President Calls for Investigation to Reveal Anonymous Op-ed Writer; Kim Jong-un Sends Letter to White House; Papadopoulos In Prison; Trump Rally Attendee Ousted. Barak Obama Breaks his Silence
NATALIE ALLEN, CNN HOST: The investigation as President Trump and the White House punt for the writer of that anonymous "New York Times" op- ed. That's ahead this hour plus...</s>GEORGE HOWELL, CNN HOST: Plus new pen pals, new letter from Kim Jung- un on its way to the U. S. President. This, as North Korea gets ready to mark anniversary celebrations that we are following. Also ahead this hour.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, be every the rally, they told us you have to be enthusiastic; you have to be clapping; you have to be cheering for Donald Trump.</s>ALLEN: CNN asked the so-called plaid shirt guy. There he is. What is it like for being booted out of one of President Trump's rallies for making faces reacting to Mr. Trump's words?</s>HOWELL: OK, they're asking people to act the bit. Live from CNN World Headquarters in Atlanta. Welcome to our viewers here in the United States and around the world. I'm George Howell.</s>ALLEN: I'm Natalie Allen. "Newsroom" starts right now.</s>HOWELL: At 5:01 here on the U.S. East Coast, the federal probe into Russian election interference has led to a first prison sentence for someone associated with the Trump campaign. We're talking about the former aide, George Papadopoulos. He will spent the next two weeks behind bars for lying to investigators about his contacts with Russians. The U.S. President says he doesn't know Papadopoulos and claims the issue is a distraction. Listen.</s>DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The level of animosity, it's hard to believe. So if I was going to say there is any one problem in this country, it is definitely that you have two sides and there is great division, and there shouldn't be that division. But it seems no matter what you do, no matter how good -- look wages are going up, such a big thing. Numbers are great; the stock market is at an all time high. There's more people working in the United States today than ever before. The only thing that troubles me is when you see an economy doing so well, a country doing so well, yet, there is this level of division and hatred and that's a shame and maybe we can do something about it.</s>ALLEN: Meantime, CNN has learned the White House has a short list of possible authors of that anonymous but damaging opinion piece in the "New York Times". A source says the president has become obsessed with finding out who wrote it. Here's more from CNN's Jeff Zeleny.</s>JEFF ZELENY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: President Trump, asking Attorney General Jeff Sessions tonight to investigate and unmask the author of the anonymous essay in the "New York Times" that blasted him as unfit for office. Speaking to report, aboard Air Force One today the president calling it matter of national security, not simply outraged over a public official saying he's ill informed, impetuous, and reckless inside the White House.</s>TRUMP: I would think Jeff should be investigating who the author of that piece was. Because I really believe it's national security.</s>ZELENY: On a two-day campaign swing to Montana and the Dakotas, the president is telling his supporters that their decision at the ballot box in 2016 is being subverted by a government bureaucrat.</s>TRUMP: Unelected deep state operatives who defied the voters to push their own secret agendas are truly a threat to democracy, itself. I think it's backfired. Seriously.</s>ZELENY: Yet the president made clear he is seething.</s>TRUMP: The latest active resistance is the op-ed published in the failing "New York Times" by an anonymous, really an anonymous, gutless coward.</s>ZELENY: Struggling to say anonymous, but adding today the search is still on for the person responsible for the op-ed.</s>TRUMP: We're going to take a look at what he had, what he gave, what he is talking about, also where he is right now. Eventually the name of this sick person will come out.</s>ZELENY: Asked how criticizing his presidency presents a danger to national security. He explained.</s>TRUMP: Supposing I have a high-level national security meeting and he has got a clearance and he goes into a high-level meeting concerning China or Russia or North Korea or something and this guy goes in. I don't want him in those meetings.</s>ZELENY: Two months before the mid-term election, former President Obama stepped back on the political stage today with his own message to the anonymous Trump official.</s>BARAK OBAMA, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: You're not doing us a service by actively promoting 90 percent of the crazy stuff that's coming out of this White House, then saying, don't worry, we're preventing the other ten percent. That's not how things are supposed to work. This is not normal. These are extraordinary times and they're dangerous times.