Transcripts For CNNW Situation Room With Wolf Blitzer 20170602

Russian contacts. And hysteria. Vladimir putin dismisses the uproar over russia denying any secret deals struck with the trump team and Surprising New remarks with the kremlin boss now reporting claims of moscows election meddling to antisemitism. We want to welcome our viewers in the United States and around the world. Im wolf blitzer. Youre in the situation room. This is cnn breaking news. Breaking news this hour, the Trump Administration always refusing, refusing to rule out an tempt to muzzle james comey. This as anticipation builds for sensational public testimony by the fired fbi director six days from now. White house Officials Say mr. Trump will review a possible effort to envoc executive privilege. Tonight, Senate Democratic source is driving home the difficulty of doing that and telling cnn the only way mr. Trump might stop comey would be to launch an unprecedented and politically risky court battle and even that might not work. Also tonight, the white house is reaffirming that the president still has confidence in soninlaw and Senior Adviser Jared Kushner. New questions keep arising about kushners russia contacts and conflicting explanations about why he met with the banker linked to the kremlin. President putin is weighing in on the Russian Investigation tonight dismissing it as hysteria. And new public remarks, putin denies any secret back room taels with t deals with the trump team, and lifting sanctions on russia or anything else. Also breaking, the white house wont say if mr. Trump believes Climate Change is a hoax a day after his decision to withdraw from the paris climate agreement. Multiple officials were asked multiple times but still no answer. I will talk about that more with senator ed marky. And our correspondents and specialists are also standing by. First, to our justice correspondent jessica schneider. The white house leaving the door open to envoc wlag is called executive privilege but we hear more about what an uphill fight that could be. Thats right, wolf. Senate source says that President Trump wants to block comeys testimony he may have to take the fight all wait to federal court and seek a restraining order. Something thats never been attempted before. Even if the president doesnt take it that far, comey ae private citizen status plus statements make it all that more likely that comey will in fact testify. Tonight the white house is weighing whether to assert executive privilege to block fbi director james comeys testimony thursday. Literally, my understanding is the date for that hearing was just set. Ive not spoken to counsel yet. I dont know what that how they are going to respond. Counsellor to the president , Kellyanne Conway, indicated she expects comey to talk but sent mixed messages when asked. We will watch like the rest of the world when comey testifies. The president will make that decision comey no longer works for the government so the president cant order him to stay silent. And some say President Trumps tweets about comey and declarations like these we had a very nice dinner and at that time he told me, you are not under investigation, which i knew anyway. Others are argue that asserting executive privilege is necessary. Private conversations can be revealed. Itll be a he said he said type of thing. It is one side of the story. I dont think that helps the process. There is new insight into how james comey might recite conversations with the president. Knowledge of thinking saying comey was disturbed with his interactions with President Trump, comey believes he had the situation mr. Control. The source said if comey believed at the time that any specific encounter constituted obstruction of justice, comey would have done more than just write a memo. But tonight the source says when comey testifies next week, he may Tell Congress that when all of the comments the president made to him are taken together along with his firing they could suggest a more serious pattern. And there are continuing questions about the mid december meeting about Bank Chairman sergey gorkav. The white house insists kushner conducted the meeting in his capacity during his transition. Veb bank maintains it was part of the business road show. Kushner met with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak at trump tower. In st. Petersburg friday, president putin defended the talks. Our ambassador met someone. Thats what the ambassador must do. Thats his work. He is getting paid for that. He must meet. He must discuss current affairs. He must make agreements. Putin taked Hillary Clinton for blaming her election loss on his country, using this over the top analogy. They decided to say, its not our fault, it eat russians fault. Thats like antisemitism, to blame the jews for everything. We all know what this can lead to, nothing good. Kushners meetings with russian officials came as russia felt pressure from u. S. Sanctions imposed after russias action in ukraine. Retired dan freed is speaking out about his efforts earlier this year to stop the Trump Administration from lifting sanctions against russia including those imposed by president obama in december. Freed retired in february and said he contacted lawmakers in an effort to codify sanctions, something that never happened. Lifting sanctions without the