held up the money. Now, there was a report --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So the demand for an investigation into the Democrats was part of the reason he --
MULVANEY: It was on --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: -- ordered to withhold funding to Ukraine?
MULVANEY: The look back to what happened in 2016 certainly was part of the thing that he was worried about.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: Pretty clear, right? Hours later, an about-face. Mulvaney denied saying there was a quid pro quo. Today, the White House is defending Mulvaney saying it's the media reading way too much into those comments.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
STEPHANIE GRISHAM, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: He took probably 40 questions. People were talking over one another. He did a great job. He mentioned the same message over and over and over and now the media of course is, you know, we put a statement out clarifying some of the things that the media got themselves in a tizzy over.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: They put a statement out trying to clarify what the Chief of Staff said. Nobody was in a tizzy. They were repeating what he said.
Here with me to share their reporting and their insights, Julie Pace with The Associated Press, CNN's Nia-Malika Henderson, Carl Hulse with the New York Times, and Margaret Talev with Axios. There it was, right there. And when Mulvaney was doing it, it was reminisce of past practice by this administration. Rudy Giuliani goes on television after months of them saying the President had nothing to do with the payoffs to stormy Daniels and they said, yes, he did. So what?
The President went on television and said, yes, I went to Ukraine and ask for dirt on Joe Biden, so what? So that's what it appear to be, that because of all these impeachment inquiry witnesses, people who served in the Trump administration making clear in their view there was a connection that Mulvaney had decided, let's just put it out there and say, so what? So then why pull it back?
JULIE PACE, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: I think one of the reasons that this time was different was that this question of whether there was a quid pro quo is so central to what's happening on Capitol Hill. You've had a lot of lawmakers including a lot of Republicans who have held up this idea of a quid pro quo as sort of the reason why they're OK with what the President did. Yes, maybe he had this phone call where he raised these issues, but the White House says there was no quid pro quo for the military aid that would be a problem. But that's not what happened.
Well, then Mick Mulvaney goes out and says, that's exactly what happened. So it puts the people who have been standing by this President in a really horrible position because they have held this out as the reason why they're willing to be comfortable with his actions and then they completely undermine that on national television.
KING: And let's say, as you jump in, I just want to go through the words. Again, the White House Press Secretary said the reporters are in a tizzy. No, reporters are reporting what the Acting Chief of Staff said standing in the very rare briefing there in the White House briefing room.
This is Mick Mulvaney at the podium. Did he, he being the President? "Did he also mention to me in the past corruption related to DNC server? Absolutely, no, question about that. But that's it, and that's why we held up the money. The look back into what happened in 2016 certainly was part of the thing he was worried about."
Now, the idea that Ukraine meddled, not the Russians is a debunked conspiracy theory, but that's one that stuck in President's head. That's what Mick Mulvaney said.
[12:05:01]
Then Mulvaney in a statement later, "Let me be clear. There was absolutely no quid pro quo". The statement on the right does not match up to the statement on the left. This is not a tizzy, this is cleanup.
NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER: Yes. It's cleanup and if you look at that press conference, he said this over and over again. I mean, there were multiple times when reporters were sort of quizzical but he was actually saying this where he said, yes, get over it and this happens all the time in foreign policy.
So the idea that, you know, the reporters are getting it wrong and they missed the real message just doesn't make sense. It did seemed to be the unveiling of what might be the White House strategy going forward, even though they're trying to clean it up, which is to separate this Ukraine conspiracy theory and what Mulvaney says look back to 2016 from the Biden issue as well, which, again, will be hard because if you look at the memo from that call, they're very much linked, right? It's not only the Ukraine conspiracy theory, the DNC conspiracy theory, but it's also asked around Biden in Burisma.
So, we'll see if this is something that's sustainable going forward if other folks picking up. And you also heard Mulvaney in their press conference say, well, listen, this is actually an investigation going on by the DOJ, right, into the roots of the Russia probe. So, of course, it's fine if the --
PACE: Except DOJ says.
HENDERSON: Except DOJ says, no it's not fine, right.
KING: So DOJ says it's not fine. But to Julie's point, the Republicans on Capitol Hill are trying to make the case either that the President did nothing wrong or if the President did some things that were questionable, they're certainly not impeachable. And part of their argument has been no one has proven a quid pro quo, right?
