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Mexican President Cancels Meeting With Trump; Trump: Dreamers "Shouldn't Be Very Worried"; Trump Defends Baseless Illegal-Voting Claim; Soon: Trump To Speak At GOP Retreat In Philly; Trump Administration Fires Top State Dept Officials. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired January 26, 2017 - 12:30   ET

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

[12:30:00] JOHN KING, CNN ANCHOR: -- itself to shelter and protect anyone who's targeted unjustly. They can use my office. They can use any office in this building. They'll be able to use this building as a safe space.

New York's mayor saying I'll see you on court Mr. President. Now, these are blue (ph). There are viewers around the world watching. Democratic areas where the mayors are probably on safe political ground for them to stand up but where is this fight going.

ABBY PHILLIP, THE WASHINGTON POST: I mean, I want to just point out that there was a giant loophole in that executive order which is that all of these places rely heavily on federal funds for security. And that is the one exception that is written into the executive order.

So there is a lot of vagueness. This is maybe my hobby horse today. But there's a lot of vagueness in this executive order that does not spell out how this is going to work and exactly what funds will be cut off, and whether or not they will automatically be cut off. It just directs the Department of Homeland Security to look into the issue.

And I think that they will find that there are a lot of really good reasons not to do that, even in spite of the sanctuary city issue.

KING: But planting a flag perhaps, so it sounds good to his supporters. We'll see what happens when it plays out.

One other quick issue where his supporters might be dismayed, and some conservatives already complaining. Donald Trump sounds tough on the wall. He sounds tough on sanctuary cities. We'll see how that plays out.

But listen to him here in this interview with ABC that aired last night about the so-called Dreamers. Young undocumented brought into this country the young age when they were not old enough to make the judgment themselves, brought in by their parents or by other relatives who've grown up here. Many are in college, many have jobs, many are productive.

And some conservative say that he should have immediately reversed an Obama executive order that allowed them to stay or at least reduced enforcement. Listen to Donald Trump.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: They shouldn't be very worried. They are here illegally. They shouldn't be very worried. I do have a big heart. We're going to take care of everybody. We're going to have a very strong border. We're going to have a very solid border. Where you have great people that are here that have done a good job, they should be far less worried. We'll be coming out with policy on that over the next period of four weeks.

DAVID MUIR, ABC NEWS ANCHOR: So Mr. President, will they be allowed to stay?

TRUMP: I'm going to tell you over the next four weeks.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Certainly sounds there like he's going to be much more moderate than he was in the campaign. And much more moderate than many conservative, I call an immigration hawks want him to be.

MARY KATHARINE HAM, THE FEDERALIST: Well, and this is a place where so many of my ideological liberal friends who's --are running around with their hair on fire all the time. This is the part of Trump that I think we should recognize that is perhaps heartening which is -- that he is not this ideological creature.

And perhaps the dream part of this, the most sympathetic immigrants that he's talking about here were part of a negotiating tactic where he says, OK, I'm going to do these two things and I'm going to enforce current law and I'm going to tell sanctuary cities you're on notice. And you don't take this money for granted from the federal government if you don't do this thing but over here I'm willing to talk about this. So it seems very Trumping (ph) to me.

DOMENICO MONTANARO, NPA: In that executive order and during the campaign, he stressed that it was going to be criminals that they would go after. There was the secure communities act which they want to bring back to be able to coordinate more with law enforcement to identify folks who have committed crimes. And catch and release, for example. And finally deport some of those folks.

I do wonder, though, ideologically, what this says going forward to Mary Katharine's point about federalism and what weighs out, right. Federal jurisdiction, state jurisdiction. And I -- and as Jeff Sessions is going to move in to be attorney general, most likely, and will get confirmed given Republicans have those votes, he's somebody who's very anti-marijuana, for example. He has said that bad -- good people don't smoke marijuana.

What happens in Colorado? What happens in states like that when you have a justice department that believes that the federal law weighs out and that ideologically, very much against what that state is doing?

