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Inside Politics

Trump Darkens His Rhetoric; Stocks Plunge Over Trade; Trump and Putin Discuss Meeting; Nerve Agent Attack in Britain; Trump's Inner Circle. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired April 02, 2018 - 12:00   ET

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

[12:00:00] BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: Walkouts happening today in Kentucky as well for funding and also for pension reform that they are doing there in that state.

Thank you so much for joining me. INSIDE POLITICS with John King starts right now.

JOHN KING, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome to INSIDE POLITICS. I'm John King. Thank you for sharing your day with us.

President Trump says any hope for a deal to protect the dreamers is dead. His tweets twist several important facts, but they also show the rising influence of outside advisers on his thinking and on his tone.

Plus, the White House confirms the president talked about a meeting with Vladimir Putin, maybe at the White House. Don't bet on that happening. But, still, it's a major slap at Russia hawks here at home and critical allies in Europe.

And, this lighter note -- I think we could all use one -- as the president kicks off the annual White House Easter Egg Roll.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Now, on behalf of the Trump family, many of whom are with us right here in the audience, I just want to thank you. This is a special year. Our country is doing great. You look at the economy, you look at what's happening. Nothing's ever easy, but we have never had an economy like we have right now, and we're going to make it bigger and better.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: That, an awesome picture. Back to that later.

The president, today, says any hope of protecting the so-called dreamers is dead. And he's blaming Democrats and threatening Mexico. Now, the president's tweet storm is wrong repeatedly on the facts. The bigger question, though, is why. Why tweet our country is being stolen in a time of historically low unemployment? Why tweet these big flows of people are all trying to take advantage of DACA. They want in on the act when the fact is, and everybody knows this, no one who enters the United States illegally today is eligible for DACA. And why tweet, Congress must immediately pass border legislation to stop the massive inflow of drugs and people, when he, meaning the president, just signed off on a major spending bill with only modest immigration changes? It is trademark Trump, stirring the emotions of the immigration issue and blaming Congress as if he has no role in the government. And, it is the dark, divisive tone that many Republicans on the ballot this year view as most unhelpful.

CNN's Kaitlan Collins live at the White House to take us inside the president's angry mood.

Kaitlan, where is this coming from?

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Well, John, they say proximity is power, and that is especially true when it comes to President Trump, who often makes decisions based on the last person he spoke with. We now know that the president spent the weekend in Palm Beach Mar-a-Lago where he heard from a parade of allies, some of them on the Fox News payroll, who told him that his base believe he's softening his stance on immigration and not doing enough to follow through on those immigration promises he made back on the campaign trail.

Now, two of those people we know were Sean Hannity, the Fox News host, and Judge Jeanine Pirro as well. And the president's annoys (ph) also seems to be influenced by some reports on Fox News this morning about a, quote, caravan of immigrants that they say are going through the Mexico border and then coming up to the border of the United States. Something that is clearly on the president's mind. He continuing to tweet about it after he first started that tweet storm on Easter Sunday. And he even brought it up at the Easter Egg Roll at the White House when my colleague, Jim Acosta, caught up with the president, even though it's usually an apolitical event.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JIM ACOSTA, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Mr. President, what about the DACA kids? Should they worry about what's going to happen to them, sir?

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The Democrats have really let them down. They've really let them down. They had this great opportunity. The Democrats have really let them down. It's a shame. And now people are taking advantage of DACA, and that's a shame. It should have never happened.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COLLINS: Now, the president made several misleading claims today saying that people were taking advantage of DACA, but then saying DACA was dead. Of course, those crossing the border now would not be eligible for DACA, John.

But it's not clear whether the president is just venting, he's just frustrated, or whether or not he's actually going to make any kind of policy change here.

KING: Kaitlan Collins at the White House. Thank you very much.

Any policy changes would depend on Congress.

With me to share their reporting and their insights, Eliana Johnson of "Politico," CNN's Manu Raju, Michael Warren of "The Weekly Standard," and Catherine Lucey with "The Associated Press."

I make the point about Congress because the president just signed this big spending bill with the understanding of everyone in Washington, that was it for anything big this year. Now he's blaming Congress, blaming Democrats, threatening Mexico to rip up the NAFTA deal. Where is this coming from? Is it just because he sits down with Sean Hannity and Judge Jeanine? Is it just because Ann Coulter is mad at him, that's enough to move the president?

