Transcripts For CNNW The Lead With Jake Tapper 20170824

This summer at our armed forces. Our 14 years of two wars wearing down our military. Good afternoon, everyone, welcome to the lead, im jake tapper. Were going to begin with the politics lead. Fresh off his multiple calls for unity and healing yesterday saying we are one people with one home and one great flag, and its time to heal the wounds that have divided this nation. President trump this morning retweeted this image of himself eclipsing president obama. He attacked Congressional Republicans and democrats. He referred to the Fourth Estate as fake news, and he began the process of banning Transgender Americans from serving in the military. Sarah murray starts us off today from the white house. Reporter President Trump taking to twitter to get several things off his chest today. First, going after paul ryan and Mitch Mcconnell. For not faattaching debt ceilin to a popular va bill which just passed for easy approval. They didnt do it, now we have a big deal with demes holding them up as usual on debt ceiling approval. Now al mess. Congress has until the end of september to raise the debt ceiling or potentially cause the u. S. To default on its debt. But cnn learned it was the House Republican Freedom Caucus that scuttled attempts to tie that legislation together. Not gop leadership. White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee sanders says shes confident congress will raise the debt limit in time. Its our job to inform congress of the debt ceiling, and its their job to raise it. And congress the and the Previous Administration is obligated trillions in spending, and we need to make sure we pay our debts. Reporter the president also up in the ante in his ongoing feud with mcconnell. For failing to pass the obama carrey peel legislation last month. Tweeting, the only problem i have with mcconnell is that after hearing repeal and replace for seven years, he failed. That should never have happened. Their relationship, soured after a tense phone call following the health care vote. But trump also complained that the majority leader wasnt doing enough to protect the president in the various russia investigations. For his part, mcconnell is still refusing to publicly address the feud. Saying, the senate is a tough place to get things done. Im often asked what is being the majority leader of the senate like . The best answer ive been able to think of it, its a little bit like being a grounds keeper at a cemetery. Everybodys under you, but nobodys listening. Reporter its unclear if the strategy will pay off since he needs them to push through his agenda. I have a message for congress tonight, your job is to represent american families, American People, american workers. Its your job. And for our friends in the senate, oh boy. Hes not the first president to use the bully pulpit to try to push the country in a particular direction or to keep his base on board. Reporter now, none of this is going to make it easier to get the president s agenda done. There are things that congress has to do when they get back in town, like raising the debt ceil, passing the budget, but the president made it clear he wants tax reform. The white house hopes to have more details on that next week. We will see when members of congress get back in town how willing they are to work side by side with the president , jake. Sarah murray, thank you so much. Joining me now to talk about this all, former secretary of defense under president obama, leon panetta, thanks for coming on the show. Nice to be with you. So this week, the former director of National Intelligence James Clapper questioned the president s fitness for the job. Senator bob corker, republican, said that the president hasnt demonstrated the stability or competence to do the job. Now this afternoon on the corker comments, white House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee sanders said corkers comments were outrageous and wouldnt dignify it from the podium. Do you think questioning the president s competence and stability is outrageous . Well, it obviously press secretary for the president has to come back with that kind of response. I think that, thats pretty much what press secretaries have to do when theres criticism coming regarding the competence and stability in the oval office. Having said that, you know, the reality is, and i have a tremendous amount of respect for jim clapper and for bob corker. I think theyre both patriots. They both care about this country. Theyve raised concerns that a lot of people have about, you know, whether or not this president really understands what being president is all about and whether or not he can govern this country with a degree of good judgment and competence. Those are, those are real issues that i think have to be raised and have to be debated. Do you share those concerns . Oh, theres no question that theres a lot of concern about whether or not this president really understands what governing is all about. I mean, i wish he would just take the time to look at past president s and what it takes to really govern this country. You know, past president s whove been successful have focussed on the priorities that they want to accomplish for this country, theyve been willing to reach out to this country and unify it behind those priorities. Theyve been working, they will work with the leadership and the congress to work with them to get those priorities adopted. Theyll present legislation to the congress, and theyll work to try to get members to vote for that legislation. Thats what governing is all about. Thats what fdr did, its what Ronald Reagan