Kremlin Aide Echoes President Trump's Denial That He Ever Worked for Russia; Interview with Congressman Adam Schiff (D-CA); House Speaker Pelosi Calls President Trump to Reschedule State of the Union Address.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: Good evening. The president who says he's been tougher on Russia than any president ever won a narrow vote in the Senate to ease sanctions on companies tied to a Russian billionaire with close connections to the Kremlin. We're just half-way into the week that began with some serious people in and out of government, asking whether a U.S. president might be an unwitting or witting Russian asset. And today, over the objection of quite a few Republicans, the Senate fell short of the votes need to block the easing of sanctions on companies tied to Oleg Deripaska.</s>SEN. JOHN KENNEDY (R), LOUISIANA: This guy is bad news. He's a tyrant. He's a pirate. He's a gangster. And he's hurting the Russian people every day and is trying to hurt America. And I'm not -- we have him down.</s>COOPER: A number of Senator Kennedy's fellow Republicans agreed, most did not, and the Trump administration certainly did not agree, sending Treasury Secretary Mnuchin up to the Hill yesterday to lobby against the measure, to lobby against it, we should add, just days after those two remarkable stories. One on the FBI back in 2017 launching a counterintelligence investigation of the president's actions and the other first reported in "The Washington Post" on the lengths President Trump went to, to conceal what he and Vladimir Putin discussed at the G-20 Summit in Hamburg, Germany, also in 2017. That is the summit where, in case you're wondering, we learned after it was over, the president told a "New York Times" reporter he believed Putin when he said Russia didn't attack the 2016 elected. It's also the summit where this moment is getting renewed attention. The president giving the series of gestures apparently to Vladimir Putin as Putin was speaking. Unclear what it meant. Looked like a you and me guy, a fist of solidarity perhaps, interpret it as you will. It's the same summit where the president met with Putin and afterwards, he took the interpreter's notes and that, as you know, is just one of many incidents, or utterances, actions, tweets and policy changes that, fairly or not, have raised suspicions. Just to be fair, we should point out the Constitution gives the president almost total discretion to conduct foreign policy. That said knowing the suspicions, and this dates back to the campaign, the president has made little or no effort to allay concerns that just as it seemed to be in Hamburg, Vladimir Putin and President Trump are on the same wavelength, eye to eye, on the same page. Now, the Kremlin appears to be stirring the pot. Here is what Russia's foreign minister today said about the notion that President Trump is some sort of asset.</s>SERGEY LAVROV, RUSSIAN FOREIGN MINISTER (through translator): Honestly, to be frank with you, it's hard to make a comment on what happens in the United States around the accusations of Mr. Trump, that he is a Russian agent, in fact. I think it is just the American media, such disparaging journalism and such ungrateful thing.</s>COOPER: The Russian minister talking about the status of good journalism, in other words, fake news. Stop me if you've heard that one before. In fact, if you believe President Trump, no president has ever been as tough on Russia as he's been, although he's never named them. That means tougher than, I guess, Harry Truman who confronted Moscow after the blockade of Berlin in 1948, tougher than John Kennedy who went to the nuclear brink during the Cuban missile crisis, tougher than Ronald Reagan. In reality today, we learned this president and his administration couldn't even see their way to getting tough with a Russian businessman who is a friend of the Kremlin, not that it should raise suspicions or anything. Just ask Russia.</s>LAVROV (through translator): Prosecutor Mueller is operating for two years now. He interrogated hundreds of people. No leaks would confirm the accusation of the conspiracy between Trump and the Russia federation.</s>COOPER: Nothing to see here. Now, the official translation on the Russian foreign minister website does not use the word conspiracy as the interpreter on that video does. Their choice? Well, I'll let the president say it -- our president, that is.</s>DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: They found no collusion whatsoever with Russia. There has been no collusion. They won't find any collusion. It doesn't exist. There's no collusion with me and the Russians. Nobody has been tougher to Russia. There was no collusion. No collusion, which I knew anyway. No coordination, no nothing.