ELIANA JOHNSON, NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER, "POLITICO": Well, you know, I don't think it's entirely clear where the sort of turmoil from within the president is coming from, but I do think that the DACA issue is sort of a red herring on both sides. The White House has made clear that it's not going to toss out these DACA kids. They're simply not an enforcement priority. And so when Democrats says that the White House is putting these kids at risk, that's not true. They're not getting thrown out of the country. And when Trump points his finger at the Democrats and says, we would have had a deal, these kids would be safe, but for the Democrats, again, it's something of a red herring.

[12:05:13] What is missing is a sense of sort of permanent stability and security and maybe citizenship, which was on the table at some point on the part of both the White House and Democrats for these kids. But the idea that they're about to get thrown out of the country because there wasn't a deal is fatuous.

KING: Right, the president put that citizenship on the table during the infamous first Chuck and Nancy meeting, Chuck Schumer, the Democratic leader in the Senate, and Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic leader in the House. And then the president said, you give me my border wall funding, I'll give you DACA that includes citizenship. Then the president decided, under pressure from the right, that he needed more. Understandably. But the president decided he needed more. So there never was -- he can't blame the Democrats, to your point. If they walked away from that original deal, maybe he could. But there was never a serious negotiation in the end, in part because House conservatives said, Mr. President, don't do this to us. Do not make us vote on this.

MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I mean remember -- remember, John, the bill that the president supported, his bill, the one that had got a lot of backing from the right, that only got 39 votes in the United States Senate controlled by his own party. They needed 60 to overcome a filibuster. Even if they were to do this nuclear option, the president continues to call for, for the last couple of days, which the Republican leadership won't do, but if they were to do that, they would lower that 50-vote threshold, still 11 votes shy of what the president wants.

So as the president vents here on Twitter, the ultimate question is, what is his end game?

KING: Right.

RAJU: I don't think that's clear at all, other than the fact that he just wants to vent, pass the blame on to Democrats for not getting anything done on this issue.

KING: And he reflectively believes, from his 2016 experience, when he talks about immigration, it helps him. What a lot of Republicans are trying to tell the White House is, you're not on the ballot this year, sir. It doesn't always help us, especially in districts where the House -- control of the House is at stake, there's not as big a Trump base.

MICHAEL WARREN, SENIOR WRITER, "THE WEEKLY STANDARD": Yes, but I think he's -- he's looking at this and coming off of a holiday weekend, coming off a pretty slow news week for the Trump administration. You know, only the Stormy Daniels interview --

JOHNSON: Only one cabinet member was fired.

WARREN: Only -- exactly, only one cabinet member has been fired.

No, but, seriously, relatively slow, talking with a lot of people at Mar-a-Lago, allies of his who say, you need to get your presidency back on track. We go through this every couple of months, it seems like, where he has these conversations. He likes to control the narrative. He likes to control the story. This is a way for him to take back control of --

KING: Even if it is largely fact free and even if many Republicans believe it hurts them in November.

WARREN: Yes, but I don't know if this is so easy. It can cut both ways. Particularly, you talk about the caravan of folks coming up from here. This is something that is happening. I mean, you know, but -- this is not sort of out of the right wing fever swamps. Buzzfeed has done some extensive reporting on the 1,200 or so people who are coming up. And there's a sort of practical question about what happens if and when they reach the American -- the --

KING: It's a great point. CNN Espanol has done this similar reporting.

The president has every right, a, to tell the Mexican government, don't let them cross the border. B, to use the border patrol, to use the National Guard if he wants, to go down and enforce the border. The president has every right and every reason to do that. The question is, do you make it into a crisis?

WARREN: Right.

KING: In the sense -- and I just want to put up the administration's own numbers here about border crossings. This goes back to the Obama administration. You see FY 2013, '14, '15 and '16. Then you see a big drop in the early -- first year of the Trump administration, a big drop. And then back up a little bit so far in fiscal 2018. Again, the administration has every right and every reason to say,

let's enforce the border. But does it have to become, our country is being stolen and I'm going to rip up NAFTA if Mexico doesn't stop these people?

CATHERINE LUCEY, WHITE HOUSE REPORTER, "ASSOCIATED PRESS": This is the kind of rhetoric we've seen from the president all along on this issue. I mean, to your point, he does feel like this is an issue that plays well with his base, with his supporters. And it's something we've seen, I think, over the last six, eight weeks as he's been sort of making changes in his cabinet, bringing in new people, is really, we're seeing a president who feels more emboldened than ever to really put his thoughts out there, to frame this the way he wants to and do it his way.