did. And this president on the other hand kind of rejects that and takes the approach of governing by chaos. Governing by pitting one group after another, by blaming one side or the other, by using kind of outrageous comments like shutting down the federal government over a wall. I mean, those are the tactics that create chaos. And very frankly, it doesnt work very well when it comes to governing our country. Theres a poll out yesterday from quinnipiac that shows about seven in ten americans do not think the president a is levelheaded, just to define levelheaded, rational or showing sound judgment. You are a former secretary of defense, former cia director, you know how important the job of president is and how much power is in the hand of commander in chief. Do you think President Trump is up to the task . Do you think hes levelheaded . Well, you know, there are a lot of people who have worked with donald trump in the past who recognize the kind of tactics that he uses, but at the same time think that deep down there is some kind of rational for what hes trying to do. You know i think he takes the basic approach he did when he was a developer in new york, which is basically to try to bully people to criticize them and to somehow, by doing that, force them to do what he wants to do. Thats the tactic he used then, its the tactic he used when he ran for election, and now hes trying to use that same tactic as president. He thinks that if he can criticize people, if he can blame them, if he can undermine them, that somehow as a result of that, they will respond to whatever he wants them to do. Its not working. And that raises a lot of concern about whether this president , as president , is going to get anything done. You know, that this country needs in order to be able to be a strong america. After general john kelly was appointed President Trumps new chief of staff, you wrote an oped about when you became chief of staff to president bill clinton in 1994, which was also a fairly chaotic white house at the time, although for many different reasons, and you wrote quote, too little discipline, competing centers of power, weak chain of command, haphazard access, leaks, and a lack of focus on a unified message or priorities were what the two white houses had in common. How do you think john kellys doing so far . Well john kelly is somebody that i respect a lot. He was my military aid when i was secretary of defense. And he is, hes a good marine. And he cares about the country. I think hes done a pretty good job in trying to establish better discipline within the white house staff, establish a strong chain of command so that you dont have a lot of people running into the oval Office Around him. I think hes done a pretty good job trying to establish that. Hes obviously he doesnt have bannon around. He doesnt have scaramucci around. Hes trying to get some clear headed people working for him in the white house. I think the biggest problem he has frankly is with his princip principal. I had a president , president clinton, who was willing to work with me in trying to establish better discipline. He wanted to do that. He wanted to learn. What was important in terms of being able to be a good president of the United States. I think the real question is whether or not this president really wants to learn, really wants to discipline himself so he can be a good president. Thats the problem that john kellys dealing with. Well be right back. Whats going on . Oh hey thats it . Yeah. Everybody two seconds dear sebastian, after careful consideration of your application, it is with great pleasure that we offer our congratulations on your acceptance. Through the Tuition Assistance program, every day mcdonalds helps more people go to college. 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Low blood sugar can be serious and may be lifethreatening. Injection site reactions may occur. Tell your prescriber about all medicines you take and all your medical conditions. Taking tzds with insulins like tresiba® may cause serious side effects like heart failure. Your insulin dose shouldnt be changed without asking your prescriber. Get medical help right away if you have trouble breathing, fast heartbeat, extreme drowsiness, swelling of your face, tongue, or throat, dizziness or confusion. Ask your Health Care Provider if youre tresiba® ready. Covered by most insurance and medicare plans. Tresiba® ready were back with the politics lead and more with leon panetta. Mr. Secretary, the wall streets journal is reporting about Transgender Service members after the president tweeted they would no long ber allowed in the military. The president could order secretary defense mattis have people forced out of the armed forces. Youve been critical of President Trump on this issue. But in context, there was a ban on transgender serving openly when you were secretary of defense, right . At the time, but there was a lot of transgender soldiers that were in fact serving. What do you think about what the actions are that President Trump is taking where Service Members who are currently in service, currently serving could be kicked out and future recruits who are transgender could be blocked . I think its i think it really is a damaging step in terms of the moral of our military. Look, we have the Strongest Military in the world. And its because we allow everyone to be able to serve this country as a soldier. I mean, thats important. You know, we did away with barriers that prevented people from being able to join the military. We did it for women. We did it for gays, but now have transgender soldiers that are there. If they meet the qualifications of