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Trump, McConnell Trading Blame For Repeal Failure; New CNN Poll: Republicans Turning On GOP Leadership; North Korea Outlines Plan To Fire Missiles Near Guam; Trump Heaps Blame On McConnell For Repeal Failure. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired August 10, 2017 - 12:00   ET

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

DANA BASH, ANCHORWOMAN, INSIDE POLITICS: Welcome to Inside Politics. I'm Dana Bash. John King is off. How do you move forward on an agenda with frustration and animosity between the president and the republican majority leader? The guy who's supposed to be his partner in the senate spilling into the public? As new CNN poll, we are releasing right now, shows republicans are turning on their own. Plus, the president is huddling today with national security advisors as Kim Jong-un puts Guam in his sights.

Time to target, 17 minutes. Here to share the reporting is Carl Hulse of the New York Times, The Daily Beast's Jackie Kucinich, Jack Mason of Reuters, and Mary Katharine Ham of The Federalist. Marriages of convenience are bound to hit rough patches, right? Well, that's pretty much what's going on today between President Trump and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell except they are now arguing in public with a lot of people watching and it's causing quite a scene.

The president is launching tweets at Senator McConnell once again this morning blaming him for failing to repeal and replace Obamacare and the president he's never been shy about blaming congress for his stalled agenda and now we see he's got some company. We have new numbers breaking right now from our new CNN poll that shows just how much Americans dislike congress. Only 20 percent in our new poll approve of the job congress is doing.

As for the republican leadership, Senator McConnell and House Speaker Paul Ryan, they are almost equally disliked. They get a thumbs up from only 24 percent of Americans. And that number is down from 39 percent in January, when it looked like there was a real chance the republican congress could deliver on that seven-year promise to repeal and replace Obamacare. Well, some say President Trump is starting a fight with Senator McConnell is not a good idea, but the president clearly disagrees, and this could be why.

He knows his approval rating, even when it's hovering around historic lows, when compared with other presidents is still stronger than his counterparts on Capitol Hill. Again, only 24 percent of Americans approve of the job, the republican leadership is doing 38 percent approve of how President Trump is doing. So he is doing better there. And among republicans, Trump gets even stronger reviews. So the republican congress is getting mixed reviews from its own party.

Republicans are split right down the middle. 44 percent say it's been a success so far. 44 percent view congress right now as a failure. And when it comes to why congress has failed, why no major legislation has made it to President Trump's desk, far more republicans blame congress than the president. 32 percent say disagreement among republicans is the reason why. And only eight percent fault a lack of leadership from President Trump. And the president's advisors routinely praise his political instincts and Trump's tweet this morning is in lock step, maybe, with how his party feels.

He said, "Can you believe that Mitch McConnell, who has screamed Repeal & Replace for 7 years, couldn't get it done. Must Repeal & Replace ObamaCare!" Now, the genesis of the latest spat between the president and the senate majority leader is this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL, (R) MAJORITY LEADER: Our new president of course has been in this line of work before, and I think had excessive expectations about how quickly things happen in the democratic process. And so part of the reason I think people feel like we're under -- underperforming is because too many kind of artificial deadlines, unrelated to the reality of the complexity of legislating.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: So, guys, thanks for coming in. And Carl Hulse, I want to start with you because we spend a lot of time roaming the halls of the Capitol and I know you know you can get inside of Mitch McConnell's head. Let's just start there.

CARL HULSE, NEW YORK TIMES: Well, I don't know if I want be there.

BASH: Well -- you know, why not? Better than -- better than most of us. He was in a comfortable setting there. He was at the rotary club and he just maybe said what he thought and what he was feeling inside of what he says in private, but I've talked to sources who are sort of familiar with him and close to the president who said, you know, maybe he shouldn't have started this because he did start it with that comment.

HULSE: I think one thing that he was trying to do was to discourage the administration from setting these deadlines, right? Because if you say you're going to do something by a certain point and then it doesn't happen because it never happens by a certain point in congress, then you're going to get beat up. Trump wants wins. I think that a couple of things are interesting. One, that he said McConnell has been screaming. I've never heard Mitch McConnell screams. So that was kind of funny.