KING: Right, to that point, to that point, immigration is one of the Trump defaults. He reflexively goes there when he thinks he needs to control the narrative. An excellent way to put it, Michael.

Another one is China, where he imposed the tariffs last week. Trade was a big issue during the campaign. A lot of people said, what's taking you so long, Mr. President.

He imposed the tariffs. China has now retaliated. The market is down in the ballpark of 500 points.

Let's bring in CNN's Alison Kosik in New York.

Alison, why? What's happening? What's tanking the market today?

ALISON KOSIK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: John, so you've seen China take the latest salvo in this brewing trade war between the U.S. and China. And investors are saying, look, that's enough, we're going to go ahead and sell. As you see, the Dow down 500 points. It's in a correction, which is a 10 percent drop from a recent high. The broader S&P 500, that is now in a correction. Once again, that's a 10 percent drop from a recent high as well.

The entire market is getting hit, including the tech-heavy Nasdaq, definitely being driven down by shares of Amazon. That is also being fueled by tweets from President Trump, him continuing to attack Amazon. For investors that is breading fear that there could be some sort of anti-trust enforcement on the way, or there could be some tax rules that could be changed and all this could impact Amazon.

So what you're seeing is investors selling because the way they see it, if there is going to be a trade war between China and the U.S., valuations of these companies will change. Their products will become less competitive. Consumers will have to spend more money for them. And that certainly would wind up hurting profits overall. So you are seeing a resetting of those valuations, John.

[12:10:22] KING: And it is Monday. We'll keep an eye on this one throughout the week.

KOSIK: Yes. KING: Alison Kosik in New York, thank you so much.

And to that point, the president watches the market, brags about the market going up all the time. He watches the market like a lot of sports fans watch "Sports Center." Is that something that might get is attention and maybe dial back the rhetoric or eight of the 10 top pork producing states in this country, China is saying it's going to now limit -- slap tariffs on pork. Eight of the top 10 pork producing states, Trump states.

JOHNSON: Yes.

RAJU: I don't think this politically helps -- is as cut and dry as the president hopes to play to his base and play to his policies -- his protectionist policies that he campaign on, in large part because in rural America, and in a lot of parts of rural America, it's going to hurt them pretty significantly, as we're seeing right here. Whether that affects Trump to pull back, that's a separate matter.

But I think this -- the pressure is only going to grow from a business community, from rural America. And if people see their -- the costs of their own goods going up, consumers -- it hurts consumers, the president's going to feel a lot of pressure. What he ultimately does, who knows. It depends on what day of the week it is.

KING: And we'll talk more about this later when we talk about the people the president is talking to.

But on this specific issue of immigration and China, the campaign reflexes if you will. Ann Coulter writing this -- is quoted in "The New York Times" as saying this about the president. Former Trumpers should be terrifying to the president. Maybe he'll actually keep his promises. We've been betrayed over and over again with the president promising to do something about immigration. If he played us for suckers, oh, you will not see rage like you have seen. She goes on.

I talked to several Republican pollsters today who say the president should pay no attention to the Ann Coulter's of the world because with his base, he owns them on immigration. They trust him on immigration. The president doesn't have to worry about criticism on immigration. So why is he so thin-skinned, if that's what this is?

WARREN: I don't think that's what it is. I think this is something on immigration, on trade. These are instinctual Trump positions. He knows what he thinks about them. Unlike a whole host of other issues, he has a fully formed view of, you know, about tariffs, about the -- the need for a wall and the need to sort of protect our country, as he puts it. So I don't think he -- he's listening to people like Ann Coulter.

LUCEY: But I do --

JOHNSON: I agree with it. And I don't think -- look, he's been in office for 14 months, 15 months. You were never going to see him go from a to z in a single year. And all indications, I think, he's going out to California to see models of the border wall. Who knows what that wall will look like in the end. But it does seem like he's moving forward on the promises that he made on immigration.

KING: Yet he signed a deal -- agree, this is an instinct (ph) that he believes in. A lot of people in the party think it's to their detriment, but the president believes this stuff.

Yes, why did he sign the budget deal then? Why didn't he fight for more money for his wall? He signed it. Now he's complaining there's no money for his wall.

