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White House Press Briefing Soon; White House Press Briefing. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired February 27, 2017 - 13:30   ET

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


(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:34:18] WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Today's White House press briefing set to begin any moment now. We're going to have live coverage of that once it begins. Sean Spicer will go to the microphone on the lectern. I'm sure he will have some opening statements as well. We'll have live coverage.

Meantime, let's bring back our panel.

Speaking of Sean Spicer, Gloria, as you know, he had a meeting with his staff, and he asked to see with the White House counsel there, their cell phones to see if there were encrypted apps that they could be leaking information. They all had to submit their cell phones, personal cell phones, government cell phones, because he wanted to plug up leaks. How unusual is that?

GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: Incredibly unusual. I'm sure my colleagues here feel the same way.

(CROSSTALK)

BORGER: I have never heard of that.

JEFF MASON, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, REUTERS & PRESIDENT, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENTS ASSOCAITION: The irony that there been a leak about it is investigation into leaks is also --

(CROSSTALK)

BLITZER: A few hours.

BORGER: So they know --

(CROSSTALK)

BLITZER: He is taking this extraordinary step.

BORGER: Yeah, but the president has said that the leaks are coming from outside the White House. He has accused the FBI and intelligence community of leaking. What this shows is that Sean Spicer, and perhaps he is acting at the behest of the president, they understand there are leaks coming from inside the White House.

Just imagine if you were somebody who worked at the White House, what kind of an affect would that have on you?

I think it's fine if you're Sean Spicer to say, look, if you are on one of these apps where it disappears after you communicate, that's against the Federal Records Act. That actually your communications cannot be on those. And I think that's fine to let people know that in advance. When you go into the White House and brief people about what is expected of you in terms of your communications, but taking away your telephone is basically saying to the people who work for you that we don't trust you.

BLITZER: It's pretty extraordinary. I haven't heard of that before.

Jeff, in addition to being a Reuters White House correspondent, you're the president of the White House Correspondents Association. Have you ever seen -- I was a White House correspondent for seven years. I've never seen it where there is advertised a press briefing, no cameras, but an open press briefing where, at the last minute, they start telling various mainstream accredited White House correspondents you are not invited.

MASON: Very unusual.

(CROSSTALK)

BLITZER: Not very unusual. Has it ever happened, based on anything you have heard?

MASON: I guess I just want to make clear to viewers that it is not unusual to occasionally have briefings with smaller groups.

(CROSSTALK)

BLITZER: That's correct. But you don't advertise that there's going to be what they call a gaggle, and then at the last minute you tell, like, Sara Murray, who was waiting in line to go inside to this briefing, you're not on the list.

MASON: That's right.

BLITZER: "The New York Times" correspondent, you're not on the list. The "Los Angeles Times" correspondent, you're not on the list. The BBC correspondent, you're not on the list. And so on and so on. I have never heard of that.

MASON: I haven't either. And we made that will point to Sean Spicer and to his team that there's a difference between having a gaggle or a small group briefing about a specific subject or replacing the daily briefing with a gaggle. And what happened Friday, we protested it. We weren't happy about it. We were involved in negotiating with them ahead of time and said, look, move the gaggle into the briefing room, it doesn't have to be on camera. Not every briefing has to be on camera. That's ok. There's no legitimate reason for putting it in a place for not everyone in the press corps can ask questions.

SUSAN PAGE, WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF, USA TODAY: There are two things that made this different from what we've seen before. The White House often has people they favor and will call in for briefings. Two things make a difference. One, it replaced the daily that day. And, two, some reporters excluded seemed to be excluded because the White House wasn't happy with the stories their news organizations had written. That's not something I have seen since I started covering the White House in 1980.

MASON: I think in the broader context happening on a day before President Trump had start off his day at CPAC talking about the media being the enemy of the American people. It was really the first time since the president has come in office is that perhaps the press office is implementing a policy related to that rhetoric, which up until now, had not happened. The access has actually been very good. That's something that I pointed out to Sean as well.

BLITZER: Former President George W. Bush was on the "Today" show and NBC this morning, and he responded to this notion that the news media, the media or what the president calls the fake media, the mainstream media, is the enemy of the American people. Listen to the former president.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I consider the media to be indispensable to democracy. We need an independent media to hold people like me to account. Power can be very addictive, and it can be corrosive, and it's important for the media to call to account people who abuse their power, whether it be here or elsewhere.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Greg, you have been a journalist for a long time. It sounds like he is directly responding to President Donald Trump.

