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Contentious White House Press Briefing on Travel Ban; Trump to Reveal Supreme Court Pick Tonight. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired January 31, 2017 - 13:30   ET

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

(WHITE HOUSE PRESS CONFERENCE FROM 13:30:00 - 13:50:00)

[13:50:02] WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: There he is, the White House press secretary, Sean Spicer, wrapping up what I think we can call a very contentious briefing with reporters in the White House briefing room. There's lots to discuss. Lots of news unfolding.

Want to bring in our panel. We have our legal analyst, Laura Coates with us; CNN political analyst, David Gregory, the author of "How's Your Faith"; our senior political reporter, Nia-Malika Henderson; and our Supreme Court correspondent and justice correspondent, Pamela Brown.

Big stories. The Supreme Court, the Justice Department. But let's go through some of the issues specifically.

The breaking news you have on the Supreme Court nominees, two finalists. They're either here already or on the way. We will learn at 8:02 eastern time tonight, from the East Room of the White House, who the Supreme Court pick is.

PAMELA BROWN, CNN SUPREME COURT CORRESPONDENT & JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Right. It's kind of like "Supreme Court Apprentice," Wolf. We know, according to our sources, that Judge Neil Gorsuch arrived in Washington last night. And the other top contender, Thomas Hardiman, left his home in Pittsburgh this morning and, at last check, he as halfway between Pittsburgh and Washington D.C.

And officials I've been speaking with and sources close to this process say that the idea is to conceal who the person is that Donald Trump will announce tonight during his announcement. We're told, through our sources, there are increasing indications that Judge Gorsuch, a conservative judge in Colorado, 49-years-old, will be his pick. But everyone has cautioned he could change his mind. We saw it before, if you'll recall, with Vice President Mike Pence. After they had settled on him, he had asked if he could change his mind on that pick. So, that could definitely happen.

BLITZER: That's the breaking news we're following.

But, David Gregory, this was a very contentious briefing that White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer had with reporters, going back and forth, especially on the secretary of Homeland Security now saying he was informed, he knew what was going on, denying reports in the press that he was not really up to speed. DAVID GREGORY, CNN POLITIAL ANLAYST: Well, there's a couple areas of

controversy with this executive order. One, it was hastily put together and not everybody within the cabinet was brought on board and really briefed on this. And that it was enforced in a way that caused chaos and humiliation for people caught up in all of it. And there's subsequent concerns about the executive order. General Kelly came out today and stated publicly to say, look, I was briefed, this is going to help people.

I think for those who are watching, for those of us who cover Washington, both things could be true. The reporting could have been accurate and then he could say, no, everything was above board. The way it works is the White House calls over and says, you need to get in line, because this makes the president look bad. So, there could be a couple of things going on there.

BROWN: I can just say, the officials were kept in the dark, the operations folks at DHS were kept in the dark, to the extent that when they were being fully briefed on the details of the executive order Friday, they were asking questions about, well, what do we do with these passengers that are now newly banned on the way to the U.S. So, there was a lot of confusion. So, if there was briefing, clearly, it wasn't to the full extent --

(CROSSTALK)

GREGORY: And according to -- Mattis, at Defense, was fuming about the fact that there were interpreters that helped U.S. troops that were caught up in all of this as well.

And the fact that the order itself would not be enforced by the acting attorney general, the president saying, it was an act of betrayal as he fired her. So, this is sending shock waves through Washington.

NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER: And it wasn't clear, even in Kelly's briefing today whether or not he saw the final version. He kept saying, oh, that he saw this coming, because of the way that Trump was campaigning. Guess what? Everybody saw this coming. He talked about seeing drafts of it, not necessarily a final draft.

BLITZER: All right.

HENDERSON: So even in his presentation, he was sort of dancing around whether or not he was fully briefed.

BLITZER: I want to bring in our senior White House correspondent, Jim Acosta.

Jim, you were there in the briefing. And Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, was clearly anxious to rebut a lot of the charges leveled against the Trump administration.

JIM ACOSTA, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: That's right Wolf, and specifically about the ban signed by the president over the weekend, that Sean Spicer said, during this briefing, was not a ban. He objected to the use to have word "ban" by reporters and their questions. And of course, it was pointed out to Sean Spicer that the president tweeted all of this and used the word "ban" himself. So, Sean Spicer was asked, at one point, was the president confused about what was in this executive order if he was using the word "ban." What Sean Spicer said, he was pushing back on that, and said, no, this was a vetting executive order, not a ban executive order.