WARREN: Well, I think he was completely unhappy with it when he signed it.

LUCEY: Yes, he was -- he was clearly unhappy with that budget deal and sort of claimed he had no options.

KING: He's the president He has options. He's the president.

All right, we'll take a break. We'll continue to follow this story.

When we come back, another startling story today. The president, on a phone call with Vladimir Putin, floats the idea of a meeting, maybe at the White House. Now the Trump White House and the Kremlin say, not so fast.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:17:16] KING: Welcome back to a more than puzzling international story now.

The White House says nothing is locked in or even close to locked in. But it confirms President Trump floated the idea of a White House meeting with the Russian president, Vladimir Putin. It happened on that same phone call where the president congratulated Putin on his reelection win despite an appeal from his national security team that he avoid using that word. Remember?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I had a call with President Putin and congratulated him on the victory, his electoral victory. The call had to do also with the fact that we will probably get together in the not too distant future.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Now, it was the Kremlin that first let out word of a possible White House summit. Now, though, a spokesman for President Putin said this in a text message to CNN's Matthew Chance.

Quote, nothing specific yet. Contacts on this issue are yet to start, if ever.

So the likelihood of a meeting I think we can put as pretty low at the White House, at least in the near future.

The question is, why would the president even float the prospect? Our reporting, national security sources in the United States in the U.K. and across Europe think it's pretty likely that the Kremlin had to authorize this nerve agent attack against the former Russia spy in the U.K. The president's own national security team says on Capitol Hill, the Russians are still attack -- or trying to attack our election in 2018. That is the mood and the atmosphere for a White House summit meeting?

RAJU: This has been the issue that, you know, continues to confound everybody in Washington, basically why his team -- everybody in his team, his administration, Republicans in Congress, Democrats in Congress, take a hard line against Russia, express their outrage of what they have seen. There's this -- by the way, there's this feud happening between Russia and the United States over expelling diplomats. You would think you would lead to some concern from the president of the United States, who has not spoken out on that specific issue, has not tweeted about it, has not attacked Putin. No one really can quite explain why the president has decided to take this rather soft approach to Vladimir Putin, even as his administration is taking some pretty impressive --

KING: That's an important point. The administration -- the expelling of the diplomats. Before that, the new Treasury sanctions that specifically laid out a attacks on the election, 2016 attacks on the election. The administration is being pretty tough. The president's rhetoric never get there, though.

JOHNSON: No, and what --

WARREN: But this is what the president -- this is what the president does though. I mean he sort of says things in the -- in the moment. He's having a conversation, it sounds like, you know, it was sort of a perfunctory, friendly conversation, and he -- and he blurts out that he's -- you know, hey, maybe we can have a meeting. Of course the Russians are going to sort of trumpet that up to make that as bigger -- a bigger deal than it turns out it probably is.

[12:20:04] And this is just one of these things that whatever this administration is doing, whatever his national security advisers are telling him to do, the president's going to say sort of what pops into his mind.

LUCEY: I've also heard from folks close to him that he really thinks that the administration can take tough actions and he can still pursue some kind of diplomatic relationship.

KING: Good cop-bad cop. Make -- the good cop-bad cop thing can sometimes work. The question is, you know, do you meet in Reykjavik, to go back a few years in time, or do you invite the Russian president at a time he is, without a doubt, a very bad actor on your stage and on the world stage.

And, listen -- I want you to listen to the prime minister, Theresa May, here. Again, a former Russian spy poisoned by a nerve agent. All intelligence sources say this had to be somewhere up in the Kremlin for this to have happened. Theresa May, outraged.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

THERESA MAY, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: It was right to offer Russia the opportunity to provide an explanation. But their response has demonstrated complete disdain for the gravity of these events.

The United Kingdom does not stand alone in confronting Russian aggression. In the last 24 hours, I have spoken to President Trump, Chancellor Merkel and President Macron. We have agreed to cooperate closely in responding to this barbaric act and to coordinate our efforts to stand up for the rules-based international order which Russia seeks to undermine.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: That statement a couple weeks ago. Chancellor Merkel, and President Macron have had equally tough words. Not as tough as those. This happened on her soil. But have had tough words and have promised their own sanctions and diplomat -- and the less strong voice, if you will, if that's the right phrasing, is the president of the United States.