being a good soldier, they ought to be able to serve. Particularly those who are out there now putting their lives on the line for this country. And serving as part of our military. We ought not just to throw these people out of the military just because theres some kind of label attached to them that the president has assigned politically. Thats just, thats just the wrong thing to do. Both for our military power as well as frankly the moral authority of this country. Former defense secretary leon panetta, thank you so much. Good to see you, sir. Good to talk with you, jake. Bracing for the worst. Hurricane harvey is barrelling towards the United States and expected to make land fall as a category three hurricane. The areas in its path coming up next. Ronoh really . Gs going on at schwab. Thank you clients . Well jd power did just rank them highest in Investor Satisfaction with full Service Brokerage firms. Again. And online equity trades are only 4. 95. I mean you cant have low cost and be full service. Its impossible. 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Not even kidding. I mean that was. Oh spinach mmm. Thats like three super foods. Pretty, uh, well. Super. Now i got kind of a pumpkin, chicken thing going on. Whoop time to wrestle. avo new beneful grain free. Out with the grain, in with the farmraised chicken. Healthful. Flavorful. Beneful. Its our back to school beeone cent evente. At office depot office max. 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. Thats why at comcast were continuing to make4 7. Our services more reliable than ever. Like technology that can update itself. An advanced fibernetwork infrustructure. New, more Reliable Equipment for your home. And a new culture built around customer service. It all adds up to our most Reliable Network ever. One that keeps you connected to what matters most. Were back with breaking news at the national lead. Hurricane harvey is gaining strength and posing a major threat to the gulf coast. Monster category three or higher tomorrow by the time it makes land fall. Hurricane watches and warnings stretch across the texas coast. The governor declared a state of disaster but cities like new orleans are bracing for impact and getting emergency resources in place. Lets get to our meteorologist, tom, moments ago the mayor of Corpus Christi order voluntary evacuations. When do you think harvey will make land fall and who is in its path . Jake, right now the earlier land fall could be at midnight tomorrow night. It looks more and more like it may be during the dark, wee hours into saturday morning, but the colors of red and blue here, over 16 million people. And youre talking about the path and red is the hurricane warning. Yes, looks like more Corpus Christi could be ground zero, but this is going to be a larger storm by the time it reaches the coast. In blue are Tropical Storm storm warnings, houston, austin, san antonio. Were about 300 miles away from the coastline, if it gets to category three status, thatll be considered a major hurricane. Its been 12 years, jake, since the u. S. Anywhere has had a land fall of a major hurricane. The problem is not once it makes land fall, its kind of a doubleedged sword, but the other edge of the sword, jake, we do not have any major steering currents here. The computer models just becomes this birds nest, itll me yander for day dropping rainfall. Harvey making land fall, how long might it linger and thus cause even greater problems . Well, believe it or not, some of these models bring it offshore and back in for a second land fall. If it makes land fall after, lets look at the models. If it makes land fall lets say after midnight on friday. I wouldnt be surprised jake if this thing sits around until tuesday or wednesday in purple is over ten inches, white is over 20. Thats a widespread area. And some of the streets for a Large Population of southeastern texas. All right. Tom sader, thank you so much. So far this year, there have been more than 40 noncombatrelated deaths in the u. S. Armed forces. So what is happening . And just how ready is americas military . Stick around. I make it easy to save 600 on car insurance, so being cool comes naturally. Hmm. I cant decide if this place is swag or bling. Its pretzels. Word. Ladies, you know when you switch, you get my bombdiggity discounts automatically. No duh, right . [ chuckles ] sir, you forgot keep it. Youre gonna need it when i make it precipitate. What, what . What . What, what . Pepsoriasis does that. It was tough getting out there on stage. I wanted to be clear. I wanted it to last. So i kept on fighting. I found something that worked. And keeps on working. Now . They see me. See me. See if cosentyx could make a difference for you cosentyx is proven to help people with moderate to severe plaque psoriasis. 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Its the blowout event ual save 10 to 70 off on all clothing and shoes. And up to 70 off on outdoor life for him and simply styled for her plus hot deals on jeans for kids, starting at 8. 99. Hurry sale ends september 4th. Youre searching for something. Whoooo. Like the perfect deal. On the perfect hotel. So wouldnt it be perfect if. There was a single site. Where you could find the. Right hotel for you at the best price . There is. Because tripadvisor now compares. Prices from over 200 booking. Sites. To save you up to 30 . On the hotel you want. Trust this birds words. Tripadvisor. The latest reviews. The lowest prices. Were back with our world lead. And it starts with a tragic one. U. S. Sailors missing from the uss john s. Mccain are now assumed dead. Suspending search and rescue efforts and now focussing on recovering the bodies. Earlier today the remains of Kenneth Aaron smith who died in the collision have been found. The young sailor from new jersey was just 22 years old. Unbearable wait continues for those still missing. Charles nathan finely, abraham lopez, kevin bushel, 26yearold from maryland. Jacob daniel drake, just 21 from ohio. 23yearold Timothy Thomas eckles jr. , cory ingram, 26yearold dustin lewis. 