And, you know, Trump's base of support never really liked Mitch McConnell anyway, right? They say -- they see him as a big part of the problem but they have this huge month coming up. And I had a republican today describe this to me, it's like if FDR was undermining ike right before D-day, right? That this is the kind of problem that it can create. So, at the same time, though, I made one last point about this. The president just endorsed McConnell's candidate in Alabama, Luther Strange. So, on the one hand, he is beating him up, on the other hand, he is helping him out. I think, you know, Mitch McConnell's probably looking at this, shrugging a bit, but also saying, you know, we have to get pass these spats.

BASH: Exactly. Talking about spats, Jackie, I was told that, you know, that CNN reporter -- first of all, that the two men had an animated conversation by phone yesterday. I was told this morning that the president put in an initial call into Mitch McConnell and then when McConnell called the president back the president took the call and had that animated conversation with him from the golf course. I guess that's a whole new version of teeing off, right?

JACKIE KUCINICH, THE DAILY BEAST: Right.

BASH: I'll be here all day. I'll be here today.

(CROSSTALK)

JEFF MASON, REUTERS: Doesn't like to confirm that he is playing golf.

BASH: Well, there is that. Well, that was already -- he was already added because of Instagram pictures. But, I mean, you know, again, intense conversations between a president and a leader, that's, like, you know, no big deal, but it's the fact that the president keeps going after the senate majority leader on Twitter. Last night and this morning, that's where it becomes a problem.

KUCINICH: But that's what this president does. The problem is, Mitch McConnell's not really going to be bullied and this is actually kind of cutting off your nose to spite your face because he's going to need Mitch McConnell going forward. He can be angry at -- about Obamacare and you know what, he probably has a point. Republicans should have had something in place and ready because they've talking about it. I mean, Mitch McConnell, root and branch.

You heard him say it over and over and over again in successive elections. That said, on tax reform, on infrastructure, on a whole host of other things that this president has identified as his priorities. He's going to need buy-in. And, you know, we saw it with Lisa Murkowski, with Susan Collins. When he kept on going after these senators, it doesn't -- it doesn't get him anywhere. There's that old adage, you attract more flies with honeys than vinegar. Well, he's putting vinegar on all over this relationship with Mitch McConnell at this point and it's going to come back to bite him.

BASH: Well, you mentioned that Senator Lisa Murkowski, our colleague Manu Raju has reporting today that the conversation that the president had with Lisa Murkowski as they were trying to get the votes for health care was so bad that it really helped to turn her off. And, in fact, I had a conversation with Senator Murkowski last week where she kind of alluded to it. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: Did you feel that he was trying to intimidate you?

SEN. LISA MURKOWSKI, (R) ALASKA: I will just say that the president and I had a very direct call.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MASON: Direct. And usually code word for not a very good one.

BASH: Right. And I mean, so, look. You cover this White House every day. This is not a new phenomenon for this president to be very direct if we keep the diplo speak going here. And he did so on Twitter as well, but are there -- are there lessons learned? I mean, maybe I'm answering my own question. The answer is, no because he's still going after Mitch McConnell. The president doesn't really feel like he has anything to lose and our new poll shows that.

MASON: I don't think he does feel like he has anything to lose and I think it's just completely consistent with his style. Whether it's somebody he needs, whether it's somebody he doesn't need. If he feels like they haven't produced what he is looking for or feels like they've offended him in some way or in some general way has not done what he wanted, he's going to go after them and does it on Twitter. He does it in speeches. He does it in any sort of platform that he has, particularly, in social media.

