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Trump Faces Condemnation for Siding with Putin. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired July 17, 2018 - 06:00   ET

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

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: President Putin was extremely strong in his denial today.

[05:59:05] SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY), MINORITY LEADER: The president took the word of the KGB over the men and women of the CIA.

REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D-CA), RANKING MEMBER, INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE: It was of the most cowardly surrender of American interests in modern history.

MIKE PENCE (R), VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: President Trump will always put the security of America first.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He did not put America first. He put himself first.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In the coming days it was time for all of us to stand up and say which side are we on.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY with Alisyn Camerota and John Berman.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: We want to welcome our viewers in the United States and the world. This is NEW DAY. It is Tuesday, July 17, 6 a.m. here in New York. John Avlon is here with us. We have a very big day to try to talk about and analyze what happened yesterday.

There was a tidal wave of condemnation after President Trump, in an astonishing display of moral equivalency gave Vladimir Putin the benefit of the doubt over the U.S. intelligence community.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: All I can do is ask the question. My people came to me, Dan Coats came to me and some others. They said they think it's Russia. I have President Putin. He just said it's not Russia. I will say this. I don't see any reason why it would be.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Back at home, the American response to that was swift and unequivocal. The director of national intelligence, Dan Coats, firing back at the president, releasing this statement. He said, "We have been clear in our assessments of Russian meddling in the 2016 election and their ongoing, pervasive efforts to undermine our democracy."

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: So our reporting is the DNI's office did not clear that statement with the White House, because honestly, how could they? In front of the whole world, the president of the United States chose Russia. We want to present a range of reaction this morning. Listen to this: Senator John McCain calls it "One of the most disgraceful performances by an American president in memory."

Former CIA director John Brennan said, "It was nothing short of treasonous. Not only were Trump's comments imbecilic, he is wholly in the pocket of Putin."

CAMEROTA: Senator Jeff Flake notes, quote, "I never thought I would see the day when our American president would stand on the stage with the Russian president and place blame on the United States for Russian aggression. This is shameful," end quote.

Even more lawmakers, Democrats and Republicans, spoke out against the president's position.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SEN. BOB CORKER (R), TENNESSEE: The president's comments made us look as a nation more like a pushover.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We did not negotiate from a position of strength. We acted from a position of weakness.

REP. WILL HURD (R), TEXAS: I've seen the Russian intelligence manipulate many people in my career, and I never would have thought the U.S. president would be one of them.

SCHIFF: To side with this former KGB officer over our own intelligence agency was a despicable act of betrayal of the United States.

SCHUMER: At every step along the way the president is kneecapping our allies and offering a helping hand to our adversaries.

SEN. MARK WARNER (D-VA), RANKING MEMBER, INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE: It showed me that Mr. Trump is pretty weak, particularly when it comes to Vladimir Putin. He's not willing to stand up for him.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BERMAN: Newt Gingrich, one of the strongest, stauncher [SIC] -- staunchest supporters of the president, writes, "It is the most serious mistake of his presidency and must be corrected immediately."

CAMEROTA: And FOX News, whose commentators have often served as the president's personal cheerleaders, even some of them could not hide their shock.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) TRISH REGAN, FOX BUSINESS NETWORK: This was clearly not his best performance. He's done a whole lot better than this. He should have defended us. He should have defended his own intelligence community.

STUART VARNEY, FOX BUSINESS NETWORK: It was not a very forceful presentation from President Trump with Putin standing right next to him.

NEIL CAVUTO, ANCHOR, FOX BUSINESS NETWORK: I don't know.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: "The Wall Street Journal," owned by the president's friend Rupert Murdoch, writes, "Mr. Trump projected weakness. He was the one on the stage beseeching Mr. Putin for a better relationship, while the Russian played it cool and matter of fact."

"The Washington Post" posted most bluntly, "Trump just colluded with Russia openly."

CAMEROTA: Joining us now on the phone is the former director of national intelligence and CNN national security analyst, James Clapper.