Mick Mulvaney, again, he's taken it back, but several times stood right there and said, yes, we did. Of course, we did. He said, of course, we did. Yes, I just -- so here's the point. What he said yesterday wipes out all of these.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: The text message that I saw from Ambassador Sondland who is highly respected was there's no quid pro quo. He said that.
No quid pro quo. No quid pro quo. No quid pro quo. No quid pro quo.
SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-SC): This phone call is a nothing burger in terms of a quid pro quo.
SEN. JIM JORDAN (R-OH): No quid pro quo whatsoever. The two guys on the call, no quid pro quo, whatsoever.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There is no quid pro quo.
MIKE PENCE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: There was no quid pro quo.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: Except apparently there was --
MARGARET TALEV, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes.
KING: -- until there wasn't.
TALEV: Well, look, the reason why the President was so confident in Gordon Sondland's assessment also we found out was because the President dictated the assessment to Gordon Sondland and he send him that text message. There has been a seesawing of strategy here where the initial strategy was to release the transcript and just get it over with. We'll put the transcript out, it's not that big a deal.
It turned out the transcript was a huge deal and ignited like a firestorm. They fuel to everything that has come since then. The strategy after that became two-pronged. And it's like almost crazy when you say it out loud but it's two pieces. It was, there is no whistleblower because that person doesn't deserve protection and there's no impeachment because there's been no inquiry. So, nothing that you see here because there's not really a whistleblower and there's not really an impeachment inquiry.
Now, it has swung back to the other side again which is a more classic Trump administration response when your attack is just deny it. Deny it by saying, so what, we did this and there isn't anything wrong with it. But if you're going to make the argument, the nuance is important. If you are going to make the argument that who a president is dictates foreign policy negotiations, that is not the same thing as saying what Mr. Mulvaney ended up saying yesterday which has now turned into a controversy and on this far.
CARL HULSE, CHIEF WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT, THE NEW YORK TIMES: That is why we held up the money. That's the money quote and it's about money.
KING: Right.
HULSE: And I think it just totally undercut their defense on Capitol Hill. Their entire defense, as you just played out there, was that this was inappropriate but wasn't an abuse of power. Now you have, you know, pretty much an admission of an abuse of power. And I haven't talked to a lot of people in the aftermath of this because Congress, you know, were leaving town, but I think -- I did talk to some people and their attitude has changed after that yesterday. Their attitude changed.
KING: Right. Well, their attitude changed because it's another situation in which the answers keep changing from the White House. And if you're a Republican, you need to take cover because anything you say today could be undermined tomorrow. And so you have to have some empathy for the Republicans on Capitol Hill, especially those who have been trying to make the argument that, I don't like this but it's not impeachable. They've been trying to make -- those trying to keep that middle ground version.
But to your point, listen to Mick Mulvaney. And this part of the so arguable (ph). We won the election, we can do what we want.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MULVANEY: We do that all the time with foreign policy. I have news for everybody. Get over it. There's going to be political influence in foreign policy that is going to happen. Elections have consequences and foreign policy is going to change from the Obama administration to the Trump administration.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: As part of that, he also defends and others also defend bringing Rudy Giuliani, a private citizen who is the President's personal lawyer as if that's fine.
[12:10:00]
The President has every right to bring in outside advisors, every right to say, you know what, the State Department guys are telling me this. You have expertise in this area to bring in that, but what they never mentioned is Rudy Giuliani was making money off this.
PACE: Exactly. KING: This was not a private citizen's good intentions. He was making money off -- including two guys who are in federal prison right now, put there by the Trump Justice Department.
TALEV: Yes. He's deeply conflicted and also completely bypassing all of the normal internal administration checks and balances and people who have to come and testify to Congess in that sort of thing.
PACE: And to their other point there, yes, of course the President gets elected, the party and power changes, it changes foreign policy. But that's not what we're talking about that here. We are talking about the President holding up money to a country to serve his own personal political interest, either looking forward to try to investigate a future political rival or looking backward to try to investigate a debunked conspiracy theory into his last election.
PACE: I think part of the challenge for Mick Mulvaney and for anyone who's asked to speak on behalf of the administration is, I'm not even sure if the Acting Chief of Staff has full awareness of everything that happened because the way this was designed, only President Trump and Rudy Giuliani really have full awareness of what the policy was.
KING: But to Carl's point, that's it. That's why we held up the money. That's a pretty declarative and pretty damning sentence. See what this one goes.
