Source: Chief Of Staff Doing Damage Control To Address Rumors; Trump Signs 50th Executive Order, Slammed Obama For Doing The Same; Trump to Puerto Rico: We Can't Help You "Forever".
ERIN BURNETT, CNN HOST: "OutFront" next, the President goes it alone on health care even if it means breaking another campaign promise. This as his chief of staff is in full damage control mode. Plus, how Russia manipulated an online game used by nearly 30 million Americans to meddle in the election. It's a CNN exclusive investigation tonight. And the Harvey Weinstein sex scandal explodes. Tonight, the NYPD and Scotland Yard investigating. Let's go "OutFront." And good evening. I'm Erin Burnett. "OutFront" tonight, hypocrite- in-chief. President Trump today doing something he harshly criticized President Obama for doing. Trump signing his 50th executive order today. The move allows insurance to sell bare bones health care plans that don't meet the Obamacare requirements and it is the most damaging blow so far to Obamacare. The President clearly pleased with the move today.</s>DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We were all gathered together for something I believe that's going to be very, very powerful for our nation and very good for a lot of people.</s>BURNETT: This is the same Donald Trump though who said this repeatedly about Barack Obama's use of executive orders.</s>TRUMP: You have a president that signs executive orders because he can't get anything done. Right now, Obama goes around signing executive orders. He can't even get along with the Democrats and he goes around signing all these executive orders. It's a basic just as you. Nobody ever heard of an executive order then all of a sudden, Obama, because he couldn't get anybody to agree with him, he starts signing them like they're butter. So I want to do away with executive orders for the most part.</s>BURNETT: For the most part. Look, the facts are the President is not keeping his word. He signed 50 executive orders since the day he took office, which, if you do the math, is about one every five days. It is double the number the man he called a disaster signed. President Obama signed 26 executive orders by the 12th of October in his first year in office. Trump's running a double. Trump's 50th executive order comes as headlines paint his White House in chaos. In just a past few days here are three. "I hate everyone in the White House, Trump seethes as advisers fear the President is unraveling," from "Vanity Fair." "A pressure cooker, Trump's frustration and fury rupture alliances, threaten agenda," "The Washington Post. And from the "L.A. Times," "Trump unleashes himself from would-be handlers, lashing out morning, nights and weekends." Trump's Chief of Staff John Kelly today making a rare appearance in the press briefing room to refute those headlines and say it is not his job to control the President.</s>GENERAL JOHN KELLY, WHITE HOUSE CHIEF OF STAFF: As far as the tweets go, that's funny. I read in the paper, you know, you all know, you write it. That, you know, I was -- I've been a failure at controlling the President or a failure at controlling his tweeting. Again, I was not sent in, or I was not brought to this job to control anything but the flow of information to our President.</s>BURNETT: OK. Jeff Zeleny is "OutFront" at the White House. Jeff, he is the chief of staff. It would appear his job on some level is to control the President, isn't it?</s>JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Erin, I think that is a very difficult job for any president, certainly this president. So I do believe that John Kelly sees his job as to control, excuse me, who sees the president, what information gets to the president. He has told reporters before and again today that, look, he does not control what the president says, what he tweets. But he can control who sees the President, what information he gets. But Erin, I was so struck by the simple fact the chief of staff felt the need to come to the briefing room today to say, "Look, I'm not getting fired." This is the second senior official in the last week -- Rex Tillerson, last week, to basically announce that, "Look, I am still on board. I'm not getting fired," certainly very unusual, Erin.</s>BURNETT: OK. I'm sorry to laugh, but yes, unusual, understatement of the evening so far. But look, Jeff, you've also pointed out what is let's just call a very interesting contrast between something the President said on Saturday and what General Kelly said today about General Kelly's job. Let me play it.</s>TRUMP: He's a military man but he loves doing this, which is chief of staff more than anything he's ever done.</s>KELLY: I would offer, though, it is not the best job I ever had. The best job I ever had as I said many times is when I was an enlisted marine sergeant infantry man.</s>BURNETT: OK, Jeff, make sense of that.