Tillerson Not-So-Subtle Jab at Trump During Commencement Address
KEILAR: Two months after he was fired as secretary of state, today, Rex Tillerson delivered the commencement speech to cadets at the Virginia Military Institute. A major theme of his speech was about protecting truth.</s>REX TILLERSON, FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE: If our leaders seek to conceal the truth or we, as people, become accepting of alternative realities that are no longer grounded in fact, then we, as American citizens, are on a pathway of relinquishing our freedom. The responsibility of every American citizen to each other is to preserve and protect our freedom by recognizing what truth is and is not, what fact is and is not. When we, as people, a free people, go wobbly on the truth, even on what may seem the most trivial of matters, we go wobbly on America. If we do not, as Americans, confront the crisis of ethics and integrity in our society and, among our leaders in both the public and the private sector and regrettably, at times, even the nonprofit sector, then American democracy as we know it is entering its twilight years.</s>KEILAR: Joining me now to talk about this, CNN chief political correspondent, Dana Bash, and CNN counterterrorism analyst, Phil Mudd, a former CIA counterterrorism official and former FBI senior intelligence adviser. That is amazing to hear them say that. Where he says if you go wobbly on the truth, you go wobbly on America. It's not even subtle.</s>DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Not even subtle. Talking about the truth, talking about facts, talking about ethics, talking about integrity. There's no question what he is talking about, there's no question the message he is trying to send. It is pretty remarkable. Now, if I'm sitting in the White House right now, I'm trying to figure out how to respond to this I'm thinking, OK, the guy got fired. Having said that, he came from way outside of Trump world, he came from the private sector, from where things were done very differently. And he clearly never fit into the world he described not but name, but it was pretty clear what he was talking about. Remember, he wasn't just any cabinet secretary. He represented the Trump administration on the world stage. So the idea of the truth being a fundamental of democracy, something he was representing around the world, clearly worries him in terms of America being a leader historically on the basis of that very fundamental thing.</s>KEILAR: What did you think listening to this commencement address?</s>PHIL MUDD, CNN COUNTERTERRORISM ANALYST: I think if you go back a couple of years when the president first started to campaign people thought that he was laughable, and as the campaign gained momentum, you recognized that he struck a chord with the American people. When he got into the office, you looked at some of what he said, everything from phantom voters, even Republican voters said we didn't see that happening. They wired the Trump Tower, we had the FBI director saying we didn't see that happening. Sean Spicer admitted he lied within 24, 48 hours about the inauguration size. I thousand the significance of what Tillerson said is going into conversations about the Iran nuclear deal and about what we think about North Korea, what do we believe and who do we believe? Do we believe the former secretary of state, the current secretary of state, the apparently incoming CIA director? Do we believe the vice president, the president who had systematically lied? Hope Hicks said she lied for him. Sean Spicer admitted he lied about the inauguration size. And significant issues beyond the sort of vague humor of how many people showed up at the inauguration, who do we believe? I'm not sure I know anymore.</s>KEILAR: I have about a dozen at least questions that I would love to see answered today in the White House briefing. We're actually waiting to see if they're -- what is up with the White House briefing. As you can see, folks are ready for it there in the briefing room. Sarah Sanders spoke briefly this morning with reporters about North Korea, which is a huge, huge story today. And she hinted at the fact that there would be a briefing. Let's listen.</s>SARAH SANDERS, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: I think so probably. I feel like we've covered it all now.</s>KEILAR: OK. Now we're waiting to see, right? And it's late in the day, 2:42 p.m. Eastern time. Normally, you'd have an idea of kind of what is going on here. We don't. We did not see a briefing yesterday. There was a briefing on Monday. It was not Sarah Sanders. It was her deputy, Raj Shah. There's so much to answer for, between these Senate Judiciary Committee transcripts released about the Trump Tower meeting in 2016 and North Korea. Should we be seeing a briefing?</s>BASH: Sure. Absolutely And there's a nexus to what you just saw from the former secretary of state talking about truth and integrity and democracy. This is a basic tenet of democracy, a free press. The tradition has been for the White House to answer questions. So when you started covering the Obama administration, there was even more frequency of press briefings. There was one in the morning that was off camera and then in the afternoon. Same goes for the Bush administration that I covered. It changed later. But I think, at the end of the day, yes, it is something that we should demand, the ability to ask questions. Sarah Sanders noted that she did something impromptu in the Bushes or on the driveway, wherever it was, and then you also have to take a further step back and say we demand it but then we should also demand the truth when we get the answers.</s>KEILAR: That's right. And sometimes you're watching the briefing, Phil Mudd, and you feel like it was just a practice in obfuscation. Certainly, on Monday, it was like that. What would you like to learn today? What do you think is to be learned today from a White House briefing?</s>MUDD: How long do you want to go? Number one, are you comfortable or uncomfortable where the North Koreans are? Number two, where are we're going to go on the new CIA nominee? And what you think about her responses on what the president said during the campaign he thought was interesting, waterboarding? What do you think should happen in terms of the Iran nuclear deal? We see questions about where the Europeans and others are going to go on this. If you're looking at that from a White House perspective, why would you have the briefing? The president doesn't want to go to the Correspondents' Dinner because it's uncomfortable and they make fun of him, just like I'm sure they did in fourth grade. The president doesn't want to have press interviews and exchanges with the entire press corps, that was a hot mess. Sarah Sanders doesn't want to answer questions about did the president pay Stormy Daniels, which came up again today. Why would you do this if the president can speak directly via Twitter and the president's supports supporters say we don't care if he lies. And 40 percent of them think that's OK. Character doesn't matter.</s>BASH: Don't discourage them. Don't discourage them, Phil.</s>KEILAR: All right, Phil Mudd, Dana Bash, thank you so much.</s>MUDD: Thank you.</s>KEILAR: Stay with me, if you can. Speaking of, President Trump's financial disclosures are out and we're learning the details on the repayment to his personal attorney, Michael Cohen, for the hush money, as Phil just mentioned, to the porn star, Stormy Daniels. What it's revealing. Just ahead.