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Pompeo Meets with Saudis; Mystery Over Journalist Unravels; CEOs and Leaders Pull out of Saudi Conference; Trump Bashes Stormy Daniels. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired October 16, 2018 - 13:00   ET

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


[13:00:00] JOHN KING, CNN ANCHOR: Right now.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, I'm Wolf Blitzer. It's 1:00 p.m. here in Washington. Thanks very much for joining us.

We begin with a very high stakes mystery of the missing journalist starting to unravel. We're now learning of a stunning shift from Saudi Arabia. Sources telling CNN, the country is now willing to admit that the "Washington Post" contributor Jamal Khashoggi was killed inside the Saudi consulate in Turkey, framing it as an interrogation gone wrong. The big question now, how will President Trump respond? One senior adviser tells CNN how President Trump handles the Saudi crisis may be the most consequential decision of his presidency. And now U.S. senators are demanding a very strong response to the Saudis.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R), SOUTH CAROLINA: I've been their biggest defender on the floor of the United States Senate. This guy is a wrecking ball. He had this guy murdered in a consulate in Turkey. And to expect me to ignore it, I feel used and abused. I was on the floor every time defending Saudi Arabia because they're a good ally. There's a difference between a country and an individual. The MBS figure is, to me, toxic. He can never be a world leader on the world stage.

SEN. MARCO RUBIO (R), FLORIDA: This would really blow apart our Middle Eastern strategy. And it's something we have to address from a human rights standpoint. Just because a county we're working with did it doesn't mean the U.S. can just shrug its shoulder and say, well, nothing happened here.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Our chief international correspondent Clarissa Ward is standing by in Turkey for us.

But, first, let's check in with CNN's senior international correspondent, Sam Kiley. He's joining us live from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, right now.

Sam, the U.S. secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, he was there. He met with the crown prince, met with the king, met with the foreign minister. What else can you tell us? SAM KILEY, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, let's go

through the meetings very quickly, Wolf.

There was a 15-minute meeting with King Salman, who's frail and elderly and had, until now, handed over the reins of power to his son, Mohammad bin Salman. And the issue there, I think, is interesting because it is the king that really has managed to reign in the -- some of the more inflammatory rhetoric that was coming out last week.

But then Pompeo went on for a 40-minute meeting with the crown prince. That was more meaty. Less respectful in private, we understand, or not with the words candid and direct being used in terms of the language used by Mr. Pompeo. He couldn't exactly read the riot act, but he clearly is demanding that there be a degree of alacrity and transparency in terms of coming to some kind of conclusion about what happened to Jamal Khashoggi.

And he is also due this evening to be hosting, that is the crown prince, hosting the secretary of state at a dinner. So there will be more opportunity there to try to massage this relationship that is getting extremely tense, not least because of that growing cacophony of protests coming out of the capital in Washington, Wolf.

BLITZER: Is there any indication that the Saudis are about to issue their statement saying this was an interrogation gone wrong and he died in the process?

KILEY: I have had some indications that there have been what I -- the term is changes -- to their position. This has been worked on, really, since the weekend, we understand. Some of the details may change, and some of the sources at CNN had indicated that that was likely as they tried to figure out what is the most useful -- the most convenient truth, if you like, Wolf.

BLITZER: All right, stand by.

I want to go to Clarissa. She's in Turkey for us doing amazing reporting on the investigation.

What is the very latest, Clarissa, you're hearing?

CLARISSA WARD, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Wolf, I think there's a definite sense here that Turkish officials are growing impatient after several days of being very restrained, of a complete abstinence of any leaks coming from Turkish authorities. We heard all the right kind of noises about a positive working environment with the Saudis. They finally gained access to the consulate.

Today, we're hearing a definite shift in tone. There's a sense that the Turks want the Saudis to get serious now, to provide unfetters access and really just to start providing some serious answers, Wolf.

President Erdogan, earlier on today, saying that investigators, when they were in the consulate, they found traces of toxic materials. Also saying that some things have been painted over, indicating that the Saudis, who were involved in this botched operation, potentially were trying to hastily cover up their tracks.

And so, as I was saying, there's a sense that we need to know now, what happened to this man? Where was his body disposed of? How was he killed? Who killed him? At whose authority did this killing take place?

[13:05:01] We've been hearing for days now that the Saudis are about to issue this statement and implicate their own responsibility and take ownership of it. But so far that hasn't happened. In the meantime, the clock is ticking and patience is wearing thin, Wolf.

BLITZER: Clarissa, the assumption is they cut up the body and put it in boxes, diplomatic pouches, and shipped it back to Saudi Arabia. Is that the working assumption?

