Calls to Cancel Trump/Russia Summit after Indictments as Trump Still Claims Probe a Witch Hunt; Immigrant Child Whose Crying Was Heard Across the World United with Mother; National Intelligence Warns Russia Threat Far from Over
ANA CABRERA, CNN ANCHOR: You are in the CNN NEWSROOM. So glad you could join me. I'm Ana Cabrera, in New York. Lots to get to. The meeting is on. The White House not canceling President Trump's historic face-to-face with Russia's Vladimir Putin even after the Justice Department's bombshell indictments of 12 top Russian military officers. Those Russians are accused of hacking Democratic e-mails, steeling voter data, and trying to poison U.S. democracy. President Trump is blaming someone for the 12 Russians' actions, but it is not Putin. Instead, Trump is pointing the finger at his predecessor, former President Obama. All this comes amid growing calls from Democrats and at least one Republican to scrap Monday's summit. Such a move would not be unprecedented. President Obama canceled a planned Moscow meeting with Putin back in 2013 after Russia gave asylum to fugitive leaker, Edward Snowden. Let's bring in Abby Phillip. She is our White House correspondent traveling with the president in Scotland. And, Nic Robertson, CNN's international diplomatic editor, in Helsinki, Finland, where that summit is scheduled to take place. Let me start with you, Abby. How is this administration reacting to the calls to cancel on Putin?</s>ABBY PHILLIP, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Ana. President Trump is not too far from here at his golf course at Turnberry where he has been sending tweets this morning, giving us a clear indication of how he feels about what the indictments mean for his summit with Putin. He hasn't said anything at all about Vladimir Putin in either of these tweets but has, instead. focused on President Obama. And the White House has also said they are not canceling this meeting. In his latest tweet, President Trump says that he believes President Obama didn't do something about it because he thought "Crooked Hillary Clinton would win." He says repeatedly, "It had nothing to do with the Trump administration." And he claims the "fake news doesn't want to report that." But, Ana, the issue here is less about under whose watch this happened, but rather who was responsible. These indictments make it very clear that these were Russian military intelligence operatives who were working on this. The Intelligence Community has also concluded that Vladimir Putin directed this attack on the United States democracy. And yet, we are about two days away from the summit with Putin, and the White House insists nothing has changed with their plans, even as Democrats continue to call for President Trump to postpone or cancel this summit. And even Republican Senator John McCain has weighed in on this, saying, if President Trump isn't willing to forcefully confront Vladimir Putin about Russian interference, the summit should be canceled. A lot of folks looking at this summit say there's not a whole lot on to gain if the president isn't going to come into this really defending the United States, confronting Putin on what is -- a lot of people view as an attack on American democracy, and one that is likely to be repeated again as we are just months away from another midterm election cycle -- Ana?</s>CABRERA: In fact, we have the DHS second talking about the efforts under way right now. We also heard from Dan Coats on that as well in the last 24 hours talking about the efforts happening to meddle in U.S. systems. Nic Robertson, let me get to you. How is Russia responding to this indictment of 12 Russians?</s>NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Ana, perhaps no surprise the Russians are saying there's no evidence, that this is just an effort to break the good atmosphere ahead -- the good spirit ahead of this summit. But they are saying that that is recycled fake news. They are saying that this is criminal cases being cooked up for a political agenda. Any way you look at it, the Russians are rejecting it, which, of course, is a major concern. I don't think anyone is expecting right now President Trump to go into a meeting with President Putin and for President Putin to put his hand up and say, hey, after all, I did do this. But what we've heard from President Trump in the past couple of days is he seems to have accepted that fate already. He said at a press conference just in the past three days, hey, I can say to him, did you do it, don't do it again, and he will just deny it and move on." And I think the past is an indication of what may come. We look back to the first time President Trump went face-to-face with President Putin at the G-20 summit in Hamburg last year, and the indications and readouts that we got of that meeting then, where he was just meeting with then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson with the Russian president and Sergey Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, was that President Trump didn't take ownership of this. And said to Putin, well, other people are saying this. The best indication we got from that, which was Sergey Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, giving us a read out of it. This is how he described it and what it means for when it happens again.</s>SERGEY LAVROV, RUSSIAN FOREIGN MINISTER (through translation): President Trump said, and I'm sure either he or Rex Tillerson himself will say, that this campaign of alleged Russia interference in U.S. elections is of a strange nature. Because there hasn't been a single fact in all these months of allegations, which was recognized by those in Congress, who are leading this movement at a certain point and brought various administration members on the carpet. President said he's heard Putin's very clear statements that this is not true and that the Russian government didn't interfere in the elections, and he accepts these statements. That's all.