There was also some contentious moments about whether Secretary Kelly was fully briefed on that executive order. At one point, Sean Spicer asked a reporter in this room, are you saying Secretary Kelly was lying when he says he was briefed on all of this. The question is, was Secretary Kelly briefed on the final draft of that executive order before it was signed, and we don't have a 100 percent clarity on that -- Wolf?

[13:55:16] BLITZER: Because he said there was no -- as you point out, there was no travel ban. But as you correctly point out, even the president referred to it today as a ban.

What I heard Secretary Kelly, the secretary of Homeland Security, say, was there was no Muslim ban and he was specific all these other predominantly Muslim countries were not involved. There were seven countries, predominantly Muslim countries, seven countries select by the Obama administration, and they would have extreme vetting. They would not allow immigrations from the seven countries.

But as far as the travel ban, the seven countries, people that want to come here, they're going to have a lot of problems getting in over the next several months.

ACOSTA: That's right.

And at one point, Sean Spicer was asked about how Rudy Giuliani, who was an advisor to this campaign, was talked about as a potential secretary of state, how Rudy Giuliani said on FOX News that then- Candidate Trump went to him and said, I would like to do a ban, how can I do it legally. And Sean Spicer was asked about that, in light of the fact that Rudy Giuliani was having lunch with the president today, and Sean Spicer essentially said that is how Mayor Giuliani recalled that conversation and again was pushing back on this notion that this is a ban.

But, Wolf, the other thing they're clinging to at the White House is that everything was executed perfectly throughout the entire process, even though you saw huge disruptions at airports all over the country. Even the speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, was saying it was regrettable that there was confusion about all of this.

BLITZER: And we do know there's a ban on all Syrian refugees coming to the United States and that's an indefinite ban that is under way right now.

I'm going to get back to you, Jim Acosta.

Laura Coates, you're our legal analyst. It was pretty clear that Sean Spicer, not backing off in the use of the word "betrayal" in describing Sally Yates, the acting attorney general who was fired last night.

LAURA COATES, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: That use of the word is pretty nonsensical because, even at her confirmation hearing, she discussed the fact that she knew she had a lawful obligation to enforce a lawful order. But when there was confusion as to whether it was, indeed, lawful, just look the last couple of days. There was confusion on how to implement it, how to enforcement it. You have 11 different states trying to figure out whether or not there's uniformity to enforce it. So, her objective was not a betrayal. It was an adherence to her sworn obligation to ensure there's consistency among the DOJ. And to say she was betraying -- perhaps she was subordinate in her attitude of not going forward with an order that she couldn't defend, but the courts have to believe in the credibility of the Justice Department. You can't walk in and make a straight-faced plausible argument if constitutionality, let alone, lawfulness, is at issue. There must be uniformity. Otherwise, it's the department of lawyers, not a Department of Justice then.

GREGORY: And also, usually, they leave the attorney general to have some independence.

COATES: Yeah.

GREGORY: But that said, he has the right to fire the acting attorney general, the regular attorney general. Using the language he used, again, it creates these shockwaves. But he certainly within his rights to do that. It just creates controversy.

COATES: But she was expecting it.

(CROSSTALK)

COATES: She probably felt, what do I have to lose? This is how I feel.

(CROSSTALK)

GREGORY: She's not a holdover. She's not a Trump person, like Sessions is going to be. I think he, not surprisingly, decided to turbo-charge it by calling it an act of betrayal.

One other point I want to make, this whole thing about the ban, if they didn't do the ban, all these bad dudes were going to come in. The president's favorite word. The realty is there are existing checks on people who are come in who are refugees. They don't just get to waltz into the country. There are security measures.

COATES: And they're vigorous.

BLITZER: No Syrian refugees are coming into the United States. And that is an indefinite, an indefinite ban.

There's a new acting attorney general, Dana Boente, who says he will go ahead and implement all of the president's orders. Sally Yates, as we know, is out.

Everybody stay with us.

And important note to our viewers. You can watch President Trump's announcement of a Supreme Court nominee right here on CNN 8:00 p.m. eastern tonight.

And at 9:00 p.m. eastern, the House Democratic leader, Nancy Pelosi, joins Jake Tapper for a live town hall. They'll be joined by a live studio audience. That's at 9:00 p.m. eastern tonight, only here on CNN.

That's it for me. I'll be back at 5:00 p.m. eastern in "The Situation Room."

In the meantime, the news continues right now.

[14:00:04] ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, here we go. Top of the hour. I'm Brooke Baldwin. You're watching CNN. Thank you for being with me.

So much to get to today. We've got the --