Director Clapper, thank you very much for being with us. Have you been able to process what you heard yesterday from the president of the United States?

JAMES CLAPPER, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST (via phone): Well, to be honest, Alisyn, I really haven't. I'm still trying to get my head around what I witnessed, which is just unbelievable. I cannot get over it. And what, in that single session, the president did to diminish the stature and the standing of the United States.

CAMEROTA: You called him yesterday -- you called President Trump naive and gullible. What makes you think that that's what's going on?

CLAPPER: Well, I've long held that Putin, because of his background and his instincts as a KGB -- professional KFB officer, from the outset would approach our president as though he were an intelligent asset and try to manipulate him, leverage him, which he's done. And --

CAMEROTA: Let me ask -- but what do you mean by that? That he's successfully -- do you mean he's successfully turned President Trump into an asset or just successfully manipulated him, to what end?

CLAPPER: I think he has manipulated him to a position of inferiority, which is unprecedented in the history of our country, where he has managed to diminish the stature of the president of the United States so that he is, in fact, a supplicant to the head of state of Russia. What an amazing turn of events.

[06:10:00] And Putin prepared his whole demeanor, his showing up late; everything he did was -- and his body language certainly indicated a feeling of -- and the image of superiority over the president of the United States.

CAMEROTA: Director Clapper, President Trump and Vladimir Putin met for two hours without any White House aides, without any State Department officials. Given President Trump's open reverence for Vladimir Putin, what do you think they agreed to in there? What do you think went on behind closed doors?

CLAPPER: Well, that's a great question. And we should be very -- we as a nation, we should be very concerned about that. All we've seen is kind of the visible tip of the iceberg. And what we don't know is what President Trump's agreed to, which could be any number of things like, for example, acknowledging the seizure of Crimea or a very unfavorable deal in Syria. Who knows what happened in the privacy of that meeting?

CAMEROTA: You know, of course, the rank and file in the CIA. These are public servants who risk their lives every day to protect us. What do you think is going on inside the CIA? And how do you think they feel when they hear the president say something to the effect of, "Well, you know, America has been foolish. America has expressed a lot of foolishness. America is the same as Russia"?

CLAPPER: Well, it isn't just CIA. This affects, in my belief, in my view, the entirety of the intelligence community. And this may be Dan Coats' brightest moment, who has spoken up as he did after having been thrown under the bus. I think one of the major reasons he did it was to defend the rank and file of the men and women in the intelligence community who try to tee up empirical truth to the president of the United States, truth of power even when the power ignores it.

But it -- this cannot have in any way, in any measure, a positive impact on the men and women of the intelligence community.

CAMEROTA: You say the president is failing to live up to his constitutional obligations. So where does that leave us?

CLAPPER: Well, it leaves us -- leaves us in a very bad place, in my view. I -- I am very concerned for -- for our country and its values, standards and its institutions. But when you see a display like this, it is very disturbing.

CAMEROTA: Some have suggested that the leaders of the intel community, for instance, Dan Coats, should stand on principle and resign. Do you feel that way?

CLAPPER: Well, that's a very tough decision for a senior in the intelligence community to make. Were there times when I considered that when I was serving as DNI? And what you have to balance is am I doing more good by leaving and, you know, reinforcing a principle? Or do I do more harm if I leave?

And so I'm sure that Dan Coats -- I'd be very surprised if he is not going through that calculus himself right now.

CAMEROTA: And what do you think? Do you think he should leave or stay? CLAPPER: That is a personal decision up to him. If it were me -- but

easy enough for me to say. I'm out of office. I would resign in a heartbeat, particularly after being publicly thrown under the bus, internationally thrown under the bus by the president.

CAMEROTA: You would resign over staying, because would you have concluded that you could not do any more good there or that you weren't being listened there and you couldn't help any further?

CLAPPER: I think that I would have felt so irrelevant and so ineffective that I would leave, but that's me. And that is a very individual personal decision.