russians doing anything is a free gift struck me, strikes me now, as a bad, bad idea. My colleagues were concerned about this. And so was i at the time. Trs. Press Secretary Sean Spicer continued to refer all questions about the Russian Investigation to white house outside counsel. Spicer said that Jared Kushner absolutely continues to have the full confidence of the president. Wolf . All right, jessica, thanks very much. Jessica schneider reporting. The white house is clamming up tonight about more than just the russia probe. Multiple officials refusing to answer a key question. Does the president still believe Climate Change is a hoax . Lets go to senior White House Correspondent jim acosta. Jim, you and other reporters, you repeatedly pressed for information from press Secretary Sean Spicer. From epa administrator. And you got more push back. You didnt get answers. Thats right, wolf. Keep in mind President Trump there was media availability earlier this afternoon. He was asked once again whether he believes Climate Change is a hoax. Whether he believes it is real. He did not answer the question. Once again, he left it to his top aides and Administration Officials and today it was the ea administrator Scott Pruitts turn to explain what is going on inside the president s head when it comes to this question. He was struggling to provide climate cover. I tried at one point during the White House Briefing earlier today press pruitt on the overwhelming Scientific Evidence that Climate Change is happening. Here is what happened. Why then is the arctic melting . Why is the sea level rising . Why are the temperatures in the last decade essentially the hottest temperatures we have seen on record . Weve been in a hiatus since the late 1990s, as you know. When nasa says that 95 of the experts in this area around the world is what is warming and you are up there throwing out information that says well maybe this is exaggerated and so forth and you talked about climate exaggerators, it just seems to a lot of people around the world that you and the president are just denying the reality and reality of the situation is Climate Change is happening and it is a significant threat to the planet. Let me say this. Ive said it in the confirmation process and i said it yesterday. The arctic ice and there is we have done a tremendous amount as a country to achieve reductions in co2. And we have done that through technology and innovation. We will continue to do that. We will continue to stay engaged. We are part, as you know, of the unccc. That process encourages voices by sub national groups, by countries across the globe, and we are going to stay engaged and try to work through agreements and achieve outcomes that put americas interest first. This is not, this is not a message to anyone in the world that america should be apologetic of the co2 position. We are not going to agree to Framework Agreements that put us at an economic disadvantage and hurt citizens across the country. You are putting your head in the sand. There is no evidence of that. The other unsettling thing that happened later on in the briefing, wolf, sean spicer was asked about how he was asked earlier this week whether he had talked to the president about this belief that president apparently has that Climate Change is a hoax during briefing earlier this week spicer told reporters would he come back at some point and provide that answer in the Briefing Room. He was pressed on that and the answer is does the president still believe climate claenl is a hoax and spicer does not have an answer to the question today, wolf, despite having several days to work on just that one question and of course when the press secretary to the president of the United States is struggling to provide answers in the Briefing Room that ultimately undoubtedly at some point the questions will be about the future of the press secretary and i think thats the problem that sean spicer has. When he cant answer a basic question like that to reporters, wolf. When you point out, asked a few days about it, ill get back to you. Add few days and didnt get back to the reporters. Jim acosta, thanks very much for that report. Lets get more on all of this, senator ed marky is joining us. Democrat on Foreign Relations committee. Senator, thanks for joining us. Youre welcome. Weve got a lot to discuss. I want to begin with next weeks scheduled testimony from the former fbi director james comey, scheduled to appear before the Senate Intelligence Committee Thursday morning since he was fired by President Trump. The white house is considering invoking executive privilege to block his testimony. Are you worried the president will prevent comey from giving a full account of their exchanges . Yeah. That would actually create a complete mess of this investigation, of the potential russian interference in the american elections. I think that the American People have a right to know whether or not in fact President Trump asked jim comey to pledge loyalty to donald trump. Whether or not he asked comey to let the Flynn Investigation go. Whether or not he told the president that for on three separate occasions that he that president was not under investigation. Because we have to get answers to those questions. If the president attempts to envoc executive privilege, that would just continue