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Former First Lady Barbara Bush Dies at 92; Ambassador Haley: "With All Due Respect, I Don't Get Confused"; Sen. Manchin In New Ad: "Washington Sucks"; Senators Voice Concerns After Classified Syria Briefing. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired April 18, 2018 - 12:30   ET

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

[12:30:01] COLIN POWELL, FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE: She was that kind of a person. She was always there. She was always steadfast. She was a grand, grand woman.

JOHN KING, CNN HOST: Then she said at the end of that, you write in your book, explaining as you were leaving, that they wanted to be with real friends.

POWELL: Yes.

KING: Define what real friends meant to Barbara Bush.

POWELL: Real friend is somebody you can be totally comfortable with. Somebody who is not there to take advantage of you in any way. And she and my Alma, my wife, hit it off. I hit it off with the President. I hit it off with her. And over the years we stayed together.

And after he was out, and I was out, we actually went on cruises together in the Aegean, two summers. And I met all the kids and grand kids and cousins and what not, and it was always fun to be on that private ship and watch her being what we called the earth mother, in charge of everybody.

KING: Earth mother. I want to put on the screen, this is the 21st century version, but a word cloud. What I was struck by last night in reading all of these statements coming in from presidents and former president and former first ladies and leaders on Capitol Hill, we live in a time where the coarseness of our public conversation is not very healthy.

POWELL: Yes.

KING: And Barbara Bush could be feisty. She could be fiercely loyal to her family. She could stir up controversy. But you see family, country, loving, exceptional, advocate, dedicated, remarkable. Have we lost that? Or maybe the better question is how did she manage that and navigate that?

Yes, she said some things that were controversial. Yes, she was fiercely loyal to her family and proper to her family, but nobody thought of her as a jerk. And in today's age, forgive me, that's a term we hear too often.

POWELL: That was just who she was. It was her personality. And it was a relationship she had frankly with her husband and with her family. She was dedicated to America, she was dedicated to family and she treasured friends.

And I saw that in so many different ways over the years. And she was so in a certain way humble. I remember when she was coming into the office now of the first lady of the United States. Some press person asked her, well, who will be doing your dressing for you, reflecting with Nancy Reagan's designers. And her answer simply was nobody, I have my own clothes and I'll be bringing them with me. You know, how could you not love that? How could you not love something like that?

And that's who she was. She was down to earth, she was honest, she was a great lady, and she stood up for her husband. If you ever said anything about her husband that she didn't like, you would hear about it. Fortunately, that was never my problem. And so, it was a friendship that continued to the day she passed away and continued to the present.

KING: To that point, I want you to listen to her sone, President George W. Bush, talking about what Laura Bush, I believe, gets into the right word, debate with mom.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Mother and I, we occasionally would argue. Not argue, we would just --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Debate.

BUSH: Debate.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That's a good word.

BUSH: Different opinions. And we were having a theological discussion and, you know, I was basically saying what the New Testament said about going to heaven. And mother said what about her friend, you know, Mustafa? And I don't -- and we went back and forth. So she decided, I'm going to call Billy Graham. He finally said look, you two, I agree with the New Testament, but I want to remind you two, you don't get to play god.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There you go.

BUSH: Pretty good lesson for the day, by the way.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: We saw this in the Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton relationship. And I think it existed in the George H.W. Bush, Barbara Bush relationship perhaps just as much if not more so. It just wasn't so public.

POWELL: Yes. KING: And some people reacted with like horror when Barbara Bush spoke out like when they weren't supposed to do that, the spouse (ph) weren't supposed to do that. She was ahead of her time in some ways. You worked in the White House. You know the Vice President, the President there. Was she someone who intervened in policy matters? Was she someone who, you said who was loyal to him, enforced if somebody did something that (INAUDIBLE) with him, she enforced it?

POWELL: She did not insert herself into the daily policy issues that came along. She was always a presence. And if you got in a debate with her, you should know at the beginning that she's going to win it. There's no debate about that.