</s>ZELENY: Erin, I think the looks on their faces and the tone of their voice kind of tell the story here. The President, of course, saying, "No, it's the best job he ever had." We heard from John Kelly himself, again, a retired four-star marine general. He was in retirement, brought back out retirement to, you know, first become DHS Secretary and now lead this. I think he very clearly said and it seemed pretty believable to me that this is not the best job he's ever had. He said it's the most important job. It's a tough job. And Erin, I think pretty much anyone who's had that job could not disagree that this is a very tough job to be the chief of staff for any president, certainly this president.</s>BURNETT: Yes, although maybe this presidential wants to hear more that it's the best job his chief of staff ever had than perhaps others. All right, thank you very much. Dana Bash is with me, Chief Political Correspondent, along with Tim Naftali, Presidential Historian, and Jamie Gangel, our Special Correspondent. Dana, General Kelly specifically said it's not his job to control what the President does. It's basically forget the outbound, I'm only controlling the inbound. I'm going to control the information he gets and what he hears and everything else. What can I do? He's saying the tweets are not his responsibility loud and clear, Dana.</s>DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Look, he is a four- star. He understands the importance of defining a mission and only executing the mission that is defined. It would make no sense for anybody who has watched this President for a nanosecond to think that they can control his tweets. Meaning if he thought his mission was to take away his phone to say, "Please, Mr. President, don't tweet," that would be a mission failure right off the bat. So he understood that from the beginning and was trying to make that clear today. I did think that the fact that he came out, the fact that he was doing this obvious damage control, but the way that he did it, Erin, he might have said similar thing to what we hear from Sarah Sanders about the media or about this or that or about the President, but the way that he did it with self-deprecating humor, with the calm tone, listening to the reporter's questions, it was a very different kind of demeanor. And when the criticism and the concern, frankly, about this White House is the feeling of uncontrolled chaos, that sort of inoperable thing that we saw and heard and felt from the chief of staff today was probably something that went further in the damage control than anything that he actually said.</s>BURNETT: I mean, Tim, that is the question, right? He came out to refute those bad headlines and we shared just a few of them. But that's what is out there and it's out there from source after source after source. This is what people who work there are saying. They can say that they're not, but they are and headlines about chaos and unhinged president. Did Kelly do the job today to put that to rest?</s>TIM NAFTALI, FORMER DIRECTOR, NIXON PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY: Well, I mean, the very fact that he had to do the job I think just legitimated a lot of the criticism -- lot of the sourcing seems much better now. The fact that he had to come out and say that, can you imagine it, and when people say there's no chaos, it's usually because there's chaos. I think the key moment in this today was when he said it's not my mission to restrain the president's tweeting. He can't say publicly that it is his mission. We're going to have to wait for his memoirs. But I suspect he knows that part of his mission is containing the damage. They can't say his effectiveness.</s>BURNETT: Then he looks like a failure and to Donald Trump, right, then you're out.</s>NAFTALI: Then you're out. So he -- I wasn't expecting him to say I am and he can't. The way he handled it, the fact he didn't get angry, the fact that he understood that that was a fair question, the fact that he was able to maintain his demeanor, I think is a sign that he knows what he has to do and that he's doing it as best he can.</s>BURNETT: Go ahead, Jamie.</s>JAMIE GANGEL, CNN SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT: Nobody asked him, "Would you like him not to tweet?" This was a very specific message he had.</s>BURNETT: Yes.</s>GANGEL: That I can't control this. You may all think that I should, but I can't and that's not my mission. It wasn't -- that he wasn't like to.</s>BURNETT: Right, which I guess everyone knows no one can control that, but it is stunning when the person who is closest and has the most power to do so is admitting they absolutely cannot. I mean, Jamie, this lends itself to the reality that Trump is increasingly alone. Those 50 executive orders are because of exactly what he said Obama's problem was. He can't even get his own party. He's got Congress with him, House and Senate. He can't get anything through. Here he is though proudly saying he is the one alone who will make the big decision on North Korea, he alone. Here he is yesterday.