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Trump Began Charlottesville Remarks with Economic News; Trump Calls Groups Repugnant; Trump Under Fire for Not Denouncing Hate Groups; Charlottesville Attacker in Court; Trump Denounces Groups. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired August 14, 2017 - 13:00   ET

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


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

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

BLITZER: We begin with breaking news. President Trump calls out white supremacists and neo-Nazi groups by name after the deadly attack in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Here's hard of what we heard from the president only moments ago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Racism is evil. And those who cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs, including the KKK, neo-Nazis, white supremacists and other hate groups that are repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans.

We are a nation founded on the truth that all of us are created equal. We are --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: The president, he certainly was under fire for his remarks over the weekend after a car plowed into a crowd killing a counter- demonstrator, injuring 19 or 20 other individuals. He condemned the hatred and bigotry and violence at the time, but he said that wrongdoing was, quote, "going on on many sides."

Many sides, we did not hear that from the president today. No reference to on many sides.

Let's get an update on all these late-breaking developments. Our Senior White House Correspondent Jim Acosta is over at the White House. Our Correspondent Brian Todd is in Charlottesville, Virginia, where the suspect in Saturday's attack was in court earlier this morning.

Jim Acosta, the president's remarks, very specific. A lot of people are insisting he should have uttered these words on Saturday. It would have saved him some criticism. JIM ACOSTA, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: It would have saved

him lot of trouble, Wolf. I think, clearly, this was a cleanup job that we saw here at the White House within the last hour.

I was in the room as part of the White House T.V. pool, Wolf, when the president made these remarks. They were scripted. He was reading off a teleprompter.

And I can tell you that as he left the room, reporters were shouting questions at the president as to why he did not make this kind of statement on Saturday. Why he did not clearly condemn these groups that he condemned today.

He obviously heard those questions as he left the room there, Wolf, but did not answer those questions. But it is -- it is worth noting that, yes, during these remarks he did condemn those groups by name. Called out the KKK, white supremacists and neo-Nazi.

And he also said that justice will be delivered when it comes to the investigation into the death of the woman that was killed in that violence in Charlottesville on Saturday. And he also said, quote, unquote, "racism is evil."

And so, I think what we saw reflected in the White House earlier today, Wolf, in the president's statements, is that he is -- he is somebody who will listen to criticism.

He obviously heard an avalanche of criticism over the weekend, just about the whole country thought the president did not go far enough in condemning these groups for the violence that happened on Saturday.

And so, I think what you saw here is the president essentially being cowed into doing the right thing here by members of both parties. People from all walks of life who just thought the president, kind of, blew it on Saturday -- Wolf.

BLITZER: He did announce also, and he was -- he had pointed out he had just emerged from a meeting with the attorney general and the FBI director, that the Department of Justice has opened a civil rights investigation into that deadly car attack.

ACOSTA: That's right.

BLITZER: He did not mention -- he did not suggest what we've heard from others that this was also a potential investigation into an act of terror.

Are officials --

ACOSTA: That's right.

BLITZER: -- over there where you are explaining that difference?

ACOSTA: They're not explaining that difference, Wolf. And that did stand out in the president's remarks. The attorney general, this morning, was saying that this was going to be looked at as an active of domestic terrorism. That -- those are not the words that the president made that -- made that statement.

The other thing we should point out, Wolf, is that on Friday, when the president was making those comments about Kim Jong-Un and these escalating tensions with North Korea, the president clearly said there would be a press conference. I think he described it as a big press conference over here at the White House on Monday. That is today.

Wolf, if that statement that the president gave inside the White House a few moments ago is his idea of a press conference, that is not a press conference. He did not take questions from us.

And I think, obviously, people are going to be drawing the contrast between how the president is not taking any questions when it comes to this situation in Charlottesville over the weekend. And he was willing, and willingness, to take questions when it comes to Kim Jong- Un and the sabre rattling that we saw coming out of Bedminster late last week. There was a clear contrast.

The president, at this point, obviously appears to be not in the mood to take these kinds of questions.

[13:05:00] But there is an opportunity later on this afternoon. He's expected to do a -- do another event here at the White House at around 3:00. And at that event, it is possible he will take questions there.

So, it is possible we'll hear the president answer some of these questions later on today.

But, Wolf, he was clearly asked why he did not condemn these groups more forcefully on Saturday. He was clearly asked this here at the White House a few moments ago after he made that statement. He simply chose to not answer those questions -- Wolf.

BLITZER: All right. Let's see if he does later in the day.