And she was -- what she was, was a steel rod in the President. She was the President's strongest supporter. But she didn't need to shout and scream and go on television and say things that might cause a problem within the administration. So in my two years of working with her, she was always a presence, we always knew what she thought, but we also knew that she was there to make life easier for her, her husband, and her sons and the rest of the family.

KING: What don't we know about her? You spent time in Kennebunkport. We have some video of her putting your medal of freedom around your neck where the President had first glasses up because you sent some issues with it. What don't we know about her, that only a friend would know?

POWELL: I don't know if it's -- you don't know about it yet, and I'm a friend that I have something I probably won't tell you. But there's no secret to her. She is what she is.

[12:35:02] She was forthright. She believed in everything. She believed in her faith. She believed in her family. Everything was about the family and the country. And that's who she was.

KING: Did she moderate him? You hear from time to time that she may have disagreed with him on abortion rights or she would get mad sometimes about the language in politics.

POWELL: You can be sure that she would moderate him, but you couldn't be sure that she mostly did it when they were alone together. There was one wonderful clip on a television show where they were walking in Kennebunkport and he reaches over with his leg and kind of kicks her and that quite the behind, and she reaches over and pinches him. That's who they were. They were normal people who had no egos.

One thing I'll always remember is, after desert storm, when the country was so proud of what our troops had accomplished, and we're going to have this parade in New York and a parade in Washington. The parade in New York, the President said, I'm not coming. Sir, you're not coming? He said no, this is for the soldiers, the troops. You go, Schwarzkopf goes, Cheney goes, this is for you.

So he had a selflessness about him which she shared. And it was always commit totally to family, totally to country. And I never had a fight with her. Sometimes she would kind of look at me with that a little stare that I knew what it meant. But it was always the closest of relationships.

And the first day I became deputy national security adviser, and I'm in this little tiny office in the west wing and I hear this loud noise coming down the hallway, is he in? Is he in? I want to talk to him. Is he in? And suddenly the vice president of the United States walks to my office and I almost fall over as I stand up to get to him. And that was the beginning of a treasured friendship between me, the President, and the first lady at that time.

When the term was over and he was about to take over, the day after he came to the White House, after the election, first time when he won, he called me in, and offered me several jobs in the new administration, his new administration. And I wanted to go back to the army. That's what I told him. But just for him to think about me at that point in his career when he was just taking over the presidency, it was -- it shows you the kind of person he was. The kind of person he was.

He would kid a lot. Had a lot of funny things happen in that Oval Office that I, you know, would not share, couldn't remember. But the two of them were just, I think, wonderful. Not so unique, but wonderful people. They really reflected the American spirit, really reflected the American loyalty to each other and to the country. And really reflected the best tributes and instincts of the American people.

KING: Examples we could use in the current discourse. You're here to talk about Barbara Bush, but it would be a crime against journalism if I can't ask you couple questions about current events. I know you don't against the wedge (ph) of it. But Mike Pompeo is the nominee to be Secretary of State.

He says he called every former living secretary of state, which includes you. He just also had a secret meeting with the leader of North Korea. From that conversation, what were your impressions?

POWELL: I had called him when he first was announced. And then we have had two other conversations, and I had a dinner with him. We talked about issues, and many of the issues we probably had different points of view.

What I liked about my discussions with him is that he listened carefully and that he's taking aboard what I told him, which is very often in opposition to the position he might take. So I think we have somebody who is amenable to changes in his past positions and we'll see. With respect to his conversations with Kim Jong-un, since I know nothing about that, I wouldn't even speculate what they're talking about and what comes next.

KING: Do you think a summit is a good idea at least trying to talk it out? And I ask that for someone who tells the whole areas, the very important story about being with Ronald Reagan across from Gorbachev, and when you tell the story it's funny but it's also not funny about your army training. And Gorbachev makes it known, he's going to let the Soviet Union dissolve and you are thinking what?

POWELL: Yes.