GREG IP, CHIEF ECONOMICS CORRESPONDENT, THE WALL STREET JOURAL: I think that, yes, a lot of people in the media right now are taken aback by how adversarial this has become. I think most people have been covering a lot of presidencies know that this isn't so unusual in the first six to 1 months of an administration. I think every president comes in with a sense if they can control things, it's always going to be different. I know the Obama folks came in and discovered after six to 12 months after a lot of head butting that it can't be different. What sets this administration apart is the explicitness with which they've framed this us versus them. I would say that it would be better to sort of think about a year from now how is it going to look? We have an administration that is still stumbling a lot. A lot of that is clearly a case of them just being very new at this. It may be that once they are able to deliver on their priorities better, things will calm down. I wonder if maybe it will be different.

[13:40:26] BORGER: What different about this is the president and one of his chief advisors, Steve Bannon, have called the press "the enemy of the American people," and that's what's really different.

(CROSSTALK) BORGER: And I think what George Bush was trying to say that absolute power corrupts absolutely, and you can't allow that to happen in this country.

And, by the way, I don't think any of us have ever met a president who really loved the press and really loved the way he was being covered. They don't. It's our job to be critical. So I think this takes to take different level.

And what I worry about is the cherry-picking of the media. You did a bad story today so I'm not going to allow you into a briefing that should be available to every single member of the free press.

BLITZER: President Nixon spoke of the media as the enemy, his enemy. But that was in a private meeting. We only learned years later of that conversation. This is different when the president goes out publicly, Susan, and makes this assertion.

PAGE: One thing that struck me about President Bush's comments this morning, number one, of course, he is a Republican. In fact, from the nation's leading Republican family, probably. I guess maybe the Trumps have replaced that now, but certainly a big Republican family. The second thing is he has, since he left the White House, generally kept his mouth shut about public affairs. He has refused even though he has had many opportunities to comment on the developments, political developments, and he chose with the publication of his new book to take these questions on NBC and to answer them.

BLITZER: Jeff, were you given advanced notice -- you're the president of the White House Correspondents Association -- that the president decided he would not attend the annual dinner at the end of April.

MASON: We were not given advanced notice, no. That came as a surprise.

BLITZER: When you say a surprise, were you anticipating he would be there?

MASON: Yeah. I was. I mean, we hadn't -- we actually hadn't talked about it very much. I know that they have a date. That's one of the things we talked about in one of our first meetings with Sean. We've had so many things and challenges to tackle over the last month that the dinner has really been lower on the priority list. We would have liked to have had him there. I would have liked to have shown what we've been trying to show for the first month that we can have a constructive relationship between the press and the White House team. We've worked really hard to establish that relationship. We would like to focus and showcased that at the dinner.

The dinner will go on, whether the president decides to come or not. We'll focus on the first amendment and the good work our members have done, and we'll give out scholarships to the next generation of our profession.

BLITZER: Did they give you an explanation? I saw his tweet, I'm not going, I wish them to have a great time. Whatever he said. Did he -- did they privately give you an explanation of his decision?

MASON: They haven't been in touch with me about it, no.

BLITZER: At all?

MASON: No.

BLITZER: What's been the reaction of the fellow members of the White House Correspondents Association.

MASON: I think the reaction has been mixed. I think there are some people who are concerned about how the dinner would look --

BLITZER: Here he is right now, Sean Spicer.

[13:43:30]

SPICER: Good afternoon.

Before I begin I wanted to introduce the director of the Office of Management and Budget, Mick Mulvaney, to talk to you a bit about the president's budget. When Director Mulvaney is finished we will allow him to take a few questions and then resume the briefing and all of the fun that goes with it.

So without any further ado, Director Mulvaney.

MULVANEY: Thanks very much. I want to talk for a few minutes about the budget blueprint that most of you know that -- president started speaking about this morning with the governors. I want to talk a little bit about what it is and what it isn't and then talk about where we are in the budget process and what it looks like from here.

First of all, what this isn't. This is not a full-blown budget. That will not come until May, so you're not going to see anything in here that has to do with mandatory spending, entitlement reforms, tax policies, revenue projections or the infrastructure plan. This blueprint was never going to be that, as I made clear during my Senate confirmation, it is a topline number only.

As for what it is, these are the president's policies as reflected in topline discretionary spending. So that and it is a true America first budget. It will show the president is keeping his promises and doing exactly what he said he was going to do when he ran for office. It prioritized rebuilding the military, including restoring our nuclear capabilities, protecting the nation and securing the border, enforcing the laws currently on the books, taking care of vets and increasing school choice. And it does all of that without adding to the currently projected FY 2018 deficit.

