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Trump Escalates Threats Against Free Press; 23 Dead, Hundreds Missing in California Wildfires. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired October 12, 2017 - 07:00   ET

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

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to your NEW DAY. And we begin with President Trump again, threatening the free press. Suggesting the federal government use its power to shut down news networks whose coverage the president disagrees with.

[07:00:23] Let's be clear. These are words typically heard from authoritarian regimes.

CUOMO: And before lemming logic twists this into a story about the press simply being perturbed, "Vanity Fair" is reporting that advisers and leading Republicans who may be staying quiet, too quiet. But what the president is saying and doing is raising fears that the president is unraveling.

Former chief strategist Steve Bannon giving the president just a 30 percent chance of making it to the end of his first term. We have it all covered for you. Let's begin with CNN's Joe Johns live at the White House -- Joe.

JOE JOHNS, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Chris, you know, the president has been completely up front about the fact that he gets irritated by negative news coverage. He's gone after news organizations. He's taken issue with individual stories, but it's never gone this far until now, suggesting punishing a network for unflattering coverage.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It's frankly disgusting the way the press is able to write whatever they want to write.

JOHNS (voice-over): President Trump sounding more like an autocrat than a leader of the free world, tweeting that network news licenses must be challenged and, if appropriate, revoked, after saying he does not favor limitations on the media earlier in the day.

TRUMP: No. The press should speak more honestly.

JOHNS: Republican Senator Ben Sasse, a frequent Trump critic, firing back, asking, "Mr. President, are you recanting the oath you took on January 20 to preserve, protect and defend the First Amendment?"

TRUMP: The one thing with the Democrats, they stay together like glue. We have great policies, but the Republicans tend not to be as unified.

JOHNS: Sources tell CNN the president is growing increasingly frustrated with a stalled legislative agenda, and a new article in "Vanity Fair" describes a White House in crisis, with advisers struggling to contain a president who is increasingly unfocused and consumed by dark moods.

The reports cites two senior Republican officials who say chief of staff John Kelly is miserable but remaining in his post to keep Mr. Trump from making a disastrous decision.

Speculation about Kelly's future growing Wednesday, after his deputy chief of staff was nominated to replace the post he vacated as homeland security secretary. One White House source telling CNN they don't see Kelly remaining on the job for long without her and that he may have been giving her somewhere to land before he ultimately leaves.

According to one of "Vanity Fair's" sources, the president's former chief strategist, Steve Bannon, has said he thinks the president only has a 30 percent chance of making it through his full term. Bannon reportedly telling the president that the main risk to his tenure is the 25th Amendment to the Constitution, which allows the cabinet to vote to remove him. The White House is disputing these accounts, as the president denies any rift with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.

TRUMP: We have a very good relationship.

JOHNS: But making it clear that his own strategic opinion matters most when it comes to North Korea.

TRUMP: I think I have a little bit different attitude on North Korea than other people might have. And I listen to everybody. But ultimately, my attitude is the one that matters, isn't it?

JOHNS: This as CNN learns that a tense and difficult meeting at the Pentagon prompted Tillerson to call the president a moron back in July. An official telling CNN defense employees were ashen at Mr. Trump's direct questioning of his commanders and his lack of a nuanced world view.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CUOMO: And as we all know, the president has been unable, at least so far, to get a new health care bill through the Congress. So today, he is expected to sign an executive action, instructing the agencies to allow the sale of cheaper, less comprehensive health insurance. So that is something that is likely to benefit healthy people, and sick people won't like so much.

Alisyn, Chris, back to you.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TRUMP: It's frankly disgusting the way the press is able to write whatever they want to write. JOHNS (voice-over): President Trump sounding more like an autocrat

than a leader of the free world, tweeting that network news licenses must be challenged and, if appropriate, revoked, after saying he does not favor limitations on the media earlier in the day.

TRUMP: No. The press should speak more honestly.

JOHNS: Republican Senator Ben Sasse, a frequent Trump critic, firing back, asking, "Mr. President, are you recanting the oath you took on January 20 to preserve, protect and defend the First Amendment?"

TRUMP: The one thing, the Democrats, they stay together like glue. We have great policies, but the Republicans tend not to be as unified.

