North Korea Launches Another Ballistic Missile; President Trump's Islamic Speech Strategy
JOHN KING, CNN HOST (voice-over): Stop one on the world stage, a warm welcome from the Saudi royal family. Will a big speech today help the Arab world move past this?</s>DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I think Islam hates us.</s>KING: Traveling with the president, a staff on edge, and the baggage of a rough stretch back home.</s>TRUMP: I respect the move but the entire thing has been a witch hunt.</s>KING: New special counsel gets to work and the legal and political stakes for the president rise dramatically.</s>TRUMP: No, no. Next question.</s>KING: INSIDE POLITICS, the biggest stories sourced by the best reports, now.</s>KING: Welcome to INSIDE POLITICS. I'm John King. To our viewers in the United States and around the world, thanks for sharing your Sunday. In a few moments, the dizzying pace of developments in the Russia election meddling investigation and the mounting legal risks for President Trump and his White House. But we begin with breaking developments on the world stage. North Korea test fired yet another ballistic missile and both South Korea and Japan convened emergency security meetings. The U.S. Pacific Command says the medium range missile traveled some 300 miles and landed in the Sea of Japan. President Trump is attending a major summit of Muslim nations in Saudi Arabia and the White House officials say he has been briefed on the missile test. This is day two of the president's first big international trip. A festive welcome from the Saudi royal family and a big arms deal had the president in very good spirits on day one.</s>TRUMP: Hundreds of billions of dollars of investments into the United States and jobs, jobs, jobs.</s>KING: Today brings a much, much bigger test, a speech, asking Arab and Muslim nations to do more to battle extremism and asking them to forget or set aside the fact that the American president delivering that speech is the same man who said this.</s>TRUMP: I think Islam hates us. There's something -- there's something there that -- there's a tremendous hatred there. There is a tremendous hatred. We have to get to the bottom of it. There is an unbelievable hatred of us.</s>KING: With us this Sunday to share their reporting and their insights, CNN's Nia-Malika Henderson, Carl Hulse of "The New York Times", CNN's Manu Raju, and Karen Tumulty of "The Washington Post." Delicate, a nuance are words not often found in the same sentence as Donald Trump, which makes the president's challenge next hour beyond fascinating. He will speak again to a big Islamic summit in Saudi Arabia, appealing for help fighting terrorism and extremism. As a private citizen, as a candidate, he repeatedly mocked President Obama for his reluctance to use the term radical Islam or radical Islamic terrorism.</s>TRUMP: Anyone who cannot name our enemy is not fit to lead our country. Anyone who cannot condemn the hatred, oppression and violence of radical Islam lacks the moral clarity to serve as our president.</s>KING: The words radical Islam however are not in a draft of the president's speech obtained by CNN or in excerpts released by the White House just moments ago. In those the president calls for, quote, confronting the crisis of Islamist extremism and the Islamist terror groups it inspires. As we wait to see if he stays that way after any big late minute edits -- late last-minute edits, this question looms anyway, how will the audience in the room and around the Arab and the Muslim world react to the praise of their faith and the traditions from a man who sounded very different as a candidate? CNN's Jeff Zeleny is traveling with the president joins us live from Riyadh now with more on the speech. Jeff, a big moment for the president and it's just a short time away.</s>JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: John, a big moment indeed. And the president really is looking to reset not only relations but rhetoric, his rhetoric. As you were playing there, so much of the soundtrack of his campaign running for office was against Islam, against the Muslim faith. That was only some 18 months ago when he said those words: Islam hates us. You will not hear the words shortly when he delivers a speech to more than 50 leaders of more than 50 Muslim countries here in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Now, John, so far in the 24 hours or so, the president has been on the ground he's received something of a king's welcome. No questions from pesky reporters like us, certainly something that he has welcomed after the -- you know, what's going on in Washington there. But he so far has threaded the needle here. But you're right, the speech he'll be giving in a short time is the biggest task of all. We have gotten a couple excerpts from the White House outlining what he's going to say. Let's take a look at one of them here, John. The president is expected to say this. He'll say: America is prepared to stand with you in pursuit of shared interests and common security. But the nations of the Middle East cannot wait for American power to crush this enemy for them. He'll go on to say: The nations of the Middle East will have to decide what kind of future they want for themselves, for their countries and for their children. Then he goes on to say this: That means honestly confronting the crisis of Islamist extremism and Islamist terror groups it inspires, and it means standing together against the murder of innocent Muslims, the oppression of women, the persecution of Jews and the slaughter of Christians. So, John, you may wonder what is the different between Islamist and Islamic. Islamist is more political reference, more of a political speech. Islamic is more of an attack on faith here. It is a fine line to cross. So, John, so far, after this speech and even so far today, this is the biggest difference we've seen between candidate Trump and the president. His rhetoric different of course, his White House advisers hope it stays that way -- John.