Transcripts For CNNW The Lead With Jake Tapper 20170824 : co

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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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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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 f