Thanks very much, Jim Acosta over at the White House.

Critics of the president's initial response on Saturday to that attack in Charlottesville, Virginia, say it was a failure of leadership at a very crucial moment. In his remarks only a few moments ago, the president stepped up his criticism of hate groups here in the United States.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: To anyone who acted criminally in this weekend's racist violence, you will be held fully accountable. Justice will be delivered.

As I said on Saturday, we condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence. It has no place in America.

And --

(END VIDEO CLIP) BLITZER: All right, let's bring in our panel. We have a lot to assess right now. Our Chief National Security Correspondent Jim Sciutto is with us. Our Political Director David Chalian, our Legal Analyst, former federal prosecutor Laura Coates, our Senior Political Reporter Nia-Malika Henderson, and our Chief Political Analyst Gloria Borger.

Gloria, what do you make of the president's statement? About five minutes in length. We just heard it at the White House.

GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, look, it's clear to me that the White House and the president are trying to make a reboot. This is not a president who would never admit that he failed a key leadership test over the weekend when he failed to address these white supremacists directly. I would argue that it's the easiest thing that a president ever has to do is to condemn nazi-ism.

And the president made a point of saying, as you just showed in this clip, as I said on Saturday, comma, just saying that he was making the case that perhaps he believes that he was expanding upon his remarks which were criticized roundly by every party. Members of the Republican Party.

So, he didn't talk about domestic terrorism. His attorney general did. And this is his effort at rebooting.

But I think many times we judge our presidents but how -- by how they respond in the moment to these -- to these kinds of issues. And I think he failed that test. And this was an effort to say, OK, here's my -- here's my do-over.

BLITZER: What he did do, David Chalian, today, what he failed to do on Saturday, is mention by name the KKK, the Ku Klux Klan, neo-Nazis, white supremacists. That's what people wanted to hear him specifically utter on Saturday. It took him a few days. He finally did it.

DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Right. Well, to Gloria's point, about -- as I said on Saturday, he's hoping to blur those lines. That part was not what he said on Saturday. That's why he had to go give this statement today.

I mean, here is a -- that was a really, really strong statement against what happened three days after the fact. Imagine in reality, Wolf, if he had given that statement Saturday, what all of us around this table would be saying about the president's remarks.

The fact -- so give him his credit for finally getting out there and making some very strong remarks. But don't do that without asking the question, what have we learned, fundamentally, about this president in this episode, about his initial instincts? Can you, sort of, abdicate the moral authority of the president on Saturday and get it back on Monday with a make-up statement? I think that's a question that we should be asking.

So, while this may now check the boxes for some of his Republican critics in his own party, for others to come out and say, yes, this is what we were looking to hear, I don't think it erases the question of, why was this not his initial instinct on Saturday?

BORGER: And it wasn't his instinct on Saturday. I mean, we have to look at Donald Trump and say, what was his instinct on Saturday to do? His instinct was to say, on both sides.

NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER: Both sides, right.

BORGER: And, now, as they're trying to reboot, clean it up, whatever you -- whatever you want to call it, this was -- this was a very strong statement.

And so, you have to ask yourself the question. What is the test of leadership here? The test of leadership is having moral clarity, I believe, in the moment, when something like this occurs.

Again, you have to say, yes, he gave the right statement days later.

HENDERSON: Right. And what did it take to get him there? Right? I mean, these days and days of condemnation from Republicans, and real outrage at his both sides, kind of, framing on Saturday.

I think, also, it's incumbent on this president, I think in a way it hasn't been necessarily on others, to really separate himself from white supremacists.

[13:10:05] Right, if you listen to what white supremacists have said, David Duke, for instance, he essentially has said that he sees Donald Trump as a fellow traveler. As someone who, in word and deed, articulates the kind of America that white supremacists wants to see -- want to see.

So, I think it's incumbent from this president to really disavow them, essentially say that white supremacists and Nazis and neo-Nazis don't speak for him, don't speak for the kind of America he wants to create. The so-called idea of American being great, well neo-Nazis have no part of that America that Donald Trump says he wants to create. He didn't really do that.

I think we also have seen from this president, when he sees a threat, right? He sees a threat, for instance, in illegal immigrants voting, right? And he set up a commission to look into that. When he talks about illegal immigrants creating crimes, he set up a hot line, right? To look into that.

There isn't much policy, at this point, in terms of addressing this. The DOJ is certainly going to look into it. But in any, sort of, kind of, full-scale investigation into this, we haven't seen that.