</s>ROBERTSON: So what we heard back then from the Russians was saying that there was no evidence. And now they are saying there's no evidence again. But the difference this time is that President Trump has that evidence in the form of these indictments. So the question is, will he go in more forcefully with this evidence, and put it to President Putin that here is the evidence, you said it wasn't there last time, here it is this time. From what we are hearing, from what Abby's hearing, from what we're hearing here, it doesn't seem like that is the attitude President Trump is going into the meeting with -- Ana?</s>CABRERA: And who knows what will happen, given that he wants to meet one-on-one without his national security personnel alongside him. Nic Robertson, thank you very much for that report, for giving us some perspective. I want to talk more about the upcoming Trump/Putin summit. Joining us is Anne-Marie Slaughter, president of the New America Foundation, and Josh Rogin, CNN political analyst and "Washington Post" columnist. Josh, I'll start with you. A growing number of lawmakers are calling on President Trump to cancel the summit with Putin. As mentioned, he wouldn't be the first president to do it. Should he cancel it?</s>JOSH ROGIN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: I don't think he is going to cancel it. I don't think any amount of congressmen calling on him to cancel it will have any affect. But what the Congress is showing is an increased and sustained bipartisan, bicameral effort to confront what President Trump is saying and doing in response to these new hacking allegations, indictments and evidence. And what he is doing is downplaying it, obfuscating, blaming his predecessor, and refusing to marshal the resources of the U.S. government to prevent the next one. We had the director of National Intelligence Dan Coats say Friday that there's a blinking red alarm about cyberattacks coming up ahead of the 2018 elections. And we have the president of the United States saying, well, I'm going to ask Putin about it, he will say he didn't do it, what am I going to do. That is unacceptable. It's unacceptable to his own national security officials and our allies and to Congress. Now, there's not much that Congress can do about it. So they will call on the president to be tough, which he won't do. They will call on the president to end the meeting, which he won't do. And then they have the option of imposing their own penalties on Russia, which I think is the next step after the summit, new sanctions, new pressures, new costs for Russia, for perpetrating this attack on our democracy. Anne-Marie, there's another way to look at this upcoming meeting. Listen to General Michael Hayden, former CIA director, on his reasoning for the summit to go on.</s>GEN. MICHAEL HAYDEN, FORMER CIA DIRECTOR: This is your chance, Mr. President. You have a document beyond speculation. You actually have evidence, which the Intelligence Community couldn't rule out in that Intelligence Community assessment. Here we have solid forensic detailed evidence that the president can make use of. And so, as a citizen now, I would say, let's do it. And then I want to see what the president does.</s>CABRERA: Let's do it, he says. Is this a real opportunity for Trump to reset with Putin here, Anne- Marie, to confront him in no uncertain terms, and if he did that, how do you think Putin would react?</s>ANNE-MARIE SLUGHTER, PRESIDENT, NEW AMERICA FOUNDATION: Well, Ana, I just think that Trump himself, the man, has absolutely no interest in doing that. Trump and Putin actually share a world view and Trump admires Putin, and he has never said anything negative about Putin himself. Indeed, when I look at the two of them, they share a love of money, they share machismo and they share megalomania. So the idea that Trump will do this to Putin flies in the face of everything we know about Trump. The administration as a whole, his national security adviser, others, others in the Congress, have a view that Russia is, in fact, hostile to our interests. But Trump himself does not. And now 51 percent of Republicans following Trump say we should have better relations with Russia.</s>CABRERA: Josh, back to the timing of these indictments, just three days before Trump's meeting with Putin. And then we know Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein made a point to say that he briefed Trump on these indictments coming earlier in the week. So Trump knew it was coming. Do you think Trump actually wanted this news to come out before the summit?</s>ROGIN: No, it doesn't help Trump at all. I don't know if the Justice Department timed this to match with the summit. I'm trained, as a journalist, not to believe in coincidence, but we can't be sure. But the bottom line is now Trump can't deny that there's an overwhelming amount of evidence that the Russian government did perpetrate this attack. But, no, it doesn't help him. It actually hurts him because, exactly what Anne-Marie Slaughter said, which is that he agrees with Putin. He's not trying to confront the Russians. He not only agrees with Putin on his basic world view, he agrees with Putin that the liberal international world order that the United States and Europe have spent the last 80 years building, has been the backbone of peace, security and stability in the world, should be dismantled. And we saw him traipse through Europe setting relationships ablaze with our closest allies. That is a gift to Putin strategically. It's a gift to Putin ahead of the summit. So all these revelations make the bromance between Trump and Putin harder for Trump to sell, both internally and externally. But he doesn't care. He's going to do it anyway. He doesn't care about the evidence. He's made that very clear. He will just blame Obama and do whatever he wants.</s>CABRERA: Anne-Marie, CNN's chief legal analyst, Jeffrey Toobin, said this, quote, "We've only had 45 presidents. Now we know one of them was elected with the explicit and intentional help of a foreign power." Would you go that far?