CAMEROTA: Understood. Director James Clapper, we really appreciate your expertise on this and you sharing your perspective with us this morning.

CLAPPER: Thanks, Alisyn.

BERMAN: I would resign in a heartbeat, the former director of national intelligence James Clapper says, what his reaction would be to that statement from the president yesterday, side by side with Vladimir Putin. That is something.

Joining us now, CNN political analyst David Gregory; CNN global affairs analyst Max Boot; John Avlon, of course, here with us, as well.

Max, you wrote overnight, "We just watched the U.S. president acting on behalf of a hostile power." You say we are past the point when the president's comments could be chalked up to naivete.

MAX BOOT, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Exactly. I mean, for a while now, his defenders have been saying, "Wow, you know, he doesn't want to tarnish his election victory, his pride, his ego."

But we are in very dangerous and uncharted territory here now, John. That explanation is not going to wash anymore. Because if you think about this just in terms of the president's political advantage, he needs to make clear that he is not colluding with Putin. And the way to make that clear is to challenge Putin on the world stage.

[06:10:12] So it's in his own political self-interest to be tougher on Putin. But he refuses to do it. And so you have to ask why is he refusing to do it? And as I say, the kind of innocent explanations are starting to fall away. And you've to wonder, is he hoping that Putin is going to help him out again, as he did in 2016? Or does Putin have something on him?

And it's just -- I want to just stress how amazing, how extraordinary we are at this moment when, in an actual joint news conference between the presidents of the U.S. and Russia, a reporter asked does the president of Russia have compromising material on the president of the United States, and he's not laughed out of the room. That is a serious question, and it has to be treated as a serious question, based on the way that President Trump is acting. CAMEROTA: David Gregory, how do you see everything we witnessed

yesterday?

DAVID GREGORY, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, I'm as stunned as anyone. And I think Max is right, but I do think that part of this is the incredible ego and paranoia of this president, who cannot get past what he sees as a narrative that undermines his legitimacy to get to the point where he thinks like a president of the United States who has a custodial interest in the institution, who understands that the intelligence community, the important institutions of our government, are more important than his sense that he's being wronged by his political foes, which any president feels. He's on the attack against the FBI, against the intelligence community, against even the views of his own advisers.

I think what's critical now is to look forward and find out who on his national security team is standing up to the president, saying, "You are wrong. You are coddling an enemy of the United States. You have crossed a line." His defense secretary, his national security adviser, where are these people? His secretary of state, the leaders among the Republicans of Congress who will hold his feet to the fire moving forward?

Because I still believe that what the president says is a product of his paranoia and not necessarily U.S. policy, unless it is, unless it actually comes to the point where it becomes policy. And this goes to Max's concern.

BOOT: Yes.

GREGORY: About what he's actually giving up behind closed doors that we don't understand.

And one other coda to this. I think it's imperative, actually, that Dan Coats not resign. I think it's imperative that the institutions of our government function appropriately and strongly and make sure that the American people understand they are still doing their job even when the president doesn't do his.

JOHN AVLON, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes. The downside of resignation, of course, is that President Trump will pick the replacement and the chance that it will be someone even more subservient personally to the president becomes a danger.

GREGORY: He did choose Dan Coats.

AVLON: Yes, but he might not have known what he was getting.

BERMAN: He's not listening to him. Who cares if he knows him if he doesn't listen to him?

AVLON: And I think that's the point. People who stood up to Donald Trump have been moved out of -- out of office. You know, McMaster stood up to Donald Trump in private and was moved out of office. This was a diplomatic day. And I think we all need to confront that. And members of the administration and Republicans in the Senate are

going to have to move press release statements and shock and tweets, doing something more concrete. Because I don't think the president's ego is a sufficient argument anymore. Because it was in the president's interest to have a show of standing up to Putin yesterday, and he didn't do it. So that raises much more difficult, disturbing questions that we need to get to the bottom of.

The Mueller probe is in the process of it, but it's time for members of the administration to look the president and ask themselves and him those tough questions, why the president is unwilling, uniquely among humans on planet earth, not to criticize and stand up to Vladimir Putin. He'll criticize the pope but not Vladimir Putin. Why?

