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White House Press Briefing; McMaster Talks about Trump; Intel Sharing Could Endanger Lives; Republicans want Shred Transcripts. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired May 16, 2017 - 12:00   ET

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

QUESTION: Did the president reveal a city? And that -- I mean, the spin is that the president revealed the name of the city, and that gave away information that undermined an ally.

[12:00:02] GEN. H.R. MCMASTER, NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: OK, I -- I will answer that.

OK, so, all of you are very familiar with the threat from ISIS. All of you are very familiar with the territory it controls. If you were to say, "Hey, from where do you think a threat might come from territory that ISIS controls?," you would probably be able to name a few cities, I would think.

And so it was -- it was nothing that you would not know from open source reporting in terms of a source of concern. And it had -- it had all to do with operations that are already ongoing, had been made public for months.

(CROSSTALK)

QUESTION: Sorry, back to my question, sir. Was this information that was shared with the Russians also the same content that was shared with our allies? And specific to the threat which the president says was in relation to airlines, is it an imminent threat? Was there a justification for in that moment needing to share it with the Russians?

MCMASTER: I don't want to get into specifics of what exactly information is shared with what exact allies, but information on this topic of the threat to aviation was shared with multiple allies. And as you know, there are already policies being put in place to protect against that threat. And you -- and you and many others have reported widely on this.

(CROSSTALK)

QUESTION: ... something that our allies did not? Is that what you are saying?

MCMASTER: In terms of the specifics, I can't -- I can't -- I have no basis for comparison on what was shared with what -- with what country. But I will tell you that it was our impression, of all of us, that were in the meeting -- I've mentioned already -- that what was shared was wholly appropriate, given the purpose of that conversation and the purpose of what the president was trying to achieve through that meeting.

(CROSSTALK)

QUESTION: General, when you came out after the story broke, you said that the president did not disclose any sources or methods. He did not reveal anything about military operations. Why were you denying things that were not even reported? What the report said is that the president revealed classified information that had been shared by one of our allies in the Middle East. So the question is simply a yes or no question here. Did the president share classified information with the Russians in that meeting?

MCMASTER: As I mentioned already, we don't say what's classified, what's not classified. What I will tell you again is that what the president shared was wholly appropriate. The story -- the story combined what was leaked with other information and then -- and the insinuated about sources and methods. So I wanted to make clear to everybody that the president in no way compromised any sources or methods in the course of this conversation.

QUESTION: General, would you say, though, that national security has been put at risk by the leak of this? Do you have any idea how this got out? And what steps are you taking by virtue of discovering this, as you did, to try to limit the potential for any more leaks of national security information?

MCMASTER: I -- I think national security is put at risk by this leak and by leaks like this. And as you know, there are a number of instances where this has occurred. And I think it's important to investigate these sort of things and to make sure that we have trusted organizations across our government that -- that allows for the free sharing of information and collaboration.

I mean, in terms of national security, what is critical is that you can -- you can assemble the experts you need. You want a bigger group, right, for any of these complex problems because you need their expertise. You need the tools that they bring to bear from different agencies and departments.

And so what we really have to do is make sure we have a very high degree of confidence in all of our organizations and all of our systems and processes so we can do what we need to do for the president, which is give him our best advice and give him options to deal with these very complex problems.

(CROSSTALK)

QUESTION: Clearly, you can't have that confidence by virtue of what happened yesterday. So do you have an idea of how this got out? And how can you tighten up the ship, as it were, to ensure, from your perspective at least, that this stuff doesn't get out?

MCMASTER: Well, I think it's incumbent on all of us to bring in the people with the right authorities and the right mandate to take a look at how this leak occurred and how other breaches may have occurred as well.

(CROSSTALK)

QUESTION: Thank you.

General McMaster, to put a finer point on this, is there now an active investigation into how this information was leaked? And can you tell us about who's running that investigation? And I'd also like to ask you, given that President Trump is now going to be meeting face to face with literally dozens of foreign leaders, if there are sensitivities to his discretion in what sort of information to decide to declassify? How is that something that you are advising him ahead of this foreign trip?

MCMASTER: Well, I mean, there -- there are no sensitivities in terms of me or anybody who's been with the president in many of these engagements. He share information in a way that is wholly appropriate. And I should just make -- I should just make maybe the statement here that the president wasn't even aware, you know, where this information came from. He wasn't briefed on the source or method of the information either.