</s>ZELENY: Obama has largely remained publicly silent about his successor until today in a speech in Illinois where he called on Republicans to take notice how Trump treats the rule of law.</s>OBAMA: This should not be a partisan issue. To say we do not pressure the attorney general or the FBI to use the criminal justice system as a cudgel to punish our political opponents.</s>ZELENY: Trump who has not spoken to Obama since his inauguration day in January 2017, responded to Obama's hour-long speech like this.</s>TRUMP: I watched it but I fell asleep. I found he's very good, very good for sleeping.</s>ZELENY: But Trump made clear he's also worried about Democrats in the mid-term elections, planting early seeds of an argument against impeachment.</s>TRUMP: ...we will impeach him but he didn't do anything wrong. It doesn't matter, we will impeach him. We will impeach. But I say how do you impeach somebody that's doing a great job that hasn't done anything wrong? If it does happen, it's your fault, because you did go out and vote.</s>ZELENY: So even as the president is stewing frankly about the identity of the anonymous author, White House aides say they believe they are narrowing down the list of possible suspects. But it is just that, possible suspects, unclear if the person will ever be fully identified. Jeff Zeleny, CNN, the White House.</s>ALLEN: Well, while the hunt for the op-ed author has consumed parts of the Trump White House, Presidential Counselor Kellyanne Conway says the president believes this mystery writer is not inside the White House but rather a member of the national security team.</s>HOWELL: That's right, Conway also denies that the op-ed has made the White House staff more paranoid. Here's what she told our colleague Christiane Amanpour in an interview for Christiane's new hour-long program which premiers Monday on both CNN International and PBS here in the states.</s>KELLYANNE CONWAY, COUNSELOR TO THE PRESIDENT: I'm not interested in an investigation of this. I guess those who are investigating, great. I really hope they find the person. I believe the person will suss him or herself out though because that's usually what happens, people brag to the wrong person. They brag that they did this or they did that because they - I assume part of this, isn't the goal here not with the op-ed pretends the goal is Christiane. Isn't the goal here really to sew chaos and get us all suspicious of each other....</s>AMANPOUR: Is that what's happening? Are you all getting suspicious of each other?</s>CONWAY: No, that isn't what happened.</s>ALLEN: Well, let's talk more about it with Leslie Vinjamuri. Leslie is head of the U.S. and the Americas programme at Chatham House, a frequent visitor to our program. She joins us live from London. Thank you Leslie for being with us.</s>LESLIE VINJAMURI, U.S. AND THE AMERICAS PROGRAMME, CHATHAM HOUSE: Thank you Natalie.</s>ALLEN: Well regarding this anonymous op-ed, the president wants to get the Justice Department to find out who wrote it but it doesn't seem to be a legal violation, maybe an ethical one but the president surely wants to know. He claims this is a national security issue. Is it?</s>VINJAMURI: Well, it's undoubtedly an extraordinarily unusual situation. It's causing tremendous distraction and it's not clear what it's doing that's actually useful. It's certainly confirming some of the things that we have assumed to be true from the various stories that have come out of the White House and the executive branch. But, you know, whether it's certainly threatening to a president and it would be threatening to any president, certainly to this particular president who puts loyalty right at the top of his concerns, when it comes to who he wants to work with or wants to work for him and so to have somebody publish an anonymous op-ed in the "New York Times" making the kind of allegations is certainly a threat to the president. Whether it's a national security threat, it's a very different kind of claim.</s>ALLEN: Absolutely. I want to ask what you the op-ed address is toward the end of the article. The person writes, here we go, "The bigger concern is not what Mr. Trump has done to the presidency, but rather what we as a nation have allowed him to do to us. We have sunk low with him and allowed our discourse to be stripped of civility." Is that an issue, Leslie, that the U.S. will suffer from regardless of who takes control of Congress, say, at the mid-terms or who is in the Oval Office in the next term?</s>VINJAMURI: I think it would be very hard to deny the reality that the level of civility that's coming out of the White House and out of Washington looks incredibly low, certainly when you look at it from Europe, from London where I sit, it's undeniable. To whether that merits writing an anonymous op-ed and continuing to serve this president as opposed to resigning and putting your name on an op-ed and making a much stronger stance. What's happening now, of course, is by remaining in the government, by publishing anonymously, we have a tremendous distraction. And remember in just a couple of days the Woodward volume will be published. That will add to this. It's already been highlighted in certain sections. At a time when there is just tremendous issues of global significance, national significance that the president should be focused on. But of course you know if you look back to President Obama's speech, he's saying it's time to recognize the distraction, the lack of civility and to get out and vote.