If you have a question about today's political headlines or this crazy week for anyone here at the table, you can tweet us. Use the #INSIDEPOLITICS. I might answer your questions at the end of the show or maybe on our podcast.
Up next, will the cease fire in Northern Syria hold? Bibi Netanyahu this morning saying, wait and see.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mr. Prime Minister, do you have any response to the cease fire?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you, press. Thank you.
BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER: Thank you.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you.
NETANYAHU: We hope things will turn out for the best.
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[12:16:17]
KING: There's global skepticism today over the American brokered cease fire in Northern Syria. The President advertised as great and the President tweeting just moments ago that he spoke to Turkish President. President Trump claiming both President Erdogan and the Kurds want the cease fire. The President also claiming, inserts skepticism here, there's quote, goodwill on both sides and a really good chance for success.
The President's take on Twitter clashes dramatically with public statements from the Turkish government. Just hours ago Turkish foreign minister telling reporters the cease fire is not really a cease fire at all. In Turkey's view just a 128-hour pause with an ultimatum to the Kurds, get out or die.
CNN's Arwa Damon is near the Turkey-Syria border force. Aura, you are right there on the ground. A lot of the political rhetoric, let me just say frankly, I don't trust. What are you seeing? What does this pause look like?
ARWA DAMON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, John, it's quite interesting how these agreements get interpreted on the political spectrum and then what that actually ends up translating into on the ground. Look, we are in Turkey overlooking the Syrian town of Ras al-Ain which is has been the scene of some pretty intense clashes over the last few days.
This morning, what we heard from residents on the Turkish side is that they were still hearing some sporadic gunfire as well explosions. As of the afternoon, at least this part of the battlefield that we're able to get a little bit closer to does appear to be calm. But bear in mind as well, we do not have access to what's happening across the spectrum. And there have been various reports of attacks of artillery strikes that took place. Early this morning, they are saying that there was a hospital that was hit somewhere in the vicinity of Ras al- Ain. Turkey is denying this.
There's lot of, you know, this side said that, this side said this, but at the moment there are a few crucial things that we should be keeping an eye on that clock that runs out on Tuesday. Turkey, very clear saying, look, the Kurds are either going to get out of this entire safe zone across the entire border or we are going to re-pick up this battle more intensely than we already have this far. Also you have the regime factor now in the north of the country. So next step presumably, that's going to lie with Russia to try to negotiate something which occur in Damascus.
KING: Arwa Damon for us right on the scene, appreciate the live reporting especially with the back and forth political rhetoric. Grateful for that.
Let's bring it into the room here. I want to start with the -- here's what the President of France, Emmanuel Macron, says this is a major mistake disagreement. European Union calls it a major capitulation to Turkey that leaves the Kurds essentially on their own. As Awra says, they have 128 hours to get out, go where? They can't go in to Turkey. Syria's a mess. So there's that.
But the President says, you know what, it's like think of your -- think of middle school and there's a fight on the playground.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Sometimes you have to let them fight a little while, then people find out how tough the fight against these guys and they're right up here. These guys know. Right?
Sometimes you have to let them fight. Like two kids in a lot, you got to let them fight and then you pull them apart.
President Erdogan was a gentleman. He understood it. But without a little tough love, you know, what tough love is, right? Without a little tough love, they would have never made this deal.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: History records President Erdogan is not a gentleman. He is an authoritarian thug. But does the President view the world as WWE?
HULSE: I mean that was --
KING: I'm serious, I don't ask --
PACE: Yes.
KING: -- I don't ask the question as a joke.
[12:20:02]
I mean, this is an incredibly complicated for hundreds and thousands of years neighborhood. But it's a mess right now and just let them fight and --
HENDERSON: Yes. And I think to his supporters there, I mean in some ways, you know, Syria is far away, the Middle East has been this quagmire where lots of folks, Americans, have spilled blood in treasure and so he's fine essentially selling this idea that, you know, the United States wins by pulling American troops out, a thousand or so, you know, 50 or 100 that were in the northern part, basically kind of keeping this fragile place and certainly keeping Kurds safe. And of course now, who knows what's going to happen to the Kurds at this point.