KING: A lot of questions as the new administration take shape. Everybody sit tight for one minute. We're going to work in a quick break here. Inside Politics will be right back. President Trump on his way to address the important republican retreat right there in Philadelphia. We'll get right back to it in just a minute.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:37:58] KING: Welcome back to "Inside Politics." A lot happening this hour. You see on the left or your screen right there, protests in Philadelphia. Nearby, where you see the right of your screen, the President of the United States, Donald Trump, about to address a republican congressional strategy retreat in Philadelphia.

A lot for the president to discuss. We will take you there live the moment the president gets there. They'll be introduced by the House Speaker Paul Ryan we were told in just a few minutes.

As he goes there, he has a domestic agenda to push. He wants pro- growth tax cuts. He wants the Congress, and this is a tough with Republicans to help him with a tougher trade policy, including tariffs, perhaps. Big disputes even though they share the goal of repealing and replacing Obamacare. A lot of differences about how to do it. Also a lot of worries in the room among Republicans that the president, to be polite, keeps getting distracted.

One of the things he has just, today, we are told he will sign this afternoon an executive order ordering some kind of investigation, we don't have the details, into what he believes and pretty much he alone believes was massive voter fraud in the 2016 presidential election. He told congressional leaders the other night he believes some 3 million to 5 million undocumented illegally voted in the presidential election.

He was asked about this by David Muir in his first television interview as president. David Muir said, sir, pretty much nobody else believes this to be true. Aren't you worried your credibility is at risk?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAVID MUIR, ABC WORLD TONIGHT NEWS ANCHOR: Do you think your words matter more?

TRUMP: Yes, very much.

MUIR: Do you think that talking about millions of illegal votes is dangerous to this country --

TRUMP: No, not all. Not at all, because many people feel the same way that I do. And --

MUIR: You don't think it undermines your credibility?

TRUMP: No, not all because they didn't come to me, believe me. Those were Hillary votes.

(END VIDEO CLIP) KING: This is his way of trying to rationalize why he lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton by a sizable margin. But again, if you call the secretaries of state, Democrats and Republicans, the officials who run the vote, they say -- the former Missouri secretary of state I think said it great yesterday, he says it's easy to fake a mars landing than to have 3 million to 5 million illegally turn up and vote. And even his own top aides, Mary Katharine, say we can't stop him from doing this but wish we would.

HAM: Right. I think this is going to be a pattern.

[12:40:03] The funny thing to me is that I think he had the right argument which was, if the rules were that I need the popular vote, that's what would I've tried to get. And I think that's the solid argument, right?

As Abby was pointing out, this executive order just depends where they go from there, right? One of the Obama's first was to get rid of Gitmo so it's like.

KING: But a new president, it is critical for a new president to stay focused. It is critical for a new president to move his agenda. If he wants to pick a fight with Mexico, that's his right. Why are we talking about this, right? Why can't he let this go?

HAM: I think the question is whether it actually behooves him that we spend days talking about this when a bunch of executive orders are going on that are doing other things or things for his. So there's a method to the madness.

MONTANARO: I mean that was sort of the theory of the campaign, that he was doing this chaos theory of politics where you throw all this stuff out there, dangle the keys, have a shiny metal object. We all run off on something else and try to, you know, sneak through a border policy or something instead of talking about the depth or substance of the border and the fact that, you know, it could cost some $10 million to $13 million a mile to have a border fence in the most difficult terrain. How much money that would cost? How would Republicans actually pay for that when the Congressional Budget Office comes out the other day the report saying on the current trajectory, we're at potentially 89 percent in 10 years of GDP which could be crippling for the country.

KING: We will cover all those issues, I promise that's why we're here but one thing in a new administration it is striking to me to hear from his people, people on his payroll, how insecure he is about this. How reflexive he gets about this trying to justify the popular vote. He's the president. We just saw and get there when you wrote a remarkable story, I wish we could play the music, heard it from a friend who heard it from a friend, and so on for you to give a little music back up but tell us where this comes from.

GLENN THRUSH, NEW YORK TIMES: So we've known for a while that this is a president who listens to anecdote quite a bit, you know, part of his -- the comments about Mexican rapists I have written in the past were motivated by conversations he had in passing with border patrol agents.