</s>COOPER: Well, that's not true. No other administration until now has seen a national security adviser charged with and pleading guilty to lying about contacts with Russians. No campaign chairman until now has ever been tied to a whole string of sleazy Russian and Russia- connected characters. No president until now has openly trashed the NATO alliance and reportedly talked repeatedly behind closed doors about pulling out of NATO. Whatever is going on is something perhaps benign, perhaps ill-judged, perhaps within the president's constitutional or legal authority, or maybe not. What kind of something it is, we don't know. Two presidents do, however, President Trump and Vladimir Putin. With all that on the table I spoke with Democratic Congressman Adam Schiff, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.</s>COOPER: First of all, Mr. Chairman, what's your reaction to the Kremlin saying -- kind of ridiculing the idea that President Trump was an asset or could be an asset for Russia? I mean, it's interesting to hear them ridiculing this notion.</s>REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D-CA), HOUSE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE: It is. This is such an otherworldly situation where you got the Kremlin denying that the president of the United States was working as an agent for them.</s>COOPER: And echoing the whole sort of fake news argument as well. They say, you know, it's bad journalism.</s>SCHIFF: Oh, yes. And what we heard Lavrov from time to time use what looks like the exact same talking parents as Sarah Huckabee Sanders. But it's worth also remembering that the Kremlin is more than capable and has put out disinformation on this very issue time after time. The most interesting to me was when we learned from Michael Cohen recently that the Trump Tower Moscow deal which initially the president denied any business dealings and then admitted there was a deal but it ended in January, that the effort to make that deal happen went all the way until June of 2016. And it was revealed they sought the Kremlin's assistance. The Kremlin had denied that. The Kremlin had said we never followed up on that. We never had any contact. Now, the Kremlin was on the other end of that transaction, Dmitry Peskov, and we would learn from Michael Cohen that, in fact, they had responded. And so, the Kremlin has helped Trump and his organization cover up contacts with them, so that tells us how much we can rely on the Kremlin talking points.</s>COOPER: Also when you see every time the president has actually met with Vladimir Putin, it does just raise more questions. I mean, you would think for this president in particular, he would want other people in the room, other officials given the allegations against him, given the suspicions. At the very least, he would want somebody else there to be able to record for posterity what actually was discussed. That's not been the case.</s>SCHIFF: That's exactly right, and particularly if he was going to confront Putin on their intervention or election. You would want others to be able to say, oh, I watched the president take Putin to task but, of course, he didn't want any of that. And it kind of begs the imagination why this private, secret conversation with Putin.</s>COOPER: Do you think the FBI was right to -- "The New York Times" reporting after the firing of Comey they opened up -- they started looking into whether the president could be compromised?</s>SCHIFF: I can't confirm that report. I can't speak to that.</s>COOPER: If that, in fact, is true, though, is that something you think would have been justified?</s>SCHIFF: Well, I can certainly tell you that our primary concern from the beginning was a counterintelligence concern initially about those around Donald Trump, and then certainly about Donald Trump himself. And that continues to this day and, indeed, the more the president acts in the Russian interest, these revelations that he wanted to withdraw from NATO and kept bringing up withdrawing from NATO, I mean, that is an idea so much at odds with our national security interests on a very bipartisan basis. There's recognition of the tremendous value to our security that, you know, all the more inexplicable in the absence of some compromise.</s>COOPER: You and the majority on your committee have subpoena power. Do you intend to try to subpoena the interpreter or get the notes? It's my understanding I believe there's been some reporting the president actually took the notes that the interpreter had. I don't know if any notes currently exist. But is that something do you want to pursue this?</s>SCHIFF: We do want to pursue this. I've been in discussion with my counterparts on the foreign affairs committee. Committee Chairman Engel, we've been consulting with the lawyers, also. What is the best case, what arguments might the White House make? It looks to me on the surface that they don't have much of an executive privilege case to make. That privilege really normally applies when the president is seeking advice from his counselors and there's a policy interest in making sure that he has the free and unfettered opinion of those. That's not the case when he's speaking to a foreign leader and is speaking to that foreign leader in private. And so, I don't think that privilege applies but we want to be on the strongest possible ground. If the president destroyed any record of that meeting, that's a separate issue and a separate problem. That gives us further potential jurisdiction to get answers.</s>COOPER: So does that mean -- you could subpoena the interpreter or you would?