</s>KING: Jeff Zeleny with the president in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Jeff, we'll keep in touch. As we await the president's big next hour, let's bring the conversation in the room to the point Jeff made, this happens with every president. You say things during the campaign, you get the job. Realize running for president is a lot easier than being president, and you set something aside. But what a contrast if you look at the excerpts, Jeff just had some of them there. What a contrast between candidate Trump and President Trump, more realistic, more what?</s>KAREN TUMULTY, THE WASHINGTON POST: The phrase that jumped out at me from these excerpts was principled realism. Most of this speech, at least what we've seen so far could have been delivered by Barack Obama.</s>NIA MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER: Right.</s>KING: It also sounds very much like George W. Bush, trying to say, pick our side. Don't pick the bad side. We'll stand with you, but let's call out people who pervert a religion in the name of violence.</s>HENDERSON: Right. Yes, this whole idea of a clash between good versus evil, not this idea of a clash of civilizations or clash of religions. You know, it will be interesting what the reception is, because, you know, we talk about candidate Trump who said all sorts of things including a Muslim ban but President Trump put in policies that a lot of people thought were anti-Muslim, the travel ban, banning Muslims majority countries from seven and then six Muslim majority countries, of course, that's been blocked. He recently on his 100-day anniversary read the poem of "The Snake" which many interpret being about Syrian refugees. So, I think we're going to really see I think sort of a power of speech in his remarks today but also maybe the limits as well, whether or not he can sort of convince people that he's had some sort of conversion and whether or not he himself acknowledges that in the past, he's made some very intemperate remarks about Islam.</s>MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL REPORTER: Yes, I mean, of course, governing and campaigning are much different. So, this happened repeatedly, with President Trump on issue of foreign policy, China being one of them coming in and everything that he said criticizing China coming into the campaign trail, now he wants China to be an ally. Similarly here, he railed on the term "radical Islamic terrorism" repeatedly on the campaign trail. He criticized Obama for not using the words repeatedly. Said this is something we need to say to people in the Islam world. He's not going to do -- looks like he's not going to say that today. It shows he's going to take a more moderate approach, more pragmatic approach. We'll see how his supporters respond to that, because that's not what he said to them on the campaign trail.</s>KING: That's an interesting question. How does it play with Trump supporters back here who voted for him, because, as Trump himself said, I will say the things other people won't say.</s>CARL HULSE, THE NEW YORK TIMES: Yes, that's sort of my question the past few days. The first thing I would say is that, excuse me, the Saudis definitely read all the papers on how to win over president Trump with the way they've treated him, this ostentatious display. I just wanted to say, too, under principled realism, I think that's the phrase we're going to remember out of this. It's like we have our principles but we're realistic about them, right? This is part of their policy that we're not going to maybe enforce our human rights stance the way we have in the past. But yesterday on Twitter, and Karen and I were talking about this earlier, you saw some Trump supporters and allies pushing back already about the way he's acting over there and he seems to be almost turncoat to what he's told them and some of the tweets were pretty rough. So, I think there is going to be some backlash.</s>TUMULTY: #jaredsidea.</s>KING: But, listen, you talk about principled realism. If you go back through history, you know, Donald Trump was as unique as it gets as a candidate. Some of the things he said shocked the system, shocked the foreign policy establishment. Now, you hear principled realism that's a bit of Jim Baker. If you hear Islamist, not radical Islam --</s>HULSE: I don't think people are going to be able to hear that exactly, though. You know, that's --</s>KING: That's how he says it but saying Islamist sounds more like Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama. And here, this is an echo of George W. Bush. This is not a battle between different faiths, different sects or different civilizations. This is a battle between barbaric criminals who seek to obliterate human life and decent people of all religious who seek to protect it. This is a battle between good and evil.