What was interesting was there was a lot of criticism that this President was getting from Republicans. You saw some of that, Mitt Romney taking to the Senate floor. But in some ways after this happened, you didn't really hear as much criticism, right? I mean, for instance, evangelicals were very much up in arms. You would think Bibi Netanyahu might be much more critical than he was given that this reshapes the balance of power in the Middle East. But, you know, the President is sort of quiet with that with this deal where Turkey wins away -- you know, walks away with everything
KING: Although to that point today as it sinks in, you see Republicans trying to do their homework here. Normally, whatever the President puts on Twitter becomes the Republican bible. They just sort of repeat the President or at least pick the part they can repeat.
Here you do have though some Republican reactions. A little bit of caution here, but also some, I don't think the President is right.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. ADAM KINZINGER (R-IL): It reminds me of Somali and South Vietnam. And it's disheartening.
REP. FRANCIS ROONEY (R-FL): I don't think it's a great thing for the Kurds at all. And I don't think since Churchill tried to take Gallipoli in World War I, we've seen something as drastically erroneous is just what just happened.
SEN. MITT ROMNEY (R-UT): The cease fire does not change the fact that America has abandoned an ally. Are we so weak and so inept diplomatically that Turkey forced the hand of the United States of America? Turkey?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: That point there by Senator Romney, who again if you're a Trump supporter you're going to say, we'll he just doesn't like the President. But he's not the only one saying, somebody please show me what the United States got out of this deal.
HULSE: Yes. I think in last year --
KING: That the Turkey got everything it want -- Turkey got everything it wanted and what did the United States got?
HULSE: I mean, it'll mess with President Trump or the White House. You don't think this as a good deal at all. Chris Van Hollen, Democrat, Maryland said on CNN before their show, this is the second betrayal of the Kurds. And I think that's how it's being interpreted here. We don't seem to have gotten much. We've given Turkey quite a bit.
And I think that Lindsey Graham is somebody to watch here, right, because he's been leading the charge. How does he respond to this and is this good enough? But I think the early verdict on this deal is a bad one. And it's also one of these incidents where the President can't just bluster his way through and say because there's things that are happening on the ground that prove him wrong. And I think that's the difference dynamic to them.
PACE: It's sort of a classic Trump play where you have this huge gap between the rhetoric about a deal or some accomplishment of his and the reality of it, right? He's saying this is a great deal. Civilization is happy with this deal and then you look and you say, well, who is happy with it? Turkey is happy with it. Republicans are not happy. The Kurds certainly are not happy. Others in the administration and national security roles are not happy.
HENDERSON: The deal --
PACE: He's going to keep saying this --
KING: Right.
PACE: -- hoping he can create this narrative that will overshadow what actually does happened on that.
TALEV: Because the deal in of itself is meant to try to stench the fall out of the crisis that the President created with the way that he announced the U.S. withdrawal. So to hear the remarks at the event in Texas, if you just like just woke up in the middle of this, you'd be like, oh, the U.S. stepped in to try to broker something between two people. But it was the U.S.'s action that instigated the violence that has led to the deaths of civilians who are part of a population that, you know, were the U.S.'s allies in the fight against ISIS.
And I think that cease fire or not, the horse is already out of the barn on a lot of the bigger stuff with the real national security, not the diplomatic implications for U.S. which are real, but the national security implications. What happens to ISIS prisoners who were in the prison camps that were, you know, contained by the Kurds --
PACE: Which is the realignment, a realignment.
TALEV: Russia --
PACE: Russia and Syria.
TALEV: Russia's insurgent for Syria. And the cease fire can't address any of that stuff. And I think it does begin to bring into question and for many this national security of Republicans who have been allied with Trump in terms of domestic politics, it really brings in the question, what are the conversations that we don't yet have full visibility on with the way the President has really dealt with Putin, the way he's dealt with Kim Jong-un.
There are transcripts that are never been released. There are conversations that if what happened in the Ukraine and what happened here with President Erdogan are any example. There's just a lot of information that people are going to want to have a greater visibility on now.
HULSE: I think Senator Romney's comment though, he's like -- it's really incredulous. It's like we've been rolled by Turkey twice --
KING: Right.
HULSE: Twice now? And I think a lot of people are having a hard time accepting that.
[12:25:06]
KING: Up next for us, two well-respected military leaders take on the President.
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KING: James Mattis is raising some eyebrows today. The retired four star general former Trump administration Defense Secretary appeared last night in New York at the annual Al Smith dinner where he addressed some of the President's personal attacks on him head on with humor.
