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Trump Rewards Turkish President with White House Invite; Trump: "At Some Point We Have to Bring Our People Back Home"; Robertson: Trump Losing "Mandate of Heaven" By Abandoning Kurds; Sen. Graham: "Time to Give Voice to Everything Ukraine"; Pelosi Speaks Amid Impeachment Probe. Aired 12:30-1p ET
Aired October 08, 2019 - 12:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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[12:30:28] JOHN KING, CNN HOST: The White House rewarding Turkey's president today even as he plans a military campaign against a critical U.S. ally. The president extending an official White House invitation to Recep Erdogan for November the 13th. That announcement comes just today after a burst of Republican outrage over President Trump's decision to abandon the Kurds by removing remaining U.S. troops from Northern Syria. That would open the door, many say, to a potential slaughter.
This morning the president tried to temper those objections. Quote, in no way have we abandoning the Kurds, the president tweeting. Along with a warning to Turkey any, quote, unnecessary fighting the president says, and he will hurt Turkey's very fragile economy.
Those are the president's words. It is striking in the sense of the blowback from the president's own party yesterday was fierce. They don't trust Erdogan here, and then the morning after the president says, come see me at the White House.
MICHAEL BENDER, WHITE HOUSE REPORTER, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: Yes. And there's really no at least articulated plan to protect the Kurds. The president was asked point-blank about that yesterday if he could guarantee their safety. His response was, we'll see, and then he described this as a tribal war that there was no solution to, that he could not see any solution to.
I will say, one of the interesting moments yesterday with the president on this was he was asked about some of this pointed criticism coming from both parties, sort of the kind of question that he would punch back on, right. The -- your sort of typical counter punch moment for Trump. But he took a step back and he said there are people with different opinions. I respect their opinions, and I have my own.
KING: And he went on. To that point, he went on to say this is his that this is just not worth it. In the president's view, it's not -- you mentioned -- you're dead on, you have the Kurds, you have the Syria situation, Russia and Iran could benefit from this. The president is just not interested anymore. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Well, we've been to Syria for a long time, and it was supposed to be a very short hit and -- hit on ISIS but it didn't work out that way. They never left, and they've been there for many, many years. At some point, we have to bring our people back home.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: He's been consistent on this even though he has stopped. He wanted to do this in Afghanistan, he wanted to do it in Syria earlier, and in both countries and both situations, the Republican establishment, including his own people, the Pentagon, the State Department, has pushed him and he has not done it. Now he seems determined.
JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Right. He has been talked out of it, he seems determined now. He said his decision is firm. I'm not sure on the politics of this, it's that bad for the president. I mean, the Republican establishment here is concerned about it, Lindsey Graham, certainly others are but I'm not sure the American people -- I think he has the better argument that, you know, it's time to come home.
We're in year '18, almost, of the Afghanistan conflict. Of course, Iraq, everything else has endured. So this has a consistent position of his. I think it also allows him to change the subject and it allows Republicans on Capitol Hill to give them something to criticize the president for while not talking about impeachment. But as for this matter itself, I think it's politically probably just fine for him.
LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ, NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER, POLITICO: But it also raises the question which I think is in a lot of our reporting, it's also a question that I think the public has which is what signal does this send to U.S. allies because this looks as though -- I mean, it is if the president does follow through with it, it's, you know -- as even Republicans have said a betrayal of allies, so.
KING: And to that point, Senator Marco Rubio, among those who are saying, Mr. President, I know you inherited a mess, I know this is a bad thing. I know it sometimes is seen unworkable, but, he's trying to raise the context of the price. "Syria isn't about neocons or about hawks, it's about reality. The Kurds were the lead ground forces against ISIS and currently hold thousands of ISIS killers in jail. Abandoning them is morally repugnant, stains our nation's reputation, and could lead to thousands of ISIS killers back on the battlefield."
The senator's point being we've already seen some evidence U.S. officials say of the Kurdish forces abandoning those prisons and moving their forces north because they think Turkey is about to come after them. Senator Rubio essentially saying, sorry, Mr. President, I get it but you can't do this, it's going to make things worse. BENDER: That's where this gets into a problem is the details. And we haven't seen any details. As far as I'm aware, there are no withdrawal orders from DoD to bring these troops back. There is no plan to do that quite yet. This is the president saying kind of aspirationally what he wants to do but not a specific plan to do it. But what he does say to bring it back to Jeff's point is directly compare this to -- cast this as a campaign promise that he's fulfilling.
