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Jared Kushner And Kremlin; U.S. Relationship With Germany. Aired 1-1:30

Aired May 29, 2017 - 13:00   ET

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


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WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, I'm Wolf Blitzer. It's 1:00 p.m. here in Washington, 6:00 p.m. in London, 8:00 p.m. in Moscow. Wherever you're watching from around the world, thanks very much for joining us.

President Trump is back at work at the White House after wrapping up his first international trip over the weekend. The president generated some new controversies with allies in Europe.

And coming home, he's having to deal with concerns over his top adviser and son-in-law, Jared Kushner. Kushner is under fire for considering setting up a system for back-channel communications with Russia before President Trump took office.

The president had one public event on his schedule this Memorial Day here in the United States. He spoke at Arlington National Cemetery and visited Section 60, that's the area of the cemetery where service members who served in Iraq and Afghanistan are buried. We'll have much more on that coming up a little bit later.

But let's bring in our Senior White House Correspondent Jeff Zeleny right now. He's over at the White House for us.

Jeff, have we heard any response, first of all, from the president over the concerns involving the Kushner controversy?

JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Wolf, of course, in the speech at Arlington National Cemetery just a few moments ago, the president did not mention this. Of course, this is not the moment or the time for that.

But the only comments he has made about his son-in-law and senior adviser were in a brief statement to "The New York Times" this morning. And he did say that he stands behind his son-in-law, that he is doing a good job and he's a good person.

Wolf, just the fact that the president issued a statement in support of his son-in-law and senior adviser shows how serious this White House believes this is.

How serious internally it is as well. The divisions internally with Jared Kushner, Steve Bannon, Reince Priebus, those top three advisers here are now even more exposed because of all of this here. So, the fact that the president is saying he has his back, in some respect, is certainly interesting, Wolf.

But all of this is hanging over this president as he gets back to Washington, back to work here. And something else hanging over him as well. Just seeing him out in Section 60 there, as you showed earlier, reminds us that he has a decision on Afghanistan as well that's weighing on him.

He has to make the decision whether to send more troops to Afghanistan and now that's one example, Wolf, of the fact that the White House is internally in grave situation here because of the Russian investigation.

All of the other matters from the decision to send more troops to Afghanistan, to other things are now competing with that. Competing with the president's time for that. And creating, sort of, a sense of unease here.

So, going forward as this week moves along, Wolf, the White House is trying to get back on message here. But before that happens, it could be a staff shakeup. There could be a lot of things here.

So, the president, you know, was sort of, you know, reveling in the moments, his duties as commander-in-chief there. There's so many more things happening here as well, Wolf.

BLITZER: Yes, we're all bracing for some major decisions by the president this week. Jeff Zeleny at the White House. Thank you very much.

Members of the Trump administration have come to Jared Kushner's defense. The Homeland Security secretary, John Kelly, says, and I'm quoting him now, "I don't see the big deal." The president's national security adviser General H.R. McMaster says, quote, "I would not be concerned about it."

But then, there's this from Republican Senator John McCain.

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SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R), ARIZONA: My view of it is I don't like it. I just don't -- I don't -- I know that some administration officials are saying, well, that's standard procedure. I don't think it's standard procedure prior to the inauguration of a president of the United States by someone who is not in an appointed position.

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BLITZER: Let's bring in our Congressional Correspondent Phil Mattingly, our CNN Political Director David Chalian, and Shannon Pettypiece, White House Reporter for "Bloomberg News."

David, the impression is the fear is that during a transition, you don't want to give a foreign government the notion that there are two administrations.

DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Right. And we have a lot to learn about this. We don't know. We know the desire to set up a back-channel communication and we know that it wasn't set up, right? That's, sort of, what we know.

What we don't know is what the content of that communication would have been if it did get set up. If it was just setting it up for the future, maybe not very problematic.

But, as you're saying, Wolf, if indeed it was to set up to start discussing U.S.-Russia relations and policy, well, then, that does violate the one president at a time.

The other factor here, other than the timing of this being in the transition, is, of course, the request that this back-channel communication happened on Russian sites.

