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Inside Politics
Trump Rebukes Advisers and Japan, Sides with Kim Jong-un; Trump Tweets Attacks on Biden and Dems in Tokyo; Centrists Lose Ground in European Parliamentary Elections. Aired 12-12:30p ET
Aired May 27, 2019 - 12:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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JOHN KING, CNN HOST: Welcome to a special Memorial Day edition of INSIDE POLITICS. I'm John King. Thank you for sharing this special day with us.
President Trump has a public break with his good friend, Japan's prime minister. Shinzo Abe (sic) says recent North Korean missile launches violate U.N. resolutions and the president shrugs it off as no big deal.
And far right parties make gains in European elections, testing the power of anti-immigrant and anti-globalization forces.
Is there a message here as we gear up for 2020?
And on this Memorial Day, ceremonies from coast to coast to remember and to honor America's fallen heroes. The biggest is at Arlington National Cemetery.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mary was killed on Mother's Day in 2005.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Nicholas in Afghanistan on Mother's Day, May 8th, 2005.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Beth is Larry's Arlington's mother because we live from afar. And when she comes, she always gives him a hug for me.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: More on those important ceremonies and this important day throughout the hour but we begin with a big and very public international divide between President Trump, his national security team and a key U.S. ally.
The president is in Tokyo today and this morning he sided with the North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un on both a matter of substance and a matter of smallness. President Trump shares Chairman Kim's opinion that former Vice
President Joe Biden doesn't have the mental mettle to be president and we will circle back to the petty politics in a bit.
Far more significant is the substance, the president brushing off concerns of the Japanese prime minister and his own national security adviser and the commanders responsible for the safety of some 70,000 troops stationed in the area.
That condition is Kim's recent missile launches mark a return back to confrontation and that at a minimum North Korea needs to be called out at the United Nations Security Council but standing a key feet from a key American ally in the Pacific, Trump vouched for an American adversary.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You're not bothered at all by small missiles?
DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: No, I'm not. I am personally not. My people think it could have been a violation, as you know. I view it differently. I view it as a man perhaps who wants to get attention and perhaps not. Who knows. It doesn't matter.
All I know is that there have been no nuclear tests. There have been no ballistic missiles going out. There have been no long range missiles going out and I think that someday we'll have a deal. I'm not in a rush.
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KING: Let's get straight to Tokyo and CNN's Kaitlan Collins.
A remarkable moment both in the words of the president and the image there, standing just a few feet away from his friend, the prime minister, who completely disagrees.
KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: And you're seeing the president completely break with one of America's closest allies, standing right next to each other as soon as the questions started coming.
John, another person the president was breaking with was his national security adviser John Bolton, who was seated just a few feet away and just days ago told reporters here in Tokyo that it was clear that North Korea had violated those U.N. resolutions by firing off those short-range missiles, a sentiment that the Japanese government agrees with but that the president made clear he does not.
He not only gave Kim Jong-un cover there but also, when he was pressed about his tweet, where he seemed to be siding with the brutal dictator over a former Vice President, Joe Biden, the president stood by his assessment in his tweet, and said that he and Kim Jong-un agree on how they view Joe Biden. That goes to reveal how all the pageantry we've seen here in Tokyo
over the last couple of days didn't do anything to cover up the deep divide between the two leaders when it comes to North Korea.
Before the press conference, they were seated with families of Japanese who had been abducted by North Korea. The president was sitting there, saying he understands that and wants to make that a top priority because it's a top priority for the Japanese minister.
But when it comes down to the meat of this, to these missiles and whether or not it could put Japan within reach of North Korea, the president sided with Kim Jong-un, taking him at his word.
KING: Kaitlan Collins, live for us in Tokyo. Appreciate it.
With me in the studio, Josh Dawsey from "The Washington Post," Tarini Parti with "The Wall Street Journal," CNN's Phil Mattingly and CNN's Michelle Kosinski.
It's remarkable as a diplomatic moment. The president has often had differences with allies and with his own security team, with the secretary of state and the national security adviser.
But to be standing on the world stage with Asia with the prime minister of Japan as far away from him as you are from me, let's listen to Prime Minister Abe, who made clear, I disagree.
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SHINZO ABE, JAPANESE PRIME MINISTER (through translator): Now the launching of the missiles this time on the 9th of May, North Korea launched a short-range ballistic missile. This is violating the Security Council resolution. So my reaction is, as I said earlier on --
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ABE (through translator): -- it is of great regret.