[12:05:02] So -- I'm sorry, this has got to be the last question because we do have the -- the president of Turkey coming I think momentarily.

Thank you very much.

(CROSS TALK)

QUESTION: We have more questions, general.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He wasn't briefed on --

JOHN KING, CNN ANCHOR: You've been watching the national security adviser, H.R. McMaster -- General H.R. McMaster briefing at the White House.

I'm John King. Welcome to INSIDE POLITICS.

A remarkable briefing there. The national security advisor came into the briefing room, a previously scheduled session with reporters to brief them on a trip, a nine-day trip, the first overseas trip of the presidency for Donald Trump. But, of course, the questions dominating, a story first broken by "The Washington Post" yesterday that the president, in a meeting with the Russian foreign minister and Russian's ambassador to the United States, inappropriately shared classified information about the ISIS threat, information that came from a highly sensitive source. Now, General McMaster using the words "wholly appropriate" repeatedly to defend the president's action, saying the president had every right to do this, that the circumstances of the conversation allowed it, but he did not address some of the particulars of the story. So let's get into that now.

With us to share their reporting and their insights, CNN Jeff Zeleny, Abby Phillip of the "The Washington Post," Karen Tumulty of "The Washington Post" and CNN's Nia-Malika Henderson.

Interesting strategy from the national security advisor who kept saying that it was "wholly appropriate" -- he used that terms maybe a dozen times in the briefing -- for the president to do what he did. At then, at the very end, he added a bit of a blockbuster piece of information, that when the president was sharing this intelligence with the Russians, that the president was not aware of the source, that he had not been briefed on the source of the information, and that is the most sensitive part of this, if you look at the first -- the reporting by your colleagues at "The Post," matched by correspondents here at CNN, that the president had this nugget of top secret so sensitive information it was not even being shared throughout the United States government completely, had not been shared with key allies around the world. And the president, off the cuff, in a meeting with the Russian ambassador and the Russian foreign minister, talks about this threat from ISIS and this sensitive piece of intelligence. General McMaster saying essentially, so what, who cares, the president has every reason to do this and it was appropriate. But if you look at the -- especially the reporting started from your colleagues that there's a lot of sensitivity here.

ABBY PHILLIP, "THE WASHINGTON POST": I mean I think it's really extraordinary that he buried the lead in that way, that the president would have information that he doesn't even -- from -- based on what McMaster is saying, he doesn't have enough information to understand how sensitive it is, is really remarkable. And in some ways I'm -- maybe it was revealed today so that they could sort of take the temperature down on this situation. But I have a feeling it's going to actually have the opposite effect because the question ends up being now, why does the president of the United States, the senior most official in the entire United States government, not know what the entire context is around sensitive -- highly sensitive intelligence information that he has then making an off the cuff decision to share with basically our adversaries, Russia.

KAREN TUMULTY, "THE WASHINGTON POST": But there is a point in the story, in the original "Washington Post" story by our colleagues Greg Miller and Greg Jaffy (ph), where they said that the intelligence community prepares these multi-page briefing documents for the president, that he insists that these briefing documents be boiled down to one page of bullet points, and that he often ignores those. And this -- so if, in fact, he didn't know the sources, it could be -- you know, speaks to a part of his management style that has already been of some concern to the intelligence community.

KING: And that has been a lot of the blowback today, more publically from Democrats and Republicans, but even some Republicans publically, and many more Republicans privately, questioning just that, does the president understand the gravity of his job? Does he study hard enough? Does he prepare? Do he understand the lines of what you can and cannot discuss, especially in meetings with the Russians who do not share our interests when it comes to banning ISIS. It was a very key point you made there.

And the president, remember, during the transition, he mocked these briefings -- JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Right.

KING: Saying, I'm smart. I don't need to, every day --

NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER: Right.

KING: Get a briefing from these people. I'm smart enough. So as we get into that, sort of the president's mindset about this, what else did we learn from General McMaster?

ZELENY: I think we learned that they are trying to -- the White House strategy this afternoon going forward is to try and pivot as hard as they can away from this to focus on the leakers.

HENDERSON: Yes.

ZELENY: Saying that that is where this investigation should be. That's where the spotlight should be. Not on the president, who apparently just, you know, revealed this without any plan at all in the Oval Office, but on the people who confirm this and leaked it. But that, I think -- I think there are limits to how much that will work.