BASH: Well, you know, Carl, you mentioned that there is a special election going on for the senate seat to replace Jeff Sessions in Alabama. And there is an inter -- I mean, sort of the republican fight for where they are is playing out in Alabama. You mentioned that the president endorsed the establishment figure, Lucer (ph) Luther Strange earlier this week, and on conservative radio that is not going over very well. I want you to listen to what Mark Levin said the other day.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARK LEVIN, THE MARK LEVIN SHOW: The president of the United States did something yesterday which was a stab in the back to every conservative in this country. He can't say he's an outsider when he just undermined every conservative in the state of Alabama and every conservative in this country by endorsing the worst candidate possible and empowering further Mitch McConnell, Karl Rove and this guy, Jeff Roe. Now I don't know how we're going to get change in this country when, Mr. Change is not Mr. Change. These elections have consequences. I think what he did yesterday was outrageous, absolutely outrageous. And I don't think many of you are going to forget about it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MARY KATHARINE HAM, THE FEDERALIST: Well, this is the big -- like, this is the red line, the change line and that's what we see in some of his polling when people start losing fate that he can be an agent of change and I think he gets in real trouble because he wasn't elected for the other reasons, for the credibility and all these other things that people sort of gave him a pass on. I think the timeline here suggests perhaps the tweeting as a response to the grumbling on conservative radio, and there's some, in the past and the past weeks with the session and sort of travelled and where he backed off of that because there was a lot of anger in conservative circles as well.

So perhaps that what's going on? But look, with this White House, with Trump himself, everything is a fight and every fight is public. So I think the idea that you're going to get a bunch of stuff done in congress because you stop having spats is like, that ship sailed. You have to get stuff down while you're having these spats and I think that's one thing that's interesting to me is why does McConnell, a little bit, poke the bear in a really not a big deal kind of way but you know who you're dealing with and then that starts this pattern.

BASH: And before we go to break, I just want to get your take on this. The president kind of has a point, right? I mean, the republicans in congress have been promising this for seven years. And this guy, just won the White House and should he not have expected these republicans in congress to be ready to go, to put this repeal and replace bill on the floor and move it through congress in a way that could actually pass among republicans?

HULSE: Yes, I think that from what I heard the White House was really seething over this. You know, here is Mitch McConnell, he couldn't deliver this, he's got the majority, and where was the plan? You promised you were going to do it. Yes, I think that the president is feeling let down by these guys. You know, it's an interesting point, just the whole, I said, you know, people used to go home at recess and they talk to their rotary and no one would know what they're saying, right? But now every comment is covered and I don't know that Mitch expected it to reverberate so quickly here in Washington, but he is, you know, he's got the president riled up.

BASH: They got -- they've got...

MASON: Mitch McConnell had a point, too, right? I mean, President Trump as a candidate said that Obamacare would be repealed and replaced on day one and Senator McConnell saying these were unrealistic deadlines and that is a product of not having...

BASH: That is true. OK, guys, we have -- we have to go to break, we have a lot more to discuss but as we do, I just want to remind President Trump, 38 percent in CNN's new poll republican leaders, 24 percent tells you a lot. There you see it again. Up next, the White House says President Trump is not backing down from his fire and fury threat and the threats from North Korea keep coming and they're getting more specific.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BASH: The White House this morning said the president stands by the threat he made earlier this week when he vowed to unleash "fire and fury" on North Korea if they continued to threaten the United States. This from the White House spokesman just a short while ago, "Certainly nothing has changed in the president's thinking, and I think he's made very clear where he stands on this front." Also today, more republicans are coming out in support of the president's very strong tone toward North Korea.

Florida Republican Senator Marco Rubio tweeted, "Attacks on @potus for statement on #NorthKoreaNukes are ridiculous.They act as if #NorthKorea would act different if he used nicer words." Let me get into all of this with our global affairs correspondent, Elise Labott and also Will Ripley is in Beijing. Elise, let me start with you. What do you think of Marco Rubio's comments? Because he is not alone. Even some who tend to be sort of, you know, frankly, anti-Trump on the republican side think that, you know, this is not a bad tactic to take, given the fact that you've had decades of failed diplomacy with North Korea?

