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Trump Speaks with Putin; New North Korean Sanctions; Additional Remains Found; Haitians Warned; Trump Ends Protected Status; Haitian Dreamers. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired November 21, 2017 - 12:00   ET

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

[12:00:00] JOHN KING, CNN HOST: Look at it right there. One that just might sum up everything you need to know about how little say the United States will have in those discussions as Russia and Putin take the lead. The Russian president sharing that hug there with Syrian leader Bashar al Assad, a man accused of killing thousands of his own people, including using chemical weapons, and a leader who has Putin to thank for his very survival.

Talks aimed at forging a political settlement in Syria will take place tomorrow in Sochi, but no American representative will be there, despite exhaustive efforts over the years by U.S. diplomats aimed at halting the fighting. The presidents of Iran and Turkey will take part.

CNN's Diplomatic correspondent Michelle Kosinski is with us now from the State Department.

Michelle, we're waiting for a readout of this phone call, trying to get more details from the perspective of the White House, the perspective of the Kremlin. But this has to be somewhat of a blow to the administration in that Putin says this is a major peace conference, there's no American there.

MICHELLE KOSINSKI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, this is how it's been going. On the U.S. side, they've been leading the coalition against ISIS, which also a big part of this. So all of these pieces are going to have to fit together. The question mark, though, as you astutely put out there, is that of course Vladimir Putin wants to be the leader on this and he wants to exert his influence as much as possible.

It's also been a question mark, though, how much influence does he really have over Bashar al-Assad? The Russians have been wanting to get out of this. When we talk to U.S. allies who have been involved in this situation, they say that this has been difficult for Russia. I mean it's been longer than they expected, more difficult, way more expensive than they initially expected. They want this to come to an end too. And they've been the ones making overtures at times to the U.S. and allies to try to forge that solution.

I mean we saw that most recently over the summer when there was this very limited ceasefire. Lots of skepticism around that. Lots of questions. How can the U.S. ever trust Russia, especially when it comes to Syria? But, in the end, it was seen as at least a small development towards some cooperation and a sign that Russia is serious about this coming to an end.

So Russia just sat down -- Vladimir Putin just had a face-to-face with Bashar al Assad. Now this phone call. We'll see what comes out of this and what the U.S.' role exactly is going to be, John.

KING: Michelle Kosinski for us at the State Department.

Again, if we get any insights from the Kremlin or the White House as to actually what was discussed, any details, any agreements or disagreements, we'll let you know.

Michelle, thank you very much.

With us in studio to share their reporting and their insights, Jackie Kucinich of "The Daily Beast."

Welcome back, mom.

JACKIE KUCINICH, "THE DAILY BEAST": Thank you.

KING: Nice to have you here.

"Bloomberg's" Sahil Kapur. John McCormack of "The Weekly Standard," and CNN's Abby Phillip.

It's an interesting call. Any time this president speaks to President Putin, Washington goes into the, can they have a functioning relationship, did election meddling come up? Let's set election meddling aside for the moment.

This is a test. Can these two leaders, who have tensions, can this president, who's under pressure from even members of his own party to be tougher with Putin on certain issues, is this proof that they can have conversations and do business on some of the world's most integral (ph) problems or is this proof that Vladimir Putin is trying to do an end around of the United States when it comes to Syria?

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, it could be. It just depends on what the conditions are. I mean I think the political solution to the Syrian problem is one that this administration has been very interested in. But, at the same time, Russia has been, frankly, on the wrong side of this conflict from our perspective, from the United States' perspective, and so, you know, it's an opportunity. There's dialogue. The fact that Putin said pretty much immediately that he would need to brief the United States on his meeting with Bashar al Assad is important.

But we still haven't heard. I mean the call ended about 11:00, the White House sources told us. And so it's been quite a while. We haven't gotten that read out yet. So it seems very much like they have to figure out what is going to come out of it on both sides of that conversation.

KING: Important -- it's a very important point you make there, important to Putin, who wants to be seen as the player here. The player when it comes to Syria and this part of the Middle East So Putin had this meeting, yes, with Assad. He says I'm going to call other world leaders after to brief them.

Again the question is, is this one where the America first foreign policy says, you handled this? OK, this is -- you know, this is -- you've been involved in Syria forever. But this -- look at that picture and pop it up again if we have it in the control room -- Putin hugging Assad. That tells you everything you need to know. If Russia wants to broker some sort of a quote/unquote political settlement, but that leaves Assad in power and it gives -- keeps Russia having access to its -- the naval port and other installations there.