This was the very first incident, perhaps. But Republicans on Capitol Hill up and down want a serious explanation from this president. It's one of the reasons the CIA director is going to Capitol Hill this afternoon, we're told, to brief House members on exactly what happened here. So I think the pivot only works up to a point.

But in terms of the intel briefings, experts at the time were saying the point -- the reason for getting these every day, then you internalize this information. You sort of know like what is -- what's changed, what hasn't changed. And by not getting them every day, or by not reading the bullet points, the fine print, you don't necessarily know what is a big deal or not.

[12:10:03] And in terms of the city specifically, the city is the question here for this plot was originating from, McMaster, General McMaster, did not say the president revealed that, but he almost did. He said the city is available, widely available through public source reporting, through newspaper accounts basically.

KING: Right, he was generally --

ZELENY: That's amazing.

KING: Generally confirming the story that the president gave up the sensitive location of where this intelligence came from. And, again, pooh-poohing it, saying that, well, you know, essentially if you have the Internet, you can figure this out for yourself, where in Syria is ISIS strong, therefore you would know it's either this city or that city.

Let's listen to part of General McMaster, because he was part of the damage control effort last night. This story, first reported by "The Post" last night, came out. General McMaster came out and issued what I'll call a non-denial/denial on the grounds of the White House saying the president didn't do this and didn't do that last night without addressing the specifics in the story about what the president was alleged to have done. Then today, in the briefing room, again, there to explain the president's trip on which this will be a big issue with other world leaders, and General McMaster essentially saying there's nothing here.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

H.R. MCMASTER, NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: The president was emphasizing that we have some common interests here. We have to work together in some critical areas. And we have an area -- we have an area of cooperation with trans-national terrorist organizations, ISIS in particular, an organization that had already taken down a Russian airliner and murdered over 200 people in October of 2015. And so -- so -- so this was the -- the context of the conversation in which it was wholly appropriate to share what the threat was as a basis for common action and coordination.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: It's a strong defense from a very respected voice in national security matters, but it ignores part of the basic connect the dots part of what happened here. The president has the right -- he can declassify anything on a moment's notice. So the president does have the right to do that. But the reporting was that this information was -- and I'll read it right from "The Washington Post." "The information the president relayed had been provided by a U.S. partner through an intelligence sharing arrangement considered so sensitive the details have been withheld from allies and tightly restricted even within the United States government." Which gets back to the point General McMaster made at the end of the briefing, apparently even restricted from the United States president.

HENDERSON: Right. And apparently the ally that shared this information, they -- you know, you typically would want to get permission from that ally before you're sharing it, and that apparently didn't happen in this briefing.

Interesting that McMaster is out there. He's one of the ones who has some credibility. A lot of other aides, people like Sean Spicer, people like Vice President Pence, their credibility has been somewhat blown apart over these last couple of days because of the Comey incident. So there he is out there.

But he is sort of dialing back what he said yesterday, right? Yesterday the reporting out of the White House and from the spokesmen were that the story was false. Today he's saying that the premise is false, which is a little different because the premise is essentially that there was something wrong with what Donald Trump did and they're saying it was wholly inappropriate. I think they said that 15 times.

KING: Well, in some ways he had no choice but to have a different explanation today because just like in the Comey example, the president sent aides out last night to defend him and then woke up this morning and went on Twitter, exactly like he did in the Comey -- and then tweeted things out that essentially pulling the rug out from under his aides. The president tweeting this morning, "as president I wanted to share with Russia, at an openly scheduled White House meeting, which I have the absolute right to do, facts pertaining to terrorism and airline flight safety, humanitarian reasons, plus I want Russia to greatly step up their fight against ISIS and terrorism."

You know, last night they essentially had gone out and said the president hadn't shared anything sensitive. And so today they needed a different explanation because the president said, yes, I did, and I'm president, too bad.

TUMULTY: And another person whose credibility has been greatly hurt in all this because her denial was much more absolute last night was Dina Powell. I mean she just came out and flat out said "The Washington Post" story was false.

KING: Well, we --

PHILLIP: I think -- I think one of the other interesting things that McMaster revealed today was that the president decided in the context of the conversation to reveal this information. So he didn't go through a process. He didn't consult with his aides apparently. And so there's a question about how -- you know, this is a decision that the president made in order to bring Russia into the fold on the ISIS fight, or bring Russia closer on the ISIS fight. Why didn't he consult more closely with his national security aides and figure out a way to do it that would not potentially jeopardize information that, as you point out, wasn't even ours to share?

