Trump: Critics Attack My Rhetoric Because It's Me
TAPPER: Welcome back to THE LEAD, back now with my panel, Kirsten Powers and Bill Kristol. The President said these minutes ago. He'd been asked if his rhetoric was too inflammatory. Take a listen.</s>TRUMP: My critics are only saying that because it's me. If somebody else uttered the exact same words that I uttered, they'd say, what a great statement, what a wonderful statement. They're only doing it, but I will tell you, we have tens of millions of people in this country that are so happy with what I'm saying because they're saying, finally, we have a President that's sticking up for our nation and frankly, sticking up for our friends and our allies.</s>TAPPER: So, he's saying that the only reason people are criticizing him is because it's him and if any other president, let's say President Obama or President George W. Bush have said fire and fury or locked and loaded, that the criticism would not be there. It would be compliments. Thoughts?</s>POWERS: I don't think that's right. And I think that people look to the President for stability and for reassurance and those kind of comments are not reassuring to people. I think it's frightening to people. I think the fact you have Homeland Security reportedly warning people in Guam not to look you know, basically if there's an explosion, not to look at it because you could be blinded, I think those are scary things for people and it doesn't really matter who the president is who's saying that and that people expect the president to try to de-escalate. The fact is, a lot of these things are coming out on North Korea are things they say all the time. So you know, other presidents have not responded this way, whether it's President Obama or, you know, President Bush.</s>TAPPER: Yes. In fact, there's been a policy unofficial - unofficial policy since Eisenhower of not talking this way about nuclear weapons. I recall George W. Bush getting some criticism for his rhetoric when he talked about a crusade and he said, wanted dead or alive and I think even First Lady Laura Bush made fun of him for that one.</s>KRISTOL: And I think it would be typically</s>TAPPER: What do you think of the locked and loaded language? It actually doesn't mean anything militarily, it's like a line from a movie but what does it mean?</s>POWERS: Yes. Well, I mean, it doesn't seem to mean anything because I don't think that there's been any movement that we've - at least that's been reported that would suggest that the military is somehow mobilizing or doing anything different than they would normally do. You have someone on earlier talking about the fact that they're always on alert basically, you know, in South Korea. So, I think the United States is prepared, but no, it's - he's suggesting something has happened that hasn't happened and he is kind of - you're right, behaving like, you know, Arnold Schwarzenegger or something like that.</s>KRISTOL: And the problem is if we come through this crisis which I really hope we do -</s>TAPPER: We all do.</s>KRISTOL: Trump will take credit and say, see, I make them back down. It's not clear what backing down even means. I mean, they didn't fire the missiles, that they once said they might fire towards Guam, that's a victory for the U.S. that we stop North Korea from attacking part of the United States? I don't think that's a huge success in North Korean policy but look, I hope North Korea doesn't do that and I suppose Trump will take credit. I'd really would worry that it will then embolden him to think, well, this is great, I handled this crisis. This is the problem with Trump, right? I mean, you want it to come out well for the country but then he'll think, I handled that brilliantly and it's not going to be the Kelly and McMaster and Mattis that took a huge amount of work to make it happen but it's going to be that bluster paid off.</s>TAPPER: SO, Will Ripley in Beijing reported that Russia and China are now urging the United States to not go ahead with its joint military exercises with South Korea that had been previously planned. Russia is an interesting player in this and yesterday when the President was asked his response to the fact that Putin had ordered 755 U.S. diplomats and personnel to be exited from the embassy, this is what President Trump had to say.</s>TRUMP: I want to thank him because we try to cut down on payroll and as far as I'm concerned, I'm very thankful that he let go of a large number of people because now we have this smaller payroll. There's no real reason for them to go back so I greatly appreciate the fact that they've been able to cut our payroll for the United States. It will save a lot of money.</s>TAPPER: Sarah Huckabee Sanders said today that the President was being sarcastic which I think is probably credible but I think one of the-one of the questions is, again, why will President Trump never ever say anything negative about Vladimir Putin even when he is taking a definitionally anti-American position?</s>POWERS: Yes. That's the million dollar question, right? And I think that it's why people are you know, get upset and suspicious at these kinds of comments. I think you're right. I could see that that could be a sarcastic comment but there's always extra focus on Donald Trump when it comes to the Russia situation because he is so willing to criticize pretty much everybody and attack them in the most vicious terms possible and for some reason, will not with Putin.</s>KRISTOL: He will criticize people who work currently in the Trump, for Donald Trump as President in the State Department and conservatives have issues with the State Department and Trump has some issues and some this issues are legitimate. Really, when you're President of the United States, to publicly just mock and denigrate people, whether they're American national or Russian nationals</s>TAPPER: There was an Assistant Secretary of State who sent a tweet expressing camaraderie and sympathy for American diplomats and personnel which is not obviously what the President had done. Kirsten and Bill, thanks so much for joining us. I appreciate it. In just moments, President Trump is going to meet with U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is expected to make more remarks afterward. We'll bring this to you as soon as they happen but first, the White House has put him in the same category as Syria's brutal Bashar al-Assad and now Venezuela's leader wants to talk to President Trump? That's next.