to raise the question of obstruction of justice, which the very firing of jim comey has raised in the minds of the American People. Senator, would the he is nse respect the executive privilege or would the senate force the president to go to court, federal court, and ask that court to block director comey from appearing . Well, i would hope that democrats and republicans would put politics aside, put party aside, and put the best interest of our nation upfront and center. Because ultimately, the American People are entitled to these issues. And the senate has prerogatives as well. Which the president cannot truncate. So i would hope that democrats and republicans will stand strong and insist that comey testify and if the president attempts to envoc executive privilege that the senate use all of its prerogatives including going to court in order to ensure that comey tells the senate and through the senate the American People what happened during that Russian Investigation. Senator, i also want to get your thoughts on white house punting. All russia related questions to outside private Legal Counsel. Listen to sean spicer at the White House Briefing today. Can you clarify the nature of the conversations that Jared Kushner had in december and what was the date of the meeting with the banker . I cannot. As i mentioned the other day, we are focused on the president s agenda and Going Forward. All questions on these matters will be forwarded to counsel. Why cant you talk about it when the president tweets about it. We are focused on it and all questions are referred to outside counsel. What do you think of the white house strategy here, senator marky, especially in light of fact the president himself continues to frequently tweet about the russia probe, calling it a witch hunt. Well, they want to go dark. They dont want to have to respond. They want private counsel to respond and then private counsel to say we cant comment. As a result, the American Public wont be able to ask. Or get answers to these questions. Again, just a further attempt to a further attempt to cover up the information which the American People have a right to know the answer to. Including what was the subject material that Jared Kushner actually talked about with the russian banker. What was the subject material that Jared Kushner talked to ambassador kislyak about. The American People right now have a question about the compromise of their election last year. The president ial election and during the transition period what was the Trump Administration doing . This is just another attempt to kind of sweep it under the rug, hope the tyingi passes, that press goes away and other issues will arise but its not going to happen, mr. President. The pressure is going to continue to mount until you give the American People the answers to these key questions and everyday that you delay is a step closer to a constitutional crisis. As you know, a lot of speculation that subject of those may have been u. S. Sanctions against russia and lifting those sanctions. Former coordinator for sanctions policy at the state Department Says it would be a free gift if the Trump Administration were to relief russia of those sanctions without receiving anything in return. Do you worry that Trump Administration is going to take that step . I do worry. I think that unfortunately, donald trump has given signals that he believes that cozy cooperation with putin is the pathway to a better world. But in crimea, in ukraine, in syria, in the compromise of the american president ial election in 2016, how many instances do we need to understand that putin does not care about the values of human rights and of the values which are central to what america stands for. So i am very concerned that if the signal was ever sent from the Trump Transition Team that sanctions could be relieved without any actions by russia, to improve their own behavior, that that would only further embolden putin to continue to engage in these reckless activities which in fact are undermining National Security for the United States. And for the rest of the world. Very quickly, senator, what about that report in the Washington Post that Trump Administration is actually moving toward the possibility of returning two diplomatic compounds to russians. One on the Eastern Shore of mare lond outside of washington. One long island. One new york. Those compounds were confiscated in december in retaliation for Russian Election meddling. What message would that send . Because you know russians really want those two compounds back. Again, it is a signal to the russian government that they are going to get what they want, without in fact giving the United States what it needs. That is just not acceptable. It is, again, almost like his decision to back out of the paris climate accord. A president ial indifference to the role that United States must plan on these critical global issues to provide leadership for the entire planet. Giving back those diplomatic residences without a change in behavior by the russians would be another historic mistake. Senator, stand by. Theres more we need to discuss. There are other developments not unfolding even as we speak. We will take a quick break and be right back. 