Well anyway, when he was confronted during this congressional meeting, bipartisan congressional meeting on Monday with -- why are you going after this voter fraud thing, he unleashed an anecdote involving somebody who he described according to few participants as his friend, Bernhard Langer, the German golfer, who told him and here get a little fussy, either Bernard Langer, a friend of Bernard Langer friend was turned away from a polling place in Florida on election day.

Well, as it turns out, Bernhard Langer is not an American citizen and when I got in touch with his daughter, she said she didn't know what the president was talking about.

Today, the golfer has put out a statement saying, and let's try to follow this. He told a friend who told the president who told -- no, he told a friend who -- no, who told a staffer to the president who then told the president who then told it to congressional leaders. So the point is, when confronted on why he was doing this, he told what is either a third, fourth or fifth hand anecdote of dubious provenance and I think it just goes to show you that this is the way that this guy absorbs information more along the oral tradition than written word.

KING: And now we will get some sort of investigation and we assume use of taxpayer money, resources to go after this anecdote. Again on the right of your screen in Philadelphia, we're waiting to see the president of United States, among the Republicans gathered there. Many members of Congress who wish the president would focus elsewhere on the big agenda items and not on something they believe not only is a waste of time but undermined faith in democracy. Here's Congressman Adam Kinzinger.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. ADAM KINZINGER, (R), ILLINOIS: Any time we undermine the faith in a free and fair election you really undermine the base of the constitution. Look, he's had a very successful first few days, whether to meet with business leaders, rolling out executive actions, following through on his campaign promises. But, you know, fighting over crowd size and things like that takes off the message.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Off the message is the polite way of saying it there. It's fascinating to me when you see Manu there talking to Adam Kinzinger. One of the big questions for this president, this is why I think what he does in the early days is kind of important to building trust in the relationship. He's going to speak to the Republicans, this House Republicans and the Senate Republicans.

75 percent of the House Republicans have never worked with a Republican president. Never worked with a Republican president. They don't have the loyalty to the White House. And if you remember back to the Bush administration or in the early days of the Obama administration, when Democrats were in Congress, sometimes at least protocol is now bite your tongue because that's your guy in the White House.

I'm fascinated by whether President Trump can work this out with a group of young people, some of them sent here in the tea party elections who are very principled about spending, very principled about coming, devolving from Washington back to the States. And who have no relationship with working with a president who in fact spent their entire careers in Washington fighting the White House.

MONTANARO: The difference is there. It's arguable they're working with the Republican president now. I mean, he is, you know, not very ideological.

[12:45:02] He's more of a right wing nationalist. I mean think about that proclamation they put about the patriotic day of devotion seems to come straight out of the Bannon, Breitbart playbook of Hollywood movie script of, you know, importance of heritage and nationalism. You know, that protectionism, the anti-free trade stuff. This is not working with George W. Bush to get through the Paul Ryan favor.

KING: If he wants these Republicans to take some tough votes take some vote have to go home and explain to people in their district and say, you know I needed to do this for the president probably not what I would have done by this. They need to know that, A, he's going to have their back but, B, that he's going to communicate in a way and not take them off into rabbit holes like voter fraud.

PHILLIP: I think that Trump has maybe about 12 months to make this work with House Republicans. And then he'll start to see this sort gravity of re-election playing a role in Congress. This honeymoon is not going to last very long. It's not a lot of time for him to figure out this relationship and I think you can look at this -- the fact that 75 percent of these folks have never worked with a Republican President the other way meaning that they've never experienced that it probably should be a little easier than this. It shouldn't be this hard to get on the same page with another Republican. And so maybe they might give him more leeway but that ends in basically 12 months.

KING: I love your optimism. I love your optimism.

HAM: To use a technical term for the Trump has a protocol schmotocol like that. I think that he and this is -- I think you're right they -- they've never experienced the ease of a everyone agrees, Republican presidency alignment with a Republican Congress and Trump likes to get in there and have these discussions if they're not disagreeing, then what is he making a deal about it, I think he thinks that even with his own party. So it's going to look very different and it won't always turn out bad for him, as we have seen.

THRUSH: The other thing is this is a guy got elected by crossing over by getting vote attempts.

