Transcripts For CNNW CNN Newsroom With Brooke Baldwin 201708

CNNW CNN Newsroom With Brooke Baldwin August 22, 2017

Controversial former sheriff joe arpaio, although arpaio tells cnn he has not been invited to this rally. Before the rally, the president plans to tour the border in yuma and thats where we find boris sanchez. We know that the mayor of phoenix asked President Trump to stay away from his city and there are major protests planned there tonight. What more are you hearing . Reporter hey there, pam. Yeah, as you said, we are hearing that several different progressive and antibigot groups are going to be protesting the president here in phoenix at the Phoenix Convention center. There will be waiting for him outside. This is in response to the president s remarks on the violence in charlottesville one week ago today at trump tower. The mayor of phoenix, as you said, greg stanton, asked the president to push this event back. Obviously, the president deciding to move forward. We have also heard from the chief of police in phoenix who says that her officers are ready for anything. As you said, this is a campaignstyle rally and weve seen a lot of fireworks from the president when hes among his most ardent supporters, so following that very bythebook, bytheteleprompter speech about afghanistan yesterday, all eyes are going to be on what the president says tonight. If he makes reference again to the events in charlottesville. Recall last night that he said all americans should yield and patriots stare down bigotry so not only fireworks potentially inside the Phoenix Convention center but also outside with those protesters. We will be watching and waiting, pam. All right, boris sanchez, thank you for setting the scene for us there in arizona. And lets talk more about this with brian walsh, the former Communications Director for the National Republican senatorial committee. Also with me, constantine, conservative political consultant who is a longtime critic of senator jeff flake. Gentlemen, thank you both for coming on. I want to start with you, brian. What do you expect tonight . Well, i hope we have more of what we saw last night. Last night, the president gave an excellent speech. He showed real leadership. He laid out a vision, and he also talked about unity, which i thought was really important coming on the heels of charlottesville. I hope we have more of that tonight. What i hope we dont have, and i think it would be a step backwards, if it devolves into this sort of raucous, off the cuff political rally in which he criticizes the same republicans whose support hes going to need this fall for a number of key issues. So i hope what we see tonight is more of what we saw last night. And on that point, constantine, there are some potential land mines that the president could wade into if he does go off the cuff, off teleprompter. What could those be . What are you hoping to see tonight and what are you hoping not to see . It will be interesting. Hes going to have thousands upon thousands of people that are all amped up to see him and he feeds off of that energy, so im sure he will be on message for the most part in terms of the things he spoke about last night and just the general direction he wants to take the country but i think its also fair to expect that hell hit certain applause lines that he likes to deliver and they like to hear him stay. Hell take a lot of shots at d. C. And the people who inhabit the swamp and some of those who reside right here in arizona and to a certain degree, that is also what the crowd came to see. I want to ask you about senator jeff flake, because the president has been openly critical of him on twitter, even backing his opponent there in arizona. What do you expect tonight in terms of how that might play out, what the president might say . Should jeff flake be worried . In fairness, can we respond and say flake started it and was backing the president s opponent last november and so that is something that has obviously stayed with the president. I think they had sort of an uneasy truce there in d. C. They each kind of needed each other, and then flake wrote the book where he kind of took the president , you know, by name, very directly and kind of ratcheted things up to this next almost necessary level so i suspect the two of them are going to settle that in the elections next year, but you know, what happens tonight, i dont actually expect the president to do anything as far as flakes race tonight. He has not settled on any sort of a primary opponent for flake yet. I think when the president does decide to support somebody, hes going to do so in his usual, unmistakable fashion. Right. And he seemed to loosely support his poentd on twitter, but as you said, he hasnt formally done so. Brian, you say the white house should be zeroed in on ten states. Correct. There are Ten Senate Democrats facing reelection next year in states that donald trump won, including several by double digits, states like montana, missouri, indiana. I think what a lot of republicans want to see is the president start to use the Political Capital he has in those states in targeting those democrats who are blocking his agenda. His issue isnt with republicans. And its been frustrating to see too much energy against folks like flake and heller who are got conservatives. I think wed like to see the president really hone in on the democrats who are blocking his agenda. Constantine, we were talking about jeff flake and his opponent, kelly wade. She has been rolling out some political ads. Lets watch. Senator flake, why are you still attacking the president . Just to sell copies of your new book . Youre not a conservative, senator flake, and youre not getting anything done. Arizona deserves far better. So, our team here couldnt help but notice that picture of flake and obama you just saw. That was taken from an event where obama signed a bill honoring judge roll, who was killed in the 2011 tucson shooting. Your reaction to that . Well, obviously, shes going to go after flake and thats