BLITZER: You know, Laura, the -- he did say the Department of Justice has now formally opened a civil rights investigation. He didn't say the Department of Justice has opened up a terror investigation. Walk us through, from the legal perspective, the difference. LAURA COATES, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, certainly, you have the civil

rights division who's coming into play, because you have the affiliation of the neo-Nazis, the white supremacists, which is saturated with racism and bigotry.

So, it's a natural inclination to go to the rights division. The reason you don't have a terrorism investigation, at this point, is the code -- the U.S. code actually does define domestic terrorism. And this type of thing does fall under that definition.

But it's a bone without meat on it. There is not a hook that you have in the criminal code that will actually be able to carry out, at this particular point in time, what it looks like for an uncontemplated, if this investigation but it's a bone without a hook. What it looks like for an uncontemplated unprecedented driving a car into a group of people as a weapon of mass destruction, shall you say. That is the hook they're looking for is to why they can't legally say it.

Parochially, we all say to ourselves, this is a terrifying act. It's an act of terrorism. It was designed to try to coerce the population, trying to change the government policy. It was done so in a violent way. That's the definition of terrorism.

However, in the law, you actually have to have a penalty attached and the elements in place aside from the definition which is why they're carefully navigating the course right now and talking about it being a racist act as opposed to a racist act.

BLITZER: You know, Jim Sciutto, what I don't understand, the attorney general, the president's national security adviser, among others, they've called it an act of terror. We didn't hear that from the president specifically, although his critics are already pointing out that if a Muslim had driven that car into that crowd of individuals, you know he would have called it an act of terror.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: No question. And you've seen very quick president's statements, tweets principally, whenever there is a, activist Islamic-inspired terrorism abroad. You've seen that less so and sometimes never, when you have acts of terrorism, for instance targeting Muslims. And we've seen the president come under criticism for that.

The other point I would make, which is just interesting, is that senior members of the military, in addition to the ones you named, come out very publicly on that very day on Saturday. One being the chief of naval operations, Admiral John Richardson, saying bigotry has no place in this country.

Of course, that happens, as you've also heard senior members of the military challenge the president on his transgender ban which, to this point, is still just a tweet. It's not an executive order. But still saying that anyone can serve.

And it just struck me that early on in the Trump presidency, the thought had been that the president's generals, in effect, will moderate him on key national security issues, for instance North Korea.

But it's interesting to see the voices pop up on social issues like this, transgender and now on this. Senior military officials beating the president to the punch, as it were, calling out the KKK, white supremacists, racism, explicitly which took the president some time to do.

BLITZER: You know, Gloria, he opened up his statement with a few sentences about how strong the U.S. economy is right now. And they made the transition to his meeting with the FBI director --

BORGER: Right.

BLITZER: -- or the attorney general and went into the strong statement -- a very strong statement condemning the Ku Klux Klan, the white supremacist, the neo-Nazi groups. Some are already saying, why did he need to open it up with some rhetoric about the strong economy?

BORGER: You know, that struck me in the wrong way as well, I must say. I think this is, sort of, a moment for the country. And the president needs to recognize that, or should recognize that, and start out by saying, look, this is something that needs to be addressed here.

And I would argue that you can address the country on this in a -- in a separate address, and say, this is a moment for us to sit and reflect and maybe we're going to have a commission, as Nia talked about. Maybe we need to have more public conversation about this.

[13:15:07] And, as your president, let me talk to you about what I'm think about and what we are doing. And then at some other point perhaps later today talk about trade policy and et cetera, et cetera. I mean I think, honestly, this deserved, particularly since it was a very detailed statement, this deserved its own address from the president to the nation.

BLITZER: David Chalian?

DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: And it will be treated that way. I doubt many of us are going to run the economy remarks --

BORGER: Right. Right.

CHALIAN: (INAUDIBLE) gets repeated over and over again.

One thing, Wolf, that I noticed. Remember, we came out with a poll last week. A couple of the things that didn't get attention last week that now all of a sudden I went back and looked, has Trump changed the stature of the presidency? Fifty-five percent of Americans says he's lowered it, 17 percent said he raised it. Will Trump unite the country and not divide it? Thirty-five percent of Americans told us he will unite the country and not divide it. Sixty-one percent said he won't.

So you have to ask yourself, if what happened over this weekend, did he help this standing he has with American voters or did he hurt it? And I think today's statement is obviously an attempt to make it up. But he's already got such low marks on these kinds of big perceptions of Donald Trump in the presidency, wearing the presidency as an office, and he has so much work to do with the American people, he clearly understood he had to try to correct some of that today.