20yearold john henry whose mom told cnn he loved being in the navy and lastly, logan steven palmer, 23yearold sailor from illinois. We send our thoughts and prayers to the families of these young men. With the uss mccain tragedy, more than 40 u. S. Service members have been killed or presumed dead in major noncombat accidents just in the last few months. Some died right here in the United States. The recent tragedies are sparking questions now about whats going on . Is it our equipment . Our weapons . Are we providing sufficient training . Diane gallagher takes a closer look. Thats not supposed to happen. You just dont, you dont think its going to happen to your, to your child. Reporter her son john, one of the ten presumed dead in the uss john s. Mccain collision. Cynthia is yet another grieving military mother this summer, whose child was killed in a noncombat accident. In just five of the major accidents since may, more than 40 service men and women have died. I think its probably approaching a readiness crisis. Reporter from a variety of issues including the 16 year war on terror, increasing conflicts and tensions around the globe, and budget caps tied ed td to sequestration. I think our competitive advantage has eroded right now. We would be challenged and projecting power today. The unrelenting pace inadequate resources, and small size are taking their toll. Reporter and while still under investigation, a series of incidents involving Navy Warships based in japan including the two deadly collisions this summer could be evidence of strain. We have the Smallest Navy weve had in a very long time, but we still have the same size ocean. And now you have actually more issues popping up all over the globe. So youre going to have to deploy navy assets. Reporter the navy ordered a rare pause in operation. And in unprecedented move, dismissed the seventh league commander. We can keep disciplining some of these bad officers, but at the end of the day, we need to have a military that is fed, trained, and ready to go. Were not doing that right now. Reporter the military says more than half of navy aircrafts cant fly right now, thats twice the historic norm. In the army, just three of 58 brigade combat teams are considered fully ready and able to fight tonight. The air force is short more than 1,500 pilots and nearly 3,500 aircraft maintainers. Average age of the aircrafts, 27 years old. And marine Fighter Pilots are often not able to meet minimal monthly flight hour requirements. Something the corpse blames on budget constraints. Ground stop of all aircrafts following two deadly crashes. If you want the modern military, you have to spend the money to do it. The days are trying to do this on the cheap are gone. Even if we get rid of sequestration and put the investments that we need to modernize our military, its going to take probably a total of ten years for us to catch up. Reporter House Republicans did pass a proposal that includes an even bigger increase of the 2018 Defense Budget than the president s did, of course those were just proposals, theyre bound to change and looming talks of shutdown, military leaders are trying to focus on what can be done right now in regards to training and leadership adjustments. While they wait. Jake, the House Armed Services committee did schedule a hearing for its first week back here in washington. The top sick Navy Readiness and those two deadly collisions with those ships, but military leaders have said that the path we are on currently is unsustainable. All right, thank you so much. I want to bring in republican congressman adam kinzerror of illinois. We heard you said that the military is approaching a readiness crisis. Defense spending currently has the cap on it from sequestration. What are the chances that the senate might lift the cap when it returns after labor day . Well, i hope really good. We, as you know, the budget we just passed and a bipartisan way lifted some of those caps found a way to increase the military spending. What you have though is we have among the best paid military, which is good, we want that, and we want to the continue to give people pay raises as a volunteer military, you need to attract the best talent. When you cap the amount of money that was done by sequestration, every cost of increase in personnel, which happens every year, takes away from operations and maintenance expenditures. What youre doing is robbing peter to pay paul. So its like, its the old bathtub theory. Off full tub, pull the plug, its not going to be empty immediately, you walk back in and it takes ewe while to fill it back up. So this is approaching a readiness crisis and something we have to take very seriously if congress. Now you served in iraq and afghanistan and youre a pilot in the air national guard, how much do you think the fatal accidents noncombat accidents that were seeing killing our Service Members are a result of this much larger issue of readiness and old equipment and problems with training as you know. Go ahead. Well, i think its some of it. I think training, especially, but on equipment, yes, we have ageing equipment. We have f16s that are flying six hours over iraq waiting for a target of opportunity when you could have