JOHNS: Sources tell CNN the president is growing increasingly frustrated with a stalled legislative agenda, and a new article in "Vanity Fair" describes a White House in crisis, with advisers struggling to contain a president who is increasingly unfocused and consumed by dark moods.

The reports cites two senior Republican officials who say chief of staff John Kelly is miserable but remaining in his post to keep Mr. Trump from making a disastrous decision.

Speculation about Kelly's future growing Wednesday, after his deputy chief of staff was nominated to replace the post he vacated as homeland security secretary. One White House source telling CNN they don't see Kelly remaining on the job for long without her and that he may have been giving her somewhere to land before he ultimately leaves.

According to one of "Vanity Fair's" sources, the president's former chief strategist, Steve Bannon, has said he thinks the president only has a 30 percent chance of making it through his full term. Bannon reportedly telling the president that the main risk to his tenure is the 25th Amendment to the Constitution, which allows the cabinet to vote to remove him. The White House is disputing these accounts, as the president denies any rift with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.

TRUMP: We have a very good relationship.

JOHNS: But making it clear that his own strategic opinion matters most when it comes to North Korea.

TRUMP: I think I have a little bit different attitude on North Korea than other people might have. And I listen to everybody. But ultimately, my attitude is the one that matters, isn't it?

JOHNS: This as CNN learns that a tense and difficult meeting at the Pentagon prompted Tillerson to call the president a moron back in July. An official telling CNN defense employees were ashen at Mr. Trump's direct questioning of his commanders and his lack of a nuanced world view.

(END VIDEOTAPE) JOHNS: And as we all know, the president has been unable, at least so far, to get a new health care bill, through the Congress. So today, he is expected to sign an executive action instructing the agencies to allow the sale of cheaper, less comprehensive health insurance. So that is something that is likely to help healthy people and sick people won't like so much.

Alisyn, Chris, back to you.

CAMEROTA: We'll see how that goes, Joe. Thank you very much for the reporting. Let's bring in our panel to discuss all this.

We have CNN political analyst David Gregory and CNN political analyst and editor in chief for "The Daily Beast" John Avlon.

Let's start with press freedoms. When President Trump was first elected, I saw really troubling signs ahead. That was when they were talking about no on-camera briefings any more, not going to do daily briefings with the press. They talked about changing libel laws. But some of those things didn't happen. With Sean Spicer there was some flirtation with not doing on-camera briefings. They held them in the bushes instead.

However, then it changed, and so I was able to exhale. Now with this, we're going to revoke the licenses. It's hard to know how seriously to take these threats, John Avlon. Because these things come up and then they go away.

[07:05:05] AVLON: Look, we should always take the words of the president of the United States seriously, even if he does not take his own words seriously.

This is a position with enormous power. And the sad, sick truth is that this president goes well beyond the normal tension with the press. Every president feels aggrieved by the press. There's a natural tension. But this president from early on, during the campaign, threatens libel laws. Now he's threatening licenses. This goes well beyond, from floating to calling us the enemy of the American people. Everything that we're seeing is sort of out a dark satirical novel or a dystopian country led by an authoritarian leader. And that's why we need to take it seriously. Ben Sasse last night taking it very seriously, that this is actually, this language is a contradiction of the president's commitment to uphold the Constitution, could have been the First Amendment of the Constitution.

CAMEROTA: He says, "Mr. President, are you recanting the oath you took on January 20 to preserve, protect, and defend the First Amendment?

CUOMO: So look, the good news, David, that the president doesn't really understand, apparently, how licenses work. And that this isn't something that would happen the way he's saying it would happen.

But the reason we bring up Ben Sasse and say why aren't more people being like Ben Sasse is not to encourage negativity but accountability. But one of the reasons the president can't do this is that if you were to try to pass a law that was in violation of the Constitution, the Supreme Court would act against it. Congress should come and act against it. And that's why there is a provocation here to people who are in positions of leadership. It is time to stand up and be counted about how you feel about these things. There's too much quiet.

GREGORY: I agree with that 100 percent. And I think there's a tendency among a lot of leaders in Washington. How about what Bob Corker has been saying this week that a lot of people have been feeling that angst and anxiety about what the president says and what he does, but that they don't speak up. And the question is, why not?