</s>SCHIFF: Well, we certainly could subpoena the interpreter. We could subpoena the interpreter's notes. The question is on what basis will they refuse, because they will refuse, and what is our chance of success on that? And, you know, I think we have to look at is there a method for us to get that information voluntarily? Is there a way to assure the country that the president behind closed doors is not sacrificing the interests of the country? It's always our preferences to get voluntary cooperation before we consider compulsion.</s>COOPER: Chairman Schiff, appreciate your time. Thank you very much.</s>SCHIFF: Thank you.</s>COOPER: I want to talk about this now, senior political reporter Nia- Malika Henderson is with us. Senior political analyst David Gergen and Gloria Borger who's worked -- David Gergen with Republican and Democratic presidents alike, including one unindicted co-conspirator. Also, "USA Today" columnist and CNN political analyst, Kirsten Powers, former RNC chief of staff Mike Shields, and the Obama solicitor general, Neal Katyal. Neal, just from the legal standpoint, can the White House make a valid executive privilege argument on the interpreter's notes?</s>NEAL KATYAL, FORMER U.S. ACTING SOLICITOR GENERAL, OBAMA ADMINISTRATION: They can try but I think they'll lose. Basically, the executive privilege comes back all the way to George Washington. He asserted it in 1792 with respect to the Indians. He lost there and had to turn over the information. Most presidents have asserted executive privilege have lost, for reasons Congressman Schiff said, this isn't the strongest case. It's not one of communications between the president and his advisers. I think they may try. They certainly sent signals, the Trump folks, that they will try. I think they're going to lose and the most relevant precedent, it always comes to this talking about Trump, Nixon, because Nixon tried to exert executive privilege, he lost unanimously in the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court said the public has a need to know. And I think that if this went to the Supreme Court, they would say the same thing.</s>COOPER: The chairman also said that if the notes were destroyed by the president, that would also bolster their opportunity.</s>KATYAL: Yes, it certainly looks like obstruction of something if you're tearing up notes and things like that. So, I think that's a problem. But, look, even if there aren't notes, they can subpoena the translator himself or herself and bring that person before the committee again. They might try to exert executive privilege over the translator's ability to testify. Again, I think they would lose.</s>COOPER: Kirsten?</s>KIRSTEN POWERS, CNN POLITICAL ANALSYT: I think what's so astonishing about this is forget about sharing them with Congress. He doesn't even want his own staff to see these. The fact that the information wasn't made available to his own staff which is what typically would happen, that you would even have access to the notes and would know what happened in the meeting. And so the fact that he seems to be concerned that even people within the White House shouldn't know what he's saying in these meetings is really stunning.</s>GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: Right. There's really no precedent for any of this at all ever for meeting alone with an adversary without staff, with just a translator there, and also for not trusting your top advisers to know what you were saying to this adversary to take it, to learn from it, to tell Congress about it, to tell the American people about it.</s>COOPER: Mike?</s>KATYAL: When I'm sitting there, I have to meet with an insurance guy, I got a witness. The idea do you it with your biggest adversary, when I was in the government, any sensitive thing you would always have someone there because you wouldn't want --</s>COOPER: Mike, does it make sense to you that the president would have done that?</s>MIKE SHIELDS, FORMER RNC CHIEF OF STAFF: No. I don't know why he would do that. I do know that --</s>COOPER: The counterargument is the concern about leaks, but --</s>SHIELDS: Leaks and here is a unique approach to everything. The president --</s>BORGER: One way of putting it.</s>SHIELDS: He's a different president. That's what he ran on. That's what he got elected on. He sees himself as a true negotiator. What is driving him crazy about the shutdown, he wants to negotiate. That is his favorite thing in the world to do, because that is a game he believes he can win. And one of the ways he puts himself in good negotiating position is to read the eyes of his adversary and know their tells and talk to them. He doesn't want anyone else around him. Now, that doesn't fit in the way presidents should operate, the way foreign policy is conducted, the way you staff these things, but he doesn't think his staff needs to operate because he is the staff. He's sort of like, who needs the notes? I'm the only person who makes this decision around here.