Merkel: Europe Can't Completely Rely On U.S.; Trump To Honor The Fallen At Memorial Day Service.
MILTON MOCKERMAN, WORD WAR II VETERAN: I don't know how you'd put it in words, but it does mean a lot to me.</s>CAMEROTA: So beautiful.</s>DAVID GREGORY, CNN ANCHOR: No summer school for that guy.</s>CAMEROTA: There you go. Thanks --</s>GREGORY: He earned the right to walk across the stage.</s>CAMEROTA: Thanks for being here.</s>GREGORY: Yes, this was fun.</s>CAMEROTA: Great to have you.</s>GREGORY: Time for CNN NEWSROOM with Poppy Harlow. Have a good day.</s>POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, you guys. Have a great Memorial Day. Let's get started. Good Monday morning, everyone. I'm Poppy Harlow. John Berman has the day off. This morning President Trump visits Arlington National Cemetery to deliver remarks and to lay a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. The President will honor those who have served this country and lost their lives fighting in this nation's wars. It is his first public event since returning home from his nine-day trip overseas. A trip that, it appears, did not sit well with one of our most trusted allies. German Chancellor Angela Merkel making waves saying this.</s>ANGELA MERKEL, CHANCELLOR OF GERMANY (through translator): The times when we could completely count on others, they are over to a certain extent. I've experienced this in the last few days, and that is why I can only say that we Europeans must really take our fate into our own hands.</s>HARLOW: Merkel's spokesman has added some context to those remarks. This morning, our Senior International Correspondent Fred Pleitgen is live in London with more. So, I mean, how do you read this because that was a startling statement from one of our biggest allies? And her spokesperson had seemed to walk it back a little bit.</s>FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, I'm not sure that he's walking back, Poppy, but it is quite interesting. I just want to read the tweet from Steffen Seibert, who's the spokesman for Angela Merkel. He said, "Those who have accompanied Chancellor Merkel journalistically for a long time know how important the German- American relations are. They are a pillar of our foreign and security policy, and Germany will continue to work on and strengthen those relationships." So on the one hand, he's seemingly clarifying her remarks, but I do still think that Angela Merkel does feel very or quite alienated by President Trump and some of the things that she heard at that G7 Summit there in Europe last week. I think especially some of the things that he said about Germany where he felt that Germany was bad for exporting so many cars to America. But also, some of the things that he said about NATO allies leads Angela Merkel to believe maybe the U.S. cannot be trusted at this point or with the administration, at least, the way that it could in the past or doesn't have Germany's back the way that it did in the past, Poppy.</s>HARLOW: Right. And you heard those stark remarks that were very opposite of one another when we saw them speak right there at the NATO headquarters prompting what Merkel said. Here's the thing. She is sort of the polar opposite of President Trump when it comes to temperament, right?</s>PLEITGEN: Yes.</s>HARLOW: And "The Washington Post" put it this way, she's highly cautious. This speech is not an impulse move. This is something that was calculated.</s>PLEITGEN: Well, you know what, I've been covering Angela Merkel since 2000, so I've known her since she was an opposition leader in Germany. And she really is someone who is very reserved and very calculated. She's a doctor of Physics. She's not someone who would come out with off the cuff remarks that she hasn't completely thought through. Now, she is currently in an election campaign, but she's so far ahead of the polls that no one really believes that she's actually in line to lose this election. So certainly, she will have not done this out of some sense of wanting to be in the election campaign. She will have really calculated this to say, on the one hand, look, we need deeper ties with Europe, but to also sort of give a warning to the U.S. as well that Germany is feeling somewhat alienated at this point.</s>HARLOW: Fred Pleitgen, reporting for us in London. Thank you very much. President Trump returned to Washington over the weekend. He left behind bruised alliances overseas and landed home in a pretty deep crisis. During those nine days that he was gone, much of the focus, especially at the latter end of the trip, was on his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and reports that he tried to set up this secret back channel to communicate with the Russians, with the Kremlin. The White House is scrambling to defend those actions and contain the fallout. Our Athena Jones is live at the White House with more this morning. So last night, finally, after, you know, the Trump team said we're not going to comment, we're not even going to acknowledge that -- I think that's what Gary Cohn said -- the President did give a statement to "The New York Times."