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CNN NEWSROOM
Trump on Explosive Bob Woodward Book: It's "Fiction"; Kavanaugh Confirmation Hearing Resumes. Aired 2:30-3p ET
Aired September 5, 2018 - 14:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[14:30:00] ABBY PHILLIP, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: And then once they did finally get a handle on accusations, they put out blanket statements that read almost like hostage statements from these people that have lengthy anecdotes retold in this book. They are trying to deal with it the best they can. But it is very telling that President Trump cannot deal with the underlying issue, which is that there are plenty of people in his White House who are cooperating with these authors, saying negative things about him, but he is not necessarily getting rid of them.
WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Jeffrey Toobin, you're a legal specialist. In his tweet this morning, the president said what he didn't just say now in his Q&A with reporters in the Oval Office. I'll read it to you. It involves the issue of libel: "Isn't it a shame that someone can write an article or book, totally make up stories and former a picture of a person that is literally the exact opposite of the fact and get away with it without retribution or costs? Don't know why Washington politicians don't change libel laws."
(LAUGHTER)
JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN CHIEF LEGAL ANALYST: Let's have a first-year law class. Libel is a tort. Libel is state law. There are 50 different libel laws and they're all very similar in the country. But Congress does not address libel law. That's not within Congress' power. The Supreme Court establishes a certain baseline about what the First Amendment allows in libel cases. And there are a long series of cases --
(CROSSTALK)
JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: Is it libelous to say that President Obama was not born in the United States? Would that be libel?
TOOBIN: That's a very interesting question because it --
(CROSSTALK)
TAPPER: I recall someone saying that.
TOOBIN: -- damage to your reputation. Now there's nothing damaging to -- lots of people are not born in the United States. So
(CROSSTALK)
TAPPER: How about saying somebody's father was involved in the Kennedy assassination, would that be libelous?
TOOBIN: To the father, absolutely. No question. That's an easy one.
BLITZER: How about saying that someone was involved in the murder of Vince Foster, would that be --
TOOBIN: That would definitely be libel.
(CROSSTALK)
TOOBIN: You would have done so well in law school.
(LAUGHTER)
(CROSSTALK)
TAPPER: I'm just wondering. I'm just wondering.
TOOBIN: Just to go back to Wolf's question, it's just silliness. This is not something that Congress deals with at all. It's just a way of being angry about this book. That's it.
GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST; You can also see how Trump is fuming about this because -- and we heard a little bit on the taped conversation with Woodward yesterday, which is where the president said he didn't know about the book, he didn't know who Woodward requested an interview. And Kellyanne Conway made it clear he did know. And then he said, oh, yes, maybe Graham did talk to me about it. And there's a sense in Donald Trump that if only he could have talked to Bob Woodward, he would have straightened all of this out, just the way he's telling his attorneys -- I might add, not to take a turn to that case -- but telling his attorneys, I can testify to Bob Mueller because I can also tell him there's no collusion because I can deal with this. His anger is not only at people who work for him -- and there are people whom we have not heard from, for example, former White House staff secretary, Rob Porter. We've not heard from him.
JAMIE GANGEL, CNN SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT: Former Chief of Staff Reince Priebus.
(CROSSTALK)
GANGEL: Former national security advisor, H.R. McMaster, former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.
(CROSSTALK)
GANGEL: To John's point, the four people who have issued statements thus far are people who are either part of the present administration and want to say there, Chief of Staff John Kelly, Defense Secretary James Mattis or his personal attorney -- former personal attorney, John Dowd, who even though he may not be his attorney anymore, he has that, I would guess, Jeffrey, lawyer/client confidentiality problem there. TOOBIN: He does. There's still a small group of lawyers that
represent him and it's not good to be seen as trashing your client. That's not good for business.
TAPPER: Jen Psaki, as somebody who was in the Obama White House when Bob Woodward wrote -- he wrote three books about Obama. Just to let the public into how difficult it is and how annoying it is for a president to deal with one of Woodward's books, what was it like for Obama when some of these books came out and people are describing scenes, criticizing the president behind his back? That must be -- whether or not you have sympathy for President Trump or not -- inherently, that is frustrating.