MULVANEY: The topline defense discretionary number is $603 billion, that's a $54 billion dollar increase, one of the largest increases in history. It's also the number that allows the president to keep his promise to undo the military sequester.

[13:50:00 The top line non-defense number will be $462 billion. That's a $54 billion savings. It's the largest proposed reduction since the early years of the Reagan administration. The reductions in non- defense spending follow the same model as the president keeping his promises and doing exactly what he said he was going to do.

It reduces money that we give to other nations. It reduces duplicative program. And it eliminates programs that simply don't work. The bottom line is this, the president's going to protect the country and do exactly what every American family's had to do over the past couple of years, and that's to prioritize spending.

The schedule from here. These numbers will go out to the agencies today in a process that we describe as pass back. Review from agencies are due back to OMB over the course of the next couple days. And we'll spend the next week or so working on a final budge blueprint.

We expect to have that number to Congress by March 16th. That puts on schedule for a full budget, including all the things I mentioned this one does not include, with all the larger policy issues, in the first part of May.

So with that I'll take a couple questions.

Yes, sir?

QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, in order to get to your top line on the rest of the non description -- the rest of the description in the budget, if you're not going to touch veteran's benefits, you need to slice about 12 percent off the rest of government. Can't you do that without affecting the services that the government provides ...

MULVANEY: Sure and that's part of what these process is this week, Okay? The numbers go out -- and each agency will get a top line number, along with recommendations from OMB as to how we they think we can hit that number. And they may come back to us and say yes we think that's a good way to reach that number. They may come back to us with other suggestions.

That's what this process is. I think it's fairly unusual for us to be coming to you this early in the process. But we wanted to let everybody know exactly where we were.

QUESTION: But we're not talking about 2 or 3 percent. We're talking about double digit reductions here. That's a lot.

MULVANEY: There's going to be a lot of programs that -- again you can expect to see exactly what the president said he was going to do. Foreign aid, for example, the president said we're going to spend less money overseas and spend more of it here. That's going to be reflected with the number we send to the State Department

QUESTION: Thank you very much. One quick follow up for me. That accounts for less than 1 percent of overall spending. I just spoke with an analyst who said even if you zeroed that out it wouldn't pay for one year of the budget increase. How do you square that? And also, why not tackle entitlements which are the biggest drivers, especially when a lot of republicans over the years have said that they need to be tackled?

MULVANEY: Sure, on your foreign aid, it's the same answer I just gave which is yes, it's a fairly small part of the discretionary budget, but it's still consistent with what the president said. When you see these reductions, you'll be able to tie it back to a speech the president gave, or something the president had said previously.

He's simply going to -- we are taking his words and turning them into policies and dollars. So we will be spending less overseas and spending more back home.

I forgot your second question.

QUESTION: On entitlements because (inaudible) drivers.

MULVANEY: It's very unusual to -- this is a budget blueprint -- what some folks used to call a skinny budget. And it would not be at all unusual for larger policy decisions, including tax reform revenue projections not to be included in this budget. That will come --

(CROSSTALK)

QUESTION: Down the line could we see some type of --

MULVANEY: A full budget will contain the entire spectrum of the president's proposed policy changes.

QUESTION: Director, on rebuilding the military, can you talk a little bit about the breakdown of that --

MULVANEY: No, I can't. Because again, where we're at in this process is that the number's going to the DOD today, and over the course of the next 10 days to two weeks we'll be coming up with those types of details.

I have time for one more.

Yes, sir? QUESTION: You're going to increase the military budget. Are you going to at least ask the people in the defense department to take a look at their budget and say hey, can we at least cut or at least look and to make sure that we're spending the right amount of money? Is part of that going to be at least part of the process?

MULVANEY: Well, Absolutely. That's part of what Secretary Mattis and I have already talked. He's interested in driving more efficiencies into the Defense Department. OMBs also going to be involved with him on a procurement process. All of that will be incorporated in our larger budget in May.

QUESTION: So it's not just like a blanket, here, we're going to throw money at you, you do what you want?

MULVANEY: No, sir.

Last one?

QUESTION: Does this account for spending for the president's wall, either in the $30 billion in (inaudible) or the $54 billion increase? Does that include money for the wall, how to pay for the wall?

MULVANEY: It would be more likely -- excuse me, a little bit of both. We will -- we do expect to include some money in a future supplemental in 2017 for the wall. And a 2018 budget will also contain some longer term dollars for that.