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KING: So the president of the United States standing right there in the neighborhood, next to a key U.S. ally, saying violate United Nations Security Council resolution, I don't care.
MICHELLE KOSINSKI, CNN SENIOR DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENT: Yes, if it violates the resolution, it was a ballistic missile.
President Trump wants to play that part when he sticks to what he originally said.
Initially when these missiles were launched, nobody knew what they were.
Were they ballistic missiles? Everybody hoped that there were not so there wouldn't have to be more punishment taken at the U.N. because there is going have to be some action. And at the time the Japanese, who are always torn about this, because they are at risk for short-range missiles but they also don't want to provoke North Korea any more, were also kind of downplaying this.
And remember, at the time the U.S. said virtually nothing about these launches and the Japanese thought, that's OK for now but if they are ballistic missiles then some action has to be taken. And here we are now and the president seems to refuse to acknowledge that, A, these violated the regulations and, B, they are a risk to Japan.
KING: And C, the two summits with Kim Jong-un, where he took a risk -- and good for him for trying -- but two summits with Kim Jong-un have not produced any significant verifiable denuclearization steps.
And now you have a recent turn back towards where you have to call some form of provocation, smaller missiles but still provocation.
And the North Koreans not only trash Joe Biden and the president of the United States hugs that and agrees with that while overseas, which is remarkable, they trashed his national security adviser John Bolton, in a North Koreans statement saying John Bolton is "much more than ignorant."
"Bolton clearly does have a different mental structure from ordinary people."
He's a "war maniac."
Why can't the president of the United States find a spot, where he says, I hope this personal diplomacy works, we'll stay at it, I won't turn my back but still say you can't launch missiles and shut your mouth when it comes to criticizing American officials.
JOSH DAWSEY, "THE WASHINGTON POST": The president has cast supreme confidence on his own abilities here and admitting that they're continuing to do things that violate norms, would be admitting it's not working.
He does not mind contradicting John Bolton. In fact, I think it doesn't bother him at all. The president has cast this bet that he and he alone can convince Kim Jong-un to do this. So far that hasn't worked but he's not changing course. He's happy to diss his national security adviser, to disagree with Japan.
This is a strategy he's taking and isn't having second thoughts about it. But maybe others are.
KING: CNN's Pam Brown, to her credit, approached the president as he was leaving the news conference and asked him if he still had confidence in John Bolton. And he nodded and said yes.
I'm sorry I interrupted you. PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN U.S. CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: No, I was just going to say, last week before senators left for the Memorial Day recess, I spoke to Republican senators. Republican senators, who behind the scenes were unsettled about the entire way the president have approached North Korea, have given him a lot of space, at least publicly and rhetorically try to figure something out.
This was before what we saw in Tokyo today and one Republican senator said made clear he doesn't see an end game. What is the end game here?
This has been going on here. They understand what the president is trying to do, he perhaps has a significant different negotiating tactic than perhaps is traditional and they're willing to give him an opportunity.
But what I think you hear right now on Capitol Hill, including from some of the president's closest allies quietly, is tell me how this ends. And no one knows right now and I think that's a combination of they are frustrated and unsettled as to what the end game is.
KING: To your point, the president does invest in this personal diplomacy. He believes and said it won't happen right away, but he'll deal with President Xi on trade issues; we'll see. A lot of people are beginning to doubt that. We know how President Xi has talked, especially in the last week.
When it comes back to Kim Jong-un, people listen to the president but they don't actually hear a president. They hear a New York real estate developer.
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TRUMP: I think Kim Jong-un or Chairman Kim, as some people say, is looking to create a nation with great strength economically.
Kim Jong-un understands the unbelievable economic potential that country has. It's located between China and Russia on one side and South Korea on the other and it's all waterfront property. It's a great location as we used to say in the real estate business.
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KING: Look, he's different and something that's so intractable, maybe a different approach was worth trying.
But where is the evidence two plus years in now, that Chairman Kim gets and is willing to do what it takes to get this economic investment, which would mean scaling back the --
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KING: -- nuclear program and stop lobbing missiles that frighten Japan and South Korea?
KOSINSKI: To say this next to the Japanese, who this whole time with the negotiations with Kim, they're worried Trump will do anything to make a deal and avoid short range ballistic missiles. And that's what he's doing right now.