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Nondrowsy allegra® for fast 5in1 multisymptom relief. Breakthrough allergies with allegra®. Back with democratic senator ed marky. The president s decision to withdraw from the paris climate agreement. Senator at the White House Press briefing, epa administrator scott pruitt, press secretary, sean spicer, joining a long list of administrators who cant seem to answer a simple question. Does the president still believe Climate Change is a hoax . You remember, he tweeted back in 2012, a tweeting the concept of Global Warming created by and for the chinese to make u. S. Manufacturing noncompetitive. A year later tweeting ice storms roll from texas to tennessee. Im if los angeles and it is freezing. Global warming is a total and very expensive hoax. Why cant these officials not answer the simple question, does the president still believe what he tweeted back then . Because Donald Trumps Climate Science is as bogus as a degree from trump university. Which is where i think he is getting his Climate Science from. He basically decided he would honor his pledge to 7 0,000 coal miners in our country and break the pledge to the United States made to the world and break the pledge which this generation of americans should keep to every subsequent generations of americans to avoid the most catastrophic consequences of Climate Change and so he is just listening to steve bannon, climate deniers, trying to make his base be happy even if the National Academy of science of every single country in the world has a concluded that science, of Climate Change is absolutely and totally nondebatable with regard to accelerating and it being caused by human activity. The president , he received, as you know, a lot of fierce blow back from leaders around the world including very close allies for this decision to pull out of the paris climate agreement. I want you to listen to this. This is the new president of france emmanuel macron. Because whatever we believe, wherever we are, we all share the same responsibility, make our planet great again. So you just heard him coop the president s campaign slogan. So is the decision to pull out of the Paris Agreement a major blow to america standing out there on the world stage when you have these allies very, very critical of the u. S. Decision . Yes. Completely undermines our credibility as a global leader. It is an abdication of American Economic opportunity, National Security interests. Of the public haej implications of sending all of this additional pollution up into the air. That leads to heart disease. Pope francis asked him to be the leader, to step up. As chairman of the Climate Change committee in the house of representatives for four years, i chaired 100 hearings on this subject. And across the world from bankimoon to sweden, there was a unanimity of opinion, that this is real, it would be catastrophic, but also offer tremendous Economic Opportunity to create millions of jobs in our country. Whaen the president has decided to do is to see that leadership to china, to france, to germany, who will be now much more likely to reap the economic benefits of a revolution which is just going to continue unabated with the United States on the sidelines. Senator marky, thanks for joining us. Thank you. Thanks for having me on. Just ahead, more on breaking news. Will the president envoc executive privilege to try to silence james comey . And if he does, will that work, our specialists are standing by. And why is the white house fuelling a climate of uncertainty by refusing to answer a burning question . What does the president actually believe in Climate Change . Does he still believe its a hoax . Can you qualify that since apparently no one else in the white house can. 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Thanks. No problem. All right, lets go live. Say hi to everybody who wasnt invited vo when you really, really want the best, switch to verizon unlimited and get our best smartphones for just 15 a month. White house says President Trump will envoc executive privilege to keep comey from speaking next week. He is expected to say the president urged him to end the investigation of michael flynn. Lets bring in the analyst and specialists. Weve got lots to discuss. Susan hennessey, james comey will clearly testify publicly next week unless the president can come forward with this executive privilege argument and stop him from doing so. White house is considering that. You are our legal analyst National Security analyst, is that doable . So executive privilege is a way for the president to prevent other parts of the government from essentially compelling information from the executive branch. It is usually applied to current officiales who dont want to testify. Jim comey is a former official who does want it testify. This is a case in which the scope of executive privilege which is already fuzzy, it is not clear it is applicable or it is not clear if it does aplay that trump doesnt wave it through the interview and tweets on the secretary and this is about counter veiling interest of jim comey who has a First Amendment right to talk about anything that isnt classified information. Essentially. Jackie, how do you expect the administration to comment on the issue . We have seen, you saw specials or Kellyanne Conway tear down james comey mentioning he got numbers wrong and he is talking abo talking abo talking about humas