Return to Transcripts main page

Inside Politics

Watchdog Asked to Review Surveillance Claims; Trump's Team Demands Information; Pompeo Warns Iran; Political Risks of North Meeting. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired May 21, 2018 - 12:00   ET

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

[12:00:11] DANA BASH, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome to INSIDE POLITICS. I'm Dana Bash. John King is off.

President Trump tweets out a demand for the Justice Department to investigate whether the FBI planted an informant inside his campaign. There is no evidence that is true. But that was last night's tweet storm and today he's moved on to defending his administration's ability to cut a deal with China over trade.

And Secretary of State Mike Pompeo lays down a list of demands for Iran while the president officially welcomes the first female director of the CIA.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: You live in the CIA. You live the CIA. You breathe the CIA. And now you will lead the CIA. Congratulations.

OK, that means we're keeping her, right?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: And we begin with a presidential intervention of seismic and potentially historic proportions. Donald Trump demanding information from his own Justice Department about their investigation of his own campaign. The demand, written more like a despotic decree than a request from a democratic leader, tweeting Sunday, I hereby demand, and will do so officially tomorrow, that the Department of Justice look into whether or not the FBI/DOJ infiltrated or surveilled the Trump campaign for political purposes, and if any such demands or requests were made by people within the Obama administration.

Now, this stems from reports of an FBI informant sent to gather information from Trump campaign officials about Russian contacts. The president's Justice Department is trying to handle this delicately, asking its internal watchdog, the inspector general, to review the possible infiltration. As with most controversial Trump moves, this is pleasing his allies who have been Demanding more transparency from the DOJ for months and it is enraging his opponents who insist he's missing the point.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) JAMES CLAPPER: I think that's actually a very disturbing assault on the independence of the Department of the justice. Politicizing what is a legitimate activity on the part -- an important one on the part of the FBI. They use informant and have strict rules and protocols under this. And -- but the big -- the big thing here is, this is not about spying on his campaign, it's about what the Russians are doing. Were they attempting to infiltrate the campaign, and that was the concern.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: Now, let's get straight to the DOJ for the latest. Laura Jarrett joins me live.

Laura, you've been reporting on this I know all weekend. Help us understand the biggest concerns that you're hearing from your sources at the Justice Department right now.

LAURA JARRETT, CNN JUSTICE REPORTER: Dana, the Justice Department is really trying to walk a tightrope, if you will right now, balance this need to protect this confidential intelligence source with an order from the chief of command.

Now, we've heard calls from Capitol Hill Republicans, both in the House and Senate, clamoring for months to investigate the FBI and the Justice Department in terms of how the Trump dossier was put together, that confidential -- or rather controversial dossier from Christopher Steele. But also exactly how the applicants of surveillance warrants on former Trump campaign aide Carter Page were obtained. Everyone has been focused on that.

But recently the move has focused in on this so-called informant as President Trump and Rudy Giuliani have called it, embedded in the campaign. But our reporting suggests there was no mole, there was no spy. There was, in fact, a confidential intelligence source that has been used by the FBI and the CIA for years.

But, nevertheless, the Justice Department sprang into action on Sunday with a deputy attorney general, Rod Rosenstein, who's running the investigation, saying in a statement, if anyone did infiltrate or surveil participants in a presidential campaign for inappropriate purposes, we need to know about it and take appropriate action.

But, Dana, it's interesting, we have not yet seen the president actually order the Justice Department to turn over any of the closely guarded documents. And that's where the real fight is.

BASH: It sure is, and we'll see exactly how it's worded and how far he goes with that.

Laura, if you get it, obviously let us know, we'll get right back to you.

JARRETT: OK.

BASH: And here with me at the table to share their reporting and their insights, "The Daily Beast's" Jackie Kucinich, CNN's Manu Raju, "The Wall Street Journal's" Michael Bender, and CNN's Jeff Zeleny.

Happy Monday, everybody.

Let's start where Laura just left off, about how the Justice Department, the president's appointees at the Justice Department is should say, and remind everybody, they're trying to sort of thread this needle. You saw the way that Laura -- Rosenstein responded in Laura's statement.

[12:05:06] I'll go to you first, Manu, just because you have been hearing this kind of clamoring from Republicans that you chase on The Hill all the time for this kind of, you know, what they call transparency. Are they going to be happy with how the DOJ is responding?

MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I doubt it. They seem to constantly be putting new demands forward, that the Justice Department sort of meets, at least not to their satisfaction, and they bring more demands on the table.

