Transcripts For CNNW The Situation Room With Wolf Blitzer 20

CNNW The Situation Room With Wolf Blitzer September 30, 2020

Year while writing a devastating account of his presidency. Stand by for that. But first, lets begin our coverage this hour with our chief White House Correspondent jim acosta. Hes on the campaign trail with President Trump right now in minnesota. Jim, the president is obviously very desperate right now to try to clean up the mess from last night. Thats right, wolf. President trump is doing some damage control claiming today he doesnt know anything about the fringe rightwing group the proud boys, adding hes always condemned White Supremacy. But thats not true. Privately some Trump Campaign advisers are nervous about the fallout. One Trump Campaign adviser was furious that the president botched the question on White Supremacy, as this adviser put it, and this is a quote, f the proud boys. After turning the first debate of the 2020 campaign into a dumpster fire, President Trump is trying to put out the flames before they torch his reelection chances. The president is insisting hes not familiar with the proud boys, the same organization he declined to criticize when he refused to condemn White Supremacy at the debate. I dont know who the proud boys are. They have to stand down, let Law Enforcement do their work. Reporter the president gave the group a pass in a moment that even had fellow republicans cringing. You want to call them what do you want to call them . White supremacists and rightwing proud boys, stand back and stand by. But ill tell you what. Somebodys got to do something about antifa and the left. Because this is not a rightwing problem. How do you like the proud boys now . [ cheering ] reporter a Violent Group embracing racist views said they are standing by. Gop senators quickly called on mr. Trump to clarify his remarks. I think he misspoke in response to Chris Wallaces comment. He was asking chris what he wanted to say. I think he misspoke. I think he should correct it. If he doesnt correct it, i guess he didnt misspeak. Reporter the president s decision to clean up his comments came after white house officials maintained mr. Trumps response was perfectly fine. Because theyre celebrating it, the group. I dont think that theres anything to clarify here. Reporter still, one Trump Campaign adviser was outraged telling cnn, f, the proud boys, there i said it not that hard. The president said hes always denounced White Supremacy. Ive always denounced any form of any of that. Reporter democrat joe bidens message on the subject was more succinct. My message to the proud boys and every other White Supremacist Group is cease and desist. Reporter as for the rest of the debate, there were so many interruptions, mainly from mr. Trump. Question is the question is the radical left will you shut up, man . Who is on your list, joe . Gentlemen, i think weve ended this. Reporter that the president ial Debate Commission released a statement saying additional structure should be added to the format of the remaining debates to ensure a more orderly discussion of the issues. One member of the president s debate team said mr. Trump probably went too far. And, yeah, i think on the trump side it was too hot with all that heat, as you said before, you lose the light. That potentially can be fixed. Maybe, maybe not. Reporter the president also played fast and loose with the facts claiming hes paid millions in dollars in taxes. Millions of dollars. Reporter the republican leader of the senate together with donald trump are in the spirit of hypocrisy trying to push through a nominee while the American People are voting. And so joe has been really clear, lets focus on whats happening right now. Deal with later, later. Reporter and the president claims hes receiving tremendous reviews for his performance at last nights debate, but not everybody in trump world feels that way. It was a great night for joe biden, one source told me. Wolf . All right, jim acosta reporting for us. Thank you. Lets get some more on the latest developments in the campaign from cnn Political Correspondent mj lee. Mj, what does joe biden think about possible changes to future president ial debates to keep them from going totally off the rails, as clearly happened last night . Well, wolf, the debate last night was so utterly chaotic. There isnt really anybody in the Biden Campaign who thought that that kind of chaos was a Public Service to the voters. Many of them wanting to hear from the two candidates last night on very serious issues. And earlier today we heard joe biden describe Donald Trumps conduct last night on the debate stage as a national embarrassment. He also said that he hoped that the Debate Commission could find some way to ensure that future debates Going Forward could be a little bit less out of control. Heres what he said earlier. I just hope theres a way in which the Debate Commission can control the ability of us to answer the question without interruption. Im not going to speculate on what happens in the second or third debate. My hope is that theyre able to literally say the question gets asked if trump has a microphone, no one else has a microphone, the president of the United States conducted himself the way he did, i think it was just a national embarrassment. Now, in terms of what joe bidens day today has looked like, he is on a multitour, multistop tour i should say on a train through parts of ohio, parts of western pennsylvania, and tonight he is going to end up here in johnstown, pennsylvania, for his last stop, he is going to be doing a drivein rally of sorts. And just keep in