White House Denies Wrongdoing in FBI Conversations About Russia Reporting; Trump Takes a Victory Lap at CPAC
CYRIL VANIER, CNN ANCHOR: Denied access. Several news outlets including CNN are blocked from a White House press briefing. Plus, deadly and fast. We learn more about the lethal substance at the center of the mysterious murder of Kim Jong-un's half brother. And it's not just the stars who attended. We take a tour of the epic landmarks from the movie "La La Land." Hi, everyone. Thank you very much for joining us. I'm Cyril Vanier in Atlanta. And CNN NEWSROOM starts right now. Senior White House officials are pushing back against CNN's exclusive reporting denying any wrongdoing in asking the FBI to speak out against reports of contacts between the Trump campaign and Russians. The administration confirms that it spoke to the FBI about those communications but in an unprecedented move White House press secretary Sean Spicer blocked CNN and other news organizations from an informal press briefing on Friday. For more insights into this complex and important story, here's CNN's Jim Sciutto. I'm against the people that make up stories named.</s>JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The White House vehemently defending, asking the FBI to deny reports of communications between Trump campaign associates and Russians known to U.S. intelligence. The administration's intense pushback follows CNN's exclusive reporting of the White House request. Senior administration officials insisting it only asked for the denial after a top FBI official himself volunteered that "The New York Times"' story on those communications was inaccurate. White House officials, who asked not to be named, outlined their timeline of events, saying, the conversation happened on February 15th, after a 7:30 a.m. meeting led by White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus. FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe asked Priebus for five minutes alone after the meeting ends. This according to senior administration officials and calls a report linking Trump campaign advisers to Russian intelligence total B.S. Priebus, the White House says, asked McCabe, quote, "Can we do anything about it?" And whether there is something the FBI can do to, quote, "set the record straight." Later, in separate conversations, McCabe and FBI Director James Comey tell Priebus the FBI cannot comment on the reports. Priebus then asks Comey if he can cite McCabe and Comey as, quote, "top intelligence officials" in pushing back on the story himself in TV interviews last Sunday, which he did.</s>REINCE PRIEBUS, WHITE HOUSE CHIEF OF STAFF: I have talked to the top levels of the intelligence community and they have assured me that that "New York Times" story was grossly overstated and inaccurate and totally wrong.</s>SCIUTTO: The direct communications between the White House and the FBI were unusual because of decade-old restrictions on such contacts concerning pending investigations.</s>ALBERTO GONZALES, FORMER U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL: You don't want the appearance of political influence with respect to an investigation or prosecution. That's why the protocols are in place.</s>SCIUTTO: President Trump on Friday ranted against the leaks that have plagued his administration, making a case reporters should only used named sources, even as White House officials spoke to reporters asking not to be named.</s>DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I'm against the people that make up stories and make up sources. They shouldn't be allowed to use sources unless they use somebody's name. Let their name be put out there. Let their name be put out. A source says that Donald Trump is a horrible, horrible human being. Let them say it to my face.</s>SCIUTTO: Mr. Trump also criticized the FBI directly, tweeting, quote, "The FBI is totally unable to stop the national security leakers that have permeated our government for a long time. They can't even find the leakers within the FBI itself. Classified information is being given to media that could have a devastating effect on U.S. Find now." (</s>On camera): Now on the larger question of the existence of communications between advisers to Trump during the campaign and Russian officials and other Russians known to U.S. intelligence, Reince Priebus in his comments seemed to say that there's nothing to these reports but the fact is the FBI is still investigating those communications, as are both the House and Senate Intelligence Committees. Jim Sciutto, CNN, Washington.</s>VANIER: Mr. Trump took his war with the media to the Conservative Political Action Conference, promising a crowd of right-wing activists that he will be taking action against a critical press. His words have some people worried that picking and choosing outlets for Friday's press briefing might just be the beginning. Take a listen.</s>TRUMP: As you saw throughout the entire campaign and even now, the fake news doesn't tell the truth. Doesn't tell the truth. So just in finishing, I say, it doesn't represent the people. It never will represent the people. And we're going to do something about it.</s>VANIER: Mr. Trump skipped the gathering last year at the time many Republicans were critical of his candidacy. Some questioned if he was a true conservative. But at this year's conference the president took a victory lap, drawing applause and hammering home his "America first" agenda. Our Tom Foreman has more.