This is proceeding on The Hill on two fronts. You have Devin Nunes, the House Intelligence chair, pushing to get information about this intelligence sources, he's demanding to see documents. Well, the Justice Department has not provided them access to those documents. But what he has -- what the Justice Department has offered is to give them briefing. The had one briefing. They invited him and Trey Gowdy back for another Friday briefing to discuss this. Nunes declined to come to that Friday briefing because he wants to get access to those documents.

And separately you have people like Mark Meadows and others, conservatives in the House, demanding other documents, including of the scope of the Mueller investigation as detailed by Rod Rosenstein.

Really, this is all probably coming to a head for the president's allies on The Hill. You're probably going to hear more and more talk about a possible contempt resolution for Rod Rosenstein. Maybe giving cover for the president, at least Democrats fear, to fire those -- Rod Rosenstein or even Sessions.

BASH: And the question is whether that's what this is really all about. Whether this is pushing Rod Rosenstein to the -- Rod Rosenstein to the point of no return, where he feels that he has no other ethical choice but to quit, which then changes -- could potentially change the whole ball game on the Mueller investigation since he is in charge. On that note, Joe diGenova, who is a long-time Washington lawyer, who interested for the job of the president's lawyer. Didn't work out. But he's still sort of singing from the president's song sheet on this issue and he was not happy with Rosenstein turning this over to the inspector general. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE diGENOVA, FORMER U.S. ATTORNEY: This is a sham. This is a typical Rod Rosenstein move. Too cute by half. This would be his undoing. This is -- this is dangerous territory for Sessions and Rosenstein. They're playing games with the president of the United States. It's very ugly. It's insulting to the president. This is a Potemkin investigation. It is a joke. It's an insult to the president. And if I were the president, I would be very, very angry by the response from Rosenstein last night.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: He hopes he's giving, you know, a message to the president right there. I mean I think that's in fact what he is doing there. And, you're right, this is coming at a head. And the timing here is not a coincidence. The president seems unusually agitated by this because, as we know, it's, you know, if not almost at the end, it's almost at a point in time where he is going to have to make some decisions here to sit down or not. So the -- the president's mood is being guided by what he knows. He knows much more about this investigation than we do.

But I was struck this morning that the president had a little shout- out to Devin Nunes this morning at the CIA when he was swearing in and giving a speech for the new director. He singled him out and him out alone as -- as I -- and I think the word was courageous. And I thought he might say more. He didn't. But I suspect that Joe diGenova's words there are something that will be echoed by the president.

JACKIE KUCINICH, WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF, "THE DAILY BEAST: But it just strikes me, it's another layer of what we've seen from these -- the president's allies, putting the press up against them. They did it with James Comey. Now they're doing it with Rod Rosenstein. And they've been continuing to it the idea that Sessions is a little farfetched for me. The idea that Jeff Sessions has an adversarial relationship with the president is a little bit bridge too far. If you'd told me that a year ago I would have said, what?

So I think it's making the case in the public arena that all these people are conspiring to put the president in a bad position.

MICHAEL BENDER, WHITE HOUSE REPORTER, "THE WALL STREET JOURNAL": Yes, the -- you heard from diGenova there what we've seen from Nunes. This is clearly a political strategy from the president and his allies, not necessarily a legal one. And if you look at it in that framework, they've -- Nunes has kind of been effective. This sort of line of questioning from diGenova has had impact. There was the CNN poll earlier this month that shows Republicans getting more and more skeptical of the Mueller investigations, what he's up to and, you know that's what -- that -- that's the same thing Giuliani is doing here too, trying to -- trying to pull this thing to an end, trying to raise doubts about it. And the political strategy, I think we're seeing some effects. I -- it still remains to be seen what -- how effective is the Trump legal strategy.

RAJU: And, Dana, what's remarkable too about this whole dispute is that the White House -- the chief of staff for the White House, John Kelly, actually signed with the Justice Department in this fight with Devin Nunes. They -- he -- they did real concern about providing information about this confidential intelligence source because they're concerned it could risk lives. This was John Kelly's position just a couple weeks ago and here's the president taking the opposite position and siding with Nunes over his Justice Department and his chief of staff.

[12:10:10] BASH: Right. It's so interesting because I think, you know, just as you guys were saying, this is -- so far we've talked about this in the political frame. But then there's the legal, and frankly the constitutional question that this poses. First of all, the legal question, I spoke to Rudy Giuliani yesterday, and he was very much on board with the strategy, said that they talked about it. He encouraged the president to send out that tweet.

I asked him about whether or not he's concerned that -- and investigation is already looking into potential obstruction of justice where the president fired James Comey, whether this adds another layer to it because he looks like he's trying to change the way this investigation is going. And here's what Giuliani said to me. Said, I mean this person either got or didn't get information. Nothing is going to affect it. It's been made a matter internally. Now that's it. Nobody can obstruct that at this point. And if you can't answer relevant information under investigation conducted by your department concerning you, I mean, my goodness, that can't possibly be obstruction.