JEN PSAKI, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: It certainly is. Every White House battles with the question of, what is the book's strategy going to be? Are you going to talk or not? Are you going to try to control who talks or not? It's very difficult to control even in a White House that is not looney toons like this one, but who talks and who doesn't? We had that challenge as well. The last book Woodward wrote, the biggest news story coming out of that was that maybe Obama was more involved on the grand bargain on the budget than previously been reported, which seemed quite plain at this point in time. And we blamed the Republicans too much for that. That was the big news item. But what we really figured out through the course of time, and I think White Houses traditional battle with, is you have to play to some degree. If you don't play at all, then you are more surprised. And Woodward actually would walk the president -- President Obama and I'm sure previous presidents -- what the book was going to look like, to a degree. You could argue things, litigate things. He's going to do what he's going to do. But at least you know what's coming. Clearly, they didn't have a strategy here. They're not the first White House but it's more damaging for them.
(CROSSTALK)
[14:35:38] BLITZER: I want to play a little bit more sound. This is the president still in the Oval Office. This is what he said on other issues. Listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
(CROSSTALK)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Not at all.
(CROSSTALK)
TRUMP: No, the book is fiction. I heard somewhere where they said the assassination of President Assad by the United States, never even discussed. The book is total fiction, just like he wrote in the past about other presidents. You look at what he said about President Bush, what he said about President Obama, big scandalous things. It lasts for about a day. No. That was never even contemplated, nor would it be contemplated, and it should not have been written about in the book. It's just more fiction. The book is total fiction.
(CROSSTALK)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BLITZER: I think he was talking about the quote in the book that they, at one point, the president was contemplating assassinating Bashar al Assad, the president of Syria, and his national security team thought that was a bad idea.
TAPPER: The way it was written, it didn't sound like he was contemplating it. It sounded like he was expressing frustration.
(CROSSTALK)
BLITZER: Telling Mattis, kill him.
(CROSSTALK)
TAPPER: Kill the guy, and Mattis kind of put down the phone and said we're not going to do that.
BLITZER: Let's get the Senator into this conversation.
RICK SANTORUM, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Oh, thank you.
(LAUGHTER)
I'm glad the president didn't talk to Bob Woodward. If there was a strategy to keep him away from talking to Bob Woodward, the staff did a good job of not giving him access. It would not have been a good thing. Just like it would not be a good thing for him to talk to Bob Mueller. He should not be doing that. And --
(CROSSTALK)
BLITZER: Why? Why?
(CROSSTALK)
BLITZER: Rick Santorum, the question is this, if he has nothing to hide, if he's done everything proper, why not explain that and just --
(CROSSTALK)
SANTORUM: Because it's not about --
BLITZER: -- the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
SANTORUM: -- having done anything wrong or improper, but being caught saying one thing and having facts that show that what he said isn't comporting with the fact.
(CROSSTALK)
TAPPER: Isn't English for that a lie?
SANTORUM: The president has, as you know, a propensity for hyperbole and exaggeration and not necessarily squaring things with the facts. And if you have someone like that, you shouldn't put them in front of someone that can actually charge you for perjury.
(CROSSTALK)
TAPPER: You're agreeing --
(CROSSTALK)
TAPPER: -- using different words.
(CROSSTALK)
SANTORUM: Words matter.
(CROSSTALK)
TOOBIN: Isn't it worth pondering that his lawyers, his advisors all think the president is such a compulsive liar that he can't go out and talk to people?
SANTORUM: I think what it shows is that the president has strengths and he has weaknesses. Like every president has strengths and weaknesses. And I understand this is a huge weakness in the eyes of a lot of people, me included. Having said that, I think everyone in the administration understands the strengths of the president and the weaknesses of the president.
(CROSSTALK)
SANTORUM: And they're doing their best to manage that situation.