her opponent. He has a number of things, i suppose, she could be targeting him for, but i dont think the president has settled on anybody yet. I do think theres interest in the white house to replace flake with somebody, but their search goes on. I think brians right, that their time is best spent in states where they can actually pick up seats, but the unique nature of arizona, i suppose, to the heller seat in nevada, is here off senator who has taken trump on by name and who appears intent on running for reelection sort of as antitrump, and that is something that obviously the president s going to take personally and his Political Team is going to take seriously. Well have to wait and see what he says about that and other issues tonight during his rally there in arizona. Constantine and brian, thank you very much. Great to be here. Thanks. Any minute now, secretary of state Rex Tillerson will be speaking from the state department. Just hours after President Trump addressed the nation to reverse his stance on afghanistan and recommit to the war there. Last night, the president spoke in very broad strokes, saying he didnt want to give specifics to the enemy. My origin instinct was to pull out, and historically, i like following my instincts. But all my life, ive heard that decisions are much different when you sit behind the desk in the oval office. We will not talk about numbers of troops or our plans for further military activities. Conditions on the ground, not arbitrary timetables, will guide our strategy from now on. So, what we do know is that trump plans to increase troop numbers. He did not give specifics, but we hear from congressional sources that it will be about 4,000 more. He also spoke of targeting terror networks, going after isis, and reducing the influence of the taliban. Trump also called on pakistan to step up, calling them a safe haven for terror. Im going to now bring in ronald newman, an american diplomat who served as the United States ambassador to afghanistan. You were openly critical of obamas time line to withdraw combat troops, projecting that it was a path to failure. So, what did you make of what you heard from President Trump last night . There were parts of that that i liked a great deal, and there were parts of it that i still want to understand. But the main decisions first of all, i like the fact that he laid out the case for being in afghanistan. The point that we have a great risk if we pull out quickly, and thats a point that i think even those who oppose the strategy have to deal with before they jump on, we should go out or we should not. They have to deal with the risks that he laid out. I liked the fact that he did not have a timeline. That was a disaster with the obama administration, and frankly, obama had about five different timelines. He kept shifting it. And that undercut the policy. I like the fact that it concentrates on building the Afghan Security forces, although we have to hear a lot more about how that will be done. So, as a strategy, yes, its a good one. Now we have to see execution. I want to ask you, because something that he did not discuss in the speech or didnt focus on were some of the countries that may be hurting the u. S. Cause in afghanistan, namely russia and iran. I mean, russia has been called out by top military commanders for arming the taliban. What do you make of that . Well, the russians the russians deny that theyre arming, but they are quite up front with their taliban contacts. I was in a conference in afghanistan last month with some russians, and they were quite up front about that. They say this is a function of the Islamic State being there, but it is also a function of russian distrust of our commitment and the sense that things may fall apart and they have to protect themselves. And i think that is also part of what is driven iran to begin working with the taliban. So, these things are all very interconnected to the extent that we project real strength, the ability to stay involved, i think we have a much stronger hand to speak with the russians about pulling back from what theyre doing. I want to ask you, leon pinetta spoke after the president gave his speech and he said one of the things that concerned him was the president talking about winning this war. He said this is not a war to be won in the traditional sense. That shouldnt be the focus. What is your take on that . Pam, thats a really good question. The trouble is, it doesnt fit very well into sound byte, which is what you mostly need. Americans tend to think of winning a la world war ii, a surrender. When you fight nonstate movements, you dont have that moment unless you absolutely kill everybody because they regenerate. And so we do need a serious discussion in this country about what does winning mean. Because if you can only call it winning in a way that is not possible with nonstate actors, then youve permanently defined yourself as a failure and that doesnt make any sense. I think in the case of afghanistan, winning means reducing the risk of any strikes to the United States and basically having an afghan state and military that probably, with some monetary help from us, can basically handle the security situation. That, i think, would meet our strategic objectives, and by meeting our strategic objectives could be defined as winning. Ron neumann, thank you very much for sharing your perspective. Youre welcome. Thank you for having me. We want to know why we are yelling, why we are cussing. This is what happens when for decades the people that have sat in this chair have ignored the people that have been out here. Tempers flare inside a Charlottesville City Council meeting, the first since the violence and the president s remarks. See what happened, and ill speak with the vice mayor, one of the only ones that stayed behind out of the Council Members. Plus a race against the clock, a death row inmate set to be executed tonight, despite new dna evidence. Why the state is refusing to listen. And the wife of the treasury secretary flaunts luxury goods on instagram, then mocks one of her critics in a bizarre rant. Ill speak with the mother who Louise Linton went after. Dont miss this. Ice depot offic. 