The Japanese are the only ones that will not talk to Kim. They say we'll talk to you when denuclearization is handled, when the abductee issue is handled and when the short-range missile issue is handled. So they are there saying, we told you so.
KING: It's interesting that the president did attend the event with the families of those who have been abducted. Very important to Prime Minister Abe's politics because he's criticized by the people back home for siding with the president when there's no demonstrable results.
But the president believes in his personal diplomacy and he recently told the Iranian leaders in the middle of this military standoff to call me, call me. And the president says I don't want a war with Iran but maybe we can sort this out.
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TRUMP: I really believe that Iran would like to make a deal and I think that's very smart of them. I think that's a possibility to happen also.
And I'm not looking to hurt Iran at all. I'm looking to have Iran say no nuclear weapons. It has a chance to be a great country with the same leadership. We're not looking for regime change. I just want to make that clear. We're looking for no nuclear weapons.
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KING: Different ways to parse that, number one, not looking for regime change. The Iranians look at Mr. Bolton, national security adviser, saying you've been for regime change for decades. They're nervous about that so that's an important statement from the president. But the idea that Iran wants a deal, where is the evidence of that, where Iran has recently said we have no plans to talk to the president and we had a deal and you walked away from it.
TARINI PARTI, "THE WALL STREET JOURNAL": The president is positioning himself as this dealmaker. Politically we're moving towards 2020. He knows that's the message that helped to get him elected and there's not been as much discussion of foreign policy on the Democratic side.
So him using Iran and North Korea and bringing up these topics and positioning himself again as the dealmaker, I think he sees as a political possible win for him.
KING: Even if the days and weeks go by and there are no deals to talk about.
I want to take you live as we go to break. We'll continue to track Memorial Day events around the country. You're watching the Vice President of the United States, who just spoke at Arlington National Cemetery. He's now about to take a walk through Section 60, where American fallen heroes from Afghanistan and Iraq are laid to rest.
The vice president there in the crowd. We'll watch him as he tours. We'll be right back.
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KING: Domestic political fights often follow presidents when they go overseas. But this holiday weekend it was the flip side. President Trump deliberately stoking debates back home as he visited Japan.
Congressional Democrats, one Twitter target today, quote, "The Dems are getting nothing done in Congress. They only want a do-over on Mueller."
That's from the president. More provocative, though, the president's decision to embrace Kim Jong-un's attack on the intelligence of the former vice president, Joe Biden. The President of the United States writing in part from overseas, quote, "Also smiled when he called Swampman Joe Biden a low IQ individual and worse. Perhaps that's sending me a signal?"
The president was asked about that tweet today and he doubled down.
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TRUMP: Well, Kim Jong-un made a statement that Joe Biden is a low IQ individual. He probably is, based on his record. I think I agree with him on that.
Joe Biden was a disaster. His administration with President Obama, they were basically a disaster when it came to so many things, whether it was economy, whether it was military defense, no matter what it was, they had a lot of problems, so I'm not a fan.
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KING: Lisa Lerer with "The New York Times" joins our conversation.
I mean, just forget -- take your norm machine and throw it out window, take your protocol machine and salvage it for the screws and the widgets. We know the president doesn't like Joe Biden
But to embrace Kim Jong-un's criticism of Joe Biden while overseas in the neighborhood where Kim Jong-un is a threat and to ignore the fact that Kim Jong-un is a murderous dictator, who kills and oppresses his own people, to hug Kim in a domestic political argument is pretty extraordinary.
LISA LERER, "THE NEW YORK TIMES": Oh, yes, it's a complete throwing out of the norm machine. I thought it broke maybe six months ago so I'm happy it's still in operation somewhere.
I mean, typically, of course, politics stops at the water's edge and when presidents go abroad they don't engage in domestic politics battles and often these trips are a way to get them a break and some nice press coverage and get them away from domestic politics battles.
And the thing about this that's even more confusing is these attacks probably helped Joe Biden politically. The former vice president is really running on this idea that he's the most fearsome opponent and the president is scared of him which allows him to make this whole electability critique, which is what Democratic primary voters want to see.
So not only is it questionable behavior in terms of national norms and what we expect from a president, it's perhaps --
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LERER: politically not the best line.
KING: To that point, Adam Kinzinger, Republican congressman from Illinois, most Republicans just run and hide, drop their devices and pretend they don't have any communications ability when these things happens because they don't want to criticize the president.
But Adam Kinzinger, who's a military veteran, says, "It's Memorial Day weekend and you're taking a shot at Biden while praising a dictator. This is just plain wrong."