</s>ATHENA JONES, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Poppy. That's right, he did. And part of what the statement says is, "Jared is doing a great job for the country. I have total confidence in him." The President went on to say that Kushner is respected by virtually everyone, and that he's a good person. He's working on projects to save the U.S. a lot of money. But this is clearly a story line, just the latest in a series of bombshell reports that is raising eyebrows and raising concerns among people certainly outside the White House. You have former intelligence officials like Michael Hayden, who was the former director of a National Security Agency, who said this reported move by Kushner was off the map, not something he's ever -- like no other experience he's seen in our history or certainly in his lifetime. Meanwhile, you have Democrats on Capitol Hill, folks like Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, who are also raising concerns, and folks like Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly trying to defend Kushner's move saying it's not a big deal. Take a listen to what Schiff and then Kelly had to say exactly.</s>REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D), RANKING MEMBER, HOUSE PERMANENT SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE: If these allegations are true and he had discussions with the Russians about establishing a back channel and didn't reveal that, that's a real problem in terms of whether he should maintain that kind of security clearance.</s>GEN. JOHN KELLY (RET.), UNITED STATES SECRETARY OF HOMELAND SECURITY: I don't see any big issue here. Any line of communication to a country, particularly a country like Russia, is a good thing.</s>JONES: Now, it's not surprising to hear the Homeland Security Secretary defending Jared Kushner, but this is going to raise a lot more questions on Capitol Hill, just to add to the long list of questions investigators already have about this entire Russia issue. Poppy.</s>HARLOW: Thank you very much. Athena Jones, at the White House. Let's discuss this, whether it is off the map like former CIA Director Michael Hayden said, or if it is more like what Kelly just described. Joining me now, Julian Zelizer, our CNN political analyst and historian and professor at Princeton University. David Rohde is here, our CNN global affairs analyst, and CNN Contributor Salena Zito. So let me begin with you, David. Just how normal is a back channel like this? Because we have seen it work, as Julian will get into with his history lesson in a moment. It has worked before. How normal is it because the White House, the line seems to be this is much ado about nothing?</s>DAVID ROHDE, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: What's totally abnormal is, a and we don't know if any of these is true, but if he was talking about using a Russian government communication system to secretly go into the Russian, you know, diplomatic facility and use that, that's extraordinary. That's very strange and, I think, alarming. So a back channel is no problem. It's just using this method of communication --</s>HARLOW: It's the way --</s>ROHDE: It's the way. What is he hiding?</s>HARLOW: -- that it's reported by us, by "The Washington post."</s>ROHDE: So you feel more safe and secure with the Russian government and their communication system than the rest of the American government? What are you trying to hide in that back channel?</s>HARLOW: I should just note that "The Washington Post," Adam Entous and his team, point out that perhaps this is false and not true and that the Russians were planting this to see if the U.S. was listening in on that line. Is that's a possibility?</s>ROHDE: Yes, it could be disinformation, but we have this pattern of Kushner not disclosing his meetings with the Russians.</s>HARLOW: Sure.</s>ROHDE: "Reuters" reported on Friday there were two calls between Kushner and Kislyak that he has not disclosed. That was a new story. So it's a pattern that's a bit concerning.</s>HARLOW: And "Reuters," as you know, cites seven different former and current U.S. officials. Julian, to you. You wrote an op-ed about it and you titled it, you know, "Is this the Nixon card?" Right? Because there was a back channel in the Nixon administration to Russia before the inauguration and it was very successful. You ended up with SALT I, the nuclear arms agreement, or you say this could be more akin to the Chennault Affair. What do you mean?</s>JULIAN ZELIZER, PROFESSOR OF HISTORY AND PUBLIC AFFAIRS, PRINCETON UNIVERSITY: Right. So the positive story is that, under Richard Nixon, Henry Kissinger would conduct negotiations in a back channel with the Soviet ambassador.</s>HARLOW: Even before he was president?</s>ZELIZER: Even before he took over as President Nixon. And the whole point was to ease relations, to have discussions about different policies issues, and it culminates in this historic arms agreement in 1972. The other back channel, though, was in the middle of the campaign. People connected to the Nixon campaign told the south Vietnamese, don't enter into a deal to end the Vietnam War.</s>HARLOW: With President Nixon?</s>ZELIZER: You'll get a better deal with Richard Nixon as president. Lyndon Johnson heard about this. He said it was treason but he never said that publicly. So we don't know which comparison is more apt.