a lighter attack fighter do the same at a tenth of the cost. The f16s were built to say this is going to be our primary fighter besides the f22 for a long time, and were burning the lifespan down. The other thing that needs to get i think a little more attention is the culture in the military. And im not talking about the cultural issues of the day, im talking about to get promoted is not how many times youve deployed, not what are your men and women follow you think of your leadership skills, its how quickly did you get done your professional military education, how much an sill area training do you have to do . For me i show up to do reserve duty and a lot of my time is not flying my airplane, its doing a lot of checklist items that have been added, whether its by congress or leadership. What do you mean by checklist items and what are the training opportunities that youre not getting because youre focussed on the checklist item. My planes unique, i get enough opportunity to fly whenever i get to chance to, but there are a lot of people, talk to a c130 pilot, maintainers, in many cases, theyre going in, theyre not going to have the opportunity to fly as much as theyd like to because now they have these different what are called computerbased training things they have to go through. Which is checking boxes, that you have to do every quarter, and then when you finally get a chance to fly, youre overwhelmed with the item of items you have to do. Whether its a night drop, landings, et cetera. So while thats in the weeds, i think if you talk to anybody in the military today, and say, do you have to do too much an sill area training thats taking away from your ability to train on your primary job . 99 of those people would say yes. There have been four major incidents, two of them with multiple fatalities with the u. S. Navy just this year. What do you think is ultimately if there is a larger issue behind that . Without knowing obviously what happened with the arizona and the details there, it seems like this comes into the position of leadership to an extent. And maybe we need to promote the right people and not just the people that fill the bubbles and get their professional military education done, but whose men and women want to follow them into combat. If off situation where for instance and i dont know if this is what happened, but people werent monitoring and seeing the ship incoming or maybe there were warning signs that were missed, leadership needs to be on top of that. Needs to be Running Drills and Everything Else. So look, were asking way more of the navy, much smaller navy than weve ever had, so thats part of it too. I think theres a number of issues we have to get to the bottom of because while theres always been training accidents, this is frightening. Lastly, while i have you, i want to ask you about President Trumps threat to shut down the government if the spending bill in september does not include the funding he wants for the border wall. Well, he has a right to demand funding. He has a right to make a choice what he wants to do. Any time you threat an Government Shutdown is dumb. And its for a couple reasons. Number one, not only is it harmful for americans here to talk about that. Secondly, as were trying to talk about afghanistan and tell the afghans thousand run their country and how to do democracy, were on the verge of shutting down our own government. Does it have a major impact . Probably not. The debt ceiling would, thats unthinkable, but this is a terrible way to do government, and we should never threaten anything like that. Congressman, republican of illinois, thank you so much for your time as always. Any time. American and canadian diplomats attacked with a sonic weapon, now we know that many suffered brain injuries from it. So what could have caused that . Stick around. Its our back to school beeone cent evente. At office depot office max. 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. I needed something more to help control my type 2 diabetes. My a1c wasnt were it needed to be. So i liked when my doctor told me that i may reach my blood sugar and a1c goals by activating whats within me with onceweekly trulicity. Trulicity is not insulin. It helps activate my body to do what its suppose to do, release its own insulin. I take it once a week, and it works 24 7. It comes in an easytouse pen and i may even lose a little weight. Trulicity is a onceweekly injectable prescription medicine to improve blood sugar in adults with type 2 diabetes when used with diet and exercise. 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And we heard Susan Collins a few days ago Say Something along the lines of that we shouldnt necessarily expect that President Trump will be the nominee in 2020. I think this is unwise. When someone asks you about a hypothetical primary opponent for your current partys president , see, i dont deal in hypotheticals, i have a real primary to deal with in arizona. And im going to focus on that. I think that would be the wise thing to do. I think with trump, mcconnells done this in the past too, very gentle barbs, but this is not a guy that takes well to gentle barbs. He takes them as threats. I dont know why poke the bear. Especially when there is a real primary. But i suppose its an honest answer. I mean, thats a reason. This is tactical. I mean, from jeff flakes perspective, like that bear has just like mauled his leg the last week, and hes probably just like, pushing back a little bit here because at the very least, he met with his primary opponents, hes tweeting about kelly ward, i mean, at this point, hes going to endorse his primary opponent, thats