It can't just be the news media, journalists who say this is wrong. This is how an authoritarian speaks. The president has made these threats before. But it simply -- it just speaks to the fact that he doesn't take the presidency seriously enough to be this provocative when, of course, he loves the news media and relies on the news media tremendously and always has.

But it is an inability or an unwillingness on the part of leaders in the country, particularly in Congress, who say this is not dialogue that we ought to be having. Because what the president is doing is lashing out. He's scapegoating. He's trying to make up for the fact that he's not accomplishing anything in other areas.

And the substance of this, getting to a place where clearly there's an unraveling going on within the White House. We see how dysfunctional his West Wing is, let alone his entire cabinet, to deflect away from that. He simply goes back to what he thinks will keep his core base together, which is to go on open warfare with the news media and threaten the kinds of things that, as Alisyn said, thankfully, between the news media, the judiciary and other restraints on the president with his own administration, his rhetoric and some of his threats have not been met with reality.

CAMEROTA: So let's talk about the reporting Tillerson comment calling the president a moron. We now have CNN reporting about the background in which that was said, and it's pretty troubling stuff.

So this was a July 20 meeting. It was at the Pentagon. It was described as difficult and tense. It was inside a secure conference room, and it was where the Department of Defense was briefing the president.

And he was either not sort of fully digesting everything or taking to task commanders that he thought weren't doing the job well enough, the military commanders. He wanted more of an explanation for why he wasn't presenting more options for what to do in Afghanistan. And it was after that meeting, we now know, that Tillerson said -- if you believe the sources in the room who were telling us, that the president was a moron.

JOHN AVLON, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes. It could be pronounced moron. Moron. But yes, it was clearly -- got under the president's skin, because he was obsessed with having the highest I.Q. in the room. And obviously, there had been a lot of tension in the military members. We saw the spillover in the cabinet meeting where he criticized them publicly and folks bristled.

He's wheedled on about, you know, nuclear weapons in the past in a way that should make military people with actual responsibility very uncomfortable. But I think what we're seeing is the downstream effect of people close to the president. In these closed-door meetings, genuinely concerned about what they're seeing. And if you approach the news through a partisan prism and you're a Trump fan, you will deny all of it.

But these are people with real responsibilities that transcend partisanship. And they're basically sending up white flags, on the record, off the record. They're sending up flares saying something is terribly wrong with this president. And that gets to the axis of adult conversations.

But you know, what Trump's bristling against is that pushback, because they're not simply deferring to his -- his judgment, with air quotes around it. And what Bannon, I think, comment that Steve Bannon made in the reporting in "Vanity Fair," is that maybe the 25th Amendment is your greatest threat. I think that speaks to an environment of paranoia as well as an increasing consensus from people like Bob Corker and others that something is terribly wrong.

[07:10:19] CUOMO: Look, David, what we ignore we empower. It started as a suggestion. It's now a statement of fact.

Congress has a new set of responsibilities. They were supposed to do it under the Constitution when they raised their hand, they were supposed to do it. They ignored that. But now practicality has created an exigency, that they have to step up. "The New York Times" gives voice to this in an editorial today. Many have hoped, they say, and still hope that Mr. Trump's aggressive posture is mostly theater.

But there is no underlying strategy to his loose talk. And whatever he means by it, Congress has been sufficiently alarmed to consider legislation that would bar the president from launching a first nuclear strike without a declaration of war by Congress. It wouldn't take away the president's ability to defend the country.

Now this is something that has been going on for a long time. Congress abdicating its duty to declare war to presidents, and presidents are always happy to get more unilateral authority. Why would they not be?

But this is a critical time, and when I say we need more people like Ben Sasse, I don't care that he's Republican. I don't care that he's critical of the president. But that he is standing up and being counted and doing his job. They've been talking about AUMF, authorization of the use of military force, for months. They're still not debating it. Now this law is supposedly being proposed, but we don't know by who. Is it time for Congress to stand up on this issue and be counted?

DAVID GREGORY, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, I think there's no question about that. And I think that goes back to the original authorization of military force post-9/11 that gave President Bush a wide latitude in defending the country and prosecuting a war against terror that was really never updated.