SAHIL KAPUR, "BLOOMBERG": Right. This is the catch 22 that the Trump administration is dealing with. Obviously they don't want Assad in power and they've made that clear. But how far are they willing to go to remove him? And if you remove him, then what do you put in its place?

The top priority of this administration is obviously fighting the Islamic State and ISIS in that region. So how many resources do they want to put in there, especially when this president campaigned, as you mentioned, on the America first foreign policy. Let's do less around the world. And that has a lot of political power with voters here. They don't want to be more involved in regions in the Middle East.

[12:05:07] So I think that could potentially open the door for Putin to be, you know, to be calling the shots in that region.

KUCINICH: And they are going to make this about ISIS. I mean that's what the Trump administration is going to -- is going to harp on. And that if Bashar al Assad is someone who's going to eradicate ISIS, if he keeps saying that, and Putin can help him do that. They are going to keep leaning on that rather than maybe some of the human rights abuses that we talk about a lot.

JOHN MCCORMACK, "THE WEEKLY STANDARD": It will be interesting to see if the administration pushes back at all on this notion I would call propaganda from Russia that they're the ones who really took the fight to ISIS.

KUCINICH: Right.

MCCORMACK: I mean back in 2016, Russia was bombing Aleppo. They weren't bombing Raqqa, the capital of Syria. They were all about protecting Assad. It was really U.S. and U.S. allies who took the fight to ISIS. And I thank that for the administration to allow that propaganda to go unchallenged really is just something that they should not do and should set the record straight.

KING: Right. I think getting a read out from this phone call will be fascinating because if you go back and think through this, remember Nikki Haley's presentation to the United Nations Security Council. Remember the president of the United States. This president who talked about pulling back from a military intervention perspective in the world who launched the missile strikes on Syria after the use of chemical weapons. Remember the president's own powerful statements about that, how he was affected by seeing the pictures of the children. And Nikki Haley, at the United Nations, has made clear that she believes Russia is an equal player in the use of those chemical weapons.

The question is, and the world is a messy place, and sometimes you have to put aside what happened in the past, at least temporarily, to try to have a transaction that makes tomorrow and next week a little better. My question here is, does this administration see any way to be involved in a process here, or does it view this as a sham?

PHILLIP: And what is the future of Assad's role in Syria. I mean Nikki Haley has also said that the United States doesn't see a future -- a peaceful future for Syria with Assad in power. But that hug between Vladimir Putin and Assad kind of indicates that they're not, you know, preparing for him to move aside. I mean there -- that is a very kind of almost personable friendship that they were demonstrating there.

And I think the United States has to kind of figure out where they stand on that issue. Do they think that there is a future with Assad remaining in power? And if they don't, is that something that is negotiable? Is Russia willing to put that on the table? It's just not clear that they are.

KAPUR: And to answer your question, John, I think the question is, who in the White House, right? There are factions (ph). There's the America first faction, you know, which most of them are political advisers who write his speeches and things like that, and then there are the foreign policy folks, Tillerson, Mattis, John Kelly, who I think do have a more complex view of the world and the need for the United States to occasionally engage.

KING: Right, because you have seen in the past Secretary Tillerson meeting with his Russian counterpart trying to revive the Geneva process, as they call it, which, again, has been incredibly frustrating and incredibly unsuccessful because the United States' position during the Obama administration and for much of the Trump administration, although, to your point, there have been some mixed signals about whether they could tolerates Assad staying in power, but the process has not worked because the United States shows up and says, Assad must go. Let's figure out the timetable and a political transition. And the Russians show up and say, no, Assad will stay.

Is there any indication -- I take this Putin meeting as an effort for him to say, we're starting our process. We're not going back to the old way.

MCCORMACK: I think, you know, Assad is in a very strong position as long -- I mean Russia has shown the willingness to get involved in the ground and I don't think there's anything that we can really do. I don't think the administration's going to do anything to push him out of power. I think that we're now seeing that there are -- obviously over the last six years, you know, we've seen that non-intervention has its own price to pay with the 500,000 civilians dead in Syria. Could we have gotten in earlier? Could we have stopped that? Possibly. But, you know, Americans soured on interventionism in Iraq. So we're seeing both sides of that.

KUCINICH: And this is a continuation of the Obama policy in Syria. It's really not that different.

KAPUR: If there's -- if there's an Iraq-style catastrophe, the Trump administration wants nothing to do with it.

KING: That's an interesting point there. And you mentioned the Obama policy. That -- the last U.S. president lost his leverage, any leverage he might have had. This is a very difficult issue for any president, but he lost any leverage he might have had after he drew a red line and then would not enforce it. That was one of the criticisms of candidate Trump.

