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Trump Slams Obama over Russia Election Meddling; Awaiting Off- Camera, Audio-Only White House Press Briefing; No Reporter Questions Allowed as Trump & Modi Give Statements; Fighting Against ISIS Resumes in Philippines After Eid Ceasefire. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired June 26, 2017 - 13:30   ET

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


[13:30:00] JIM ACOSTA, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Russia investigation and deflect any responsibility in the Russia investigation. Now blaming former President Obama. Somebody he blames a lot of things on. But show you the latest tweets. Here's one of the tweets he posted earlier this morning, "The real story is that President Obama did nothing after being informed in August about Russia meddling. With four months looking at Russia under a magnifying glass, they have zero tapes of T. people" -- Trump people - "colluding. There is no colluding and no obstruction. I think I should be given an apology."

Wolf, go back and look at first tweet, "The real story President Obama did nothing amp being informed." That is not accurate factually. President Obama confronted Russian President Vladimir Putin at the G- 20 summit in China in September of last year. So to say the president did nothing about this is factually incorrect. Democrats, including the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Adam Schiff, say the White House did not do enough. A lot of people are not disputing that. But, Wolf, the president's tweet that President Obama did nothing about the Russian meddling in the election is not accurate.

And also worth noting that the president in these tweets is acknowledging, and we noticed this over the weekend, is starting to acknowledge on a larger scale that the Russians were trying to intervene in the election.

And, Wolf, a side note. You did mention that this briefing will be off camera. That is correct. We'll have the audio after this is all over.

Another thing to point out, another thing, there's sort of an erosion of what we've come to expect here at the White House in terms of press coverage of the president of the United States. Later on, this afternoon, the president and the prime minister of India, Prime Minister Modi, will be in the Rose Garden delivering statements to the press about their meetings going on here at the White House today. And, Wolf, that is obviously not in keeping with tradition, what we've come to expect over the years covering the president here at the White House. Typically, when the president appears with a foreign leader in the Rose Garden, it is expected that president and that foreign leader, head of state, do a two-plus-two, each answering questions from reporters. That is not happening in the Rose Garden this afternoon, Wolf. It's critical we point it out to viewers that, in addition to the briefing being off-camera today, the president is also eroding the expectations, eroding the traditions of covering the president of the United States here in Washington in that he is holding a statement in the Rose Garden this afternoon with a foreign head of state and not taking questions from reporters.

Obviously, we would like to ask the question about the travel ban. Earlier today, why is it that the White House put out the statement just a little while ago talking about the travel ban, calling it a suspension of travel from those six countries. That is obviously not what the president himself said. Three weeks ago, the president called it a ban. Why the White House felt the need to sanitize the president's own words in that statement is a question that needs asked, among many other questions.

Of course, during this briefing, you know, Wolf, coming up in a few moments, lights on, cameras on, but all going off here in short order when Sean Spicer, the press secretary, comes to the podium.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Lots of questions you'll have for him, I'm sure.

Thanks very much, Jim Acosta, in the briefing room.

Former President Obama's office did not provide an official response to President Trump's latest tweets. However, a former Obama White House official did, saying the administration's attacks on President Obama are just a distraction from the Republican's attempt to repeal Obamacare.

On the response of Russia's meddling, this official said, quote, "The Obama administration's interest in making sure the response was bipartisan wasn't for the sake of being bipartisan. It was necessary, because we needed the buy-in from the state and local election administrators, many of whom were Republican partisans, and/or skeptical of federal government. What was profoundly troubling was Senator Mitch McConnell's unwillingness to help, only making matters worse."

Let's bring back our panel.

Let me get, David, first, your reaction to all of this, because for one thing, President Trump seems to finally be concluding there was Russian meddling in the presidential election?

DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: After calling it a Democratic hoax, and fake news, he now is fully onboard with the notion, because he can say it was Barack Obama's fault, that not enough was done. It is -- in the president's political interests to make Barack Obama a foil. No doubt about that. Use that as a foil. It helps gin up support for his own base and his partisans, and that is clearly part of the strategy he's employing here. I do think, though, that if -- if Donald Trump wants to solely focus on the Barack Obama administration problems, slowness to respond, and Obama's own administration official said he sort of changed in that "Washington Post" story, that's fair game. So, too, is the question to this administration, well what are you doing now to prevent it from happening again? Now you acknowledge it existed, yes, complaints about the way the previous administration did it. So what will you do to ensure our Democratic process moves forward unabated in the future?

[13:35:06] GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: And does this mean that the president is actually buying into the intelligence community now on the seriousness of the problem? I mean, this is a -- this is a problem that the president all along has said, well, either, A, it's business as usual, or, B, you know, it's -- I'm not quite sure. Could have been China, could have been Russia, could have been the fat guy sitting on his bed. Right? So now, buying in to the seriousness of the problem, and if he is, to your point, what is he going to do about it?