Well, then, that raises a whole other question about why were they setting up this in a way that they were concerned about it being detected from American surveillance?

I think those are the two pieces of this, the timing and location, that we need much more information on to understand the severity of this (ph).

BLITZER: I want you to listen, Phil. This is from the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Congressman Adam Schiff. Listen to how he explained his thought.

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[13:05:07] REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D), CALIFORNIA, RANKING MEMBER, HOUSE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE: I do think there ought to be a review of his security clearance to find out whether he was truthful and whether he was candid. If not, then there's no way he can maintain that kind of a clearance.

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BLITZER: Suggesting that Jared Kushner's security clearance be reviewed. What are you hearing?

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, I think what you need to know and what is guaranteed fact right now is that the Intelligence Committee, both in the Senate and House side, are now paying very close attention to this.

It's worth just thinking back. In March, these committees made clear they wanted to speak with Jared Kushner, likely in a closed setting. In March, Jared Kushner and Jared Kushner lawyers made clear he was willing to do that.

In the wake of these reports over the last couple of days, they have reiterated. He is open to doing that. He feels very confident in his ability to go up and speak to these senators.

I think the question on the security clearance is more of an executive branch question right now. We're certainly hearing some Democrats say that should be on the table.

But when it comes to what the committees are looking at right now, there's no question everything we've seen come out, over the three or four days, is not only inside their purview but something they very much so plan on talking to Jared Kushner about, whenever the time comes. For him to come in for that closed-session interview with committee members.

BLITZER: You cover the White House, Shannon. What are you hearing about Kushner's influence with his boss, his father-in-law right now and his influence within the White House in general?

SHANNON PETTYPIECE, WHITE HOUSE REPORTER, "BLOOMBERG NEWS": Well, I think it's both. And you say there's a lot we don't know. But one thing we do know is now you have this cloud of controversy around the president's top most trusted adviser.

Jared Kushner is seen as eyes and ears of the president within the White House. He's seen as an honest broker. He is seen as a direct line between foreign governments and people outside the White House into the Oval Office. And when he speaks, people feel that he speaks for the president.

Now having a cloud of uncertainty around someone with that much influence I think really could throw President Trump off balance and it could really throw the White House off balance.

And I think it's going to be a very interesting two weeks to see whether or not that derails any of his momentum and his power and clout within the White House.

BLITZER: It's interesting, David. You know, a lot of times when there's a story out there and the White House thinks it's wrong, they issue a flat denial. It's wrong. It's not true.

In this particular case, there hasn't been a -- really, a flat denial about this effort to create this diplomatic back-channel involving the Trump transition and the Russians.

CHALIAN: No. In fact, on the last night of the trip, there was a press conference. And we heard that McMaster and Gary Cohn, they didn't want to touch it at all. They said, we're just not going to be discussing Jared in any way. So, there has not been a flat denial.

To underscore what Jeff Zeleny was saying before, though. It is kind of astonishing to see the president of the United States give a statement to "The New York Times" to, sort of, buck up his senior staffer.

It's usually the reverse. Senior staffers usually give quote to buck up the president in the press. It's not usually that a president feels the need to have to go and speak about a senior staffer, slash, son-in-law, in this case to the press.

BLITZER: Yes. And they gave that statement only to "The New York Times." That's been the official reaction that the president has still great confidence in his senior adviser, his son-in-law, Jared Kushner.

Lindsey Graham, it's interesting, Phil, the Senator from South Carolina. He has his own doubts about the veracity of the entire story, saying that, you know what? This could simply be the rush suggesting -- this could be the Russians just sending out some disinformation to confuse everyone.

MATTINGLY: Yes, he has an interesting perspective on it.

I think -- and I'm not necessarily targeting or identifying Lindsey Graham in this. But I think it's worth noting.

As you listen to people from Capitol Hill talk about this situation right now, I'm told that over the course of the weekend, while maybe we didn't hear a lot from the White House about the Jared Kushner situation, many calls were placed to senior leaders, senior Republicans on Capitol Hill to make a couple things clear.

First and foremost, they don't believe Jared Kushner did anything wrong. Second, he is more than willing to talk to anybody who wants to talk to him about what exactly happened to help clear his name.