</s>TRUMP: I think I have a little bit different attitude on North Korea than other people might have. And I listen to everybody, but ultimately my attitude is the one that matters, isn't it? That's the way it works.</s>BURNETT: I think attitude is the one that matters. What do senior Republicans say about this?</s>GANGEL: Heads are shaking. Eyes are rolling. But beyond that, there is real alarm. Many, many senior Republicans who have been around the town a long time, former White House, former Defense Department people, they are very nervous. One said to me, I think this is the most dangerous time we've ever faced in national security because they just don't know what may come up. It may be North Korea. It may be a flash point. You know, nobody saw 9/11 coming. They don't know. And that kind of attitude scares him.</s>BURNETT: Right. I mean, ultimately, he's right. That is the way things work, but usually presidents don't come out and say that. And Tim, we're learning that Trump is going to decertify the Iran deal.</s>NAFTALI: Yes.</s>BURNETT: He's going to do that tomorrow, trying to undo years of work, the biggest national security deal in 40 years. Here's the truth of it. He is going against the advice now of his own top advisers, right? This isn't a Democrat/Republican thing. Here are Trump's own men. Here he is.</s>GENERAL JOSEPH DUNFORD, CHAIRMAN, JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF: Iran is not in material breach of the agreement and I do believe the agreement to date has delayed the development of a nuclear capability by Iran.</s>REX TILLERSON, SECRETARY OF STATE: My view on the nuclear deal is they are in technical compliance of the nuclear arrangement, but if you go back and read the preamble to the JCPOA, the nuclear agreement.</s>SEN. ANGUS KING, (I) MAINE: Do you believe it's in our national security interest at the present time to remain in the JCPOA? That's a yes or no question.</s>GENERAL JAMES MATTIS, SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: Yes, senator, I do.</s>BURNETT: He says he's listening to those around him. They're all in agreement, but he is ignoring them.</s>NAFTALI: Yes, he is. And he's ignoring them because he is dedicated to undermining anything Barack Obama did, regardless of whether it's useful or not useful, because that's -- he's the anti-Obama president. This is the challenge for us. When -- and I mean Americans. When this goes to the Congress, what's going to happen is he's going to decertify it and it's going to go to Congress and Congress is going to have to decide whether to put sanctions on Iran. A lot of Congress -- members of Congress are going to want to do it because Iran has a nasty government. That's not why we have this agreement with Iran. We have it with Iran because we want to contain them. And he is now throwing this to Congress. It's very irresponsible in his part.</s>BURNETT: You know, Dana, before we go, we're learning something new this moment I want to share with you. The man responsible for clearing background checks says the errors in the form that Jared Kushner submitted were unprecedented to him. He was asked by -- in Congress today, "Can you recall if there's ever been an applicant having to submit for than the detailing 100 errors and omissions who still was able to maintain their security clearance?" The response was, "I have not seen the breadth of all applications, but I have never seen this level of mistakes." Can Kushner keep his security clearance, Dana?</s>BASH: I'm not sure he has his formal clearance yet. He had temporary clearance yet. He had temporary clearance. He might, we just don't know it. But the notion that someone of Jared Kushner's level, someone who was going into the White House for very senior job, obviously somebody who would be under the microscope because it is no unusual for the President's son-in-law to have that kind of senior job. For him to make mistake after mistake or omission after omission on his disclosure form is pretty embarrassing and pretty bad and he obviously knows that. He, you know, we've heard to sources that he blames his lawyers. Whatever the reason, it doesn't matter. And the fact of the matter is that this is still an ongoing problem for Jared Kushner, even as he continues to do some pretty important work for the President of the United States.</s>BURNETT: Yes, pretty embarrassing at the very least. OK, thank you all very much. And next, it's a CNN exclusive, first Facebook, then Twitter, now Pokemon Go, the game played by nearly 30 million Americans targeted by Russians to meddle in the election. Plus, an American woman and her family freed tonight after five years o f captives of a Taliban linked group. So, why doesn't her husband want to come home? And President Trump patting himself on the back for his handling of Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria. What's the reality though on the ground?</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What grade would you give it?</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I would give him a D. We have not seen anything.