BOOT: And I think, you know, it is past time for internal disagreement. I think we -- the striking thing about this administration is you've had one, "Oh my God" moment after another. You know, from the travel ban, to Charlottesville, to locking up the small children, and now this. And we have had almost no resignations on principle. The only one, really, I think was Gary Cohn, the economic advisor who resigned to protest the tariffs.

I mean, I think it's time for a mass resignation. It's time for people in this government to say that they are putting the interests of the country above the interests of Donald Trump.

CAMEROTA: But then where does that leave the administration? I hear you. I understand why that would be so satisfying. But if people who think that they're somehow containing the president resign, then what?

BOOT: But they're not -- but the problem is they're not containing Donald Trump. I mean --

AVLON: Amazing he doesn't appreciate (ph).

CAMEROTA: Yes, and they're not containing the rhetoric.

BERMAN: Hang on, hang on. CNN's reporting after this moment was White House staffers telling Jeff Zeleny and Jim Acosta, "Oh, this didn't go as planned." Who cares what the plan is? President Trump is the plan. He is the plan.

BOOT: Right.

BERMAN: Everything they say leading up to it obviously doesn't matter.

[06:15:00] CAMEROTA: Of course. Of course, but I guess what I'm saying is that there's a difference between his rhetoric and policy, at the moment, we think.

GREGORY: Well, that's important.

CAMEROTA: And so without them --

BOOT: I mean, when the president speaks, that is the policy of the United States.

CAMEROTA: I understand.

BOOT: And I'm not saying everybody should go. I think, for example, I still want Jim Mattis there in control of the armed forces.

But somebody like Dan Coats, I don't see how he can do his job today when he's been thrown under the bus or Donald Trump.

(CROSSTALK)

BOOT: Yes. And -- and look at John Bolton, who is this -- who is this uber hardliner who has long been opposed to giveaways to foreign despots. I mean, how does he have any self -- any self-respect going into the White House today?

AVLON: That -- that train (ph) has sailed.

GREGORY: But I want to underline what Alisyn's saying, which I do think is important. We have to, even in the outrage that is bipartisan, that is collective, still focus, because it is -- it is a feature of this presidency that is really striking, which is the rhetoric does not always meet the policy.

And I think -- this is not just a matter of internal, you know, pushback. It is to what extent do they actually change policy or force him to change? We haven't seen him -- his mind change about Putin, which is what's so distressing. But where does the policy, what is he actually doing vis-a-vis Russia, as opposed to --?

AVLON: David, I think we need to divorce what the president is doing versus his administration. And this is the point about the civic stress test that we are living in. We don't have a parliamentary system. You can't have people resign and have a "no confidence" vote in government and have the presidency fall.

So what you have and what we've a contain for months is a "contain the president" strategy on the part of many members of the cabinet to constrain his worst ideas and impulses.

GREGORY: Right.

AVLON: The problem is where does that no longer become tenable? If the president is simply spouting off and being ignored, and sanctions are being pursued by his administration, OK, is that really tenable if there is something that the president is hiding?

If there is something that the president feels that Putin has over him that is not public, that is an issue. That is an issue.

GREGORY: I agree with you.

AVLON: That we need to confront now. Because even his administration needs to confront it.

GREGORY: But we're in the process of confronting it, right? I mean, the intelligence community continues to stand up to him. You do have a Mueller probe. You don't have Congress going along with some sort of capitulation to Putin. There are things uniquely that the president can do and is doing with Putin that should be of great alarm.

But even this talk of mass resignation, then what? I mean, there is still -- the government is functioning and in many ways standing up to Russia in ways that the president is not. So there is accountability in the system.

BOOT: You know, I think David, it's hard to argue that the government is functioning so well. Yes, there are policies being pursued that are at odds with what Donald Trump is saying. But remember that his amazing giveaway in Helsinki comes after this wrecking-ball tour through Europe, where he is doing great damage to American alliances with Germany, with Great Britain. He already alienated the prime minister of Canada. He's launched these trade wars. You know.