</s>RAJU: And that's so much different than, you know, he -- President Trump said several months ago most of Islam hates us and now, he's trying to make the case these extremists are not necessarily Muslim. They follow a completely different ideology, completely different faith. That is the argument that President Obama made repeatedly, that he did not want to call it radical Islamic terrorism because these people are not Muslims.</s>KING: It makes it harder to bring these countries and these leaders for whom this is local, this is their life, this is their citizenry, this is their community every day, the president from Washington trying to speak. That was the point Obama made. I get points for saying that at home but the people I need to help me, you know, get offended and can't say we need to help America.</s>HULSE: You know, the expectations though for President Trump in these things have gotten so low. To me, it's like can he get through this without offending a huge part of the world and can he just deliver this speech and not have a big gaffe or get, you know, off track. So, I think we view this speech as a little different than we would view of another president.</s>KING: But we shouldn't. I don't want to interrupt, but we shouldn't, in the sense, that number one, he's the president now and he has to deliver. Number two, we're talking about the rhetoric here and the page turning for Trump, but the reality of what happens is the fight against ISIS, does al Qaeda come back where? What happens in Yemen, where these arms deal the United States signed with Saudi Arabia is essentially a green light to have a proxy war. The United States hoping the Saudis and others essentially fighting Iran inside Yemen. So, the consequences of this on the ground in the region are incredibly important.</s>TUMULTY: But I also think, I was also another if you don't mind me reading off my phone here, there was also the most explicit backing off of human rights I think we've heard.</s>HENDERSON: Yes.</s>RAJU: Right.</s>TUMULTY: He says we are not here to lecture. We are not here to tell other people how to live, what to do, who to be or how to worship. That is also a pretty extraordinary line that I think may get lost in some of the others.</s>HULSE: It's a big change and senator McCain has already really railed about this.</s>HENDERSON: Very different from President Obama and different, too, from this idea of an America as sort of an indispensable nation.</s>HULSE: A shining city.</s>HENDERSON: Yes, a shining city on a hill, and so, I mean, there is a part in here where he does talk about the persecution of Jews and the slaughter of Muslims and the oppression of women in Saudi Arabia -- of course, of one of the most oppressive regimes in terms of women, in terms of all sorts of things. So but, yes, this is a bit of a change, and they believe that you don't necessarily want to lead with the stick when it comes to lecturing about human rights that you want to --</s>RAJU: They've done that with China. They've done with Egypt.</s>HENDERSON: Exactly, if you want to make a deal, don't lecture first.</s>KING: Listen to the president's national security adviser here on what we can all agree is an evolution by the president.</s>LT. GEN. H.R. MCMASTER, NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: What the president does is he listens to people. He listens to people in the region. This isn't America just on transmit here in the Middle East. This is the president asking questions, listening, learning. Of course, the president will call whatever he wants to call it.</s>KING: The president, again, this is not unique to Donald Trump, because of the volume of the rhetoric in the campaign, it may disappoint his supporters but it's not unique to Donald Trump. Bill Clinton ran against the dictators in Damascus and butchers in Beijing and went on to have relationships with old Hafez al-Assad and then with China. It happens all the time. But that's essentially the national security adviser saying forget the campaign.</s>RAJU: And the Trump doctrine in so many ways, foreign policy is about getting deals. It's not necessarily about consistency or and it's not about as they say lecturing. They want to cut a deal, whether it's about an arms deal, whether it's about high China deals with North Korea, whether it's about how to deal with Islamic extremism, one way to do that they believe is not to attack --</s>HULSE: The difference with Trump, though, his comments were so strident. This is a long way to come back. And, you know, all presidents get religion. He's getting religion about religion in this case. You know, this is a really tough --</s>KING: Everybody, hold that thought. We'll continue the conversation. We're awaiting the president's big speech in Saudi Arabia. We have more of the excerpts we'll discuss with you. Also, some insights into what is a fascinating giant summit. We'll show some pictures of that as we go. And also, next, more challenges on the world stage, differences with the pope, with NATO allies, and even some tensions with Israel, and yes, we'll have a little politicians say the darndest things this morning with sing-along good-byes from "SNL's" team Trump.</s>CROWD (singing): Alleluia, alleluia.</s>ALEC BALDWIN AS PRESIDENT TRUMP: I'm not giving up, because I didn't do anything wrong. But I can't speak for these people.