QUESTION: (Inaudible).

MULVANEY: I'd assume that will be the case.

Thank you all very much.

SPICER: Thank you, Director. So let me get back to -- I'll be with you in a second, April.

This morning the president dropped by the National Governors Association meeting where 49 governors from both States and territories joined cabinet members and senior White House staff to discuss where they can work together to rebuild the country and restart the economy.

While at the meeting, the president delivered a statement on his forth coming budget proposal which he'll submit to (ph) March 16th as you just heard the director mention.

The president's budget will first and foremost keep American's safe. That means investing in both our nation's physical and financial security. We will rebuild the nation's military, an increase in defense spending including increased funding for our veterans and our border will be matched by equal reductions in non defense programs.

The savings in our budget will come from looking at out dated and duplicative programs. The reductions spending will be sensible and rational but they will also be tough. With our nation's debt spiraling out of control, we simply must take a look at the way we're spending tax payer's dollars.

Families across the country are being forced to make difficult choices because for too long the federal government has not treated their government with the respect they deserve. The national debt exploded in the last administration from $10.6 billion (sic) on January 20th, 2009 to $19.9 trillion the day before -- sorry those are both trillions, the day before the presidents -- President Trumps inaugural.

Every child born in America this year will inherent an average of over $60,000 in debt. And that frankly is too much. Our budge will restore respect for tax payer's dollars while funding all the necessary programs to keep our country safe and prospering. This meeting with the governors was a continuation of a weekend of

engagement and discussion between the governors and the administration. The president, the first lady welcomed the governors to the White House for the annual Governor's Ball. And yesterday, the vice president had a very productive meeting with several governors.

The administrations proud to be working with the governors on rebuilding our nation's infrastructure, reforming our healthcare system and putting American's back to work. I know that that Obamacare in particular was put into place without a lot of input from governors. We're committed to consulting and including them on this and so many other subjects as we solve the nation's biggest issues together.

Later this morning the president has a listening session with some our countries leading healthcare insurance companies, interestingly on yesterdays "ABC This Week," Minority leader Pelosi actually laid out a great outline of how judge Obamacare's success based on what it was supposed to achieve.

She said, "it had three goals. One to lower the costs, the other to expand benefits and the third to improve and increase access." So let's go through her criteria, lowering costs, while this year all four tiers of Obamacare insurance plans are facing double digit increases in average premiums.

Just to take a look at one set of premiums for standard silver plans in the state, 63 percent increase in Tennessee, 69 percent in Oklahoma, and a staggering 116 percent increase in Arizona. On expanding benefits, the reality the new laws mandates have lead to mass cancellations of coverage, souring out of pocket costs and declining enrollment figure. Millions are choosing to pay a tax over buying the government mandated insurance.

Increased access, with insurance fleeing the marketplace, American's are facing a dwindling number of insurance choices with 17 percent of American's left with only insurer option available in their exchange. Insurers will be indispensable partners in the transition period out of Obamacare into the Patients First plan the president will be working with Congress to put in its place.

The president's plan will encourage innovation, modernize our healthcare system, and provide immediate relief and ensure access to quality, truly affordable care. This afternoon the president had lunch with Vice President Pence and Ambassador Haley. Afterwards he's having meeting with speaker Ryan and Majority Leader McConnell and then following that he's going to be meeting with Secretary of State Tillerson.

The secretary's coming off a very successful trip to Mexico that was joined by Secretary of Homeland Security Kelly. I'm sure the president's looking forward to discussing that trip with the secretary. Also this afternoon the vice president will be speaking to an extraordinary group of 60 presidents of historically black colleges and universities. There will be full (ph) story (ph) at the top of the event and the vice president's office will release his remarks and photos following the event.

We can also expect a meeting with the president with them as well. This evening the president will have dinner with regional press affiliates that are going to be in town for the joint session of Congress. While it's tradition for representatives from the networks to meet with the president before his joint address, this is the first time, to my knowledge at least that the opportunity has been expanded to include representation from 18 region outlets from around the country.

Tomorrow the president will also have the traditional lunch with the network anchors, beyond the so called big five networks we've also opened it up and invited outlets including Telemundo, Univision, CBN, EWTN, OANN, PBS, CSPAN, and TB1.

Tonight the president looks forward to seeing his nominee for the Secretary of Commerce, Wilbur Ross confirmed by the Senate. Secretary designate Ross has been an important champion for the U.S. struggling industries in the private sectors and pending his confirmation this evening, he will now do at (ph) the (ph) same post on behalf of the American people what he has done in private sector.