</s>TRUMP: You finally have a president. Finally. Took you a long time.</s>TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): For all the cheering at CPAC, Donald Trump is hardly the champion many conservatives expected. In much of the nomination process, his support among them was extremely low. He is a former Democrat, married three times, the voice behind those vulgar comments about women.</s>TRUMP: Grab them by the</s>FOREMAN: He struggles to explain his faith.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Have you ever asked God for forgiveness?</s>TRUMP: That's a tough question.</s>FOREMAN: He has slammed Republican Party cornerstones, such as broad free trade deals. And on abortion rights, here's Donald Trump in 1999.</s>TRUMP: I'm very pro-choice. I hate the concept of abortion. I hate it. I hate everything it stands for. I cringe when I listen to people debating the subject. But you still, I just believe in choice.</s>FOREMAN: That changed over the years and after the election he made sure his position was very clear.</s>TRUMP: I'm pro-life. The judges will be pro-life.</s>FOREMAN: So aside from that last answer, what do conservatives like about him? Listen to the applause lines at</s>CPAC. TRUMP: It's time for all Americans to get off of welfare and get back to work. You're going to love it. We are going to repeal and replace Obamacare. We are going to keep radical Islamic terrorists the hell out of our country. I'm not representing the globe. I'm representing your country.</s>FOREMAN: Those stances have drawn traditional party Republicans, like White House chief of staff, Reince Priebus, much closer to more radical social conservatives like White House adviser, Steve Bannon.</s>PRIEBUS: And I've got to tell you, if the party and the conservative movement are together, similar to Steve and I, it can't be stopped.</s>FOREMAN (on camera): Conservatives may yet find their faith tested, if President Trump strays too far from their orthodoxy. And he may find the party's support softening if his approval rating continues to fall in the polls. But for right now, as they say, everyone loves a winner and conservatives believe they are winning big. Tom Foreman, CNN, Washington.</s>VANIER: And still on this subject earlier I asked political analysis Ellis Henican about this complex relationship between traditional conservatives and the president.</s>ELLIS HENICAN, POLITICAL ANALYST: I am losing track of what it means to be conservative anymore. You know, by all the traditional definitions, very, very hard to jam Donald Trump into that pigeon hole. But the power can change a lot of minds right now and there are lots of conservatives -- in the many flavors of conservatism that we have in America, many conservatives who are making the judgment that, listen, we may not approve of the budget busting, we may not approve of some of the attitude we're getting out of the White House, some of the foreign policy decisions, but you know what, this guy is likely to do some things that we really do like including maybe at the top of the list of putting people on to the Supreme Court who are philosophically more attuned to conservative policies. And so I think there's a lot of nose holding and people saying, well, you know, he's kind of hard to defend, but maybe we can keep crazy in the box, introduce some stuff that we want and maybe we'll overlook some of these uncomfortable facets.</s>VANIER: Well, yes, Ellis, that was one of the interesting things coming out of the last two days at CPAC, with both Mr. Trump and his senior aide, Mr. Bannon, the previous day, now looks like this administration and Mr. Trump in particular has become a conservative's conservative. I don't if you'd agree with that based on what you're just say something.</s>HENICAN: Well, you know, there's a lot of --</s>VANIER: The point I'm making is he seems to be ideologically pure in many respects. You know, he's like very conservative end of that spectrum.</s>HENICAN: Yes. There's definitely something to what you're saying. And I think that maybe the strongest evidence are the members of the Cabinet. I mean, this is a Cabinet that ought to please most conservatives quite enthusiastically. So, right, even though there may be some kind of irrationality in some of the policy directions, I think a lot of conservatives figured, yes, even if we don't like the guy, we're getting a lot of what we want, then so, you know what, if it involves giving this guy a big bear hug, you know on balance maybe it's worth it.</s>VANIER: All right. We'll wrap it up with a bear hug. Thank you so much. Always -- you're absolutely right, what you're saying about the Cabinet. The moderator at CPAC was saying we've got one of the best and most conservative Cabinets that we've ever seen and so clearly they enjoyed that. Ellis, I enjoy talking to you. Thank you very much.</s>HENICAN: Always a pleasure. Thank you.</s>VANIER: Coming up after the break, Malaysia says Kim Jong-nam was poisoned with VX nerve agent at a Kuala Lumpur airport. The airport is saying loud and clear the passengers traveling through there are not at any risk of exposure. More on the deadly poisoning when we're back.