Instead of talking about how many people were there during his inauguration, maybe if his speech had been a little more inclusive, he could get more people for the next one.

KING: That's a great point, too. He's speaking here. The Democrats are also having a retreat where they're saying very unkind things about the new president. And yet, when it comes trade policy, when it comes infrastructure, when it comes to replacing -- the replacing part of Obamacare he's going to need some Democratic votes to make that happen. We'll see how it goes.

As we await the president of the United States speaking here in Philadelphia, this is still a feeling out period. It's Domenico just noted, Donald Trump ran as a Republican but he was once a Democrat. Then he was an independent. Many of his positions don't fit really any party.

And listen, here, this is House Majority leader Kevin McCarthy, he is the number two. He is the guy who has going to twist the arms and round up the votes along with the rest of the leadership team in the House. Listen to whom here saying, it's very important to meet with the president today because, well, he's a little unpredictable.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY, (R) MAJORITY LEADER: Well, you can never predict what you're going to hear because I'll tell you. This amount of time is unpredictable and that's what I love about. He's going to push us and he's going to drive us.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: An understatement. There's a lot of overstatements in the early days. A lot of bombastic statements in the early days pretty much to understand it. He's unpredictable. But again, these guys want to pass their agenda. They have an agenda. Speaker Ryan has an agenda on paper for years. Mitch McConnell, the Senate Republican Leader has a lot of things he wants to do. They think they can pass most of it and Trump will sign it. But he's also sent a few signals early on that he may be a little more involved than they thought he would be.

HAM: Well and I think your point you make about people taking tough votes and knowing they'll have his back. I don't think there's that assurance in a Donald Trump relationship and the same goes, but here's the other side of that coin. I think he likes to schmooz with these guys and with Democrats --

KING: Right.

HAM: -- which Obama was not doing.

KING: And as we continue the conversation, you see the Republican leadership. There's Kevin McCarthy right there. We just heard the sound from him this morning saying he's unpredictable. The number two in the House coming out on stage that presumably means the speaker, majority leader, Mitch McConnell and the President of the United States and the vice president will soon follow.

In this feeling out period, how important is it, we're talking about the president. How important for the president. These guys are on the ballot next. The next election is 2018. So they have a lot to prove too.

MONTANARO: But let's also remember, Kevin McCarthy was supposed to be Speaker of the House.

KING: Right.

MONTANARO: Anyone remember that, right? And he wasn't able to become Speaker of the House, mostly because of his inability to communicate. So, when you think about who is going to win out on these arguments that they're going to make to constituents, to the rest of America, my bet is on Donald Trump is be able to try to push the Republican conference to go in whatever direction he feels they need to go.

THRUSH: And remember one of the first things that happened to Paul Ryan was he had to get with his good buddy Reince Priebus from Wisconsin and get Trump to either moderate or to put out these tweets, knocking down this insurrection by his own committees

KING: Right.

THRUSH: That will get the congressional ethics on.

KING: And the Republicans kept the Senate because Donald Trump in the final weeks dragged over the line Republican candidates in Pennsylvania and North Carolina and they kept their senate majority on Donald Trump's coattails and they are aware bad as well.

PHILLIPS: The biggest risk for Republicans with Trump being unpredictable is that they don't know when he's going to weigh in. He could weigh in at the beginning or the end and totally up end the apple cart or in the middle. I mean this is a really serious issue especially when it comes to health care. There's a sense that nobody really knows what the White House wants on this and maybe Donald Trump will weigh in but maybe he will do it right when they're getting to the finish line and then they have to start right over.

[12:50:13] KING: You make a great point. And it may not seem like an important point to people watching at home who don't get into the sausage making here in Washington. But one thing we do know is speaker Ryan and leader McConnell have asked the president, stop talking so much about the details. Talk in broad strokes about replacing Obamacare. Talk in broad strokes about tax reform that simplifies it for tax payers and corporations and creates jobs and makes your life easier. Don't get in to the, you know, section 72 and sub-paragraph 3E. You can't keep laying out these details because we need to round up the votes and figure this out.

MONTANARO: Or saying things like insurance for everybody.