KUCINICH: Tried to put it on Congress.

KING: Yes, he tried to put it on Congress. And candidate Trump during the campaign.

Another pre-Thanksgiving foreign policy issue for the president. He teased this a little bit yesterday. We're expecting some details today from the administration on just what it means. But listen to the president talking yesterday about, I'm putting North Korea back on the list of state sponsors of terrorism.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The Treasury Department will be announcing an additional sanction and a very large one on North Korea. And this will be going on over the next two weeks. It will be the highest level of sanctions by the time it's finished over a two week period. The North Korean regime must be lawful. It must end its unlawful nuclear ballistic missile development and cease all support for international terrorism, which it is not doing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Largely symbolic, and I don't say that to be critical, in the sense that there are so many sanctions already on North Korea. I'm not sure there's much more the United States can do.

[12:10:03] But this is part of what the president himself calls a maximum pressure campaign. He is doing this in part to shame North Korea, but in part to remind China, you made promises to me in my recent Asia trip to, you know, try to help us here more aggressively. I hope you do.

It's also a question -- it may seem unconnected to Syria, but it's a question, for me, connected to Putin, because there's also black market back and forth in -- between the Russians and North Korea. Did that come up in the phone call? We don't' know yet. We're waiting.

But what is the end here of this move by the president?

KAPUR: Well, it's unclear, I think, because, to your point, we don't know how much more sanctions can be -- can be imposed to a detrimental effect to change North Korea's actions. They only import and export about $3 billion worth of goods a year. They're the most isolated country in the world. Most of their trade is done with China.

So how much more can the United States really do? This is what previous presidents have tried. He -- the president -- President Trump is being praised by a number of members of Congress, including Republican senators, for this action. So there's a political benefit to it. But how far it goes, I don't know.

PHILLIP: And the administration has pretty much acknowledged a symbolic nature of the move. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson saying yesterday that this is about -- it's more or less about sending a signal. And it's one that I think their allies in the region actually appreciate.

When George W. Bush took North Korea off this list, it was extremely controversial. And they didn't really get anything for it. They thought that they were going to get more cooperation from the regime about pairing back their -- their nuclear ambitions. And what we've seen is actually the opposite. So I -- it may very well be that the result is very little. But it's hard to see that there will be any sort of detrimental effect to putting them back on this list where a lot of people thought they belonged anyway.

KING: Right. And proof this president, as he said, he doesn't believe the carrots work.

PHILLIP: Yes.

KING: George W. Bush tried that as a carrot. Tried that to see, will they -- will we get more conciliatory behavior. And this president, even though there are back channel negotiations, we are in the longest stretch of the Trump presidency without a North Korean missile test, which always raises questions in my eye (ph). I can't answer them because it's North Korea. But we are in the longest stretch of the administration without a missile test. So we'll see where this goes.

I want to stop the conversation here to go to our Pentagon correspondent because there's an important -- a sad, new development concerning one of those four U.S. soldiers killed last month by ISIS militants in Niger. We're told that additional remains belonging to Sergeant La David Johnson have been found and recovered by the U.S. teams that travelled to the region to investigate the ambush.

Again, our Pentagon correspondent, Barbara Starr, joins us now.

Barbara, it's a very sad story.

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Very sad, very difficult and, of course, the military fulfilling the solemn obligation to inform his widow and brief her yesterday that these additional remains were discovered. We are told that they were bone fragments.

What we don't know yet is how this fits into the overall picture. As you recall, Sergeant La David Johnson, 25 years old, his body was not discovered for 48 hours after the ambush. So there had been many, many questions about how he died, what happened to him, where was his body, how was that body recovered?

We don't know yet publicly if these bone fragments will provide additional clues, but we are told by the Pentagon that the bone fragments were recovered where his body was found. Where his body was recovered in the words of the Pentagon. And it happened when U.S. military investigators, accompanied by FBI agents, went to this area of Niger early in November to collect evidence, conduct an investigation.

That investigation, John, continues. They hope to have some conclusion early next year. But this is becoming a very complex issue about what happened to this team, how they got ambushed. A team of 12 Army soldiers ambushed by 50 ISIS militants.

John.

KING: Barbara Starr at the Pentagon. Sad news. Our thoughts and prayers are with the Johnson family. And let's hope, as sad as this discovery is, it does help with the investigation.

Barbara, thank you very much for that reporting.

Up next, they came to the United States after a deadly earthquake. Now the Trump administration says nearly 60,000 Haitians may have to go back to a country where most no longer have homes.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:18:17] KING: Welcome back.