So this is not just about Trump. This is about Congress standing up and doing its job and having some real voice in these matters and not giving all of this power to the executive branch, which President Obama was happy to have and President Bush, Vice President Cheney were happy to have after 9/11, because they felt it was the right thing for the country.

AVLON: And -- and what's different now, I think, is that Democrats and Republicans both are recognizing the danger of the growth of this imperial presidency over time when it collides with celebrity culture in this way. The question is whether you get more little are (ph) Republican sentiment like Ben Sasse and more Democrats recognizing that growing -- that encroaching federal power actually is dangerous in circumstances like this. And more strengthening of the checks and balances and separations of powers that have been largely ignored over the last several decades.

GREGORY: Right. Can I just -- look, the difference between health care policy, immigration even, is that in domestic matters, it's a bit more transparent. There is a push and a pull. Policy can lurch in different directions.

When we start getting into national security, it's obvious it's an obvious point. It's so much more dangerous. And the process is not as transparent. So we don't know, for instance, on North Korea whether the president is really kind of off the reservation or whether he's -- there is a policy that's more coherency that may lead to success.

CUOMO: Look what happened in Syria when the decision was made to bomb that airport. Small scale. Maybe arguably not even that effective. But the way president approached it is something that Congress has to take into consideration right now. They have to stand up, because these are serious questions, not just hot talk anymore.

CAMEROTA: Gentlemen, thank you very much.

Let's talk about what's happening in California. There's breaking news right now. The death toll rising to 23 people as wildfires rage out of control in Northern California.

CNN's Ryan Young is live in Santa Rosa with more. And people are still missing, Ryan?

RYAN YOUNG, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, people are still missing; 285 people are still missing. And one of the things that also stands out is the wind is picking up. They're expecting wind gusts 25 to 40 miles per hour today, which can make it hard for firefighters to continue to fight this fire. You're seeing scenes like this play out over and over.

Burned-out homes. Not only do you think -- not only do you deal with the entire neighborhood that's gone here. But then you have the mountainous terrain that firefighters are having to battle this fire. They've been dropping water down on the fire to try to knock it out. But the containment is still under 10 percent. So you can tell they've been dealing with a lot in terms of just trying to get everyone to safety, 20,000 people so far evacuated. Chris, it's going to be another long day.

CUOMO: Boy, and when you talk about those raising winds, you and I have both watched as the fire follows the wind. And it jumps roads and seems to make choices about what to destroy. It just turbo charges the entire situation.

Stay safe. Keep the crew safe. And let us know what's happening there, Ryan. Thank you for the brave report.

CUOMO: All right. So our next guest thinks that President Trump's plan to decertify the Iran deal could trigger a crisis, a crisis that would increase nuclear dangers significantly.

[07:15:11] The former energy secretary under President Obama joins us next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CUOMO: President Trump says he wants America's nuclear arsenal to be in tip-top shape, denying an NBC report that he wants to increase the nation's nuclear stockpile.

This all comes as the president is set to announce that he will decertify the Iran nuclear deal tomorrow. Let's discuss with Ernest Moniz. He was energy secretary under President Obama, is now co- chairman and CEO of the Nuclear Threat Initiative, a nonpartisan organization that works to prevent attacks with weapons of mass destruction.

And of course, you were intimately involved with the process of coming up with the Iran deal. You understand it well. So you're a great guest for this. Thank you for joining us.

ERNEST MONIZ, FORMER U.S. ENERGY SECRETARY: Pleasure.

CUOMO: What do you make of the suggestion, well, decertification is not a big deal. It's just going to kick it to Congress. And they can evaluate whether or not the tenets of the deal are being met. And maybe this could be a good period of reevaluation. What do you make of that notion?

MONIZ: Well, I think if the president chooses to not certify. That is already going to be a negative step. Because for one thing, it will start a process of isolating us from our allies.

The Iran agreement is -- should be remembered as a multilateral one with our European allies, U.K., France, Germany, E.U., but also Russia and China. It's quite remarkable that the world came together to respond to the concern about Iran having a nuclear weapon. Simply -- simply not certifying is already a major step to shake -- shake that foundation.

Now of course, if we went all the way and actually reimposed sanctions while Iran is in compliance. Again, our allies have made it very, very clear that they would not be following us. So this would be a slippery slope towards a very, very bad outcome, something very much not in our national security interests.