LAURA COATS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: And if I may, too, the idea this, you know, having a hate crime investigation is nothing to sneeze at. It's an important thing and an important step have. It doesn't sort of replace the semantics of the terrorism aspect of it, but it's important.

But the elephant in the room for many people who are affected by this sort of rally and the counter protests, who has died (ph), is the idea, can this Department of Justice effectively carry out a hate crime investigation and a potential conviction and prosecution?

BLITZER: What do you think? What's your answer?

COATS: And my instinct is based on the claiming back of a lot of going back of a lot of the policies in the civil rights division alone to suggest that perhaps thy will not be as adamant or strident in their attempts to do so. That's a point of concern (INAUDIBLE) will have.

And so the idea I guess actually came out yesterday and talked about the idea of, look, a hate crime investigation is going to be happening, a look (ph) at terrorism, et cetera. But will he, under his leadership, be able to effectuate the actual more than semantics, the more than the soap boxing, and be able to carry out an effective investigation? We don't know.

BLITZER: But you used to work in the civil rights division at the Department of Justice.

COATS: I did.

BLITZER: You were a prosecutor there. Do you not have confidence in the career professionals who will be involved in this investigation?

COATS: I have confidence in the career professionals. Unfortunately, many of the career professionals are beholden to the whim of the political appointees who are forced to make the ultimate prosecution decision. And that is where the buck stops. Because it stops there, there can be a great deal of work that's done by the career prosecutors and they are affected and they are patriots to the core. But if the buck stops in front of the door that says, I have a deaf ear, then not a great deal will change. And that remains to be seen what will happen in this administration.

NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER: And this idea of whether or not this was sort of a one-off and is going to be treated as such. I think a lot of people, when they saw those crowds gathered there, marching in Charlottesville with those torches, you were surprised at the numbers there and the boldness, right? They didn't -- they didn't feel like they needed to wear hoods at that point. So this idea of whether or not this is a more wide-scale problem and if this administration is in a place inclined to look at it.

BORGER: Well --

BLITZER: All right, let me just get Jim Sciutto in.

Jim, it may be three days late. He probably should have done this speech, these words, on Saturday. But he does deserve credit for finally coming around and specifically naming those hate groups.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Listen, he did it. and that was a very strongly worded statement. He named KKK, white supremacists. He called them repugnant. He said is has not place -- they have no place in 21st century America. And he said it very strongly.

And I wonder, as I was listening to that statement and seeing the president come out and deliver it, not via tweet, not via just a statement or through unnamed officials, I wonder if we saw the hand of the new chief of staff to some degree, John Kelly, there? A military man, perhaps with the authority to tell the president, this is what you have to do. I wonder if that's a sign of his new leadership in that White House.

BLITZER: All right, everybody stay with us. We're going to have a lot more on the breaking news. Jim Sciutto, David Chalian, Laura Coats, Nia-Malika Henderson, Gloria Borger. And the them will be back.

In the meantime, an Ohio man the key suspect in the Virginia car attack that killed one woman, appeared before a judge via video link a little while ago. The judge denied him bond. When we come back, we'll have details on the suspect, his background. We'll have a live report. Brian Todd is on the scene for us in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Much more on the breaking news right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:23:54] BLITZER: He's accused of ramming his car into a crowd of counterdemonstrators in Charlottesville, Virginia, killing one person, injures 20 others. The suspect, James Alex Fields Jr., 20-year-old, appeared before a judge today.

Our correspondent Brian Todd is in Charlottesville for us.

Brian, update us on what happened in that courtroom today and what we know about the suspect.

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Right, Wolf, there were some charged moments inside and outside the courtroom today. A short time ago the suspect, James Alex Fields, appeared before Judge Robert Downer (ph) here in Charlottesville. The judge read him the charges against him, second-degree murder, malicious wounding and hit and run. The suspect was video-linked in with a video -- you know, via video screen from his jail cell in the Albemarle County Jail. So we saw an image of him on the screen rather than a live appearance by him in the courtroom.

He was wearing kind of a prison jumpsuit. A striped prison jumpsuit. He looked drawn and subdued. The judge talked to him about the charges. He asked Fields if he could afford an attorney. Fields said he could not afford an attorney.

[13:24:58] And then an interesting moment, Wolf. The judge said that he had contacted the public defender's office and the public defender's office told him that a relative of one of the public defenders was involved in Saturday's violence somehow. The judge did not go into specifics about that but the judge said that because of that, he could not appoint a public defender for James Fields. So he kind of went down a list and picked an attorney named Charles Weber to represent him and the judge admitted he had not contacted Mr. Weber yet about that and said, he said, this is going to be your attorney.