ELISE LABOTT, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Dana. A lot of people are saying that that perhaps it's time for a tougher line with Kim Jong-un, son of kind of a rhetoric, match his rhetoric, and you know that before President Trump took office there was a lot about a madman theory that Nixon employed that perhaps speaking as if he is unpredictable might help and I think not only throughout the state department but the administration is also, you know, trying to walk that balance between, trying to walk back some very fiery rhetoric by the president but stand by the idea that there needs to be a tough message. Take a listen to state department Spokesman Heather Nauert yesterday at the daily briefing.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HEATHER NAUERT, STATE DEPARTMENT SPOKESWOMAN: The United States is on the same page. Whether it's the White House, the State Department, the Department of Defense, we are speaking with one voice. This diplomatic pressure at ASEAN at the meeting of the ten Asian nations along with the United States came to a joint agreement and a joint statement and put out a very strong condemnation of North Korea. We are all singing from the same hymn book.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LABOTT: So speaking from the same hymn book, but maybe singing different notes or different tones. You have Secretary of State Rex Tillerson saying, you know, everybody needs to relax. Americans can sleep easy at night, but we need to give a tough message. I think Defense Secretary Mattis also said he wasn't worried about the rhetoric but there needs to be a very tough message delivered to North Korea and certainly he did that with a much more muscular tone. So I think the administration all feels there needs to be signals sent to north Korea that don't even think about attacking the U.S. because we can not only defend ourselves but annihilate you. Dana?

BASH: Elise Labott, thank you so much. And I want to go now to Will. What's the perspective from Asia? You're in Beijing but obviously, you are in touch with North Korean sources, you have spent a lot of time there and just the notion of naming Guam in such a very specific way. Even the number of missiles that they will launch. Where they will land. What is -- what do you make of that?

WILL RIPLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Exactly, Dana. That's never happened before. North Korea has threatened Guam. They've threatened the mainland of the United States countless times with nuclear annihilation but this statement is different and what I read here is a confidence on the part of the North Koreans. Either confidence or they're really bluffing because they lay out exactly which missile they're going to use.

The Hwasong-12, a missile that is believed to have a range to strike Guam. It would go 2,100 miles, coming less than 20 miles from the island, home to 160,000 plus U.S. citizens plus thousands more tourists. The Andersen Air Force Base, the Naval Base Guam. So North Korea is saying that they'd fly this missile up over Japan, bring it down in a very specific flight path and there are questions about whether North Korea has the capability to do this.

We saw them launch four missiles simultaneously earlier this year. Three of them landed very close to Japan but to say, on paper, and again, this is just a statement right now. They haven't pulled this off yet, but to say on paper that they can do this, it's noteworthy and also just the personal insults against President Trump, essentially saying they don't take him seriously. Saying he doesn't understand the gravity of the situation on the Korean peninsula calling his fire and fury comments a load of nonsense and then there's this quote from the Korean People's Army General, Kim Rak Gyom who said, about Trump, "Sound dialogue is not possible with such a guy bereft of reason and only absolute force can work on him."

And they even say here at the end they're going to keep closely watching the speech and behavior of the U.S. Essentially threatening to take further action and dial up the rhetoric even further if the White House fires back. And it's also, I just want to show you this, Dana because this is really interesting. This is what a protest -- a protest looks like in North Korea. On Kim Il-sung Square, a place I visited many times, it's a large square in the center of the city, they mobilize tens of thousands of people this week to protest the United States, to protest the new round of U.N. sanctions, but these are not like protests in America.

This is mandatory for people to attend. They leave their workplace, they leave their schools, they go, they march, they hold up these propaganda signs. This is what life is like in North Korea, but they're doing this because they want to send a message of the solidarity of their people but of course in an authoritarian regime where political dissent is not tolerated, solidarity means you either support Kim Jong-un and his plan for the country or you're not a part of this society.

BASH: Yes. I mean, that's all about imagery. I think the notion that any of those people came because they would just really wanted to get out into the streets and say that the United States is bad, you know. You know, nobody really believes that but Will Ripley, thank you so much for all of your insights and especially the context given your experience. We have somebody else at the table who is context given experience in the region. CNN's National -- Chief National Security Correspondent Jim Sciutto. Elise talked about the madman theory. You know, I think that that's nice, sort of in theory, but this is not theory. This is real life. So what do you make of it?

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Listen, you know, I was actually looking at Rubio's comments. It wasn't that the words weren't nice, right? I mean, the idea is what did they mean? First of all and this is a point that John McCain made is that the president appeared to set something of a red line, right? I mean, if North Korea makes another threat it will be met with fire and fury and since President Trump's words North Korea has made of in fact a very specific threat.