</s>HARLOW: Salena, to you, switching gears here. The President comes back from this trip overseas, and he calls it, in his words, a great success with, quote, "big results." He doesn't hold one press conference so that we, the press, can ask questions, so we have to follow his tweets as his thoughts on this one. And then Chancellor Angela Merkel comes out and says, "The times when we could completely rely on others to an extent are over." She didn't need to say President Trump's name or the United States to make very clear who and what she was talking about. This is a President who ran on an America first platform. Is this what they want?</s>SALENA ZITO, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Yes, it is. You know, I just came back from seven different states in the past two weeks, and this, for Chancellor Merkel to say this, the voters that put him into office would be like, well, what's the big deal? I mean, no, they shouldn't have to rely on us all the time because we've got to focus on our own domestic problems that are affecting our lives and affecting our communities. And that's what he ran on and that's what he's important to us. A lot of his voters that I talked to, even ones that did not support him and sat out the election, they viewed this trip as successful in that he went there, he spoke strongly. A lot of people are not going to agree with what he said, but he did what he said he was going to do in terms of talking about NATO and in his decision or indecision on the Paris Accord. And a lot of sort of voters that supported him look at this as a successful trip.</s>HARLOW: You have to remember, though, David Rohde, whose hand this plays into. Growing discord between the United States and our biggest allies in Western Europe plays directly into Vladimir Putin's hand. Interestingly, he has a meeting with French President Emmanuel macron today. But if you're sitting in the Kremlin and you're looking at this, are you happy about it?</s>ROHDE: Yes. This is what Putin has been trying to achieve, I'd say, since he took over. I mean, for years and years, there is discord. But, again, his voters, Trump's voters, wanted this. This is no surprise. He ran on this. It's been two years of him talking about, you know, a distance from NATO and then a closeness, I think, to authoritarians, you know, to Putin and others.</s>HARLOW: But at the same time, Julian, you could you flip the card here and look on the other side and say, well, if Trump's rhetoric and his lecturing of our NATO allies gets them to pay more finally, if he's the president who succeeds at doing that, then that will be a stronger NATO against Russia.</s>ZELIZER: Right, but it's not clear that's how it's going to play out. I think there's many members of NATO who are unhappy with his rhetoric, with his demeanor, with these kind of moments. And the irony is, obviously, if this alliance weakens, America won't be stronger as President Trump promised. It will actually be weaker against adversaries such as Russia. So I'm not sure voters thought out all the consequences of how this could play out.</s>HARLOW: So since he's returned home, Salena, he has tweeted, the President, five times -- I was counting them this morning -- about what he deems to be the fake media. He has used that word five times in all of these different tweets, OK? He didn't hold a press conference, as I said, so we have to read this as what is top of mind for him because we can't ask him any questions right now.</s>ZITO: Right.</s>HARLOW: What is the strategy here? You come back from this huge international trip, and you talk most about, you know, your typical line about the fake media. I don't understand the strategy.</s>ZITO: Well, I think it would be in his best interests -- as difficult and as tough and as questions that have nothing to do with the event would have hit him, it would have been in his best interests to go out and face the press. You know, there are questions that he -- I mean, he's his best advocate, right? And, you know, there's a school of thought, well, you know, I'm just going to use Twitter as a filter to get past the press, and that's OK maybe here and there. But it's important for the President to take the hard questions, to face, you know, the information that the American public wants. And, you know, he's able to tell his own story, and the press is also able to pull out how he feels about things, not only on the trip but also the problems that he's facing at home.</s>HARLOW: That's true because we and everyone else would have carried that press conference live in its entirety. It's not like this would have been edited down, and he could tell his story exactly. Salena, thank you very much. Julian Zelizer, David Rohde, we appreciate it. Still to come. Overnight, North Korea firing off yet another missile test. This is the third in as many weeks. How the U.S. is responding. The President just tweeted about it. Also get ready for tighter security at the airport. The Homeland Security Secretary says U.S. planes are still a top target for terrorists. And a live look right now this morning on this Memorial Day at Arlington National Cemetery where we are honoring those who have died, given the ultimate price, paid the ultimate price serving for this country. The President is set to speak there a little bit later this morning. We'll take you there live. Stay with us.