JOHNSON: Well, I think there are a couple of things going on here. The Republican foreign policy expert put it to me this way. You know, the president doesn't have bad meetings or bad phone calls. He tends to agree with whoever is in front of him or on the other line of the phone with him, which is why Theresa May said she had a good phone call with Donald Trump about the Russian nerve agent attack on British soil, and Vladimir Putin had a good phone call with Donald Trump. And that's why you hear people worried about what Donald Trump might do in a meeting with Kim Jong-un, I think.

And you see the same pattern in the president's meetings on gun control and other issues that are important to Republicans, and yet he says one thing to Republicans when he's face to face with them and does a 180-degree turn when he's in a room with Democrats. He simply tends to be personable and agree with the people he's -- he's in a room with. So I think that's one thing. And it -- I think you're seeing that across the board.

The other is a sort of incomprehensible split between the rhetoric coming out of Trump on Russia, which simply gets more attention because of the campaign issues, and the action of his administration.

KING: Right, the administration, again, especially recently, has been tough. The president's language not be. Is this -- he wings it a lot and he thinks he's right. He's the president of the United States. He won a campaign no one said he could win, so he trusts his instincts.

JOHNSON: Really I see somebody who -- who thinks that the force of his personality --

KING: Right.

JOHNSON: Can win over the leaders of other countries and get them ultimately to do what he wants to do. I think what's unclear is what end he sees with Russia and sort of what he can ultimately (INAUDIBLE).

LUCEY: It also -- it also raises an interesting question I think. You know, today we're seeing the Kremlin kind of serve this issue up a little bit.

KING: Right.

LUCEY: Were other things said in this call that they're going to try and push out, or are they going to try and, you know, sort of create more storylines here? I think that's another things to watch.

KING: Well, that's --

RAJU: And that's -- and that's the risk -- that's a good point -- the risk they -- that, you know, Trump agreeing with everybody is a big risk for foreign -- especially for foreign leaders. They may not understand his style the way a lot of politicians in Washington may and may interpret. Something they agree on is something having a very significant policy ramification when the president may not want to send a signal to Kim Jong-un by doing x, y, and z, but Kim Jong-un may think that the president agreed with him on those topics.

KING: I think -- and you make an interesting point, the Kremlin drove this storyline. They're not happy about the expulsion of their diplomats. There may be a little -- a little planning here.

JOHNSON: I think that raises a question too.

KING: Yes.

JOHNSON: Who is running the show here?

KING: Right.

JOHNSON: The president likes to think he's in control, but oftentimes we're seeing, as in Russia leaking this tidbit, that Vladimir Putin may be messing with the president.

KING: Or the picture --

JOHNSON: And the president thinks he's messing --

KING: The pictures of the Oval Office meeting early on with him, then Ambassador Kislyak.

JOHNSON: Exactly.

KING: Yes. Yes. Russia knows how to play this game. And they're pretty good at it.

Up next, a who's who of immigration hardliners converge on Palm Beach, Mar-a-Lago. We'll run down the weekend guest list at the presidents' club.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [12:28:27] KING: The president's weekend at Mar-a-Lago brought a fascinating new West Wing dynamic into full focus. His official inner circle is shrinking, which affords even more influence to outside forces, many of whom play to the president's ego and who make the Republican establishment, well, more than a little nervous. Gone are senior West Wing aides long considered more stabilizing forces, like communications director Hope Hicks, chief economic adviser Gary Cohn, national security adviser H.R. McMaster, and even the former White House aide, Rob Porter. This weekend's kitchen, or maybe we should call it the Palm Beach resort cabinet, included voices known to push the harsher tone on immigration we see in the president's recent tweets. Among them, three big Fox News players, Judge Jeanine Pirro, Sean Hannity, and the former Fox executive, Bill Shine.

Several of you discussed earlier that you don't think these people necessarily change the president's mind, that they just maybe reinforce where his instincts and his reflex are. But what is the significance of having fewer establishment players in the White House and the president seeming to be more comfortable talking and then channeling these outside, more disruptive voices?

WARREN: Well, I think the president has long looked to outside voices. I had somebody, a former White House aide, describe to me several months ago how it was always not necessarily the damage to be in the inner ring in the Oval Office, but to be just outside, maybe a business friend of the presidents who he's sort of looking for advice from, that he maybe feels like he's not getting from in the Oval Office.

[12:30:01] So, in that sense, yes, it doesn't really change.