</s>ALLEN: Yes, let's talk about the former president, Barack Obama. He is back giving a speech and he was critical of President Trump, certainly; we saw portions of it and the Republican Party. Let's listen to one thing he had to say.</s>OBAMA: You're undermining our alliances, cozying up to Russia. What happened to the Republican Party? Its central organizing principle in foreign policy was the fight against Communism and now they're cozying up to the former head of the KGB, actively blocking legislation that would defend our elections from Russian attack. What happened?</s>ALLEN: Well, does Mr. Obama make good point there? I guess he does. But the question is, too, it's unusual that a former president would be that critical of the current president.</s>VINJAMURI: Well, I think that President Obama has decided that now is the moment. We're heading up to the mid-term elections. He wants to highlight what many people have highlighted which is the division. Even President Trump recognizes the division that is palpable across American society right now and to call on people to get out and vote and he's highlighting a number of concerns. Remember, there are many Republicans that feel alienated by what happened in the Republican Party right now. It's something that is as common across much of American society right now to have this reaction. But yes, it's unusual and Obama has been very quiet for a very long time. He's clearly defined it at the moment when it's incredibly important to stand up and say to people if you have a reaction to the current state of American politics, you must get out and you must vote.</s>ALLEN: Well, two months to the mid-term elections so yes, now would be the time would it not? We'll wait and see if this anonymous op-ed stays anonymous. For now we'll leave it there. Leslie Vinjamuri, always appreciate your insights. Thank you, Leslie.</s>VINJAMURI: Thank you.</s>HOWELL: A former Trump campaign aide has been sentenced to two weeks in prison, this for lying to investigators about contacts with Russians.</s>ALLEN: George Papadopoulos began cooperating with Special Counsel Robert Mueller after pleading guilty last year. You may remember this picture showing him sitting with Mr. Trump and now Attorney General Jeff Sessions at a campaign meeting in 2016. Papadopoulos says Sessions was enthusiastic about his offer to try to set up a meeting between Mr. Trump and Vladimir Putin.</s>HOWELL: On Friday, President Trump says he quote, "Doesn't know Papadopoulos. The attorney for Papadopoulos says Mr. Trump, himself, has hindered the Russian investigation more than his client ever did. Let's listen.</s>THOMAS BREEN, ATTORNEY FOR GEORGE PAPADOPOULOS: The problem I have with the fake news twitters that go out or tweets that go out is that he was tweeting seven days before George was interviewed that he's the President of the United States that based on all of his information, I would assume, the information that he had, that this was a witch hunt and that it was fake news that Russia had meddled in the election. Well, I think we're all somewhat satisfied at this point in time at least that we know Russia meddled with the election. There is no doubt about it.</s>ALLEN: Well Papadopoulos had plenty more to say.</s>HOWELL: Like this when our colleague Jake Tapper asked him, who he told in the campaign about supposed Russian dirt on Hillary Clinton.</s>GEORGE PAPADOPOULOS, FORMER MEMBER OF THE FOREIGN POLICY ADVIDORY PANEL TO DONALD TRUMP CAMPAIGN: As far as I remember I absolutely did not.</s>TAPPER: You didn't tell Corey Lewandowski?</s>PAPADOPOULOS: As far as I remember, I absolutely did not share this information with anyone on the campaign.</s>TRAPPER: Not Sam Clovis?</s>PAPADOPOULOS: Anyone.</s>TRAPPER: Dearborn?</s>PAPADOPOULOS: Anyone.</s>TRAPPER: Mashburn?</s>PAPADOPOULOS: Anyone.</s>TRAPPER: Wally Ferris? None of them?</s>PAPADOPOULOS: I might have, but I have no recollection of doing. I can't guarantee it. All I can say is my memory is telling me I never shared with anyone on the campaign.</s>ALLEN: You can watch more of that interview at 11:00 a.m. in London, also at 8:00 p.m. on the eastern U.S. that's on a CNN Special Report, the mysterious tape of George Padopoulos. Well, we don't know what's in it but we know the letter is on its way. Kim Jong-un writing to president Trump. We'll go live to North Korea when we come back here.</s>HOWELL: Plus powerful storms have lined up in the ocean like planes lined up on a runway. Take a look at that in the Atlantic. The question, how long will these storms be and where will they go? Stay with us.