mind, you know, these are parts of those two states where donald trump performed very well back in 2016 when he was competing against hillary clinton. So we are seeing joe biden really making an appeal to these white workingclass rural voters. Just in terms, wolf, of what the joe Biden Campaign feels like happened last night and whether it went their way, they basically are saying, look, this could not have been a more stark contrast between biden and trump on the debate stage. They did not feel like President Trump was able to get out a clear message, a clear vision, and there are two things that they are pointing to in particular that they feel like donald trump failed to do last night. The first is talk clearly about the coronavirus pandemic that has caused so much suffering across the country. And second, of course, is the issue of White Supremacy and the fact that President Trump failed to disavow White Supremacists on the debate stage last night. Wolf . Mj lee reporting for us, thank you. Lets get some analysis right now from bob woodward. Hes the associate editor at the Washington Post and author of the bestselling book rage. Youve covered president ial debates for decades going back to the nixon president ial debates. Have you ever seen any debate like we saw last night . Nothing. Its extraordinary. But people are talking, wolf, about the Debate Commission. The Debate Commission is not in the constitution. We now have a constitutional problem. The executive branch is the president. He clearly can not stabilize the electoral process. In fact, hes stoking lets make it unstable, the Supreme Court really has no power at this moment. But the congress does. And it seems to me its reached a boiling point. I mean, we are teetering here. And the Congress Needs to step up. Maybe mcconnell and schumer from the senate, pelosi and mccarthy from the house getting together. I mean, they cant get together on a covid relief bill. But this now is important, and they need to sit down and say what the ball is in their court. They have to do something to stabilize this. Maybe they could come up with the bipartisan agreement on constitutional and electoral stability and actually say this is what we need to do, this candidates to pledge. Listen, with all this talk and all of the uncertainty we are heading right into, theyve got to find some way to get this calmed down. Because what are you going to do im sorry. I was saying what you were saying is that the country right now, the u. S. Democracy needs some adult supervision because, what, because of the president you saw that headline in the new york times. Debates showed the biggest threat to the election is trump himself. So whats the point, bob, that youre trying to make about the danger to the american constitutional system, the elections, the u. S. Democracy right now . Well, its teetering, wolf. And its obvious i mean, look at what the president has said. To reiterate, its not Debate Commissions, the absurdity about White Supremacy, and so forth. I mean, thats so embarrassing. But the basic issue is can you go out and vote in some coherent way . Can there be the high expectation if not the inevitability that your vote is going to be counted . The congress has to do something. They cant just sit by and say, oh, not our problem. Now, you mentioned adults. These people are adults. They understand the broad responsibility they have. And somehow somebody has got to get some spine and step up and say this rests with us because it does. Executive branch, thats trump. Hes not doing anything. The Supreme Court, theres no case before them. They cant step in, in any way in the short term. So, where is the spine and where are the brains and where sorry to use this, where is the moral compass for the country . Congress has it, and they can do something instantly if they can reach agreement. Good luck. Well, do you have any confidence in members of the cabinet stepping up to the plate and doing something right now . Clearly youre concerned that if the leadership in the house and the senate are the adults, what i hear you saying is the president may be the child. Well, you know, i mean, its not even you cant label it. Its just become irrational. Hes got no sense of what his responsibility is, unfortunately. The cabinet under the twentyfifth amendment could do something, but theyre not going to do that. Theyre too slowmoving. They, i mean, it would have to be organized by Vice President pence. I mean, thats not in him. Talk about not having spine. Congress has i remember having a discussion, wolf, with many years ago with Justice Scalia. And we were at some reception, he came out and said how come you always write about president s . And i said because thats where the power is. And he lectured me in his very unfriendly way. No, no, no. What is article i of the constitution . The legislature he said. See, thats article i of the constitution. But in the modern times the president has exercised his power in an extraordinary way. Its time in the name of Justice Scalia for the Congress Article i, the legislature to step up and do something. You ought to call them, wolf. You know how to get in touch with them and say what are you going to do . Well, what happens, bob, if lets say mitch mcconnell, Chuck Schumer cant get together, cant reach some sort of agreement, nancy pelosi, mccarthy cant reach some sort of agreement to do something at this critical moment only a few weeks before the november 3rd election . Whats your worstcase fear . Well, i mean, they dont do something and we just, you know i mean, the electoral process is running around the edge of a cliff that