WARD: Well, you know, the Turks so far have not exactly said what happened to the body, but they have strongly indicated that they do already know what happened to it and that they are not afraid to release that information, to leak that information, if they don't start to get some serious answers ASAP, Wolf.

BLITZER: All right, Clarissa Ward in Turkey for us, Sam Kiley in Saudi Arabia, we'll get back to you.

The development is certainly causing a lot of international fallout for Saudi Arabia's big upcoming conference, which has been dubbed Davos in the desert. A long list of CEOs and high profile leaders have already pulled out. Many sponsors have announced they will totally boycott this upcoming event.

Let's go to our senior national correspondent, Alex Marquardt. He's here in Washington.

Alex, a lot of big names, they're pulling out. Who's still planning to attend?

ALEX MARQUARDT, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Wolf, this is the other major aspect of the story. Aside from the political fallout, how will the business community react? That community that Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman has been trying to court, trying to convince that Saudi Arabia is a place to do business.

So, let's look first at those leaders who, for now, are still planning on attending. You have the CEO of Siemen's, the head of the IMF, Christine Lagarde. But the one that everyone is watching is the U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. The fact that he is still considering going is a sign that the Trump administration is still willing to give Saudi Arabia the benefit of the doubt after the alleged murder of Khashoggi. Not punishing them by pulling out of this conference, which, frankly, would be a very easy thing to do and it would send them a strong message.

Now, President Trump has said that it's possible that Mnuchin will not go, saying that no decision has yet been made. He said it's up to Mnuchin, who has until Friday to decide whether to attend. So that's the one we are really watching closely. Now, there are others we are still waiting to hear from. Notably

SoftBank from Japan, Societe Generale, the French banks, as well as the other French bank, BNP Paribas, the French hotel chain Accor, which has hotels around the world.

Wolf, we have just learned that the London Stock Exchange has pulled out. That is evidence of the huge amount of pressure on these people and these companies who are still mulling it over to punish Saudi Arabia by not going. Now, postponing the conference could be a possibility for the Saudis, but so far there's no indication that they'll do that.

Wolf, if they go ahead, it will be highly embarrassing for them, if that list of people backing out does continue to grow.

Wolf.

BLITZER: Alex Marquardt, thanks for the reporting.

Here with us now to assess, CNN national security analyst Peter Bergen, and Dana Bash, our chief political correspondent. We've got lots to discuss.

And, Dana, the reaction -- forget about Democrats -- but from Republicans coming in, you heard Lindsey Graham, Marco Rubio, very, very tough. Is the president going to heed their advice?

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: We'll see. Look, the only -- the closest analogy to this kind of bipartisan congressional pressure was, of course, on Russia. And in a huge bipartisan vote, the Congress said that there has to be greater sanctions on Russia after they said the intelligence community proved that Russia meddled in America's election in 2016. And that was for an adversary.

Saudi Arabia, as you well know, has a lot more of a complicated relationship, but is largely considered an ally in the region. So that makes it even more complicated. And even more telling that Congress seems to be willing to put any and all punitive measures on the Saudi government if and when what our reporting shows and what these members of Congress are saying the intelligence shows them is true. And so it is going to be a big question how the president, if the president continues to approach this from a transactional point of view, from a counterterrorism -- you know, in terms of money from a counterterrorism point of view, and -- or whether or not he adds in some of what we heard from Lindsey Graham, and especially Marco Rubio, the idea that as president of the United States you also have to factor in the moral leadership that is expected of a president of America, and has been for the last, you know, century plus.

BLITZER: He went to the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Peter, to get documentation to allow him to get divorced. He was engaged. He had a Turkish fiance, who was waiting outside the consulate. There's pictures of him walking in. No pictures of him leaving. We do know that on that day some 15 Saudi officials showed up, including with, you know, box cutters and all sorts of sophisticated autopsy equipment. [13:10:21] Do you buy this notion that he was simply being

interrogated or was it always the intention to kill him and chop up his body and ship it out of the country?

PETER BERGEN, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: I don't think we know. But clearly the ground is being prepared for an alternative explanation than the one that was proffered initially by Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, which he left a few minutes after he entered the consulate. So the ground is being prepared for a -- you know, the president said there was rouge -- it was a rouge -- potentially a rogue operation. This is the narrative that's going to come out, which is that somebody -- you remember Thomas Becket, who will rid me of this turbulent priest? You know, Mohammad bin Salman, there's going to be some plausible deniability. He will say -- he will be able to say, you know, somebody kind of got over excited and this wasn't our intention. But clearly the ground is being prepared for -- there's only one explanation, which is this guy was murdered in the consulate. There are no alternative plausible explanations. So the question is, who is going to take the fall and how high up will it go and will it just be some low level guys or will some higher, you know, some serious -- relatively high official be blamed for this?