BLITZER: Mark, he also said, in this tweet, 8:59 this morning, "The real story is that President Obama did nothing after being informed in August about Russia meddling. With four months looking at Russia under a magnifying glass, they have zero tapes of T. people colluding." -- Trump people colluding -- "There is no collusion or obstruction. I should be given an apology."

MARK PRESTON, CNN SENIOR POLTIICAL ANALYST: Let me apologize on behalf of all America for President Trump.

Listen, a couple things of what's important about that. One, he talks about tapes, because he realizes that Director Comey the former FBI director made to tapes of him, he didn't make tapes of the conversations we had with Director Comey when it came to the idea of President Trump asking him to back off the investigation into General Flynn. I think that President Trump -- this is disturbing to me, actually. The idea he is now embracing the idea that this is all true because he can put the blame on the doorstep of somebody else, that's troubling. I mean, in the fact of, Gloria and David are saying is, what do we do moving forward? When he says that -- that's the most important thing. What happened with President Obama? That's not the most important thing. It's a chapter in the book of what is important of all of these things and President Trump is giving it a short shrift and hasn't given us any answers about he's going to fix it.

BLITZER: He says that President Obama did nothing after he learned in August that Russia and Putin personally were directly involved in meddling. There was an October 7th statement the director of National Intelligence and Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson put out, "Confident that the Russian government directed the recent compromises of e-mails from U.S. persons and institutions, including from U.S. political organizations."

And President Obama did confront President Putin at that G-20 summit. You can argue not enough was done, but they did to more than nothing.

MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: They did more than nothing, probably not as much as a lot of Democrats now say they wanted to have been done. Yesterday, Adam Schiff said he pushed the administration to be more declarative earlier on. We've learned about some of the debates that happened on Capitol Hill with Senate Republican leaders, Mitch McConnell, others suggesting not to go public with this information, raising concerns that it could be viewed at a partisan move, if they were to do that, that early on. And, remember, Harry Reid, then Senate Democratic leader, sent a letter to James Comey saying that he possesses potentially damaging information about collusion or coordination with a Trump campaign and Russian officials. He urged him to put that public. That didn't happen. There was a significant debate internally within the Obama administration. We saw what they ended up doing. Clearly, some folks don't think it was enough.

BLITZER: Interesting, David in the statement, October 7th, Jeh Johnson, James Clapper put out, "We believe, based on the scope and sensitivity of these efforts, that only Russia's senior most officials could have authorized these activities."

The president knew it was Putin personally, but in the statement, they said, senior most officials. And people wonder, if you knew it was Putin, why are you just blaming senior-most officials?

CHALIAN: I don't know if this chapter will make it into Barack Obama's book when it comes out, but I would like to hear from the former president more about his thinking and probe that. Because if your own folks are saying we came up short here, I think there is value in that. I do -- I don't think it's crazy that President Trump bring this up. It's a valid point. I don't think it excuses, though, what we need to do moving forward. If it distracts from that, it is more problematic. It's important to hear from President Obama on that.

RAJU: And, Wolf, important that October statement did not say they tried to sway the election, to help President Trump. It wasn't until the January assessment when the intelligence community made that assertion as well and that was left out of the October assessment.

BORGER: And Alisyn Camerota tried to ask Kellyanne Conway four times about what the administration on the Russia question, and she talked about the president starting an initiative on voter integrity and using the bully pulpit. That's not really and answer.

[13:39:57] BLITZER: We'll see.

All right, guys, everybody stand by, Gloria, David, Mark and Manu.

Tomorrow night, by the way, CNN's Jim Sciutto takes us inside the Russia hacking investigation. "The Russia Connection, Inside the Attack on Democracy," airing tomorrow night, 10:00 p.m. eastern and pacific, right here on CNN.

Live pictures once again coming in from the White House. Live cameras are banned from the daily press briefing that hasn't started yet. About to begin. At the State Department and the Pentagon, by the way, reporters have few briefings as well. Where is all this heading? We're going to ask the president of the White House Correspondents Association when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) BLITZER: Looking live pictures coming in from the White House briefing room once again. We may lose this picture by the way any moment. The White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer will hold another off-camera briefing. Once finished, media outlets, including CNN, all the broadcast networks they want, other cable news networks, they will be able to air the audio portion only of the briefing, no video.

Let's discuss this and more. We're joined by Jeff Mason, the White House correspondent for Reuters, also the president of the White House Correspondents Association.

Jeff, thanks for joining us.

[13:45:32] JEFF MASON, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, REUTERS & PRESIDENT, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENTS ASSOCIATION: Sure.

BLITZER: So why -- you met last week, I take it, with Sean Spicer, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, not as the Reuters correspondent, but as the president of the White House Correspondents Association. What's their explanation for this shift?