KING: It was interesting to me, and I'm not sure how much sway Pat Robertson still has with the evangelicals, but he was the founder of the Christian coalition. He was the first person who put together the political power of evangelicals back in the late 1980s when he himself ran for president.
[12:35:02] Listen to Pat Robertson on the 700 Club last night saying, Mr. President, here and the way you treat Saudi Arabia, you're making a big mistake.
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PAT ROBERTSON, EVANGELICAL PASTOR: I am absolutely appalled that the United States is going to betray those Democratic forces in Northern Syria. A president who allowed Khashoggi to be cut in pieces without any repercussions whatsoever is now allowing the Christians and the Kurds to be massacred by the Turks. And I believe, and I want to say this with great solemnity, the president of the United States is in danger of losing the mandate of heaven if he permits this to happen.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: Those are pretty powerful words. And again, I don't know Pat Robertson's current sway over evangelical voters. He was an icon back in the day, that could hurt the president.
HEATHER CAYGLE, CONGRESSIONAL REPORTER, POLITICO: But let's remember that Trump has been in similar situations before, he's floated controversial foreign policy ideas, he's been criticized by Republicans and conservatives and sometimes evangelicals. And then little has happened in Congress, especially in the GOP-controlled Senate to, you know, pull him back. And sometimes he pulls back and this time, he seems pretty intent on moving forward but the question is will Republicans do anything through a spending bill or defense legislation to actually try to punish him and get him to, you know, join their side?
BENDER: It's a powerful criticism and I think fair criticism but the difference here, I have to say is, is financial for the president, right. He is not seeing any benefit financially for the country to protect the Kurds and be involved in the skirmish out there. While he directly said he didn't want to get involved in the -- or take any drastic action on the Khashoggi incident because Saudi Arabia could buy so much military equipment from the United States.
ZELENY: And as far as I know, Vice President Pence has been utterly silent on this. This is someone who does speak to evangelicals, so I think if the president would be worried about his right flank in any respect it would be because of this. But, you know, it's not necessarily an argument that he embraces but boy, powerful words there, a mandate from heaven. That is perhaps the strongest thing we've heard in a very long time against this president.
KING: Keep an eye on that one.
Up next for us, advocates for gay and transgender rights get a big moment before the Supreme Court.
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[12:42:11] KING: Topping our political radar today, deficit hawks, hide your eyes. The Congressional Budget Office estimates the federal government spent $984 billion more than it took in the fiscal year 2019. That's the biggest such gap since 2012. The main drivers are the usual suspects, you see them right there on your screen along with the $1.5 trillion in tax cuts President Trump signed into law two years ago.
Former vice president Joe Biden rolling out a $750 billion year plan to help Americans pay for higher education. It guarantees two free years of community college. Somewhat less ambitious than other ideas put forth by his Democratic rivals in the White House race. Biden's plan also takes aim at student loan obligations with special help for public sector workers.
The Supreme Court today being asked to decide if employers can fire someone because they're gay or transgender. Justices are hearing arguments in two cases, one involving a transgender woman who says she lost her job at a funeral home after acknowledging her transition. Two other cases before the court are being heard as one, it involved a former skydiving instructor and a social worker who says they too lost their jobs when their employers learned of their sexual orientation.
CNN partners with the human rights campaign to present a groundbreaking series of town halls. "Equality in America 2020". Join the 20 candidates as they discuss these issues facing the LGBTQ community in a night of back-to-back town halls. That's Thursday night starting at 7:30 p.m. Eastern right here on CNN.
Up next, a key Republican senator says he wants to give Rudy Giuliani his day on Capitol Hill.
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[12:48:23] KING: Republican Senator Lindsey Graham today promising Rudy Giuliani a spotlight on Capitol Hill to lay out his unproven allegations of corruption in Ukraine. Senator Graham says, "It's time for the Senate to investigate and we'll invite the president's lawyer to testify before the Judiciary Committee."
The senator goes on to say he's tired of hearing just one side of the story. Huh? "It's time now to give voice to everything Ukraine and let the chips fall where they may", Senator Graham says. Giuliani asked if he would accept Senator Graham's offer, tell CNN, quote, I love Lindsey but I'm still a lawyer and I will have to deal with privilege.
I think it's a great idea, right?
I mean, so do some of the presidential candidates' campaigns like Kamala Harris. Her campaign says we encourage this, and Senator Diane Feinstein also encourages it and she's also a Democrat.