Really? Are we sure about that?

ZELENY: No, we're not sure about that. So Rudy Giuliani's version of this. And he, you know, has been talking to a lot of reporters, you and others over the weekend. I mean he is trying to, without question, set the public frame of where this is going. And I think, you know, the president and his men have been fairly successful, I think, in getting supporters, certainly, and others to have questions and raise doubt about this.

But it's all coming as it is coming to a close here. So never mind the White House has always said, or they did say, you know, we want this to wrap up before the midterm elections. I mean they are adding fuel to the fire before it's even over here.

So we'll see if we hear more from the president today.

KUCINICH: And there's no proof that that -- other than what Giuliani said, that that September 1st deadline is even real.

ZELENY: Right.

KUCINICH: It could -- I think there was a --

ZELENY: It's his version of events.

KUCINICH: I think it was a Reuter story that said that was a complete fabrication from a source close to Mueller.

BASH: Well, and just to be clear --

KUCINICH: Yes. BASH: He told me that that was -- that date, September 1st, was in the context of a negotiation he was having with Mueller about when and whether the president would testify. Meaning, you know, if he -- the president testifies, we could wrap this up by September 1st. So it's not, I'm going to be done --

KUCINICH: But they can say whatever they want at this point because they're -- they have -- they're talking about people who don't comment for the record.

BASH: That's exactly right.

KUCINICH: There is no -- if you look at all the stories about Mueller, there is never a comment from him, and that's on purpose.

RAJU: And Giuliani also said this investigation would wrap up in two weeks. That was when he first came onboard.

BASH: Right.

RAJU: That didn't really happen.

BASH: It did not happen. OK. So Rod Rosenstein, who is the deputy attorney general at the center of all of this, he was in charge of the Mueller investigation, was out in public today and he was self- deprecating, self-aware, trying to grow a little humor like this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROD ROSENSTEIN, DEPUTY ATTORNEY GENERAL: J. Edgar Hoover was known for lunching here when he served as the director of the FBI. Sometimes onlookers reportedly would recognize Hoover while he was here and they would gather to watch him. So the hotel staff would sneak him out through the kitchen and out the back door. And when I got this job, I remember being grateful that I would not have to worry about that sort of thing. Deputy attorneys general are very low profile.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: Not you, Mr. Rosenstein, at the Mayflower Hotel, I should say, this morning.

And coming up, what happens next now that the U.S. has pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal? Well, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo just laid out the administration's demands and plans.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:18:03] BASH: Secretary of State Mike Pompeo gave his first major foreign policy speech since being sworn in. He spoke this morning at The Heritage Foundation, backing up the president's decision to pull out of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, and warning that new sanctions are on the way.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) MIKE POMPEO, SECRETARY OF STATE: This will indeed end up being the strongest sanctions in history when we are complete. I've spent a great deal of time with our allies in my first three weeks. I know that they may decide to try and keep their old nuclear deal going with Tehran. That is certainly their decision to make. They know where we stand.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: He also gave a very long list, you see there, of demands for Iran to agree -- they need to agree to them in order for a new deal to be negotiated. Strong words from the man President Trump says he has great chemistry with. But the big question is, does this change anything? We're going to talk about that.

And joining us this segment is "New York Times" David Sanger.

Welcome, David, to you.

You wrote a great piece about North Korea, which we're going to get to in a second.

But first your thoughts on what we heard from the secretary of state about Iran.

SANGER: Well, this was really a remarkable speech. It was his first big speech as secretary of state. It was extremely hard-hitting. It was directly critical by name of John Kerry, his predecessor once removed, which is rare. You don't usually see secretaries go directly after their predecessors.

It had this long list of demands which, if you added them all up, you know, stop all support for terrorism, stop messing around Iraq, stop messing around in Syria, never enrich a single gram of uranium, it would basically be telling Iran not to be Iran, right? So it's not a list the Iranians are going to sign up for.

His message to the allies was basically tough luck. If you don't like the secondary sanctions, which basically hurt European firms, well, that's life.

[12:20:05] What he never quite got to was the critique that the United States had entered a deal, granted under a different administration, signed up with its allies from it and then turned around and said, forget it, we don't like it.

BASH: Right. I mean it seems as though the main purpose of this, in addition to being as detailed as he I guess possibly could, whether it's pie in the sky or not, is to echo the feelings and the thoughts of the guy he works for, the president of the United States. And it was really striking to our team the difference in approach that we're hearing from Pompeo and his predecessor, Rex Tillerson. Listen to an example.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The Iran deal, which may be the single worst deal I've ever seen drawn by anybody.