Assuming everything goes according to the plan in the Senate tonight, we expect to have his swearing in tomorrow here, at the White House.

[13:55:00]

Also, tomorrow the president will deliver his first address to both houses of Congress. In his speech the president will lay out an optimistic vision for the country, crossing traditional lines of party, race, socioeconomic status. As I said before, the theme will be the renewal of the American spirit. He will invite Americans of all backgrounds to come together in the service of a stronger and brighter future for our nation.

In addition to laying out the concrete steps the president has already taken to make the American dream possible for all of our people, he will talk about the bold agenda he wants to work with Congress. This includes tax and regulatory reform to provide relief to hard-working Americans and their businesses, making the workplace better for working parents, ensuring the families who have suffered under Obamacare's skyrocketing rates see it replaced with a patient- centered alternative, making sure every child in America has access to a good education, a rebuilding our military and fulfilling of our commitments to veterans to whom we obviously owe a great deal of gratitude.

You can expect a speech grounded firmly in solving real problems for every American. How can we make sure that every American who needs a better job get one? How can we get kids who are trapped in failing schools into better ones? How we can keep gangs and drug violence out of our neighborhoods and communities. The president will address the Americans who have been waiting for help from their leaders for too long and let them know that help is finally on the way.

With respect to the speech, we'll be having a background briefing sometime this evening here in the briefing room. We will provide additional details later in the afternoon.

As you might already know, the Department of Defense presented its preliminary plan to the White House today to defeat ISIS. This plan has been delivered by Secretary Mattis, who is currently briefing the principals on the option presented with -- today and seeking their input and feedback.

Finally, I wanted to note the president continues to be deeply disappointed and concerns -- concerned by the reports of further vandalism at Jewish community -- Jewish cemeteries, rather. The cowardly destruction in Philadelphia this weekend comes on top of similar accounts from Missouri and threats made to Jewish community centers around the country. The president continues to condemn these and any other form of anti-semitic and hateful acts in the strongest terms.

From our country's founding, we've been dedicated to protecting the freedom of our citizens' rights to worship. No one in America should feel afraid to follow the religion of their choosing freely and openly. The president has dedicated to preserving this originating principle of our nation. And while we're at it, I don't want to get ahead of law enforcement, but I was asked the other day about the story in Kansas, the shooting in Kansas. And while the story is evolving, early reports out of Kansas are equally disturbing.

So with that, I'd be glad to take your questions.

QUESTION: Sean?

SPICER: Jon (ph)?

QUESTION: Sean, there's a report this morning that you reached out directly to the CIA director, Pompeo. Did you directly contact Director Pompeo and ask him to knock down the New York Times story on the Russian connection?

SPICER: Thanks, Jon (ph). Let me kind of, if I may, walk through the entire timeline. I think it's important.

As I mentioned a week ago, the New York Times published a story about what they called contacts between members of the Trump campaign and Russian officials. The FBI deputy director was at a meeting here at the White House that morning. After the meeting concluded, he asked the chief of staff to stand back a second. He wanted to tell him that the report in the New York Times was quote, "B.S." For viewers at home, I think you can pretty much figure what that means, but I'll leave it at that.

At that time, the chief of staff said thank you for sharing that with me, can we let other people know that this story is not accurate? Throughout the day, they went back and forth to see what they thought was appropriate, finally came to the conclusion that they did not want to get in the process of knocking down every story that they had issues with. They then -- we then were informed that other people had come to the same conclusions, including -- that time, Chairman Devin Nunes had told us, "Hey, I've been knocking this down, telling reports." We shared a number with him of a reporter that had contacted us.

And again, when the reporters contacted us and we said no, that's not -- to the best of our knowledge, that's not true, they were asking us can you point to anybody else that can substantiate this. And I think we did a good job of saying, sure, we will share with reporters other people who have come to the same conclusion. So I won't go into the specifics. I will say that I think we did our job very effectively by making sure that reporters who had had questions about the accuracy and the claims made in the New York Times that we were pointing them to subject matter experts who understood whether or not that story was accurate or not. And I think just to continue to be very, very clear on this, it was about the accuracy of the reporting in the claims that were made in there. Plain and simple about whether or not a story that appeared in The New York Times was accurate.

Individual after individual continued to say that they -- as far as they knew, they weren't. I think most of you probably saw Chairman Nunes' comments this morning. He was very clear, number one, that he reached out to us to say, "I've been telling people, reporters, that these allegations and descriptions in The New York Time (sic) are not accurate."

[14:00:00]