And he also asked Fields where did he work? He said he worked for a company called Securitas in Maumee, Ohio. We have tried to reach people from that company. They have not commented to us so far.

But, Wolf, you know, it was interesting, the situation regarding the attorneys. Apparently someone in the public defender's office has some kind of a connection to what happened on Saturday and, therefore, the judge viewed it as a potential conflict and so he picked another attorney.

We have tried to reach out to that attorney, Charles Weber. We knocked on his door. We called him and he has not gotten back to us on this.

Interesting information that we've been able to gather over the weekend, Wolf. We've learned from Justice Department officials familiar with the civil rights investigation into this case that officials feel they may have enough evidence to be suspicious that Fields may have been trying to send some kind of broader message on Saturday when he allegedly struck those people with his car, rather than simply trying to harm people. So that is part of the investigation.

Investigators also telling CNN that they are looking into whether he might have had accomplices. We don't know if he had. They were just looking into that at this point. And we do know from records that CNN has pulled that James Fields joined the Army in August of 2015, but then was separated from the service in December of that year for failing to meet training standards.

So, Wolf, doing a little more digging on the suspect. And his court appearance today, there was also a bit of a fracas outside the courthouse today when two men, who appeared to be supporters of James Fields, started to scream epithets at the media. They were shouted down by counter protesters and then they were escorted away by sheriff's deputies, Wolf.

BLITZER: And, Brian, very quickly, one of this high school teachers has said publicly that in counseling this young man during his high school years he was often expressing neo-Nazi views. Is that right?

TODD: That is correct, Wolf. This teacher's name is Derek Weimer. He taught Fields for two years in high school. Taught history to him. He said he had a good rapport with James Fields, but he did say he was made uncomfortable by some of Fields' views. And he said he had an infatuation with Nazis and that might have, you know, informed some of his beliefs, Wolf.

And so we're trying to make sure -- to see if there's maybe a -- obviously, you know, maybe a connection between some of those views and maybe his appearance here on Saturday.

BLITZER: Yes, and the president, as we just heard, announcing a full- scale civil rights investigation into this attack.

All right, Brian, stand by.

I want to bring in John Whitbeck. He's the chairman of the Republican Party of Virginia.

John, thanks very much for coming in.

Let me play a key clip of what the president just said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Racism is evil. And those who cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs, including the KKK, neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and other hate groups that are repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans. We are a nation founded on the truth that all of us are created equal.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: I assume you agree, John, you wish he would have uttered those words specifically condemning by name those hate groups on Saturday given all the fallout that's happened since then.

JOHN WHITBECK, CHAIRMAN, REPUBLICAN PARTY OF VIRGINIA: You know, I come at this from a perspective of making Virginia my home. So this was a tremendous weekend for us. I mean it was a tragedy beyond anything that's going to be burned in nigh my mind and I know my counterpart on the Democrat side said this as well, it's something that we're never going to forget as Virginians.

And, you know, the statement the president made today, the statement of our RNC chairwoman, Ronna McDaniel, and the attorney general, the statements like that have meant a lot to Virginians I think today and we appreciate the sentiment. And it's been a tough week for us, a tough weekend.

BLITZER: Because a lot of Republicans, your fellow Republicans, have been very critical of the president since Saturday. They're happy he finally did today what he should have done on Saturday. But statement after statement from Republicans coming out saying, name these people, these hate groups, the Nazis, the KKK, name them, don't just gloss over that.

WHITBECK: You can't emphatically enough denounce these groups. I mean you have to be as unequivocal as you can be. And our party has always stood for equal justice. And our Republican elected officials, our party leaders, we've been saying -- saying this message all along, as Americans, as Virginians. You know, we're united, Republicans, Democrats, and independents in Virginia right now. Not a partisan issue. And we're really -- really appreciate the sentiments that have really gone on in our commonwealth and it's really wonderful to see everybody coming today.

BLITZER: Because here's what I didn't understand. The president very easily could have at least retweeted what Ivanka Trump, his daughter, tweeted yesterday. She mentioned all those hate groups by name. He didn't do that. He was silent on Twitter all of yesterday. Whatever anybody goes after him, you know how he tweets. He tweets very, very quickly.

[13:30:05] Why do you -- how do you explain it? It took him until today, until the noon hour on Monday, to utter those words.