KING: Let me read the Feinstein statement because it's fun. "I welcome the opportunity to question Rudy Giuliani under oath about his role in seeking the Ukrainian government's assistance to investigate one of the political rivals -- one of the president's political rivals. Democratic members have plenty of questions for Mr. Giuliani and this would give us an opportunity to help separate fact from fiction for the American people."
Not going to happen, right? Because it's just dream day, it's not going to happen.
BENDER: That's right, for a number of reasons. One of which the -- we had a quote in the Washington Journal the other day that inside the White House and inside Trump's political orbit, the only one who likes seeing Rudy on TV right now is the president.
KING: And to that point, watch Rudy on television, don't expect to get facts but you do get theater.
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CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: You did ask Ukraine to look into Joe Biden?
RUDY GIULIANI, TRUMP'S PERSONAL LAWYER: Of course I did.
It happened in Ukraine and it happened with Hillary Clinton. George Soros was behind it, George Soros' company was funding it.
[12:50:02] We should bring a lawsuit on behalf of the president and several people in the administration, maybe even myself as a lawyer against the members of Congress, individually, for violating constitutional rights, violating civil rights.
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KING: We'll take you straight to Seattle. The House Speaker Nancy Pelosi talking about the witness today the White House blocked.
REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA): -- to be worthy of the constitution that we are trying to protect from the abuses of this president of the United States. Your question is specifically about the ambassador being blocked from testifying. Now, he said to his lawyers that he's fully prepared to come to testify. There will be a subpoena issued for him to come testify.
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PELOSI: You used the word -- the right word, to block. And so the president is obstructing Congress from getting the facts that we need. He has said it's an abuse of power for him to act in this way, and that is one of the reasons that we have an impeachment inquiry. Our constitution, the genius of it is a system of checks and balances, that we would have three separate co-equal branches of the government that would have checks and balances on the other.
The president said Article 2 says I can do whatever I want. No, it doesn't, Mr. President. And so he's snubbing his nose at the vision of our founders, his disloyalty to the constitution is something that we have to study and it's just with the facts. The facts in the constitution, that's what it's about. It's not about any other disagreement you may have (INAUDIBLE).
That remains to be determined. There is -- there will be a subpoena (INAUDIBLE). Article 3 (INAUDIBLE) refusing to (INAUDIBLE). I'm not here to say what those articles will be (INAUDIBLE). We're having an inquiry, we'll see where it takes us. If it takes us to that place at that time, a determination will be made as to what they are. But we're not prejudging.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you have a specific timeline for this impeachment inquiry?
PELOSI: No. We want it to be carefully done but we don't want to waste any time. It's up to the committees as the evidence unfolds and what time is the time to just say yes or no to proceed on impeachment.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What are the things will the House Intelligence Committee were willing to go to hide the identity of the whistleblower from (INAUDIBLE).
PELOSI: Yes or no to proceed on impeachment.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What lengths will the House intelligence committee be willing to go to hide the identity of the whistleblower (INAUDIBLE)?
PELOSI: (INAUDIBLE) as a member, as a top Democrat (INAUDIBLE) and now as the leader and speaker. I was there to write the laws to protect whistleblowers. There are laws to establish the office of the director of national intelligence. That's only since 2004, so I know what their purpose is with the intent of Congress. The Intelligence Community respects the role of whistleblowers. We all (INAUDIBLE) but in intelligence protecting the whistleblower is absolutely essential so that there's no retribution or anything for speaking truth.
If a whistleblower comes forth to the Inspector General with a complaint that he deemed to be of concern, of urgent concern and credible, that then goes to the next step. And whistleblowers must be protected. That is absolutely necessary.
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KING: You're listening to the House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Some issues with the video and audio quality of the feeds from that live event. We apologize for that. But if you listen to the substance of her remarks there, what we could hear, very important. Number one, she says it is critical that the whistleblower be protected. The House Democrats preparing to take extraordinary steps to protect the identity of the one whistleblower who has come forward and, of course, there's talk there could be a second whistleblower complaint in the days ahead. That important from the speaker.
[12:55:00] She also said the president was disloyal to the constitution for blocking the testimony today of his ambassador -- European -- ambassador to the European Union who was supposed to testify, at the last minute, they pulled that testimony. She also said it was an abuse of power by the president to do that and that would be part of the impeachment inquiry. She said no firm timetable. She wanted the committees to proceed as expeditiously as possible, but no firm timetable.