</s>COOPER: But what argues against that is when he came out of the meeting in Helsinki, he was sucking up, he was kissing up to Vladimir Putin so much, he was saying Vladimir Putin offered this incredible offer to have their investigators come to the United States and that he thought it was a great offer and that Vladimir Putin had been so strong in his denial and despite what Dan Coats said. I mean, the idea he's a great negotiator, it doesn't seem in this case --</s>SHIELDS: I'm telling you I believe he views himself as a great negotiator.</s>COOPER: Clearly.</s>SHIELDS: I will also say that on policy, on the actual things this administration and this government has done in regards to Russia, they have been tough. They have been tough. You have the vote today on the sanctions. OK, there have been sanctions that have been put in place. We kicked out people after the London poisoning. They bombed in Syria against the direct wishes of the Russians. We've sent lethal weapons to Ukraine to help them kill Russian soldiers. I mean, this administration has been pretty tough on a policy level. So, what we're talking about here is what were his notes, what were the conversations, as if he's a criminal and we have a right to know something which is presupposing something.</s>DAVID GERGEN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: I don't want to get into a big argument but he has not been tough on Russia. He's been in alignment with Vladimir Putin.</s>SHIELDS: On policy. What policies has he not been tough on?</s>GERGEN: How about the Middle East? How about us spending years to get the Russians out of the Middle East and now we've invited them back in to take over Syria? Is that really smart policy? He's giving them a pass on you Ukraine.</s>SHIELDS: How is he giving them a pass when he's arming the Ukrainian --</s>GERGEN: He hasn't done anything serious about Ukraine, that is just -- it hasn't changed anything. That's not the point I want to argue. I just think it's clear, most people accept that. Anderson, presidents in the past have always wanted more secrecy than we would like to think. You know, they've often felt the White House phone system was intrusive because there might be an operator there listening to you and who knows who was taking what notes. When President Nixon was in office and he dealt with the Russians, he actually asked Brendan Walters (ph), our general, to serve as the interpreter, and Walters was so trusted by the Russians, he was the interpreter for both sides. Nobody else was in the room.</s>COOPER: All right.</s>GERGEN: So, we don't even know if there are any notes left. I imagine Trump threw them away.</s>NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER: We do know the Russians have notes and very detailed notes and you imagine that could be leverage over this president given they know what was in that conversation. The president in that meeting thinking he's negotiating on his own not understanding he's a representative of the American people, the American interests, and we have a right to those notes.</s>GERGEN: Yes, I kind of agree with that. But one other point, it's not just about his staff. It's really important the secretary of state and secretary of defense, the national security adviser, the principles to the president, the people who are with him in the Situation Room in high-powered meetings, they need to know what's been said in those meetings.</s>BORGER: Tillerson was with him in Hamburg, right? He was very nondescript.</s>GERGEN: He's been in and out, and didn't really debrief the State Department.</s>BORGER: No, not at all.</s>COOPER: The idea -- "The New York Times" has been reporting that officials in the administration have had to try to glean information listening to what the Russians say was discussed in this meeting. I mean, that's a surreal situation that U.S. officials are eavesdropping on Russians to hear from the Russians what was discussed because they haven't been told.</s>KATYAL: And the idea that the president was thinking, oh, I'm such a great negotiator with all due respect to my friend -- I mean, this is a president who loves an audience whenever he does anything. If you really thought he was a good negotiator, I think he would have had a witness there and someone who could say look at all the things the president did. It doesn't really stand up.</s>BORGER: "The New York Times" reported that the president called one of their reporters from the flight back saying, you know, Putin says he didn't do anything. He didn't do anything. He wasn't responsible for spying and sort of making Putin's case so "the New York Times" would actually report that.</s>COOPER: Yes. Neal Katyal, thanks for being with us. Appreciate it. Everyone else will stick around. Up next, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi taking a poke at the president over the shutdown in the State of the Union. One White House official pokes back, essentially calling her justification for not hosting the president bogus. We'll talk about the facts of her claim and the realities of the president's new political position now the Democrats control the House. Later, the attack that killed four Americans in Syria and the repercussions in the wake of the announced troop pullout and the president's claim to victory over ISIS.