KING: Well, you hear this a lot, that the president, in these meetings, is winging it to a degree, in part to impress the people he's meeting with.

HENDERSON: Right.

KING: But to the point, having covered the White House, for people at home that don't understand the sensitivity, that these things take weeks, sometimes months. You have -- you have a meeting coming up with a foreign leader. It's on the books for some time.

ZELENY: Right.

KING: Do we need to move the ball here. And so you have the CIA, the NSA, the State Department, the agencies. And if you have a foreign partner, you have to go back to that foreign partner, is it OK, we're going to meet with Putin, should we share this?

HENDERSON: Yes.

KING: This goes on forever, but not -- that was not the way this went (INAUDIBLE).

ZELENY: It was also not an openly scheduled meeting.

KING: Right.

ZELENY: The president said this morning an openly scheduled meeting. It was on the schedule sort of but it was not open at all to U.S. media organizations at all. There was one photographer in there for the Russian state media.

KING: From the -- yes, he got totally played on this.

[12:15:01] HENDERSON: Yes, and -- (INAUDIBLE) -- yes.

KING: The White House staff was totally played, which, again, adds to the whole conversation of, are they amateur --

HENDERSON: Yes.

KING: In the task (ph) allowed in with cameras and they were published of him chumming up --

TUMULTY: And also --

HENDERSON: And all because Putin wanted this meeting.

KING: Right.

HENDERSON: He basically, in a phone call, said, would you meet with Lavrov and Trump says, sure I'll meet with Lavrov.

TUMULTY: And also the fact that the Russian ambassador, who has been a central figure in a lot of other problems for the White House, was in that meeting and I don't believe that was on the public schedule either.

PHILLIP: It was not.

KING: That was -- that part was not. We'll continue the conversation.

Up next, Democrats call all this more proof the president isn't up to the job and what Republicans aren't saying is just as important.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: Welcome back.

The White House, as you just heard at the top of the hour, called it wholly appropriate, but President Trump's disclosure of highly classified secrets about ISIS in a meeting with Russian diplomats is drawing strong condemnation from Democrat whose serve on the intelligence committees in Congress.

[12:20:14] (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOE MANCHIN (D), INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE: They're not doing the job they should be doing to make sure he's understanding the gravity.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But -- but -- but -- but -- but --

MANCHIN: I'm concerned about the safety and well-being for an awful lot of people around the world that work with us in many different ways. REP. JIM HIMES (D), INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE: What has now happened is

that all over the world, whether it's in China or Hong Kong or Australia or Africa, people are saying to themselves, you know what, I might give a tip that the next day is being discussed on CNN "New Day" because the president talked about it with somebody who, in this case Russia, doesn't necessarily have an interest in keeping it secret.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: And missing from the air waves, elected Republicans willing to strongly defend the president.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. BEN SASSE (R), NEBRASKA: The real question here is what's prudent and imprudent. And, third, it doesn't help that this is with Russia. Our interests and Russia's interests do not align. Putin is a bad guy. He wants to fracture NATO. He's an enemy of free speech, religion, press and assembly, which is the beating heart of the American experiment. So it's not at all helpful that this happened with the Russians.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: The suspicion, distrust, fear of vouching for the White House is growing among Republicans is quite striking.

I want to come back to the first point that Senator Manchin and Congressman Himes were making. We usually talk about Democrats, Republicans, we talk about who's up, who's down on this show because we're about politics. But I want to get into a little bit about the importance of what they're talking about, protecting sources, that there is somebody somewhere in a town in Syria who is providing information about ISIS threats to a government that is then passing it on to the United States, which has that information, the goal being to keep those of us at this table and those watching, wherever you are around the country, alive, and whether -- or if you're in the world somewhere to keep us alive. And so you hear sometimes the language of Washington is hard to follow, but the sensitivity of protecting sources of intelligence is a paramount mission if you are a senior official in the United States government, if you're on the intelligence committees. And the White House is right, there's too much leaking of this stuff at times. But in this -- the question in this case is, did the president of the United States recklessly or cavalierly or casually just hand something to the Russians who do not share the United States interests when it comes to ISIS in Syria?

