Trump to Unveil "America First" National Security Plan
JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right. President Trump set to unveil his new national security strategy later today.</s>POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Yep. In just a few hours he'll make those public remarks and according to reports his message will be America First. No surprise, but what might be different this time around? Our diplomatic and military analyst, retired Rear Admiral John Kirby joins us now. So, you know, the White House is outlining these four things that sound like any president would talk about, a strong America, et cetera, this is the national security strategy by law. They have to put this out there, right?</s>REAR ADM. JOHN KIRBY, CNN MILITARY AND DIPLOMATIC ANALYST: Right.</s>HARLOW: H.R. McMaster, his National Security adviser, is saying this is going to be very much like or akin to Ronald Reagan's peace through strengths. What are you going to be looking for this afternoon from the president?</s>KIRBY: Well, I'll tell you, I mean, I've seen some excerpts and had a chance to talk to a White House official yesterday in advance of the speech coming up. Honestly, I think when you look at this thing, even the way it's organized, it's not going to be radically different from the last one that President Obama put out in 2015.</s>HARLOW: Yes.</s>KIRBY: Now there'll some differences in terms of tone and emphasis and rhetoric. They are going to focus more on a nation-state competition. They've described the world as a competitive place, whereas President Obama tended to focus more on areas of cooperation and multilateral institutions that could achieve cooperative efforts. But I'm going to be looking to see when he says America First, does it mean America alone? Because thus far, the way he's been practicing foreign policy, it very much has been America alone and obviously in this dynamic world we just can't do it all by ourselves.</s>BERMAN: You know, one of the things he's going to do is talk about China and there was some reporting he was going to talk about China in a different way than he has in recent months.</s>KIRBY: Right.</s>BERMAN: It doesn't quite seem it's as big as some of the initial reporting but he will refer to China as a strategic competitor and loop in China -- lump in China and Russia as revisionist powers. What does that mean? What's the significance there?</s>KIRBY: I think what they're trying to get at with revisionist powers is that they are trying to remake the international order according to their own interests. In terms of China, you know, the global international order. In terms of Russia, although I think they give them too much credit for that, they mean it certainly in a regional way. They're trying to upset the balance of power to suit their own view of the world and their own past grievances. Both Russia and China, if you just listen to what their leaders say publicly, they're very much stuck on grievances that are sometimes centuries old and I think that's what he's going to talk about here. But, look, President Trump likewise talked about China as a competitor. If you look at his 2015 strategy he was pretty honest and open about that. We're going to work where we can and where we can't, when we need to compete, we're going to compete. So calling them a strategic competitor while the act of labeling them like that is probably new, it's not a new idea. In fact, administration officials even will tell you that they know they're going to have to work and they need China's help on issues like North Korea.</s>HARLOW: One thing not included, though, as the national security threat in this as was in Obama's in 2015 is climate change.</s>KIRBY: Right.</s>HARLOW: So I would just note that that is the difference. But let's get you on this. So what John said about Russia and how Russia will be framed, this comes on the heels of two phone calls between President Trump and President Putin of Russia in the last four days.</s>KIRBY: Right. Yes. And the last one here where he and Putin apparently, you know, talked about this intelligence sharing that may have led to disrupting a terrorist attack in St. Petersburg, I'm not so concerned about the fact that there was sharing and I'm certainly not concerned about the fact that they spoke about that. I mean, you know, it would -- I think morally and ethically if you have information like that that can prevent death and destruction.</s>HARLOW: Of course.</s>KIRBY: Even with a country you don't necessarily consider a great friend, you know, it's not a wrong thing to share that. What's surprising is the way that the administration tried to take credit for that and talked about it publicly. Most intelligence agencies with these sharing arrangements don't want to talk ability that because very soon if bad guys understand about the sort of information that's being shared back and forth you can give up sources and methods. So it was kind of unusual that it was made so public by both sides.</s>BERMAN: Look, and I've also heard critics say that the president is praising intelligence that helps Russia.</s>HARLOW: Yes.</s>BERMAN: And he has run down the intelligence agencies when they've put out information damaging to Russia or says that Russia meddled in the election.</s>HARLOW: Yes.</s>BERMAN: You know, is that fair criticism --</s>KIRBY: Yes. It's quite ironic. And I think that's fair criticism as well. Absolutely.</s>BERMAN: All right.</s>HARLOW: Admiral John Kirby, appreciate it as always. Thank you very much.</s>KIRBY: Thank you. You bet.</s>HARLOW: So it has been almost three months since Hurricane Maria first made landfall in Puerto Rico. The death toll of 64 that has been widely reported, is it, though, wildly inaccurate? Up next our reporter Leyla Santiago leading on this investigative reporting and now what the island's governor is saying ordering a recount of the death toll there.