And I think you might have seen some inkling of that. And what Lindsey Graham had to say. Bob Corker also put out a statement saying he was very confident in the job that Jared Kushner is doing.

So, while they aren't publicly saying much right now, behind the scenes there is an acknowledgement, kind of what David's saying, where they know this is very problematic right now. And they want to make sure that they have some allies on Capitol Hill to help them as this moves forward.

CHALIAN: Those are calls to the Hill.

MATTINGLY: Yes.

BLITZER: Yes.

CHALIAN: It's the calls to Mueller's office that, I think, really are going to be important here, too. Jared Kushner's lawyer is still saying -- said he's willing to talk to the new -- any inquiry, not just the Hill inquiries. But I think the real concern inside the House is the Mueller investigation as it relates to Jared.

BLITZER: The special counsel.

Very quickly, all these stories about a major shakeup in the communications department, a war room being created in the White House. What are you hearing?

PETTYPIECE: I wouldn't be surprised to see Sean Spicer taking a much lower profile, doing fewer briefings, possibly bringing someone else in to take over some of those duties.

I do think there will be some changes but I don't think Sean Spicer's going to be fired. And I don't read too much into this talk about outsiders coming into the House. Maybe outsiders working more on the outside but I doubt we'll see Corey Lewandowski having a White House over (INAUDIBLE.)

BLITZER: All right, guys, there's a lot happening right now. This could be a very, very big week.

[13:10:02] Shannon Pettypiece, David Chalian, Phil Mattingly, guys, thanks very much.

Coming up, fresh off a series of meetings with President Trump, the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, suggests Germany can't rely on the U.S. We have details. That's coming up.

Plus, North Korea conducts its third missile test in less than three weeks. How the U.S. is reacting and a lot more when we come back.

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ANGELA MERKEL, CHANCELLOR, GERMANY (translator): The times where we could completely count on others, they're over, to a certain extent. I've experienced this in the last few days and that is why I can only say that we Europeans must really take our fate into our own hands.

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BLITZER: Those strong words from the German leader, Angela Merkel. They're raising serious questions about the U.S. relationship with Germany right now.

While the chancellor didn't mention President Trump by name, the message did follow the NATO and G7 summits where the president made some critical remarks about the NATO allies, including Germany.

Early today, a Merkel spokesman tried to clarify their remarks, saying the chancellor is, quote, "deeply committed to the trans-Atlantic relationship."

Let's discuss this and more. Our Senior International Correspondent Fred Pleitgen is joining us from London. Our Military and Diplomatic Analyst retired Rear Admiral John Kirby is with us hear Washington.

[13:15:07] Fred, the chancellor is, as you know, campaigning for reelection right now. So, put her comments, which were very strong, into context for us.

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, they certainly were very strong, Wolf, and thy also are causing a big stir in Germany as well with people openly asking, what does this mean for the transatlantic alliance? What does this mean for the relationship between the U.S. and Germany? And you're absolutely right, Angela Merkel is indeed on the campaign trail right now. However, she's also a very reserved politician. She's someone who doesn't make off the cuff remarks. So she will have thought very carefully about what she was saying and also the context in which she was saying it in. And it really seems as though during the past week with President

Trump's visit there to Europe, both to Brussels and to Italy, that certain things were said that really alienated the Germans, both in - as far as trade is concerned with the president saying, look, he thinks that Germany is bad for exporting so many cars to America. But then especially some of the things that he said about some of the other NATO partners, which is why the Germans then said, look, we have to take things into our own hands. And I think that Merkel means that in a European context. So they're going to try and forge more ties with other European countries, like, for instance, with France. And at this point in time are saying, they're not sure whether they can rely on the United States, at least for the next four years that this administration is in office, the way they have in the past, Wolf.

BLITZER: Very, very interesting. Very disturbing, I should say, as well.

Germany's top diplomat took his criticism of President Trump one step further. What did he say?