MIKE POMPEO, SECRETARY OF STATE: The Obama administration made a bet that the deal would spur Iran to stop its rogue state actions and conform to international norms. But that was a loser with massive repercussions for all of the people living in the Middle East.

REX TILLERSON, FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE: We want to take the agreement as it exists today, as I said, fully enforce that agreement, be very demanding of Iran's compliance under the agreement, and then begin the process of addressing these flaws.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: And you wonder why there's a change in personnel.

BENDER: Yes, Pompeo seemed to understand how to handle Trump a little bit better than Rex did. But I do think that there were -- this wasn't a -- everyone wasn't exactly going in the same direction on the Iran decision. There were folks inside the administration asking for more time before the president made his decision. The difference this time, as you see, all the public (INAUDIBLE) comments in the same direction.

And I think the other significance of this speech today, to piggyback on David's comments a little bit now, is that now we actually -- whether Iran will -- how they respond to this. I think we know how they will respond to this (INAUDIBLE) there are wholesale changes to Iran's military posture in the Middle East, much tougher requests on nuclear than was in the current deal. But at least now we know what the -- what this administration's Iran policy is, which is something we -- I don't think we knew a few days ago when Trump made this decision.

BASH: Yes.

And, Jeff, it certainly seems as though the people in the administration -- and they do exist -- who think that this is the wrong way to go. They see the writing on the wall and they're -- and they're lip locked.

ZELENY: Oh, they've been -- they've been so quite. I mean watching that segment there is, you know, a new sign of Trump's new foreign policy. We could have seen him, you know, find his way in office. All presidents learn in office, no question. But he has shoved any dissenters to the side here. I mean he recertified the deal a couple times. He did not like that. So now he's very comfortable with this policy of Mike Pompeo. The defense secretary has not said a word about this.

BASH: No.

ZELENY: And he's not been onboard. But he's been quite.

RAJU: And --

BASH: Can I just --

RAJU: Go ahead.

BASH: I just want to get to David's great piece in 'The Times" this morning about North Korea and the angst, for a better way -- lack of a better way to say it, that the president has about what he's gotten himself into.

Here's what you wrote. Mr. Trump's decision this month to withdraw from the 2015 nuclear deal raises the stakes for the North Korea negotiation. If he emerges with anything less than what President Barack Obama got, which in Iran included the verified shipment of 97 percent of all nuclear material out of the country, it will be hard for Mr. Trump to convince anyone other than his base that the negotiation was a success.

The stakes couldn't be higher and he's starting to get worried that he can't figure it out.

SANGER: Well, look, if you could get out of the North Koreans what President Obama got out of the Iranians, shipping that much fuel out, bringing the enrichment down to just negligible levels and get 15 years of that, people would be celebrating in the street and -- you know, and those crowds and -- crowd shouts of Nobel, Nobel, you'd be hearing a lot more of.

They're not going to get that out of the North Koreans. And I think they're suddenly coming face to face with the thought that while meeting Kim Jong-un is a great gesture, and I think possibly the right gesture to try to do things in a different way than past administrations have tried and failed, that once they're in the room, they're not likely to emerge, at least at the beginning, with anything resembling a solid deal.

BASH: And, real quick. I just want to also point out the great detail in your story about the president really being reluctant to get into the nitty-gritty of the actual science of what's going on with the -- with the North Korean nuclear program, whereas his opponent, his negotiating partner, is very familiar with it.

SANGER: Yes, because it's his program.

BASH: Exactly.

SANGER: You know, in the early days of the Obama administration, when President Obama had to learn about this covert cyber program we had to try to disassociate the Iranian nuclear program, he would be down in the Situation Room with this giant map of the centrifuges and sort of see what it was the United States was secretary attacking.

[12:25:07] It's hard to imagine Donald Trump in that situation. He just does not want to see -- he knows about the weapons, but he doesn't want to sit there and hear about the other parts of the program and that's going to have to go confront in the room.

Kim Jong-un has spent his life building this program. RAJU: I mean, to that point, everything that -- what concerns a lot of Republican allies, Trump's Republican allies, that he's been so eager to get a deal that maybe he will sign up for everything, that just may not be a good deal, particularly one in which they've demanded to denuclearize and North Korea is clearly not ready to go as far as what the public posture of the United States is (INAUDIBLE).

SANGER: Now, if Pompeo was in the room, that may make a difference. The CIA director who's been paying attention.

BASH: Yes, and my -- my guess is he'll be in the room, yes.

David, always great to see you. Thanks for sharing your insights and your reporting.

And, up next, new reports detailing a horrifying 30 minutes of gunfire at Santa Fe High School. We're live in Texas, next.