The president promised he would put America first and he promised to take a tougher stand on immigration. Today, a new sign of just what that means. Nearly 60,000 Haitians woke up this morning to word they will be unwelcome in the United States come July 2019. That's because of a new Trump administration directive setting an end to the protective status granted to Haitians after the 2010 earthquake in their country. So for the Haitians impacted, this decision seems sudden and devastating. For the White House, it's a promise kept and a change it signaled was coming months ago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN KELLY, FORMER HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY: Certainly Haiti, the earthquake that took place seven years ago, is not meant to be forever, unless the Congress, the United States Congress, changes the law. And the message is, by definition, TPS is temporary. So they should start thinking now about what will happen in the not too distant future.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: What do we make of this? You see a lot of criticism from -- largely from Democrats saying, how could you do this, Mr. President. It's not fair. It's not humane. It's not the decent thing to do. And you have Secretary Kelly who says it's called TPS for a reason, it's temporary. And we told you back in June we were going to do this. If you want to create some permanent status, try to pass a law.

PHILLIP: Yes. I mean I think he takes a pretty legalistic view of this where Kelly views this as not being -- about kicking Haitians out, but about forcing Congress to do their job, which is to actually set immigration law. And we know that a couple weeks ago the White House had a clash with DHS about the status of other immigrants who fall in this category.

It's something that they want to resolve. They want to bring an end to the sort of interminable status of some of these immigrants, many of whom -- you know, there are some groups that have been here for 20 years or longer and that becomes almost de facto permanent. And I think this administration wants that to not be the case. And there are some pretty strong voices speaking out against TPS on principle -- on the principle that it is supposed to be temporary. And one of those is Jeff Sessions, the attorney general.

[12:20:23] KING: Jeff Sessions, the attorney general. John Kelly, who was at Homeland Security. He's now the White House chief of staff. Steven Miller, a key ally in the White House on these issues.

And you mentioned these countries. Let's put up the map of these countries here. Currently there is temporary status from people from El Salvador, Honduras, Nepal, Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan, Syria and Yemen. Terminated, Nicaragua and now Haiti by this administration.

They can make a fair point, can they not -- again, whether you agree or disagree -- that they pretty much have been clear, it's called TPS, temporary. Do your job, Congress. But the Democrats will say, be humane, Mr. President.

KUCINICH: Well, and the other thing is, it's not that simple. Haitians have had children here since they were granted this status. These other groups have had children here. So what do you do with all of these children? Do you leave them with relatives? Do you take them back to a country that they don't know, where there's no jobs and no food and no housing?

There are a lot of details here that they're not working out or we haven't seen them have answers to this questions. And that is where humanity sort of has to kick in here. There has to be a plan rather than just putting someone on a plane to go back to somewhere where they might not be taken care of.

KING: Well, I guess the issue is, can there be a conversation? I mentioned, I read a statement from Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic leader of the House, criticizing this. But it's not just Democrats. Here's Ileana Ros-Lehtine, a Republicans retiring, a more moderate Republican retiring after this term. She's from the Miami area. I traveled to Haiti after the earthquake in 2010 and after Hurricane Matthew in 2016, so I can personally attest that Haiti is not prepared to take back nearly 60,000 TPS recipients under these difficult and harsh conditions.

Marco Rubio, Republican, called for TPS renewal. Can the Congress have a rational conversation about any immigration issue? Is it possible? KAPUR: It hasn't for a very long time. Attempts over the last decade and a half to overhaul the immigration system keep failing because you cannot bridge the divide on what to do with 11 million people here illegally. If it was just about this issue and various other issues like H-1B programs, I think they could come together.

This issue of Haiti, there's a humanitarian problem which, as Jackie mentioned, there are American citizen children of the people who are here now. The other question is, where do they go?

This fits the Trump administration's overall attack on immigration, legal and illegal, from all angles. We saw this with the DACA program. They're ending that without an clear end game in sight, just telling Congress, deal with that. We've seen them ramp up deportation and end President Obama's policy of not going after low level, you know, low level offenses. So this is certainly what President Trump campaigned on (ph).

KING: You mentioned DACA, and there are a lot of people who see this -- see these move, to end TPS status now for two countries and the others are on the table -- they see it and they know about the conversations that dreamers, that DACA, the dreamers program set to expire. The president said he's open to a compromise. He think those dreamers, he says, should be allowed to stay. But, after initially having a conversation with Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi about this, the president's had a tougher negotiating stance since then, saying, I'm happy to do this but I need something in exchange. Whether that's funding for the border wall or something else.