goes into an abyss. There should be pressure on mcconnell in my book rage, a talk a great deal and have many scenes of lindsey graham, chairman of the Senate Judiciary committee. Now he is a big trump supporter. But i have scene after scene in the book where he tries to bring trump down to earth and say, you know, youre always playing for division, you are doing things that are hurting your own case. Maybe republicans in the senate could get together and say lets do something here. Anyway, this is where we are. You do the situation room, wolf. It is teetering. And the walls are crumbling, or about to crumble. And somebody better think about it, and just to repeat myself, wheres the spine . Its called leadership and courage. Sorry, but thats the way i see it having done this for 50 years. The president granted you 18 interviews, totaling nearly ten hours for your book rage. Is the man we saw on stage last night the same person that was described to you by his advisers, what we saw last night was that the same man behind the scenes working with his top advisers, at least as your reporting showed . A great and important question. But like many leaders, there are many faces that trump has. The one that as i watched the debate last night, as ive said, getting texts from our daughter diana saying what the hell is going on in this debate . Trump, as you always, you know, lets see exactly what trump said when the impeachment and mueller came up, hes just in an endless rage about this. It almost disables him in a way. And i had a talk with him about it, and i said you are letting that get in the way of you doing your job, particularly on the coronavirus. And he doesnt really want to talk about it. But there is that side to him where he is in a rage. He can make a case that he was treated unfairly. Fine. You got to move on. And we saw again last night, i mean, thats the moment for trump when he says they did all these things on his campaign. They spied on him, the hoax, and so forth. And this has been explained but not to his satisfaction. As we learn in our own personal lives when something calamitous happens, something that is just so unfair, people anyone in our business, wolf, people say things that are unfair or that we disagree with. My wife elsa says have a glass of water and move on. We have a president who cant intellectually and emotionally move on. So, hard times. Im sorry to be so pessimistic. But, you know, if we cant get the electoral system to work, if there cant be some sort of predictability and fairness and certainty, what are we going to have, wolf . You know, youve done this for almost as many years as i have. And many years ago you and i worked together on some of these stories. So we go way back. What do you think americas you helped me with that. What do you think americas no, no, you helped when i was reporting, you helped me when i was reporting for the Washington Post about that case. I remember you worked closely with that. No, you helped me. You had facts. You were in israel. You were digging and finding out what really was behind this. At the Washington Post we learned a lot from you, not from ourselves. Well, thank you. I was a young reporter. And you guys and ben bradley. How old were you then . Who knows. But i was in my 20s. But, in any case you better know. You were in your late 20s when you broke watergate with carl bernstein. That seems to be a great age for journalists to break stories. What do you think americas adversaries, bob, took away from that debate last night, whether they were watching in russia or china or iran or anyplace else . I thought maybe they thought it was the late night comedy show early or Something Like that. They could make no more sense out of it. The problem, as you so well know, under the constitution the president controls Foreign Relations. He is the face of the United States to the world. And i mean, joe biden now running for president , i dont think he can go abroad now because then there will be questions hes trying to subvert the president , hes trying to act like the president. The president has such control on Foreign Relations, and hes decided, lets have good relations with putin, with china for a while he was subservient. Now he realizes what he was told the end of january by his National Security team that the chinese lie, the chinese cant be trusted, and the chinese did not protect the world from the coronavirus. And so we have trump with all of this domestic power, all this Foreign Relations power. And i hope somebodys going to find some way to work out something so we dont you know, the chaos now is not having an immediate impact. Wait till we get to november 3rd. Then the chaos is going to say, gee, do we have a functioning democracy . Big worry. Yeah. We better be worried about it. Youre absolutely right. This is really, really scary stuff right now. Lets hope we get through this smoothly. Bob woodward, as usual, thank you so much. And thanks for writing your new book rage. Theres the cover. Its a huge bestseller, as it should be, a really amazing book bob woodward of the Washington Post. Thanks very much. Thank you. Up next, President Trump tries to clean up his failure to condemn a rightwing group at last nights debate. Ill discuss with the president of the naacp Derrick Johnson. Plus, the latest on the coronavirus pandemic now headed in a very worrisome direction. At least 26 states are now reporting a spike in new cases. Well be right back. Its made for him a veteran who honorably served and its made for her shes serving now we also made usaa for military spouse

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