BLITZER: Is the administration, the Trump administration, going to accept whatever excuse, whatever explanation the Saudi regime comes up with?

BASH: Some might. The president might, at least in public. But that is why what you're hearing from the United States Congress, in a very robust bipartisan way, is so significant. You heard, you know, someone like Lindsey Graham saying that he has been a huge advocate for engaging with Saudi Arabia, in particular the arms sales to Saudi Arabia, and saying he's done unless there is, forgive me, regime change in Saudi, and that this young crown prince is replaced because he's not someone that America can deal with. I mean that's -- that's -- that's a pretty big deal, diplomatically for an American government to be saying, or for senior people in the American government to be that overt in saying this guy has got to go when you're talking about how delicately every administration, Democrat and Republican, have approached the Saudi royal family.

BLITZER: But that -- but, Peter, you've spent a lot of time studying the Saudis. That may be the only way the Saudi government comes out of this, if the king announces that the crown prince is gone and he has no more authority, and that those who supported and worked with him are gone and he brings in a new crown prince. He's got a lot of sons, as you know.

BERGEN: He does, but this is his favorite son. And, by the way, this is a son who has approached his rule as a totalitarian dictator. So he's got rid of all the chiefs of the military. They're all his own guys. He's got rid -- you know, imprisoned conservative clerics, civil society activists. He's made -- and businessmen and princes. So he's made it very clear that, you know, he is in charge.

And prince -- and, you know, the king is 82. And this is his favorite son. So I'm kind of skeptical. That would be a potential solution, but I'm skeptical that it's going to happen.

BLITZER: All right, I'll play a clip. I interviewed another one of his sons earlier this year, Khalid bin Salman, who was, at least until a few days ago, the Saudi ambassador to the United States. "The New York Times" is now reporting he's back in Saudi Arabia. He's not coming back to Washington.

When I interviewed him, this was back in April, he was very upbeat about the reform, the positive things happening in the kingdom. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AMB. PRINCE KHALID BIN SALMAN: I want to tell you what's happening in Saudi Arabia. We have currently this long term strategy, what it's called Vision 2030. We are having a fascinating change and transformation. We live in a transformation period in Saudi Arabia. We want to reform our economy. We want to modernize our society. We want to empower our youth, including women.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: That was then. And how much has changed in the last few days?

BASH: Well, that was then. But that was one side of the story. And you chime in here, please. I think you were alluding to this. The other side of the story was that, yes, women were given more rights, but then they were already -- also arrested for having the rights that they were given.

He took a lot of members of his own family and brought them to the Ritz and did a whole bunch of other stuff that we probably don't even know about to live up to the totalitarian name label that you rightly gave him. And so that is something that we really can't forget. And that is what goes into the whole question of the moral authority and whether or not America is going to stand by that, what the president's fellow Republicans are urging him to stick with.

BERGEN: At the end of the day, he cares about Saudi politics, not American politics. And so, you know, I think he will whether this, even if that is perhaps not something --

BLITZER: The crown prince, you mean?

BERGEN: Yes.

[13:15:02] BLITZER: All right, guys, thank you very, very much.

This story may only just be beginning.

Coming up, a horse face. That's what the president of the United States is now calling Stormy Daniels. It's not the first time he's verbally gone after a woman.

Plus, a caravan with hundreds of Honduran migrants heading now for the U.S. border. The president is responding with a very stark warning. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: President Trump, just a little while ago, reacting to a federal judge's decision to throw out Stormy Daniels's defamation lawsuit against him. In a tweet the president lashed out calling Stormy Daniels, I'm quoting the president now, horse face, threatening to go after her in referring to her lawyer, Michael Avenatti, as third rate. That sparked a quick reply from Avenatti, who called President Trump a misogynist, an embarrassment to the United States. Stormy Daniels herself tweeted out that President Trump has demonstrated his hatred for women.

[13:20:19] This is not the first time that Donald Trump has verbally attacked women. Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MEGYN KELLY (August 2015): You've called women you don't like fat pigs, dogs, slobs, and disgusting animals. Your Twitter account has several --

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Only Rosie O'Donnell.

You know, you could see there was blood coming out of her eyes. Blood coming out of her -- wherever.

She doesn't have the look. She doesn't have the stamina. I said she doesn't have the stamina.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you feel betrayed by Omarosa, sir?

TRUMP: Low life. She's a low life.

JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: In an interview last week in "Rolling Stone" magazine Donald Trump said the following about you, quote, look at that face. Would anyone vote for that? Can you imagine that, the face of our next president?