KING: You know, my training is all based on --

POWELL: Yes, that's right.

KING: So do you have this meeting with Kim? Do you have any reason I believe that, like a Gorbachev, he would be willing to walk away from his grandfather and his father's history?

POWELL: I'd be surprised if he walked away from 70 years of Kim family occupancy of the leadership of North Korea.

KING: A regime based on cruelty to its own people, belligerence to the world.

POWELL: Whatever it's based on, it's been 70 years. And the only thing that really counts to him is the survival of that regime. And so I think it's good to talk rather than threaten bombing each other. I don't think there is a basis for worrying too much about North Korean bombing because they're not going to commit suicide, which is what they'd be doing and they'd lose regime.

But I think talking is always useful. Whether it all start with a summit or start at a lower level, I let others decide that one. I would start a bit of a more modest level. But I think the director of central intelligence going over there was a good way to get this started.

[12:40:05] KING: Colin Powell, former Secretary of State. Gentleman, appreciate your time. Really grateful in this day.

POWELL: Thank you very much, John.

KING: Thank you for coming in.

And before we go to break, one more unforgettable moment with the first lady, former first lady Barbara Bush, this one involving her husband's distaste for a certain vegetable.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BUSH: I do not like broccoli.

BARBARA BUSH, FORMER FIRST LADY OF THE UNITED STATES: I'm going to tell you the honest truth, the President is never going to eat broccoli. But I'm never going to eat pork rind, ever.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:45:09] KING: Welcome back. We're watching a remarkable and quite tense public clash within the President's inner circle. And you have every right to be confused.

Let's walk through the headlines just the past three days. On Monday, Trump to impose new sanctions on Russia over support for Syria. Tuesday, Trump declines to add sanctions against Russians contradicting Haley. And today, sanctions flap erupts into open conflict between Haley and the White House.

It was the President who caused all this with the last minute decision to block new sanctions. But his top economic adviser yesterday said it was Ambassador Haley who was in error.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LARRY KUDLOW, CHAIRMAN NATIONAL ECONOMIC COUNCIL: She got ahead of the curve. She's done a great job, she's a very effective ambassador. There might have been some momentary confusion about that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Well, that didn't sit well with Ambassador Haley, who issued this terse, frosty statement. "With all due respect, I don't get confused." Eight words. Ouch.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

KING: It's a great drama, but it's also meaningful. And I'm told one of the reasons the Ambassador is not happy is because she knows what happened to Rex Tillerson. She needs people around the world and in the chambers of the United Nations to think when she speaks, she speaks for the President.

This was in the works. She setup explanation, she mentioned Secretary Mnuchin. The treasury was working on the paperwork. The White House knew this was coming. It was supposed to happen on Monday and the President said halt. Why?

MICHAEL BENDER, WHITE HOUSE REPORTER, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: Well, what I'm hearing from the White House, what we reported at the journal on this is that the decision changed at one point, right, and that the -- and when Haley was read in part of the decision, that this was going to be a sword of a twin strike, the actual strikes in Syria, and another punch on the sanctions.

At some point after Haley was read in, according to the White House, the decision was made to hold back the sanctions in case of -- to wait and see what the Russia response was. When that response was not much, right, there was the resolution at the U.N. that got defeated pretty easily, the White House decided to put the -- to table those sanctions a while. I'm, not to poke Putin in the eye needlessly. I mean, this is -- you know, but unfortunately these clashes with Haley, who is very meticulous about her image, her ambitions are very well known, and comes at a really critical time for the White House.

They have no secretary of state. They have a brand new national security adviser. And here's Ambassador Haley stepping in to take on the role as the foreign policy voice in the Trump administration right now. She wanted to break this news on the sanctions, and now she's, you know, left out. KING: And there's a lot of conversation in Washington that it's not just about the President deciding not to impose sanctions, but the President being reminded of a region he's not necessarily in love with Haley. She has on her staff as her deputy, a strategist who is part of the never Trump movement, work for Marco Rubio, with partisan groups that might add against Trump.