PLEITGEN: Yes, this is Sigmar Gabriel. He's the foreign minister of Germany. And someone who has been quite critical of the U.S. and of the Trump administration in the past. And his comments, I want to read part of them to you, Wolf. He's saying, "anyone who accelerates climate by weakening environmental protection, who sells more weapons in conflict zones and who does not want to politically resolve religious conflicts is putting peace in Europe at risk. The short- sighted policy of the American government is against the interests of the European Union." So those were some very strong words there. We also have to point out that he's actually in the party that's running against Angela Merkel, so he's actually in that election campaign as well.

But certainly some very strong rhetoric that's coming out of Germany. And one of the things I have to say, Wolf, from covering Germany for many, many years is that foreign policy is not something they take lightly. It's not something that they would just sort of put by the wayside in an election campaign. So these remarks are certainly ones that are taken very, very seriously in that country and indeed in Europe.

BLITZER: All right, let me get John Kirby to react.

Admiral, how significant are these comments?

REAR ADMIRAL JOHN KIRBY (RET.), CNN MILITARY & DIPLOMATIC ANALYST: Well, look, the president's national security adviser before the trip said it was going to be a chance to prove that America first doesn't mean America alone. And maybe in Riyadh they did that. But in Brussels, he blew that whole argument out of the water and now you have Angela Merkel saying America first probably means Europe alone.

This is a tectonic shift. This is a big deal. I mean you have, in the course of one week, Wolf, you've got our closest ally, the U.K., refusing to give us intelligence in an ongoing investigation. You have our oldest ally, the president of our oldest ally, France, trying to say that he's not going to be bullied by President Trump. And now you have arguably our strongest ally on the continent, in Germany, saying that the United States can't be relied upon anymore. And that's a shame because the United States has been really underwriting and underpinning security and stability in Europe now since the end of World War II. Their security is directly tied to ours. And so this is a - this is potentially a big deal.

BLITZER: If you're Putin and the Russians right now looking at some tension within the NATO alliance right now, these comments coming back and forth between the president, the chancellor and others in Europe, you're saying to yourself, that's good news.

KIRBY: If I'm Putin, I'm sitting back and grinning like a possum eating a sweet potato. I mean this is exactly what you want, right? This is - you want to see fractures in the Trans-Atlantic alliance and the relationship. You want to see Europe divided and separated from the United States. You want to see strong autocratic rule there because it reinforces what you're trying to get done in Europe, particularly in Ukraine. So, yes, I - look, I - I'm drawn to what my old boss, Chuck Hagel, once said. He said that America is not engaged in affairs of the world because we are a great nation. We're a great nation because we're engaged in the affairs of the world.

BLITZER: John Kirby, thanks very much. Fred Pleitgen, thanks to you as well.

And, admiral, I want you to stick around. We're going to talk a little bit about this Memorial Day in just a little while.

[13:19:25] Coming up, the Pentagon looking to test fire - to test firing intercontinental range missile interceptor and the new concerns over the North Korean threat. We'll have details when we come back.

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[13:24:05] BLITZER: Japan's prime minister promises concrete action, his words, concrete action. South Korea's defense minister pledging strong punishment after North Korea fired its third ballistic missile in as many weeks. Japan says the short range missile splashed down inside what's called its exclusive economic zone.

Let's discuss this and more with Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall. She's a former national security council senior director on Europe, NATO and the E.U. She worked during the eight years of the Obama administration. Also joining us, Graham Allison. He's a professor at Harvard, author of a brand new book, there you see the book jacket right there, "Destined for War," an important new book.

Thanks to both of you for joining us.

Liz, how concerned are you about this third test within three weeks by the North Koreans?

ELIZABETH SHERWOOD-RANDALL, FMR. OBAMA ADMIN. NSC DIRECTOR ON EUROPE/NATO/EU: We have seen the North Koreans test five nuclear weapons and multiple ballistic missiles over the last few years and we have to be very concerned not about what people call provocation, but actually about the fact that these tests mean that the North Korean leader is improving his capabilities and his intent is to mate a missile with a warhead and send it to attack either our allies and partners in the region, American forces in the region, or potentially the homeland. So very concerned about this.

BLITZER: Very concerned.