CUOMO: All right. So what's driving the president's decision is this. It's a bad deal, Mr. Moniz. That the way that the testing is done and the certifying, not in the regard of him decertifying the agreement, but decertifying their following the deal is too much dependent on what Iran wants to tell people. And that they are violating the spirit of this deal by creating chaos all over the world and being the sponsor of terror.

MONIZ: Well, I don't know where to start, almost, with that. First of all, the deal is extremely strong.

In fact, its real strength comes in precisely the transparency, the visibility that we in the world have into their program. The verification measures in this agreement are unprecedented. Precisely because the world went into these negotiations. And of course, the United States as well not trusting Iran.

So the agreement is not based on trust in any way. It is based ultimately on verification. We would give that up if we walk away from -- from the deal.

With regard to Iran's other activities in the region, which gives us, of course, considerable concern, from Yemen to Syria to Hezbollah to missiles, to human rights, we and our allies have all been very, very clear these are not acceptable.

But imagine trying to address these issues, as we are. We did it in the Obama administration. The Trump administration is doing it, as well. Imagine doing those with nuclear weapons in Iran or even the suspicion that they have them. Just look at North Korea as a case in point.

So the whole point was put us in a much stronger position, remove the existential threat not only to us but to Israel, for example, and the agreement accomplishes that. Now it's up to us, again, as both administrations have done, to ramp up the pressure and resolve those other issues.

I might point out just yesterday Ehud Barak, the former prime minister and defense minister of Israel, actually known as a hawk on Iran, he came out yesterday and made it very, very clear that, if we were to withdraw from this agreement while Iran is in compliance, it would basically put Iran in a stronger position. This is not a good direction to go in.

CUOMO: So when you say this is not a good direction, there is an argument being made that what the president wants to do with the Iran deal is somewhat of an example of a foreign policy that is raising concerns in terms of his judgment on these sensitive matters.

"The New York Times" has an editorial that states in part as follows: "Many have hoped, and still hope, that Mr. Trump's aggressive posture is mostly theater. But there is no underlying strategy to his loose talk. And whatever he means by it, Congress has been sufficiently alarmed to consider legislation that would bar the president from launching a first nuclear strike without a declaration of war by Congress. It wouldn't take away the president's ability to defend the country. As things stand now, the Atomic Energy Act in 1946, passed when there was more concern about trigger-happy generals than elected civilian leaders, gives the president sole control. He could unleash the apocalyptic force of the American nuclear arsenal by his word alone, and within minutes."

Your take?

MONIZ: Well, first of all, the president already back in the campaign has made some statements about nuclear weapons that are certainly not in our interests. And would exacerbate dramatically nuclear risks.

And I have to say that our judgment would be that the risks of a miscalculation leading to use of a nuclear weapon are probably higher today than they've been since maybe the Cuban missile crisis. So we need to address this.

The underlying issue and I think the congressional legislation that you're talking about really, I think, hinges on something that we must address and, frankly, change. And that is that the idea of launching on warning the -- having -- being on hair-trigger alert in both the United States and Russia is extremely destabilizing. We need to address this.

[07:25:15] There are many ways we could address that. But of course, we can't do it without entering into a serious dialogue with Russia. So I think that that's ultimately what we need to address.

It is a very difficult situation when frankly if information were to go to the president that there was a launch against us and as you know, historically, we've had errors made in that context. We've been pretty lucky, frankly, to avoid the use of nuclear weapons.

But imagine being in a position where you might have, realistically, 10 minutes or less to make a decision, a life or death decision, not just for an individual but literally for our country. This is an unstable situation.

So the Congress, I think, needs to consider this legislation. But the real underlying issue is we need to get away from this hair-trigger alert in both the United States and Russia.

CUOMO: Well, the law would be something that could enact a process.

Mr. Moniz, thank you very much.

And of course, we have to point out, Congress has been shirking this duty to own its constitutional responsibilities, where use of force and declarations of war are involved, for some time. So let's see what they do. Thank you for being with us -- Alisyn.

MONIZ: Thank you. CAMEROTA: OK. The president making it crystal clear that he wants

all NFL players to stand for the national anthem. How he says he would have handled Colin Kaepernick. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)