Trump Touts Bipartisanship Ahead of Dinner With Top Dems
WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: President Trump is touting bipartisanship ahead of his dinner tonight at the White House with top Democrats to talk tax reform. In his message to conservatives: don't be skeptical. Our senior White House correspondent, Jeff Zeleny, is joining us with the latest. Jeff, the president is dining tonight with the Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, the House minority leader, Nancy Pelosi, or as he likes to call them, Chuck and Nancy.</s>JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Wolf, he has also called them clowns and losers. But tonight, he is inviting both of these top Democratic leaders here to the White House to break bread. The bigger question is if they can break the partisan gridlock consuming Washington.</s>DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Tonight, I am having dinner with Senator Schumer and Nancy Pelosi. And we'll continue some discussions. So, we have a lot of things in the fire.</s>ZELENY (voice-over): President Trump and Democratic leaders expected to discuss tax reform, immigration, and infrastructure. As the White House tries to jump start its agenda, the president is extending a hand to Democrats and moderate Republicans, including at this bipartisan meeting of House members today.</s>TRUMP: More and more, we're trying to work things out together. That's a positive thing, and it's good for the Republicans and good for the Democrats.</s>ZELENY: In the cabinet room, we asked about this new approach. (on camera): Mr. President, some conservatives are skeptical of this new approach with Democrats. What would you tell them -- why have Leader Pelosi and Senator Schumer overnight tonight? What's your message for skeptical conservatives?</s>TRUMP: Well, I'm a conservative. And I will tell you, I'm not skeptical. And I think that if we can do things in a bipartisan manner, that will be great. Now, it might not work out, in which case we'll try to do them without. But I think if we can do in a bipartisan manner, if you look at some of the greatest legislation ever passed, it was done on a bipartisan manner.</s>ZELENY (voice-over): The Democratic leaders have hardly been shy, airing their feelings about the president.</s>REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA), MINORITY LEADER: It doesn't seem to be any ethical standard in the White House.</s>SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY), MINORITY LEADER: The president was being petty. The president was being small. The president was not presidential at all.</s>ZELENY: And the president has often responded in kind.</s>TRUMP: I think the losers are Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer.</s>ZELENY: In a deeply divided Washington, it's an open question whether any of these meetings and tonight's dinner will produce results, but it does allow the president to show he's trying. If it fails, the White House believes Congress will own the blame.</s>TRUMP: If it works out, great, if it doesn't work out, great. Hopefully, we'll be able to do it anyway as Republicans.</s>ZELENY: The specifics of the tax cut package have been in short supply. But the president indicated today he's open to raising taxes on the wealthiest Americans, a view deeply at odds with Republican orthodoxy.</s>TRUMP: I think the wealthy will be pretty much where they are, pretty much where they are. If we can do that, we'd like it. If they have to go higher, they'll go higher, frankly.</s>ZELENY: With skepticism rising from some conservative corners, White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders explains why Republican leaders weren't invited to the dinner tonight.</s>SARAH HUCKABEE SANDERS, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: I think it's pretty disingenuous for people to say, he's only meeting with Democrats. The president is the leader of the Republican Party and us with elected by Republicans.</s>ZELENY: And then she broke from the bipartisan moment, bluntly acknowledging it was good politics to at least try.</s>SANDERS: This president has done more for bipartisanship in the last eight days than Obama did in eight years.</s>ZELENY: So, Wolf, why this sudden rush of bipartisanship? For one reason, I'm told by one official here, that it gives Democrats part of the ownership and, of course, part of the blame if nothing actually happens with any of these bills here. But that dinner is set to start in about 15 minutes or so. The president doing that and then, Wolf, he'll be traveling to Florida tomorrow to take a look first hand at the hard-hit areas around Ft. Myers, and around Naples -- Wolf.</s>BLITZER: All right. Jeff, thank you. Jeff Zeleny at the White House. By the way, coming up later tonight, Hillary Clinton talks to CNN about what happened in the 2016 presidential race. She sat down with CNN's Anderson Cooper, who is joining us now live with a preview. Anderson, Hillary Clinton spoke with to you about James Comey, the fired FBI director, and the lessons of the election. Give our viewers a sense of what she said.</s>ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST, AC360: Well, you know, she said she takes responsibility for the mistakes that she made during the campaign and that her campaign made. She clearly believes that Director Comey, that his decision to reopen the investigation, just about a week and a half into her e-mail, so a week and a half before the election, she believes that was the pivotal event. That that was the moment that she started -- the inroads she had started to make, she says, in some battleground states, particularly with white women voters, those started to decline after that. She lays the blame for this directly with Jim Comey. Listen.</s>HILLARY CLINTON (D), FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: What's important to me going forward is, as I say, I think it's important to focus on what happened, because lessons can be learned. But the more important lessons that will affect our democracy going forward are not about him and his investigation. He I think forever changed history, but that's in the past. What's important is the fact that the Russians are still going at us. He himself admitted that before Congress. People I really respect like Jim Clapper and John Brennan and others who knew what the Russians are doing have been doing have been sounding the alarm. I will tell you this, Anderson, If I had been elected president under the same circumstances, so that, you know, I lost the popular vote, I squeaked through the Electoral College and evidence came up that the Russians for whatever reason were trying to help me, I would have said on the first day in office, we're going to launch the most thorough investigation, no nation, particularly an adversary nation, can mess with our democracy. I would have had an independent commission. I would have done everything I could to get to the bottom of it because it's not going to stop. That's what I'm worried about.</s>COOPER: She still believes, though, Wolf, though that despite the Russian intervention, that -- I mean, that she believes that did have an impact on people's votes, which is something Republicans have pushed back on repeatedly, that no vote was actually altered by Russian interference. She definitely blames Director Comey and the decision just a week and a half or so before the election to reopen the investigation.</s>BLITZER: Did you get the sense, Anderson, the process of writing this book helped her come to terms with the results of the election?</s>COOPER: You know, it definitely seems to have in some way, made her more relaxed or made her more open. Less guarded, I would say. I think as a candidate, you know, one always had the sense or often had the sense that she, you know, was very careful and in the words that she used. And she'll say, look, she's been in the public eye, the center of the storm for a long time. She was cautious. I definitely got the sense in talking to her, it's a slightly different and slightly more open Hillary Clinton than I've certainly interviewed in the past.</s>BLITZER: Anderson Cooper, thanks very much. And don't forget, coming up later tonight, Hillary Clinton speaks to Anderson about what happened in the 2016 presidential race and a whole lot more. You can see the entire interview right here later tonight, 8:00 p.m. Eastern. Just ahead: a growing number of victims in a mysterious attack on U.S. diplomats and their families in Cuba. Were they targeted by a mysterious sonic weapon?