(LAUGHTER)
I don't think -- I don't have a problem with the Woodward book. It probably accurately reflects the general tone of what's going on in the White House. But I think it also reflects that the president has around him -- you can criticize, you can say deliberately or not -- but he has around him a team of people looking out for his interest and the American people's interest --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: If that's the case, you wouldn't have had, by our count, a dozen current and former White House staffers all talking to Bob Woodward, giving their side of the story, defending themselves, but not their own boss. That is the ultimate problem. There were people --
(CROSSTALK)
GANGEL: That is not true when what they're saying is that they think he is a danger to national security. That is the theme throughout the book. And it rises to a very different level.
And to Jeffrey's point that words matter, I would like to read a tweet from Donald Trump from March 1st, 2013: "Only the Obama White House can get away with attacking Bob Woodward." He's been very complimentary --
(CROSSTALK)
SANTORUM: Donald Trump has a solid national security team, someone who he respects and he listens to.
(CROSSTALK)
GANGEL: But they have to protect the country from.
PSAKI: And the whole theme here --
(CROSSTALK)
SANTORUM: I would argue that was the case in Obama administration --
(CROSSTALK)
[14:40:07] PSAKI: Well, OK, we can litigate that at another time. But the theme here that is ironic is that his staff, his advisers kept him from talking to Woodward, in all likelihood. The theme in the book is that the national security team is keeping big decisions from him and not listening to his advice. So this is really the infantilizing of the president --
SANTORUM: I disagree.
PSAKI: -- consistent with the report -- let me finish. Consistent with the reporting by CNN, "New York Times," "Wall Street Journal" and "Washington Post" from the beginning of the administration about his lack of knowledge about these issues, about his irresponsibility, and how he approaches global affairs. That's the problematic piece, not every individual quote.
SANTORUM: I think it is perfectly clear that Donald Trump has a huge impact on our national security. What he's done in North Korea, what he has done in the Middle East. You can say they are managing him and everything. That's true. But he is still the driving force behind it. He is setting a new direction. They are trying to backfill it and create buffers but --
PSAKI: And protect. I mean -
(CROSSTALK)
SANTORUM: Maybe protect.
(CROSSTALK)
SANTORUM: I actually think that the direction Trump has taken on many foreign policy issues is actually new. It's actually --
(CROSSTALK)
BORGER: What Woodward is saying, and he said this specifically, they were doing nothing less than having an administrative coup d'etat.
GANGEL: Correct.
BORGER: And that they were trying, in their own way -- he defends the staff people to a degree, saying they're trying to protect the country from the president himself.
(CROSSTALK)
SANTORUM: That's an exaggeration.
BORGER: But why would it be an exaggeration if they're stealing papers off his desk or saying I'm not going to deliver this to the president.
(CROSSTALK)
GANGEL: I don't want to begin every sentence with I've read the book and you haven't yet. I would wait until next Tuesday. The theme throughout this book in great detail goes against the notion that the president has been leading foreign policy in a safe or positive way. Quite the opposite is true, over and over again. It's not just talking about the beginning of the administration. There's frustration up until very recently that they cannot get through to him. There's no learning curve, for example, according to what Woodward's reporting about South Korea.
TAPPER: All right, the person who read the book on the panel weighing in.
(LAUGHTER)
Let's go back to the Senate confirmation hearings in the Judiciary Committee of Brett Kavanaugh and listen in to the questions and answers there.
BRETT KAVANAUGH, U.S. SUPREME COURT NOMINEE: I think about it both from a formal and a functional perspective. Because a formal matter, a law passed by Congress is the binding law, as is what is signed by the president. It's what's gone through the Senate and the House and that is the law.
(KAVANAUGH HEARING FROM 14:43:00 - 15:00:03)
[15:00:03] SEN. MIKE LEE, (R), UTAH: Great. Thank you very much, Judge.
My time is expired. I am not the chairman of this committee, even though I'm playing him on TV.
(LAUGHTER)
I understand that under the previous order and before he left, we're supposed to take a 10-minute break --