KING: Insurance for everybody. Yeah.

HAM: Well I think that's going to be tough because I think one of the things that's good for the American people about Donald Trump is that when he's asked a question, he goes down that road. He's not a guy who goes on and I'd rather not and go over here. He goes down that road even when he does not know exactly what the facts are. And I can be good for transparency, bad for creating legislation behind the scene.

KING: Let's go into the room as we await the president of the United States to come out. Our CNN's Manu Raju is there in the room.

Manu, again, as we talked a bit earlier, a great sense of celebration but also a little jitters here as the Republican leadership in congress and the Republican rank and file have this getting to know you phase with the new president.

MAN RAJU, SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER: Absolutely John. And one of the things that Republicans want to know is he going to get lay detailed agenda, talk specifically about the things they are talking about in these private meetings, about Obamacare that he'll replace tax reform. Because forming a Supreme Court nominee or will this be a Donald Trump speech that is not read from a teleprompter that is rambling at times and talks about things like voter fraud and other issues that divide the party.

I don't think anybody really knows that yet what to be expect here in this room. But I could tell you right now I talked to a number of Republicans attending this retreat. They are concerned that he is saying things that are stepping on. They're very carefully constructed message that this is a party that is united, trying to get major things done, but he was talking about things like initiating a voter fraud investigation, that's something that a lot of Republicans don't support. So, it would be interesting to see how the president of the United States deals with that here in just a couple of minutes.

KING: Manu, stand by in the room. We're going to keep our eye on the podium to see if the president comes out. But as we wait, a little breaking news now first here on CNN now at the state department, two senior administration officials saying that four top state department manager officials were all fired by the Trump administration as part of an effort to what sources called and efforts of clean house at the State Department. Let's get to Elise Labott, our diplomatic correspondent. Elise, explain what happened here.

ELISE LABOTT, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Well John, you know, it's typical with any transition. All top officials, the heads of all these agencies and bureaus are asked to submit resignations. Well, we understand all of those top officials in the management departments of the State Department, we're talking of the undersecretary of management, the long-serving Pat Kennedy, the assistant secretaries of consular affairs, administration and the office, the director of the office of board emissions. That's embassies here in the United States by international countries where all those resignations were accepted.

They were sent letters by the White House this week that their service was no longer required. And officials here are telling me it's very common when these resignations are submitted. These officials are, you know, asked to stay on a few months until their replacements are confirmed. We're talking about 150 years of combined institutional knowledge by all of these officials.

And, John, that's really leaving a gaping hole in the State Department's management structure as the new Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is expected to take office next week.

KING: Elise Labott with the breaking news. And Elise, is that Rex Tillerson and are his deputies ready to come in with him if he's confirmed next week?

LABOTT: Rex Tillerson has not named his deputy. The White House has not said that they have a specific candidate in mind. My understanding is that Mr. Tillerson is not coming with anybody from his office at Exxon. He's really coming by himself. So, he's really looking to these top officials at the State Department to help him get acclimated and help him start running the building and not just in the management department, and some of these regional bureaus. Assistant Secretary for Europe, for instance, Victoria Newland also submitted her resignation. That resignation was accepted.

So, he's really coming in at a bit of a disadvantage. You know, look, there are very good deputies in the department who are carrying on the mantel. These are all career people who have served in a long time. But he's coming in with a gaping hole at this top leadership of his department, John.

KING: Elise Labott with the breaking news for us. And as we come back to the panel, again, we're awaiting the president of the United States to come out and speak in Philadelphia. I think you said it best a few moment s ago, protocol, schmotocol. In the sense that -- from the Trump perspective, I think they'd view this people even though some of them have served in prior administrations, holdovers from the Obama administration.

[12:55:04] They don't want to do things the way we want to do them. So we would rather deal with a little bit of chaos and a little bit unpredictability and probably have some things fall through the cracks of than have the old guard stay on board.

HAM: Right. They are far more comfortable with that than the rest of Washington is.

KING: Right.