AVLON: He's undermining U.S. -- undermining interests, and ultimately, he is the president. What we've seen in the last year and a half is that he is less and less willing to be constrained by his advisers. He is acting as he sees fit. And so I have very little confidence that these advisers can still stay in there and stop him from doing what he wants to do. That's just not the record.

BERMAN: Hang on, David. Hang on. The policy of this meeting was to confront Putin, to confront Putin.

CAMEROTA: I suppose. I mean, that's not what the president said. The president thought that it was to make a good -- better relationship with him.

GREGORY: I don't think the policy was to confront him, not in his -- certainly not in President Trump's mind.

BERMAN: Evidently not. Evidently not.

AVLON: But I also think the fundamental question that comes out of this, where I'm in total agreement, why does the president do this? Getting to the bottom of why is what we cannot lose sight of.

CAMEROTA: OK. Hold all of those thoughts, because we also need to talk about what the effect is on the international stage.

BERMAN: The international stage, I have a tweet from a leader from a different country who calls this utterly hideous. Utterly hideous. Germany says it now will have to reorient its policy now, because it can no longer assume the United States is a friend.

We're going to talk much more about this going forward.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[06:20:39] TRUMP: I have great confidence in my intelligence people, but I will tell you that President Putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: That was one of many astonishing comments made by President Trump, siding with Russian President Vladimir Putin over the U.S. intelligence community, accepting Putin's word when he said he did not attack the U.S. during the 2016 presidential election.

Why is President Trump doing that?

Joining us now, CNN national security analyst Steve Hall. He's the former CIA chief of Russia operations. And CNN political and national security analyst David Sanger, author of "The Perfect Weapon: War, Sabotage and Fear in The Cyber Age." I can't imagine two better guests --

BERMAN: Yes.

CAMEROTA: -- to walk us through what we saw yesterday. Steve Hall, how do you explain what you heard from the president yesterday?

STEVEN HALL, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Well, I think we have to start with what we know about the Russian intelligence services, despite Vladimir Putin lying hard and lying big which is what the Russians do best when they're denying something. Of course we don't have any kompromat. We don't have any compromising information that could blackmail Donald Trump. We know that this is precisely what the -- what the FSB, the internal Russian service is set up to do.

CAMEROTA: They always -- when they -- when they want to compromise somebody, they get dirt on them, and that's -- that's their M.O.

HALL: The resources that they throw at this stuff is incredible compared to -- compared to, really, what any other western nation has. I mean, it's a long Russian and Soviet tradition when you have people that are going -- you travel to Russia, for example.

They're going to take a look at you and collect whatever it is that they can, because you just never know down the road, you know, who knows what they might need to do.

CAMEROTA: So when Vladimir Putin says, "We didn't pay any attention to Donald Trump years ago. He was a real-estate tycoon. We have a lot of them. Lots of people are millionaires in the United States. Remember, he wasn't on our radar." You don't buy that.

HALL: No. The -- what the Russians will do is they will -- what the Russians will do is they will deny everything, and they will offer counterexamples. And they will offer, you know, counter factual stuff to try to deny this. This is just standard procedure.

There is no way -- it's inconceivable to me that they don't have information on Donald Trump. What they have and how they choose to use it is a completely different question. But it's like a -- it's like a bank account that they have on him that can be used or not, depending on what it is they want to accomplish. BERMAN: I want to put a fine button on this. Would Donald Trump have

spoken any differently yesterday than someone -- you know, someone who did not have kompromat on him? You know, would he have spoken differently or would he have spoken -- if someone who had -- if the Russians have kompromat on you, would that person have spoken any differently than Donald Trump did yesterday?

[06:25:15] HALL: It depends on what happened in that meeting and what Donald Trump was let known by the Russian side. You know, they're, of course, more direct ways and less direct ways to let people know that they have information on them.