10 pack pens, one cent. Composition notebooks,scissors, and plastic folders all one cent each hurry to office depot office max. Taking care of business. Karl, have you met everyone . You see, time is just a construct of human perception, an illusion, like this one. Help, i cant breathe which means theres no pressure to get a great rate on a hotel. Theyre available for an unlimited time, always. So, book now. Or dont. No pressure. Ugh. Heartburn. Sorry maam. No burning here. A very thorough job in terms of describing the new military approach, and i think the important point in that is a conditionsbased approach as opposed to a timebased approach that had specified troop ceiling levels and timetables, and i think the president s been quite clear that what will be different this time is he has empowered our military commanders on the ground to make more timely decisions, to conduct battlefield operations, based upon the conditions on the ground with the battle plans that secretary of defense mattis will be approving. That is going to change the dynamic on the ground considerably. These are some of the same tactics that have been employed in the very Successful Campaign to defeat isis in syria and iraq, and i think were taking a lot of Lessons Learned from our success there and will translate those to afghanistan. This is going to take some time for our military to go through a new set of training with some of the Afghan Forces. The fighting will still be borne by the Afghan Forces, by their military and their security forces. But we believe that we can turn the tide of what has been a losing battle over the last year and a half or so, and at least stabilize the situation and hopefully start seeing some battlefield victories on the part of the Afghan Forces who have fought very bravely, but theyve been fighting, i think, with less than full capabilities that we can give them. I think similarly, on the diplomatic front, we too are going to adopt a conditionsbased diplomacy. Were going to condition our efforts along with the progress we see being made by the Afghan Government, who must continue the Reform Efforts that weve been working on for some time, in particular, a much more rigorous efforts around the anticorruption. Now, part of the corruption challenge in some respects has been the methods and ways in which we have been delivering some of our aid, and weve not been as accountable, i think, to ourselves in terms of ensuring that our aid programs, Development Programs are delivering the results that they were intended to deliver. Some of that has been challenged by the security environment. Its very difficult for many of our aid workers to operate in afghanistan, so as the security environment improves, we expect to adopt a different approach as to how we deliver on the development and assistance that supports the Afghan Government in their reforms as well. I think the president was clear, this entire effort is intended to put pressure on the taliban to have the taliban understand you will not win a battlefield victory. We may not win one, but neither will you. And so at some point, we have to come to the negotiating table and find a way to bring this to an end. Now, this is a regional approach, and part of why this effort took as long as it did is we chose not to just focus on afghanistan. But we undertook a fairly comprehensive review of our relationships in pakistan and our relationship with india. And we see this approach as requiring an integration of all three of those strategies and use pakistan, india to also bring pressure to bear on the situation in afghanistan. Pakistan, in particular, can play an Important Role here, certainly in delivering the taliban to the negotiating table. Pakistan has suffered acts of terrorism, their citizens have suffered acts of terrorism as, i think, as dramatic as any weve seen anywhere. And we stand ready to help pakistan address terrorist organizations inside of their country, but they must adopt a different approach themselves. Pakistan and the u. S. Historically had very good relationships, but over the last few years, theres been a real erosion in the confidence between our two governments. Theres been an erosion in trust because we have witnessed terrorist organizations being given safe haven inside of pakistan to plan and carry out attacks against u. S. Servicemen, u. S. Officials, disrupting peace efforts inside of afghanistan. Pakistan must adopt a different approach, and we are ready to work with them to help them protect themselves against these terrorist organizations but certainly to begin to end their attacks that are disrupting our efforts at peace. We are going to be conditioning our support for pakistan and our relationship with them on them delivering results in this area. We want to work with pakistan in a positive way, but they must change their approach. Indias emerging as a very important regional Strategic Partner with the United States and has played an Important Role supporting the Afghan Government and in particular supporting their economy. Indias provided developmental assistance. Theyve provided economic assistance. They are hosting an important economic conference in india this next week. All of that is important to stabilizing afghanistan as a nation. Get their economy functioning, stabilize the country so that they can provide more opportunities to their citizens. These are all elements of what will lead to stability and ultimately a peace agreement. But the effort is, again, a regional effort. Put pressure on the parties to understand that this fighting is going to take everyone nowhere. And its time to begin a process. It may very well be a lengthy process of reconciliation and a peace accord, and afghanistan, as the president said, can choose its form of government that best suits the needs of its people as long

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