Listen to Ben Cardin, Democratic senator from Maryland, who sees the action taken on Haiti and worries about the dreamers.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. BEN CARDIN (D), MARYLAND: They really don't know their native country any longer. These are people who have been fully integrated into America. So whether they're Haitians or whether they're dreamers, the president is putting uncertainty into their lives that's unnecessary. I hope Congress takes advantage of this opportunity and we pass comprehensive immigration reform, or at least immigration reform that protects those that are the dreamers and those that are here on temporary status.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: I think the odds of comprehensive immigration reform, at least as defined by Democrats, are at zero or less than zero.

But there are conversations about protecting the dreamers. And, again, there's been a snag there. Democrats want to do it in the big year-end funding bill. Everybody essentially -- most people have to vote "yes." There's enough people to vote "yes." So if you put it in there, it gets to the president.

Conservatives have said, no way, we're not going to do that. We want to negotiate -- if we're going to do this, and most of them are open to doing it, that young, undocumented, who came into this country through no fault of their own, they were too young to make the decision themselves, most conservatives say, we're happy to do this, but some want, you know, tougher quotas on immigration, some want the border wall funding, different conservative principles on this. Can that happen in this environment? To go to 2018?

MCCORMACK: I don't know. I don't know.

I mean the one good thing about the Haiti issue is that it is put off until 2019.

KING: Right.

MCCORMACK: So that does give people time to come up with some compromise, if there is a DACA compromise. You can see the Haiti issue getting rolled into that. It does call for, you know, greater reporting on both -- on the Haitian community in Haiti and the community living in the United States.

As for DACA, I don't know. I don't know how it's going to shake out. But I do think that this pressure just keeps on building and building on Congress. I don't know how it's going to end ultimately.

[12:24:59] PHILLIP: I mean, frankly, I think it -- a lot of it depends on what happens with taxes. I think Republicans are ready reticent to give anything on immigration if they can't either get tougher enforcement, a border wall or something else for conservatives, like taxes. So if, you know, if they're able to successfully pass tax reform, then I think it makes the path for real compromise on other issues much more plausible. But until then, I mean, many of these members are going home to their districts and back to their donors who are saying to them, you better not come home without something for the base. And that's kind of what they're dealing with politically.

KAPUR: I agree with (INAUDIBLE) --

KUCINICH: Yes. And the closer we get to 2018, the less gets done.

KING: Right.

KAPUR: Exactly. (INAUDIBLE) which congressional Republican is going to vote for illegal status?

KUCINICH: Right.

KAPUR: Then I always say with Republicans on granting legal status, believe it when you see it. It's very easy to talk about this. Speaker Boehner did this in 2013 and 2014 over and over again promising that I'm going to do something, going to do something. He couldn't bring himself to do it. The animating force in the Republican base is simply against it.

KING: What does it tell us about inside the Trump White House -- remember when the chief strategist, Steve Bannon, left, there were a lot of concerns from Steve Bannon himself and Steve Bannon's allies that the quote/unquote Wall Street contingent was going to take over and that, you know, Jared Kushner and Ivanka and Gary Cohn and the Manhattan liberals in the conservative view who were for comprehensive immigration reform, who were for even maybe citizenship, if not legal status were going to take over.

Instead, you see John Kelly, a White House chief of staff, who clearly has tough views on immigration, Steven Miller. I want to read you a quote from Kellyanne Conway. This is to "The New York Times" back in October. We have this running joke. If we were going to get key man's insurance on any one, Stephen would be on the list. Referring, you know, to policies that companies take out on their most important employee, key man's. Where people who said, when Steve Bannon leaves, the White House is going to drift left, were they wrong?

KAPUR: Yes. Yes.

KUCINICH: It seems like it.

KAPUR: We haven't seen it. Of course they were wrong. We haven't seen the change in policy. I mean obviously this ultimately comes down to President Trump. And even if he's swayed a little bit in the direction of doing a compromise and compromising on DACA by some people around him, and there certainly are, as you mentioned, people who want to do that, he will get another voice in his ear from the other side saying, Mr. President, your base hates this.

KING: Right. And I think if your base -- you make a very key point, back to the point you made, is it closer to 2018, the word base matters more, factors more, tips the scales more in every decision you make.

We'll be back in a moment. But just this in as we go to break. We discussed the Trump-Putin call at the top of the hour. Now we have word from the White House official the two leaders spoke for little over an hour. We're told they discussed a range of issues, including the situation in Syria, Afghanistan, Ukraine, North Korea and the question and issue of terrorism more broadly. More on that story as we get new information in.

Up next, though, another study claims the Republican tax cut is actually a tax hike for millions of Americans down the road. That could complicate the fight to get 50 votes in the Senate.