the downside for jeff flake. Which ones the bear . Trump is a grizzly bear. If you go camping with a grizzly bear, this is where you end up. I agree, its the revenant, we agree on that. I want to ask you about this, President Trump tweeted this, retweeted this and eclipse meme if we could put that up. He is, i suppose the moon and he is eclipsing the sun of barack obama, the best eclipse ever. Thats the president that retweeted that. But heres what i think is actually a bigger question, the guy who he retweeted, inevitably happens, someone looks as Everything Else that this person has retweeted and hes a horrible person. Antisemitic, antiwoman, massage nisic tweets, whatever. Does that matter . I mean, should a Public Officials try to exercise some discretion as to whom they retweet . I do think this is a fine line i dont want every person to be responsible for everything that every other than person, i would be in bad shape. I dont vet everybody i retweet, but, he is the president and throughout the primary and the general, i complained that he was giving oxygen to a white supremacist types who thought it was okay to say these things because hes retweeting them. I think its a bad move. Sends a bad message and does not make our social media culture absent the bullying that melania is intent on. A few weeks ago, he retweeted one of the fringe all white tweets. It has a big effect on that fringe community. Absolutely, but we are talking about a president who just last week said out of his mouth, they were both sides to what happened in charlottesville. I think the cat is out of the bag, like his support for white supremacy. I mean, i hope this tweet actually is true and that he is a temporary darkness on the light. I mean, that was, that would be like amazingly positive way to look at this. Thats how youre embracing it . He is temporary darkness on the globe that will bring back the sun. He wasnt the sun in that one. Like obama was the sun and he was the moon. I dont think thats how they meant it, but i understand what youre saying. Lets hope. Lets go to a more consequential tweet. The only problem with Mitch Mcconnell is that after hearing repeal and replace, he failed. That should never have happened. Exclamation points abound, but were also told that one the only reason that he was yelling at mcconnell in that profanitylaced tirade phone call. Hes mad that mcconnell is not doing enough to protect him when it comes to the russia probe. And thats really the source of his anger, even more so perhaps than health care. So, i think that we are seeing not just an instance here and there, but an entire pattern what have looks like obstruction of justice. He complains about mcconnell, he yells at mcconnell about the russia investigation. He fires the fbi director, he calls tillis, senator tillis and complains about his protection of mueller. You know, i do think that underappreciating how possible like a debt limit failure could be given the dysfunction. But just on the russia side of this, it really looks i mean, i dont know what more evidence we need that the president is doing everything he can to kill the russia investigation. Hes certainly as a republican official i know told him, acting in a way that looks guilty even if he isnt guilty of anything. Yeah, i think it has looked that way for a long time. And like i pointed out in the past, you say theres no collusion many, many times and even the black and white in the email is not the global collusion theory that some people have, that is a willingness to include. Youre contradicting yourself. All of this is bad. It could also be laying at the feet of fe fairs youness still at this point, but it is, its not a good look. Excuses that hes incompetent. Im just like, i just have to stand back and say, no, no alternate theory. No, like the positive spin. Right. The way out of this is its not a legal competent. Ive been here since 2015, paying attention to this. Im not disagreeing. Let me ask you this, you pointed this out during the commercial break which is you find some irony in the sense that Mitch Mcconnells being blamed by president for not protecting him on the russia thing since that in 2016 actually did protect President Trump quite a bit on the russia thing. President obama went to Mitch Mcconnell and said, lets stand shoulder to shoulder and this is in september of 2016, said lets stand shoulder to shoulder and tell the American People that russians are actually trying to interfere with our election and Mitch Mcconnell said this would be too political, i cant do that, and act that helped make donald trump able to just dismiss the entire russia investigation. The Obama White House we know from Washington Post reporting also declined to make that announcement because it would be viewed as too political. Lets say so doing that but at the very least Mitch Mcconnell carried a lot of donald trump water in that discussion, and with the president and today hes getting berated for not protecting him enough when before the election, he did a lot to protect donald trump. And i just dont buy this thing where only republicans in congress are to blame. He is the president. He has the bully pulpit, he doesnt have a great vision to what he wants to get done. That is actually part of the issue. And i dont think he gets let off the hook just as obama shouldnt have gotten off the hook. Hes the great deal maker. Thats what he was here to do. Lastly i want to know, shed whatever light you can on how you think President Trump should be behaving towards Mitch Mcconnell. They are trying to pass his agenda. Yeah, but the question is how much is it his agenda and how much does