emails and questioning his credibility making this a he said he said. Thats complicated by information thats out there, particularly special counsel mullers presence in all of this. And the memos that comy, that has been reported on. But i cant imagine they wont have some kind of offensive against jim comey if they dont try to use the executive privilege. While disturbed by his conversationes with the president , you thought he had the situation under control. Maybe the president didnt fully realize how he should act with the fbi director. Is it possible that President Trump didnt realize the inappropriateness of his actions . Anything is possible, wolf. But look, forget about the Legal Standard for a second. Just on a common sense standard or eighth grade civic standard given the relationship of the president to the director of the fbi who does serve at the president s pleasure but is loyal to the constitution. The president should have known this was inappropriate. Remember this is the president who campaigned over and over again he was among the smartest people. He was so smart he could do this job so easily and maybe he just didnt think this through enough. You asked shaun spicer about Jared Kushners meetings with the russian banker. Here is the exchange you had. Listen to this. Can you clarify the nature of the conversation that Jared Kushner had with russian officials with a banker in december . And what was the date of the meeting with the banker . I cannot. As ive mentioned the other day that we are focused on the president s agenda and Going Forward all questions on these matters will be referred to outside counsel. How can you not answer questions when the president himself tweets about it. We are focused on his agenda and Going Forward all questions will be referred to outside counsel. How frustrating is it to be in that Briefing Room, as a reporter, asking important questions, that deserve some answers but not get answers . It is very frustrating. No one wants to speak on behalf of the president when it is something controversial. They had days to come up with an answer about why Jared Kushner was meeting with russian official answers russian bankener december and they still had no answer except to refer us to outside counsel. This lawyer they are referring us to is not answering his phone when reporters call. It is a dead end. What are reporters supposed to do . There is no answer. These are people designated to speak on behalf of the president and they just dont give us answers. They dont take time to clarify, explain or recognize the president is making these claims about the investigation into russian interference in the election on twitter. So he can tweet about it but they wont mention it during the briefing the next day. It is extraordinary, jackie, to get nonanswers in the course of a briefing where questions are well known in advance. You know the questions will come up and not get any significant answers. True. Especially with things like Climate Change and nonanswers you have heard from the president s aides. At this point, who are you speaking for . Why are you even here and youre not answering these very basic questions or as kaitlyn said, refer reporters to a black hole essentially. It is frustrating but also a disservice to the American People. We a we are not just asking for our health. And lawyers tell clients if they are under investigation, dont say anything. It can only hurt. Refer all questions to Legal Counsel. Is that whats happening here . Well, i dont know. But it is very possible that the outside lawyer working with President Trump has told him not to answer questions and the white house has a matter of legal strategy or political strategy may have decided they will shut down the answer of these questions even though as jackie and kaitlyn have said, it is a disservice to the public and press in doing our job. But here eat thing, if you dont answer the questions, one, the information is still finding its way out and the second thing is this is not like running the Trump Organization where President Trump had nondisclosure agreements for employees and where he a team of lawyers in a number of cases. This is the business of the American People. Explain why in this particular case, press secretary is referring all questions on the russia probe to the outside Legal Counsel as opposed to outside legal employee. They are deciding to bifurcate so by putting all questions into their own counsel, private counsel, they are trying to have that separation. The issue of course is that it appears outside counsel isnt answering. So i think the followup each and every time the white house tries to deflect the questions to outside counsel is to ask whether or not the president authorized that individual to answer his question, his lawyer, and there is legal privilege issued there. All right. Everybody stand by. There is a lot more we will be discussing. We will take a quick break and be right back. Way for design to play a. Positive role in what was going on in the world. Theres a jacket thats reflective for visibility. A sleeping bag jacket, jackets that turn into tents. I usually do my fashion sketches on the computer. I love drawing on the screen. Theres no lag time at all. It feels just like my markers. With fashion, you can dress people and help people. Its really