Mike Pence tried to hire him and the Vice President shop. The President took a bash on that. So reminding him that Mr. Learner exists. Breitbart trying to take advantage of this controversy right now, if you look up there, how much of it is this, how much do we know that the President was reminded, oh, yes, there are parts of this I don't like and how much of it is Russia?

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I think it's both to some degree, but I also think you have to keep in mind that there's -- if you get into the President's orbit and all of the sudden you appear bigger than the President or perhaps thought of as above the president in some capacity on this foreign policy, which there has been no shortage of very nice stories about Nikki Haley and her time as Ambassador and frankly on Capitol Hill, there's a bipartisan regard for her and the work that she's done at this point, that you're in danger of potentially getting burned. You add the staff issue, you add the Russia issue in general, and you're wandering yourself into a lane that could blow up into your face.

KING: And yet silence from the President on Twitter this morning which I found fascinating because he often intervenes. When you see these media stories about fight for this administration, he often intervenes to essential give the referee's call on what's going on. He did this in to General McMaster, forgot to say the results of the 2016 election were not impacted or changed by the Russians. The tweet from the President about that one, I told Rex Tillerson, our wonderful Secretary of State wasting his time trying to negotiate with a rocky band, that was his meeting today. I'm going to look to things that are going out today.

But the President often jumps into these controversies silent with Nikki Haley.

NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER: So far. I mean, we'll see. What he does, there's still many hours left in this day. And he's down in Florida. So we'll see what he says on this. What's interesting, though, I'm not sure that Nikki Haley comes out any better, just because she brushed back on Kudlow, because they essentially said she wasn't read in on this. So to the world leaders, she basically looks like she wasn't read in on something. So in terms of her credibility and standing, it's pretty damaged.

KING: OK. That's a fun one. Don't blame me, blame Washington.

[12:50:01] One red state Democrat's choice words in a brand new campaign ad.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) KING: Checking today's political radar, it's the end of an era. The Hill says goodbye to its annual 50 most beautiful list. Since 2004, the publication has highlighted D.C. insiders including lawmakers and congressional staffers for that annual addition. Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah perhaps saying it best with this tweet, "You wake up early every day to comb your hair and pick out the brightest shirt/tie combo with your strongest pinstripe suit think thing is going to be the year, then this happens." Sorry, Senator, times they are changing.

Democratic Senator Joe Manchin giving voters a cheerful knew way to see Washington in this new ad.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOE MANCHIN (D), WEST VIRGINIA: People here have been screwed by both political parties. Yes, Washington sucks. But West Virginians don't give up and I will never give up trying to make it better.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[12:55:06] KING: That's certainly one way to try to unite your constituents. Senator Manchin facing a tough reelection climate this year and is increasingly red home state of West Virginia. The Pentagon says an account in The New York Times about President Trump and Defense Secretary James Mattis disagreeing of whether they needed congressional approval air strikes in Syria just plainly (ph) false.

The publication reports Mattis wanted Congress to sign up but he was overruled by the President. This as several lawmakers voiced concerns on a classified briefing on Syria Tuesday night. Here are Republican Senators Bob Corker and Lindsey Graham.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. BOB CORKER (R), CHAIRMAN, FOREIGN RELATIONS COMMITTEE: Look, the President I think is very committed to getting out of Syria rapidly as possible. I don't see anything changing that. Look, when we invited Russia in, the international community to help with chemical weapons, we basically turned the country over to Russia. It is Russia's and Iran's to determine what's going to happen in Syria.

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R), SOUTH CAROLINA: I'm very unnerved by what I hear and what I see. And I think President Trump has been a good commander in chief, but when it comes to Syria, I think he's going down a very dangerous path.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Thanks for joining us on INSIDE POLITICS. Be sure to subscribe to our podcast on Apple iHeartRadio, tune in. Brianna Keilar is in for Wolf. She takes the chair after a quick break. Have a great day.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)