he care about it being passed . I think he has said to them, get me whatever you can get on my desk. Paul ryan did his part, mcconnell did not. Thats why hes not as mean to ryan as he is mcconnell. Like he, in the end, doesnt fight for these ideas. When he goes to arizona and gives a speech, he mentions tax reform, but hes not drilling down on like this is how were going to get it done and these are the people i need to press. Hes just mostly relitigating old gop fights and taking whacks at senator flake. Im like the last person to defend Mitch Mcconnell, lets be honest, but donald trump campaigned on repeal and replace obamacare and aca, for a year and a half, then he just acts like he never mentioned. Only the republicans did. I mean, i take your point, but its like, it should be his agenda too. And so he has a responsibility, Mitch Mcconnell basically theres reports that he said that donald trump doesnt know any of the details of the bill. So thats one of the reasons why its a challenge. Thank you so much. Great job. Coming up, u. S. Diplomats in cuba have suffered brain injuries from socalled sonic attacks. U. S. Officials dont know who is responsible. That story next. Its the sears semiannual blowout event save 10 to 70 off on all clothing and shoes. And up to 70 off on outdoor life for him and simply styled for her plus hot deals on jeans for kids, starting at 8. 99. Hurry sale ends september 4th. 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Some of the attacks were inaudible, others made a deafening sound described as the buzzing of an insect swarm or metal scraping across a floor. Does the u. S. Know precisely who is behind this . Not at this point. Multiple u. S. Agencies are still investigating. Were told that the cubans have been responsive, but they vehemently deny having anything to do with this. The u. S. Isnt ruling anything out. And the details, some of which you mentioned are strange. I mean this may have happened while diplomats slept, their canadians who think they were affected. Some reported noises, others didnt and if this was an attack as u. S. Officials have now more than once described it, what this weapon would even have been is all part of this extremely disturbing mystery. Reporter the symptoms started being reported in november by at least 16 american diplomats and Family Members in cuba according to to the state department. At a time when relations were thawing and long standing harassment of u. S. Diplomats there had stopped. There was nausea, dizziness, headaches, but also permanent hearing loss and perhaps most alarming, mild traumatic brain injuries, concussions. U. S. Officials tell cnn, they believe a sophisticated device operating outside the range of human hearing could have been placed inside or outside the diplomats homes. A sonic weapon. Sound waves to incapacitate people are used today, it directs high decibel sounds at people making them feel dizzy and sick. Its used as crowd control in israel and the u. S. Its used on ships to deter pirates, but thats audible sound. Cuba incidents, some diplomats did report hearing loud noises like a screech or buzz at times, that could be very similar to an lrat which can be small and easy to move. In other cases, no unusual sounds reported which fellow sharon wineberger wrote the war on u. S. Weapons research that has included sound beyond the range of hearing. The problem that the, you know, that you find in the literature, the published literature on this is when they tested weapons, akousic, an akousic buzukia is one they tested, it doesnt have the same effects on animals, so its not an effective weapon in that sense. Reporter people can be badly harmed though by both powerful low and High Frequency sound waves that you cant hear. With effects similar to what the diplomats experienced. So you dont know whether youre even hearing it or how loud the noises are, and if you get caught up in exposure to these noises, youll have permanent damage as well as in your brain. Reporter but jake there are reason why is there is no known weaponized use of these frequencies that the ear cant hear. If its very low frequency, likely need to have something really big to produce it, thats not very stealth, if its very High Frequency, you could get ultrasound devices but youd likely have to direct them, likely at very close range with a clear shot at the person. Thats causing a lot of skepticism among multiple experts we talked to today. They think that this likely has more to do with listening devices that are of course very likely to have been put inside these diplomats homes. Jake. All right michelle at the state department for us, thank you. Those of us of a certain age may never forget this photograph from 17yearold, cuban boy, Elian Gonzalez as armed federal agents took him from a relatives home in florida to return him to his father back in cuba. He was involved in a custody battle. Now hes telling cnn he wants to reunite in miami. Does he think his life would have been better if he stayed . The answer might surprise you. The boy caught between nations, elian airs tonight. Thats it for the lead, im jake tapper, turning over to wolf blitzer, thanks for watching. Happening now, breaking news, border standoff. The white house wont say if the president will make good on his threat to shut down the government over funding for his proposed border wall. Mexico says this wont pay for it, is he determined to stick u. S. Tax payers with the bill . Attacking his own. The president unleashes new attacks on republican congressional leaders, the very people he needs to carry out his agenda. Is he sabotaging his own presidency . Approaching