cool to see your work come to life. You didnt know we had over 26,000 local activities listed on our app. Or that you could book them right from your phone. A few weeks ago, you still didnt know if you were gonna go. Now the only thing you dont know, is why it took you so long to come here. Expedia. Everything in one place, so you can travel the world better. Were back with our specialists, talking about the ongoing mystery about whether or not President Trump Still Believes Climate Change is a hoax. Kaitlyn, lets talk about that. You know the white house top Administration Officials still will not say if the president continues to believe Climate Change is real. The epa administrator, press secretary. President chief economic adviser among others and they all refuse to answer that simple yes or no questions. Why is the white house stonewalling reporters on this . Because they dont want to answer. I dont think the president s opinion on Climate Change has changed that much since when he tweeted a few years ago it was a hoax and bs. And the white house knows that. So they dont want to answer. Otherwise, why would you not have an answer ready for a question that you know youre going to be asked by reporters . Sean spicer is asked about this tuesday at the briefing. He said he didnt know what the president s thoughts on it and would he get back to us. Today, on friday, after the president withdrew from the climate agreement, he still didnt have an answer. When a reporter asked sean spicer about this he still said he had not spoken to the president. Theres a point when the white house spokesman tasked on speaking on behalf of the president doesnt have an answer, how is that doing his job . Pretty extraordinary. Myself as a White House Correspondent, seven years as White House Correspondent. Always saying, you have to go ask the president , he hasnt taken questions from the news media in weeks. Only statements we have from him those on Climate Change, statements he tweeted a few years ago, Climate Change is a hoax. Given the sensitivity of this issue, are they doing themselves white house officials a disservice by not simply answering that question . Yeah. Wolf, on this issue at least, i dont think he is doing himself a disservice for this reason. In the Gallup Daily Tracking poll, he is around 40 . Give or take a point or two. Which is not very far off where he has been for his entire presidency. What that says to me is that President Trump is playing to his base. His base is fine with this. It is a disservice if he is trying to reach beyond the base and right now they are playing to the base. Kaitlyn is right, the president hasnt changed his position much since the 2012 tweet. He has changed his position, wolf, since 2009 when he and a bunch of other ceos took out a full page ad in the New York Times saying urging president obama to take action on Climate Change and saying that the Green Economy was good for jobs. It was signed by him. Signed by donald trump jr. Sign b signed by eric signed by ivanka trump. Thats different from what he said in paris. I want to turn to the president s travel ban. The Trump Administration, as you know, is appealing its travel ban case right to the u. S. Supreme court. Based on what you know, what the appeals courts have decided, against the president s travel ban, what is the Supreme Court likely to do knowing the makeup of the nine justices . It is incredibly difficult to predict. Essentially the question is how willing the court is going to be to look beyond the pure language of the law itself and statements that trump and other officials made. So the Justice Department is trying to argue that in making that evaluation you only the court should only look at the law. Thus far lower courts have said no. They looked at comment that candidate trump, President Trump, associates and white house officials have made, calling it a muslim ban and admitting that they had a discriminatory intent. But were careful in the drafting to evat court review. So really thats the critical question here whether or not they will ignore what we have all heard the president say. Jackie, this is a big decision by the Supreme Court. What they do, how they do it, a lot of the information on the sensitive issue will be at stake. Absolutely. And under a lot of pressure to do so. That said, from the president and also from the president s backers. What we will have to see whether they decide to uphold the law or not but certainly this is going to attract a lot of attention from the white house and perhaps the harder that the more they are in this, the more it detracts from other things the white house is trying to do and trying to push as far as their messaging. Let me take kaitlyn, the president since taking office, he is removed, undone a lot of the legacy issues of the former president. But on two sensitive issues, he is continuing exactly what president obama did despite trumps own Campaign Promises. As you know, yesterday, he formally signed a waiver to keep the u. S. Embassy in israel and tel aviv. Not move it to jerusalem, even though he pledged he would do so, recognized israel as jerusalems capital, keeping the embassy in tel aviv. He also had Rex Tillerson sign a former document saying iran is quote compliant with its commitments under the joint comprehensive plan of action. As you