PHILLIP: Right. And we may actually never know what -- if any consequences there are to this because these types of operations are so secret and so closely held that we wouldn't even know the repercussions of it. But it's -- it's clear that there isn't at least conveyed from the White House a sense that they understand the gravity or the erring on the side of caution that needs to be in place for some of these -- these issues. And the president is moving forward kind of bull in the China shop type of a way that he conducted himself as a candidate, but that necessarily has to change when you're president because it's life and death as you point out.

HENDERSON: But there's no sense that it will change, right? I mean if you -- if you hear what's coming out of the White House, if you hear what Donald Trump said, he is essentially saying, I'm the president. I can do what I want to do. And from most of the Republicans that we've heard, sure there has been Ben Sasse, but somebody like Mitch McConnell essentially said, oh, he would like a lot less drama from the White House. I mean it's sort of like Donald Trump, you naughty boy, around something that's very serious, matters of life and death, matters of national security, revealing the city which is what "The Washington Post" said that Trump did in that meeting means that you can probably sort of reverse engineer who that person is and then you cut off that source, you cut off whether or not that ally wants to continue --

KING: Right. And if -- and if you're the Russians, you're thinking the United States, through an ally, has a good source inside Syria. We're doing a lot of things in Syria the United States doesn't like.

HENDERSON: Exactly.

KING: Like propping up Assad.

HENDERSON: Yes.

KING: Like providing the jets and other military equipment that kills innocent civilians. So we don't want that sort of passing on information about us. That's the -- that's what the intelligence community is worried about. The interesting part is, I think Mitch McConnell, we're going to get more of him in a minute, he was trying to move on because he doesn't want to publically criticize the president, although calling for less drama is kind of criticizing the president -- but here's what's happening in town right now is the sense that Republicans, especially after Comey, but it predates that, reluctant to go out and defend this administration because they're not certain what they're told by the president's staff is going to holdup to be true.

And listen to Bob Corker, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, somebody who was close to Trump during the campaign and transition, here's what he says. "They're in a downward spiral right now and have got to figure out a way to come to grips with all that's happening. You know the shame of it is, there's a really good national security team in place but the chaos that is being created by the lack of discipline is creating an environment that I think it creates a worrisome environment."

Now, break down what the senator says there. He praises the national security team and he says the chaos is being created by the lack of discipline. He means the president.

TUMULTY: Exactly.

HENDERSON: Yes.

TUMULTY: That's in passive voice, is he's giving us a sentence that doesn't have a subject. Yes, it is. And it also speaks, I think, to a couple of things that we know are characteristic of Trump. And one of them is, he does not have a high regard for expertise. He really -- he trusts his own gut. He trusts his own instincts for sort of understanding the person he's talking to and getting to a deal. And, you know, there are some situations where you've got to trust the experts.

[12:25:14] KING: Right, you've got to trust the experts.

I just want to read you one tweet. Someone jumped into the conversation. This is Mike Gallagher, a freshman Republican but an ex- Marine who understands the sensitivity of these issues. He says, "for the purpose of transparency, the White House should share a transcript of the meeting with the House and Senate Intelligence Committees."

HENDERSON: Yes, but -- but you could --

TUMULTY: They might ask -- ask for it --

HENDERSON: Yes, I mean the Republicans that are criticizing Donald Trump on the record are few and far between. They're, what, almost 300 lawmakers on The Hill. And it's sort of been the usual suspects. Corker has been critical of this president. He's more of a moderate. People like McCain. McConnell, I guess that was something of a criticism, but he has essentially criticized Donald Trump's tweeting in the same way, like, oh, we wish he wouldn't tweet so much.

So until you have any sort of en mass, I think, criticism of this president from the Republicans, I think the question is whether or not they're essentially giving him a permission structure to behave this way. I mean their silence in some ways, I mean, you know, if you crash the car when you're a kid and your mom doesn't say anything about it, you might think you've gotten away with something.

KING: Well, that's a critical question. If you look at the private incoming from Republicans, it's quite damming.

HENDERSON: Yes.

KING: But how much of it -- how much of it will it escalate as we go public? You're seeing trickles of it. The question is, does it become more. Everyone sit tight.

Up next, as Nia just noted, the Senate majority leader wishes for less drama and more governing. Day 117 and even fellow Republicans see a Trump White House still not ready for prime-time.

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