MASON: Well, in fact, the full board had a meeting with them today as well. What we've didn't doing, advocating again for the press to have fully televised briefing in the press room. They're thinking about their strategy how to deal with the press, believe there's grandstanding occurring and don't see it as being in their interest to have a briefing televised every day. What we have said to them is that not only is it important for our television colleagues and radio colleagues to tell the story what the administration is doing but for the transparency and the American public to watch each day.

BLITZER: It's good for the American public to see their government in action.

MASON: Of course.

BLITZER: So their argument is, if there's live coverage, video, live, that reporters ask tough questions, whereas, if it's just audio, and not live, they don't ask tough questions. Is that the argument?

MASON: I don't want to represent their argument. They see tough questions happen regardless of whether the cameras or running or not. I certainly made that clear. Lots is going on in this administration to require tough questions, and its job to pose them, whether the television cameras are running or not. They're rethinking their press strategy. We don't see eye to eye right now how they're doing that.

BLITZER: I understand they don't want video. We audio, they say we can air the audio, but only after the complete briefing is over. What's the difference if the audio is live as opposed to on tape?

MASON: I don't have an answer for that. I asked the very same question today. It's not clear to me what the difference is. I'm glad we are using audio again. There was a while in the last couple weeks audio was also prohibited. I'm pleased we're able to use audio again and not really sure why that can't be live. BLITZER: A difference of 20 minutes to a half hour as long as the

briefing is going on. We're air the audio. The briefing just started. We're not allowed to show picture, but did show sketch artists renditions.

MASON: I saw those.

BLITZER: I thought Sean Spicer looked pretty good in those sketches.

Quickly, the briefing, the statements about to be made, Prime Minister Modi of India and the president in the Rose Garden, making statements, but not allowing reporters from the India new media or the American news media to ask questions. What's up with that?

MASON: There are times when foreign leaders come and they make statements, don't take questions. We prefer they take questions. That's something that, again --

BLITZER: That's in the Oval Office, they don't take questions. I don't remember a time, there may have been a time, they've actually made statements in the Rose Garden and not allowed two reporters from the Indian press, foreign press, and two reporters from the American press to ask questions?

MASON: It's standard when foreign leaders come we have a two and two, where questions are asked, or one and one. The point is questions should be able to be asked and we would like for that to have happened today, too.

BLITZER: Thank you, Jeff Mason. President of the White House Correspondents Association and White House correspondent for Reuters.

We're counting on you to get this done.

MASON: Working on it.

BLITZER: Thank you very much, and to your team. Appreciate it very much.

Up next, ISIS fighters find themselves battling government forces not in Iraq or Syria, but in the Philippines. We have new information, when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:52:57] BLITZER: As ISIS loses ground in Iraq and Syria, it's beginning a foothold in Southeast Asia.

As our senior international correspondent, Ivan Watson, shows us, the siege has come at a very high human cost.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

(CHANTING)

WATSON (voice-over): ISIS fighters battling street to street. Not in the Middle East, but for the first time, in southeast Asia.

(GUNFIRE)

WATSON: On May 23rd, these extremists launched a sudden lightning assault on the city of Marawi in the Philippines. They captured the city and government weapons, burned a church, and murdered prisoners.

For months, the Philippine's military has struggled and failed to recapture the city, even though they bomb it daily from the sky.

(GUNFIRE)

WATSON: The government has also declared martial law here, setting up checkpoints across the island.

(on camera): The security forces are on the hunt. They're looking for dozens of suspected ISIS militants. And they're also searching for prisoners who escaped from a jail that ISIS broke open during the first days of their attack.

(GUNFIRE)

WATSON (voice-over): The capture of Marawi, a deadly coming out party for ISIS in this part of the world.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It has changed the picture of extremism in southeast Asia. We need to be more worried that people with combat experience and leadership skills will be developing close to home, not in Syria and Iraq.

(SINGING)

WATSON: ISIS in the Philippines is a coalition of many Islamist insurgent groups that have long plagued this country.

(SHOUTING)

WATSON: But they've united for the very first time under the leadership of this man, Ispilan Hapalan (ph).

(on camera): Tell me about him, what kind of a man is Hapalan (ph)?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hapalan (ph) is very bold fighter.

WATSON (voice-over): This man is a former Islamist militant. Before renouncing violence and joining witness protection, he spent years in the jungle fighting alongside the man now leading ISIS in the Philippines.

(on camera): Do you think he enjoy killing people?

[13:55:13] UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. When I spoke to him many years ago, he always think that killing non-Muslims satisfies Allah, makes Allah happy, and I was shocked.

WATSON (voice-over): In the month-long battle in Marawi, ISIS have killed scores of Philippine soldiers and wounded hundreds more.

(GUNFIRE)

WATSON: The fighting has also triggered a humanitarian crisis. More than 330,000 people have fled their homes and hundreds of civilians are believed to be trapped in the conflict zone.

Amid this suffering and destruction, ISIS have accomplished one clear goal, announcing their deadly presence in this part of the world.

Ivan Watson, CNN, in the Philippines.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: And the news continues right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)