PARTI: So we're seeing criticism now from his Republican colleagues but I think they have to be concerned, as Lisa said, because it's making Joe Biden's point for him. He's been positioning himself as one who can beat Trump.
Out on the campaign trail, there aren't a lot of Democrats who bring up Trump by name. Biden is the only one who talks about the president. And so Trump is now engaging so much with Biden, it's really setting up a Biden versus Trump, you know, Twitter feud that can go on to the campaign trail as well.
DAWSEY: The president was recently shown polling which Biden was beating him in a number of states, internal poll. And since then he's been fixated on Biden. If you look at his tweets over and over and over, no matter the topic or no matter the substance or exchange, he somehow brings Biden into it.
KING: And he also tweeted this out.
"Great fun meeting with Prime Minister Abe Shinzo. Numerous Japanese officials," remember, that numerous Japanese officials, "told me the Democrats would rather see the United States fail than see me and the Republican Party succeed. Death wish!"
Before I came on the air yesterday morning, I had some -- I'll just call it incoming, I'm not supposed to describe it in detail -- from Japanese officials saying, we did no such thing, They said there's no secret that Abe likes president and that Abe is favorable to the president.
But they said they are not in the business of trashing the Democratic Party or meddling in American domestic politics.
MATTINGLY: Are you suggesting perhaps that the president made up this exchange?
KING: Or at least exaggerated, yes.
MATTINGLY: First off, this is the epitome, with the exception of Congressman Kinzinger, where every Republican you talk to about this will say, I didn't seen the tweet or I'm sorry, I lost my phone and I'm not actually going to weigh in on this, even though privately they would probably say it's important.
But it also underscores this is a president who still lists off his electoral college victory on a pretty regular clip. It's never going to not be about either the 2016 election or the 2020 election for him and you can talk about norms and whatever he's trying to do on a daily basis, it comes back to that.
The idea that some people in his orbit don't want him to elevate Joe Biden. You're elevating the vice president when you do this and he'll continue to do it and despite that advice because he won in 2016 and he always believes he knows best.
This is clearly how he's going to go.
KING: His success teaches us that some of the rules of this town are outdated. Some of the rules in this town need to be changed but I would argue that some we should keep.
Is there significance in this?
The president before left said you keep investigating me, I won't do any business with House Democrats. Overseas he said this.
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TRUMP: They were very disappointed. They can't get over the fact that I never spoke to Russia, never dealt with Russia, having to do with the subject that we're talking about. I would imagine that Nancy Pelosi will approve that. I would think it would be very hard not to but we'll see. But certainly as things get approved, I would love to sign them. It's only good for our country. I'm only interested in what's good for our country.
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KING: He was talking about the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade. But that's a much softer take on dealing with the Democrats than right before he left.
Is there something to be read into that?
Or that's just what he said today? PARTI: It seems maybe he's making an exception for his trade policy and still won't work with them on things like infrastructure or things that might even help Democrats. It seemed like he was trying to make an exception for trade policy. Still unclear how much he'll be willing to work with Democrats.
MATTINGLY: On Tuesday, he's for something; on Thursday he's completely against it it's why you don't take any of his statements to be gospel or the truth. It's just what's happening at the moment.
DAWSEY: Trump saying we're not working with Democrats, Larry Kudlow and others still meeting with Democrats, Jared Kushner meeting with Democrats. I think even inside the White House, the operating theory is let's keep trying to make progress because he'll probably change his tune on that.
KING: A possibility; getting that trade deal might actually help the president.
KOSINSKI: Could also underscore the soft diplomacy of the Japanese. They went on this charm offensive. He was at the sumo match and he's the first world leader to meet the emperor. They don't want a trade war. They see what's happening with China and don't want anything to do with that. So maybe there's some influence happening there behind the scenes
As we go to break, we'll take a look at another a Memorial Day ceremony. This one at the U.S.S. Intrepid, the World War II aircraft carrier and museum, right there on the Hudson River.
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KING: Populists and nationalists are making significant gains as Europe tallies the votes from what adds up to the biggest multicountry election in the world. The votes are for the European parliament and more nationalists, anti-establishment forces in the United Kingdom.
France and Italy are among those celebrating today. Their gains not as dramatic as some of the more centrist pro-European Union forces had feared. The new numbers as we count them up, these party names won't be familiar to you in the United States.
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