HAM: And I think that's part of why he was elected. In some agencies I think you're going to see places where it's like, ok, maybe all of that personnel didn't matter quite as much as that personnel thought they did. Somewhere like state, I think continuity is more important. But this is going to be a way of doing things. But I would add as a cautionary note, the part where the social media campaigns start burn booking the president as he becomes the president with their tweets and what not. I don't think it's particularly helpful for that transition --

KING: Right.

HAM: -- when we're dealing with somebody who says protocol schmotocol.

PHILLIP: But I think we have to keep in mind here that, I mean, in the case of Patrick Kennedy at state, he was appointed by George Bush and stayed on throughout Obama's presidency. Some of these other officials who resigned were responsible for essentially the safety and security of U.S. diplomats abroad and consulates and embassies abroad. These are actually real positions where you need actual leadership. And maybe there are people waiting in the wings. We don't know yet. But these are not jobs that can just go by the wayside. There's got to be a plan to keep the trains running on time when it comes to, you know, the safety of U.S. as public servants working internationally.

KING: And as we await the president, this transition period has been rocky. It's a little bumpy. Some people say I'll clean out with those people on. Other people say you were sent in to break up and change Washington and disrupt.

One of the other conversations as we await the president of United States is he said repeatedly during the campaign that he wanted to bring back waterboarding. That he thought it was an effective tactic. Now, he says Defense Secretary General Mattis and the CIA director former Congressman Pompeo, they have told him they don't need this and he'll probably listen to them. But, again, this is one of the issues that came up at the congressional retreat. They're saying Mr. President, please don't take us off a side track on this conversation. But listen to the president last night in that ABC interview saying I'm not convinced not to do this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: As far as I'm concerned, we have to fight fire with fire now. With that being said, I'm going with General Mattis. I'm going with my secretary because I think Pompeo is going to be phenomenal. I'm going to go with what they say. But I have spoken as recently as 24 hours ago with people at the highest level of intelligence and I asked them the question, does it work? Does torture work? And the answer was, yes, absolutely.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

THRUSH: Again, we're getting the verbal -- the oral tradition here. We're sitting around the campfire asking everybody what they think.

Look, there's been -- as far as I can tell, there's been a couple of reports on this. We have the heavily redacted torture report that there were years of fighting between Feinstein's office, the state department and the pentagon on. This is not new stuff, folks. What you are watching is a president of the United States who has frankly not done a ton of homework on this stuff, learning while he's on the job and largely learning not by reading about it, but by sitting down with people in a room and asking them questions. And it seems sometimes -- and this is not my opinion, this is opinions from people who work with him, that the last person that spoke to him is at times the most influential.

MONTANARO: It's banned in the army field manual. Congress has said it's illegal. His nominees whether it's Jeff Sessions, Mike Pompeo, General Mattis have all said during their hearings that they don't think it works. They would not advocate for it. My question is, what happens when or if there's an attack on the United States? KING: I don't know -- that's a great question. What does the new administration just try to change policy then? What we've seen in the last several days and I don't think these matters two months, three months, four months from now but that little sense of annoyance from the Speaker of the House and the Senate Majority. They keep getting asked about this and they keep say this is settled. It's against the law. It's not going to happen.

HAM: Well, the good news I think for those who are against this possible policy change is nobody is going to accuse General Mattis of being insufficiently tough on terrorists. And so I think that's a really nice backup for Trump to have if he decides to come out with no change.

PHILLIP: Oh I think Trump, you know, if he listens to General Mattis, maybe it will be, you know, maybe that's where he'll be. But I didn't get the sense that he was sort of deciding who he was really going to listen to. What if he gets conflicting advice, how is he going to make that decision?

He hasn't really laid out his decision-making process. And as Glenn said, he's not consuming information on his own. He's asking for advice and maybe it's the last person who talks to him. Maybe it's not. I think for people who work in the government, for the American people watching this, there's got to be a sense of confusion about where this whole thing is going to end up.

KING: And you're watching. We've been waiting the president of the United States is at that hotel preparing to speak any moment now to a Republican strategy conference. Big questions about his agenda going forward, the British Prime Minister Theresa May will be in the same room this afternoon.

Thanks for watching "Inside Politics" today. My colleague Wolf Blitzer takes our coverage over right now.