Naming the target and the kind of missile and number of missiles, et cetera. So, there is that. The other point is that, you know, it's not just how North Korea reacts. It's how your allies react. I mean, clearly, there was discomfort in the region, in South Korea, in Japan based on the public comments of officials. And apparently some discomfort from Secretary of State Rex Tillerson because he made a point of saying, despite the rhetoric of the last 24 hours, not specifying just North Korean rhetoric, rhetoric from all quarters, Americans, sleep -- you can sleep at night. I mean, there was counter counter messaging to the president despite what was said from the State Department podium depending if not walk back perhaps reinterpret the president's comments.

BASH: Yes, reinterpret or to contextualize it as they say. And of course, South Korea and Japan are -- I mean, I would be basically to put it in a (INAUDIBLE) term, freesaking out because nuclear weapons are not -- they are in the line of fire of the weaponry we know that North Korea already has. And Jeff, I want to play what John Bolton who has experience in trying to deal diplomatically with allies, trying to deal with North Korea when he was the Bush Ambassador to the U.N. What he said about the situation now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN BOLTON, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO U.N.: I don't think there are any further diplomatic options in terms of trying to persuade North Korea to change its behavior. Look, here is the choice that the American people have to make. In some it's a decision that every citizen is going to have to come to. Are you willing to risk using military force now before North Korea has a -- an extensive capability to hit the United States? Or are you prepared to live from now as far as the eye can see with a nuclear capable North Korea under a regime like this? That's the choice.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: It's quite a choice.

MASON: It is a choice and that's the choice that administrations have had to look after some time. I mean, it's certainly advanced recently and that's why it's become such a big issue for the Trump administration, but you had a -- an op-ed by Susan Rice today, I believe in the New York Times, who was a former National Security Adviser for President Obama and a former United Nations Ambassador who said, look, there are lots of ways that this can still be handled and diplomacy is important where it needs to be avoided.

Bolton, of course is a little bit more hawkish and he was also somebody who was up for a job in the Trump administration and so far hasn't gotten one, but it's true. He laid out two choices and those are the ones that the Trump administration like its predecessors have to grapple with. SCIUTTO: (INAUDIBLE) I spoke to three of the former senior U.S. intelligence official who made this point about the Trump administration approach to North Korea. They came in and they said the status quo is not tolerable and that is a status quo that have been tolerated by republican and democratic administrations, right, going back post-Clinton, you know, Obama. And that doesn't necessarily mean that Trump has decided to level North Korea, right? But, you know, there is messaging to North Korea, there is messaging to China crucially when the message is trying say you've got to step up because this sort of interminable progress towards a nuclear capable North Korean state with intercontinental ballistic missiles is just not something we're going to tolerate as it is.

BASH: You mentioned, you know, kind of where the administration policy is and maybe more importantly where the president's head is. Senator Lindsey Graham who actually speaks to the president fairly regularly on these issues, he was on The Hugh Hewitt Show today and listen to what he said about the president's state of mind.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM, (R) SOUTH CAROLINA: I think he's made a decision language ago, quite frankly, to try to negotiate the threat with North Korea, to try to find a way through negotiations to end the threat to the American homeland. But if negotiations failed -- fail, he is willing to abandon strategic patience and use preemption. I think he's there mentally. If I fire one shot at North Korea, they're going to unleash all of their weapons against South Korea and Japan and our forces. So the day you shoot once, you've got to be willing to finish the job.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HULSE: You know, I think this situation right now is one that people on the hill and both parties have been nervous about. Being international crisis that where they don't have a lot of control or say-so over what the president does. That the president has a lot of leeway here. And I think, you know, they're laying out the choices pretty starkly. I also think that, you know, those comments alarmed a lot of Americans, right? And I think people are trying to figure out how to tamp that down.

Tillerson definitely was in that category. And people see this, you know, and this is a throwback to the '60s for a lot of Americans or for someone like me, you know, Catholic school, duck and cover, or whatever. And I think that people are really on edge about this, and it's going to be a problem for congress going forward.

BASH: Thank you. Thank you so much for joining us for this, to share your reporting. Appreciate it. Everybody, stand by. Up next, an FBI raid reverberates inside the White House.