know, during the campaign he often said that was the know was the worst deal for the u. S. Why do you think hes avoiding his Campaign Commitments to move the embassy . Hes continuing the obamas policy and strategy in those two areas. Its easy to make promises on the campaign trail. Its harder to implement those promises when youre in office. I think hes realizing that. Weve seen him step away from dhaka, the h 1 v visas, labeling china a currency manipulator. Weve seen it time and time again. I do think that were seeing him starting to step away from some of the Campaign Promises that got him into office. How painful do you think it is for the president to have the secretary of state sign a document that iran is compliant, living up to its commitments as far as the Iran Nuclear Deal and how painful do you think it was for him to sign the sixmonth waiver saying hes not moving the embassy to israel . He cant love it. The president wanted to create this image that he was going to tear down all these what he called bad deals that president obama did. Hes got people telling him you just cant do these things. Something like the embassy issue, 23 he moves the embassy thats putting him one step further back if he intends to strike a deal between the israelis and palestinians. President ing is hard, wolf. Le. Different to be president of the United States than simply be a candidate for president of the United States. Stand by. Theres a lot more happening tonight. The president says hes withdrawing from the climate deal to protect american jobs, but is he in the process putting National Security at risk . If you have moderate to severe plaque psoriasis, isnt it time to let the real you shine through . Introducing otezla, apremilast. Otezla is not an injection or a cream. Its a pill that treats plaque psoriasis differently. Some people who took otezla saw 75 clearer skin after 4 months. 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Switch and you could save 509 on auto insurance. Call for a free quote today. Liberty stands with you™. Liberty mutual insurance. Tonight, the white house is keeping america guessing about the president s personal views on Climate Change. The president facing global backlash after his decision to withdraw from the paris climate agreement and there are fears here at home as well that fears that that move could impact the nations National Security. Our pentagon tornado v correspondent Barbara Starr is taking a closer look at this part of the story. What are you learning . Reporter well, wolf, were learning how concerned some inside the administration are. The u. S. Intelligence community and the pentagon have warned for months Climate Change could lead to war. How . Whether disasters force 21348 peop weather disasters forced people out of their homes last year. Oceans are rising. The organization, food insecurity, water scarcity, massive movements of population and the list can go on and on. When overriding megatrends is far and away at the top of the list, Climate Change. Reporter if President Trump is paying attention to warnings from the pentagon and intelligence agencies, it wasnt evident in his decision. The United States will cease all implementation of the nonbinding paris accord and the draconian financial and economic burdens the agreement imposes on our country. But some military experts say the president should look farther down the load. You have seen war games where there have been indicators that in the future there could be fights, wars over water supplies. Navy ports from norfolk, virginia, to san diego, california, could be overtaken by rising seas. The big winner could be russia. In the resource rich arctic which could become more nav gabl with rising seas. The arctic is going to be a place of growing strategic importance. The russians are active there. During his confirmation process, defense secretary james mattis wrote Climate Change can be a driver of instability. Similarly, a director of National Intelligence report warned just nine months ago, a changing climate could lead to conflict, saying when climate related effects overwhelm a states capacity, its authority can be so undermined in the most dramatic cases, state authority may collapse. And look at it this way. If state authority collapses in some of these fragile countries because of rising seas, rising temperatures, lack of food, all the climates change factors that could happen, conflicts can erupt. You get conflict zones and time and again, this has also been shown to be a prime breeding ground for terrorism. Wolf . Good report, Barbara Starr at the pentagon. Thank you very much. Thats it for me. Thanks very much for watching. Im wolf blitzer in the situation room. Erin burnett out front starts right now. Next, breaking news. White house leaving the door open to blocking james comeys testimony. This, as were learning more about what comey will say. Plus Donald Trumps endless tweets about russia. Are they a treasure trove for special Counsel Robert Mueller . And does donald trump still think that Climate Change is a hoax . Sean spicer doesnt know. Good evening im kate baldwin out front tonight. The white house is leaving open the possibility of the president invoking executive privilege to block fired fbi director james comey from testifying. His testimony is clearly shaping up to be the