But the other issue that you have to sort of stick your toe in the water is the Donald Trump psyche. All right. I mean, he's obviously driven by a very strong sense of ego, which also affects his decision making.

And this is -- this is, of course, when you're dealing with human intelligence, getting to that balance, trying to decide, "OK, we have this information but this is what we know about this individual's psyche." How do we use that? How do we manipulate that? And that's, of course, a thing what Vladimir Putin has done for years.

BERMAN: Sanger, you watched this very carefully, along with the rest of us, and you were on the phone with intelligence sources all afternoon and all night. You have a great article in "The Times" today. And the people who are talking to you said this was a smoke- and-mirrors effort by the president?

DAVID SANGER, CNN POLITICAL AND NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: That's right. The remarkable thing, John, is that 24 hours ago, on this show, we were talking about what the president would say to Vladimir Putin in private.

It turned out the bigger issue was what the president would say in front of Vladimir Putin in public. And that's really what astounded everybody in the intelligence community, not only that he threw them under the bus after he's been through this time and time again. I mean, a year ago when he first met Vladimir Putin is when he first started to say, "Oh, Putin's made a strong argument to the contrary."

President Putin has offered no evidence to counter the growing body of evidence, the now public body of evidence contained in that indictment that came down on Friday issued by the president's own Justice Department.

The second thing, I think, that really struck me out of this, John, and certainly struck me in talking to both the president's aides and to intelligence officials, is this was so easy to do right.

All he needed to do was step up in that -- in that press conference and say, "I've looked at the evidence. I believe it's overwhelming. Your activities in Syria, the poisoning of the Skripals in London, the actions you've taken against internal dissent are all completely contrary to American values. Our two choices are to change behavior and work together" -- what the president keeps talking about -- "or move back to an era of containment." That would have sounded tough. It would have sounded principled, even if the president didn't believe it.

The fact of the matter is he didn't run through any of that, and no wonder his intelligence officials are feeling as if they're providing him advice he's not -- they're providing intelligence he's not listening to. And his staff walked in with pages and pages of how to deal with Putin, and he threw all of that out, as well.

So you know, in that debate you were having earlier with General Clapper about whether or not people should resign, the main reason they may resign is they're probably feeling they're completely ineffective.

CAMEROTA: Yes, and in fact, that's what he said. That how can you not feel irrelevant today, regardless of the work that you're doing overtime presenting the evidence to the president.

Speaking of presenting evidence, that is what happened -- and I want to get your take on this, Steve -- of what happened when bravo to Chris Wallace of FOX News, who got the sit-down with Vladimir Putin and put the indictment to him. He had it in his hands, and he said, "Here is the evidence right here. Would you take a look at this?"

Let me play this moment.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRIS WALLACE, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: They say -- you smile. Let me finish.

VLADIMIR PUTIN, RUSSIAN PRESIDENT: (LAUGHING)

WALLACE: They say that these units were specifically involved in hacking into Democratic Party computers, stealing information and spreading it to the world to try to disrupt the American election. May I give this to you to look at, sir? Here?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: He wouldn't touch it, Steve. When you see Vladimir Putin laughing and smiling through that, what do you see?

HALL: Well, Vladimir Putin is laughing, of course, because the rule of law in Russia is really -- I mean, there really is none. So what -- what's happening there is you're showing color to a dog. He doesn't understand. Because the idea of indictments, the idea of -- that somehow there's a legal process that he is responsible for, that he should be answerable to, this is laughable for Putin. This is not how things are done in Russia.

And so, for him, you know, to be handed something like that is a joke for him. And that's -- that's just how Putin reacts to these types of things.

CAMEROTA: What a remarkable day, all of it. David Sanger, Steve Hall, thank you very much for sharing both of your

expertise with us.

So there was also this Russian national arrested, accused of conspiring --

BERMAN: It can't be. This would be too much irony.

CAMEROTA: Yes, no, there's too much, actually. There's too much happening. And this is one of them. So we'll tell you the back story of this alleged spy.