ZELENY: Right. And she's taking the same tone she's taken from the very beginning saying, you know, she's not smiling, she's not getting any joy with this. She did say the president is snubbing his nose as well at the constitution. So this is part of her response. But her response is more muted than the president, you know, essentially using his bully pulpit to say that there is a political fight here.
So, you know, the fact remains the same if Republicans in the White House want to block this and there's more information that comes out, it does complicate the Democrats opportunity to make an argument to the American people. That she is being measured and very, you know, forthright about this process that it's not about the president. And she said, again, this is not about any disagreements you have with him, take that up at the election time, this is about the constitution. That's her -- pretty, you know, the same message she's had since the beginning.
BARRON-LOPEZ: And two key themes that are coming from her and Schiff are that they are being treated not as a co-equal branch of government, that Trump considers the presidency above them, and that they're being obstructed. And they also routinely bring up the fact that when articles were drafted against Nixon that a key piece of that was the obstruction of Congress.
CAYGLE: The abuse of power line is really important here because I think that she and Schiff feel like they have enough to make the case on obstruction of Congress, but there's also a lot of private unease about that being the best case that you make to the public and not being able to convince voters that he did abuse his office for political benefit.
KING: Right. And then that sort of where we are right now at lager heads in the sense that she was being asked about the White House refusal. Again, done at the last minute, the White House telling counsel telling the State Department, do not let Ambassador Sondland testify. To that point, Democrats say, sure, they can make a case. The White House doesn't send documents, we're going to impeach him for obstructing Congress. That becomes a Washington conversation as opposed that to your point, to the abuse of power.
Did the president and some of the text messages suggest it, we don't have all the evidence, that's why you need the witnesses, but the text messages certainly suggest that the diplomats involved, especially the veteran diplomat like Bill Taylor who's been at this for years, career Foreign Service thought, hey, wait a minute, what are you asking me to do. He said crazy in those texts to hold up security assistance to help a political -- domestic political campaign. That would if they could connect all that together, that would be an abuse of power by the president. But if the White House denies the witnesses, it's hard for the Democrats to make that public case because people out in the country have skepticism shall I say about trusting politicians.
BENDER: Yes, absolutely. There is -- and that's what the House is trying to do, Democrats are trying to do is get to the intent. We know what the president said and they're trying to figure out why he said and what he meant by those words. And the president has shown sort of over the last couple of months, few months that he's OK, he feels comfortable with the messaging battle when he's accused of obstruction and abuse of power. And that's why, you know, to what Jeff said earlier, it's an interesting shift from Pelosi to make this not about Trump and Democrats, this is about Trump and the constitution.
KING: And I just want to come back again. Again, you hear the speaker talking about the ambassador. If you're not following this closely, the White House deciding this morning to not let the president's ambassador to the European Union to testify. He was part of these text exchanges.
If you go there, Bill Taylor, a career diplomat. "Are we now saying that security assistance and White House meeting are conditioned on investigations?" Gordon Sondland, "Call me". In later text says, let's stop texting about this. Again, there may be an explanation, but if you just look at these text messages, you think, OK, Gordon Sondland suddenly realized, let's stop texting about this because this is a problem.
ZELENY: Exactly. And he's also not a long-time diplomat. He was a major campaign contributor. He's also the ambassador to the E.U. and Ukraine is not involved in the E.U. so one of the questions I think that would have come up today had he been there is what was his role exactly? Was he, you know, perhaps trying to pressure members of the E.U. to also withhold aid? So I think that that is something that, you know, still to be asked. But we should remember who he is but he was here in Washington, you know, apparently ready to testify but the White House blocked that early this morning.
KING: To the point, the other witness that they hope testifies, Friday but we'll see after what happened today. The State Department could say no again. Ambassador Yovanovitch who was recalled when the White House asked a political ally, he was a donor to the Trump campaign to go in and manage this situation because the career people like Bill Taylor, like the ambassador, were saying wait a minute, you're asking us to do something we're not comfortable doing.
BENDER: Yes. And our reporting at the Journal is that it was the president was the one specifically pushing this Yovanovitch's ouster despite some reservations from state and to the point where Rudy Giuliani had to get involved to remind the president of some of his charges that about-- how she was handling his political interest in Ukraine.
KING: A lot of moving parts. We appreciate your patience today, including going out to see the speaker out there again, trying to promote the Democratic policy agenda, dealing with impeachment's questions (INAUDIBLE). That is the world we lived in at the moment.
Thanks for joining us in the INSIDE POLITICS. See you back here this time tomorrow. Don't go anywhere, a busy day. Brianna Keilar starts --
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