And, Graham, let me ask you, the president, he tweeted this, and I'll put it up on the screen. "North Korea has shown great disrespect for their neighbor China by shooting off yet another ballistic missile, but China is trying hard." And you've just written a whole book about the U.S./China relationship. How realistic, though, is it to think China will help contain North Korea?

GRAHAM ALLISON, DIR., BELFER CTR. FOR SCIENCE & INTL. AFFAIRS: I think it's the best hope that he has but not very promising. At Mar-a-Lago with the summit with Xi, he basically said to Xi, everybody else has not been able to solve this problem but you can, so you need to solve it. But if you don't, I will by attacking North Korea. And I think this is extremely dangerous now.

North Korea is on a track to be able, just as Liz said, to send a nuclear weapon against San Francisco or Los Angeles. From his first tweet on the topic when he heard about it Trump said, this is not going to happen, absolutely not going to happen. And I think we need to worry about - and it's one of the paths to war that I discuss in this new book - if we end up attacking North Korea, which if that's the only way to prevent North Korea from getting the capability to attack Los Angeles or San Francisco, I think Trump may do, the likelihood is that we get a sequence in which North Korea then attacks Seoul. That's something we've thought about a lot, probably killing a million people. We'd end up attacking North Korea. And the last time we did that, that was called the first Korean War in which Americans and Chinese ended up killing each other.

BLITZER: Yes, it's a dire, dire scenario that you're putting out and hopefully we won't get to that point.

For the first time, Liz, as you know, the Pentagon will try to actually shoot down an intermediate range missile in a test that week. It sort of underscores how worried the U.S. is right now.

SHERWOOD-RANDALL: Actually this test is going to be the first effort to intercept an intercontinental ballistic missile. The goal here is to insure that if the North Korean leader succeeds in putting a warhead on a missile that has intercontinental range that can reach the United States, that we can intercept it. And that's a very important element of our strategy. We need to be pursuing a number of initiatives to insure we can defend our allies and partners in the region through cooperation with them, as well as be prepared to defend the homeland and deter against an attack on us.

BLITZER: And we'll see how successful that test is. It's supposed to happen this week, as early as this week.

SHERWOOD-RANDALL: Tomorrow.

BLITZER: Yes.

You know, Graham, South Korea and Japan, they're both promising some type of retribution. You just heard the quotes I put out there. Are they really serious or is that just tough talk on the part of the South Koreans and the Japanese?

ALLISON: I think mainly tough talk. Basically they've been hopeless and helpless as North Korea has continued marching down this path. So today the U.S. intelligence estimates that North Korea could drop a - could deliver a nuclear weapon against South Korea by the current missiles it has. But today they can deliver a nuclear weapon against Japan by the missiles that it has.

The test that it's conducting are basically improving this capability. And as North Korea's marched down this path, the U.S. has been unable to find a way to deal with it, as has South Korea and as has Japan. So that's why I think Trump has turned to China and said, you solve this problem, but if you don't we will. And I think that that - that's not a bad direction in which to go. The Obama administration tried to do the same thing. The Chinese say, look, nobody else has been able to solve this problem and we can't get these people to behave either.

BLITZER: Liz, let me turn to this other controversy over these past several days that has erupted involving the president's senior adviser, son-in-law Jared Kushner, that he and Michael Flynn, in president's fired national security adviser, in early December, during the transition, reportedly tried to establish a back channel with the Russians using Russian embassy communications equipment (ph). It never happened. Never got off the ground. But that's the report. What's your reaction when you hear that? And you served during the Obama transition from the Bush presidency to the Obama presidency.

SHERWOOD-RANDALL: So the tradition in transitions is that there is one president at a time. And a transition team is preparing to assume responsibility on January 20th at 12:00 noon. It is either naive or sinister, if the reporting is accurate, that they sought a back channel and wanted to conduct it through Russian communications out of the Russian embassy. So we will need to learn more about what the intent was of the back channel, but it is not standard operating procedure for a transition team.

[13:30:00] BLITZER: Graham, you worked at the Defense Department for several defense secretaries. What's your reaction?

ALLISON: Well, I think it's very complicated and there's going to be a lot more about this story. I mean, first, this administration is weird, so you have to start there.