</s>SLAUGHTER: Yes. Absolutely, I would. We can never know whether he would have won absent Russian help, but we know that Russia helped him win. And, indeed, the Russian playbook here is exactly like the Russian playbook in Ukraine, getting Yanukovych elected, and also support for right-wing nationalist authoritarian parties in Europe. And for Putin, this was yet another example of how to elect someone who would be friendly to his interests. As Josh just said, Trump's trip through Europe, thus far, both with respect to Brexit and to NATO, is like following a Putin script.</s>ROGIN: And it's not only that the Russians helped him win. He helped the Russians attack us. Remember, he promoted the material. His team promoted the material. They worked with their friends in Congress and the media to spread the results, the benefits, the fruits of the criminal activity. Now, I'm not alleging collusion. There might have been collusion. We don't know if there was any collusion. We'll wait for Robert Mueller to tell us --</s>CABRERA: What we do know about it, according to --</s>CABRERA: -- indictment, there was no American charged with a crime.</s>ROGIN: No.</s>CABRERA: We also know that, in this indictment, they say that those Americans who were in direct contact with these Russian actors did not know that they were --</s>ROGIN: No, they --</s>CABRERA: -- Russian officials.</s>ROGIN: No. They said there's no evidence in the indictment that they knew that they were Russian officials. That doesn't mean they didn't know. It just means that wasn't presented yet. We don't --</s>CABRERA: In the indictment?</s>ROGIN: Exactly.</s>CABRERA: And they said no.</s>CABRERA: Let me get to this real quick.</s>ROGIN: The point here is that, whether or not they were working with them, they helped them. We can call them fellow travelers in the criminal enterprise. OK? And if they were just useful idiots, and no colluders, is that good? No, that is bad. That's bad enough. To be used as a tool of Russian foreign intelligence operations is terrible even if you didn't know you were doing it.</s>CABRERA: And let me read the actual quote, "There's no allegation in the indictment that the Americans knew they were communicating with Russian intelligence officers."</s>ROGIN: Exactly.</s>CABRERA: It says in this indictment. We also heard Rod Rosenstein say that is an ongoing investigation. You brought up, Josh, the comments Dan Coats made just last night, the director of National Intelligence, about these blinking red lights. He also says the situation is at a critical moment. Listen.</s>DAN COATS, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE: It was in the months prior to September 2001 when, according to then-CIA Director George Tenet, the system was blinking red. And here we are two decades, nearly two decades later, and I'm here to say the warning lights are blinking red again.</s>CABRERA: Josh, he believes foreign adversaries, China, Iran, North Korea and especially Russia, are at work every day --</s>ROGIN: Of course.</s>CABRERA: -- to penetrate America's digital infrastructure. Should we be assured now knowing Coats is on it?</s>ROGIN: There are a lot of serious professionals inside the U.S. government working on protecting our democracy and our systems and our government every single day. They're doing their best. But there's another element. It's not just the defense. It is the deterrence. It's how do you convince these other countries to back off. Now, isn't it absurd that President Trump today tweeted that President Obama didn't do enough to tell Putin to back off, and here is President Trump meeting with Putin, and he won't do enough to tell him to back off. He is committing the same exact thing that he just accused Obama of. When it comes to deterring these state actors, it has to done at the political, diplomatic level. It has to be done with pressure and costs. And that is what a Congress is trying to do, trying to impose costs on Russia. But that can't really be done without the president's help and that is the big hole in our activity here. We can strengthen our systems. I hope we're doing that. I think we're doing that. I know there are a lot of people trying to do that. But without actually imposing costs and raising the pressure on Vladimir Putin, he has no incentive not to do it again and again and again.</s>CABRERA: Anne-Marie, combined with the comments from Dan Coats, we have this indictment, which gives us a better sense of what the Intelligence Community is facing, the critical work they are doing. And, yet, the president continues to attack the FBI, DOJ, now even foreign institutions like NATO. Is that scrutiny, criticism President Trump likes to dish making the world safer?</s>SLAUGHTER: This is really a very dangerous moment where the president of the United States is attacking, as you said, the CIA, the Justice Department, the FBI, attacking the rule of law in the sense of those agencies that are supposed to keep us safe from foreign adversaries and those agencies that are supposed to uphold the rule of law in the United States. So I do not see this as a partisan Democrat-versus- Republican issue. I see this as a rule of law and America's true interests in the world issue versus people who are actively undermining our institutions. Again, Trump is playing by Putin's playbook. The Russians could not be happier. Or I shouldn't say the Russians. Putin and his government could not be happier than to see President Trump attacking the FBI, attacking the CIA, attacking the rule of law.</s>CABRERA: Thank you so much, Anne-Marie Slaughter and Josh Rogin. Great to have you with us.</s>ROGIN: Thank you.</s>CABRERA: Coming up, we'll talk more about the danger that exists today. Again, Dan Coats says the threat is blinking red. We'll ask the head of the DNC, Tom Perez, how his party is protecting itself ahead of the midterms. And what do these indictments tell us about where Mueller's investigation may go next? We'll discuss, next.