TRUMP: And when you're a star, they let you do it. You can do anything.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Whatever you want.

TRUMP: Grab them by the (EXPLETIVE DELETED).

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: All right, let's bring in April Ryan, she's the White House correspondent for American Urban Radio Networks, and Melanie Zanona, she's a congressional reporter for "The Hill."

April, what's your reaction to that tweet from the president of the United States? This is the president of the United States going after Stormy Daniels, calling her horse face.

APRIL RYAN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: I'm -- I -- let me -- let me just put it on the table. It's disgusting, as a woman, but as a journalist it's newsy. But looking at the news from this tweet, because the White House considers it official, this is the standard bearer for the American public. This is the leader of the free world. And he is chastising a woman. He won, and now he's going after her, calling her a name. What does that do again to the women who are still upset after the Kavanaugh confirmation? What does that do going into the polls in November? What does that do to his base, these white married women who voted for him at a tune of 51 percent, and also the white women who voted for him overall at a tune of 53 percent? What does that do in a moment when women are still hurting and for the president of the United States to say this about another woman? When he called Omarosa a dog, that was wrong. When he talked about Ted Cruz's wife's looks, that was wrong. When he -- all those things that you put -- that was wrong.

This is the person who covers all America. Stormy Daniels is still someone who he is -- he's over -- he covers her as president of the United States.

BLITZER: What did you think, Melanie.

MELANIE ZANONA, CONGRESSIONAL REPORTER, "THE HILL": Listen, I think the president has been itching to punch back at Stormy Daniels. This is someone who was thought to have beat the president at his own game, has been very effective. She's been very effective at playing the media strategy. She also just came out with a book attacking the president, made some derogatory comments about his own appearance, which she repeated on Twitter today. So it's not surprising that he came out swinging today in light of this recent lawsuit.

But I don't think he's winning the messaging war when it comes to women, as April pointed out, especially with a midterm election hanging in the balance where these independent women, these moderate Republican women, are so crucial to winning and keeping the House and the Senate.

RYAN: And, Wolf, and the crazy thing about it -- this, again, he won this defamation case. But he's going after her. The standard is for him, not for Stormy Daniels, who's come out talking about things that she knew allegedly in their private moments. But the standard is set for him.

This is not presidential. He may say he's changing how presidents look. This is not presidential at a time when we're engaged in trying to find out what happened to "The Washington Post" journalist. At a time when there's so much on the table, so much at stake. At a time when there is voter suppression alleged in Georgia. It's so much going on and what he can do, use his official Twitter account and call a woman, who he's alleged to have had an affair with, horse face. That's just -- it's wrong.

BLITZER: The suggestion that, at least from some, Melanie, I wonder if you agree, is that he's anxious to change the subject from Khashoggi, the missing Saudi journalist.

ZANONA: Well, he's tweeted about a whole bunch of things today. He had no public events on his schedule, so, of course, he's tweeted about everything from Russia --

RYAN: And no White House briefing.

ZANONA: No briefing today. He's tweeted about Russia, Pocahontas, referring to Elizabeth Warren. He's tweeted about Stormy Daniels. Everything but pretty much this missing journalist and what the United States is going to do. So it's not surprising to see him go so hard after Stormy Daniels, but it's leaving a lot of people questioning, what is he doing here? He's the president of the United States.

RYAN: This is street. It's gutter. It's gutter.

ZANONA: It's going into the gutter.

RYAN: It's is -- no, it's not going, it's there.

BLITZER: It's one thing for Michael Avenatti to use words -- words that he uses, Stormy Daniels, but he is the president of the United States.

RYAN: Yes. He is the president of the United States.

BLITZER: He's supposed to be above calling a woman, even a woman who has gone after him, horse face.

RYAN: He's supposed to be, but it -- he -- he does not understand the unique perch that he's sitting in. He does not understand what this position is. This is not a joke. There are some who like this gutter tactic. But you are the president of the United States when the stakes are so high. We've got other world leaders chiming in on the Saudis and making them move on the issue of the murdered journalist, and he's not pushing as hard. But yet he can go on Twitter and call a woman horse face after he won a case.

[13:25:30] BLITZER: April, Melanie, thank you very much. I'm sure this story is going to continue.

$100 million and counting. That's how much President Trump has already raised for his re-election campaign, putting him at a massive advantage over Democratic challengers, and if there are any Republican challengers.

And it's not quite $100 million, but Beto O'Rourke, the Democrat, trying to take down Republican Senator Ted Cruz has raised more than $38 million in just three months. And he's not sharing a dollar with fellow Senate candidate in his own party.

Stay with us.

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