tv CNN Newsroom CNN February 18, 2017 12:00pm-1:01pm PST
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>> enjoy this all-star weekend here from new orleans. and you are live in the "cnn newsroom." i'm pamela brown in washington. thank you for tuning in on this saturday. four seemingly tumultuous weeks in the white house, president trump is hitting rewind and revisiting the greatest hits of his campaign. a political rally a short time from now and the president feels the need to take his message directly to the american people. he tweeted earlier today, don't believe the mainstream fake news media. the white house is running very well. i inherited a mess and i'm in the process of fixing it.
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the one thing the president hasn't been able to fix is finding a permanent replacement for fired national security advisor michael flynn. one top candidate found out because of the chaotic atmosphere at the white house, according to one source. will meet to others this weekend and the third straight of mar-a-lago estate in florida. and the president's round of interviews comes after a top name for that job took himself out of contention as we mentioned. vice admiral robert referred to the offer as an expletive sandwich. he turned it down over concerns he wouldn't be able to bring in his own staff. and joining me now to talk about this, kim dozier and bob bear, a former cia operative. thank you for coming on. republican official saying he made it a condition of taking the job he could form his own team and that in the end, he did not feel that would be the case.
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what does the white house need to do to attract topnotch national security advisors? >> i heard he possibly wanted to replace the deputy national security advisor, kt mcfar land but also all through the staff and reevaluate everyone hired and the filing was there had been enough turmoil at the nfc, they wanted someone to work with the people who had already been vetted and brought on board. now, there are three candidates who have a lot of experience now interviewed at some point this weekend for the job. but there are other candidates out there who have taken their name out of contention simply because they find there's too much chaos in their understanding of what's going on in the white house and also not clear about the mixed messages they see coming from donald trump, vice president mike pence's office and then other
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parts of the white house. they don't know what sort of wild ride they might be signing up for in a battle for who controls the message out of there. >> let's take a look at some of the big names being floated right now. there's, of course, the current acting national security advisor. retired keith kellogg and former u.s. ambassador to the u.n. and hr mcmaster. what do you think of those candidates? >> they're all not bad candidates. they have experience. i mean, they would be good job but what the president needs is somebody with real, real weight. as kim berly was saying, it's chaos. i'm not sure who's in charge. is it tillerson, the secretary of state? who has been notified of policy after he was on an airplane about two state solution with palestinians. you have steve bannon on the national security council. jared kushner saying he's in charge of the middle east.
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whoever takes that job is, you know, going to have a lot of work in front of them to take control of foreign policy and right now, there's a lot of big names very reluctant to take it. >> and of course, donald trump says that his administration is running like a fine tuned machine. but of those candidates that we just mentioned, kim, which one do you think is sort of well suited to go in there and sort of juggle and handle some of the possible issues that bob mentioned? >> well, keith kellogg would be a safe pair of hands. he's been part of the campaign. he's been acting as a national security advisor and he has the trust of the president. but president trump is known to someone who's run his businesses where he has strong personalities that express their opinion and aren't afraid to battle each other. and john bolton and hr mcmaster are more in that category. of course, john bolton had strong opinions calling for bombing iran, calling for checking russian power which
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could be a bit of a conflict with some of donald trump's warm comments about russia but then you have hr mcmaster. he's chosen, hr is known as someone who's never been afraid to speak truth to power. and he wrote a book about the vietnam war called dereliction of duty where he studied with the joint chiefs of staff and secretary of defense and called on the secretary of defense in that case, robert mcnamara failed to tell white house the pentagon thought the prospects for success in vietnam were poor and would take a lot longer and many more troops than initially calculated. so hr is somebody if he was chosen who would not be afraid to tell donald trump exactly what he thought. >> and take a look here on the screen showing protests where
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donald trump is expected to hold a campaign rally at 5:00 p.m. in melbourne, florida. as all of this is going on, james comey held the closed door briefing on russia with members of the senate intelligence committee meeting and would not say a word but marco rubio did tweet this. he said, i am now very confident, intel committee, i serve on will conduct thorough bipartisan investigation of putin interference and influence. bob, what do you make of that tweet? >> the intel committee's panel, you hide information there. you don't get the full story. they are meant to protect sources and methods. at this point, we need a bipartisan independent committee outside of the intelligence committees. possibly a special prosecutor, if indeed general flynn did lie to the fbi. and we have to get to the bottom of the russian contacts.
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it's very unusual for a campaign to have telephone and direct contacts with a foreign intelligence service and there's been multiple contacts and we need an explanation. if there's a whitewash, which they have over the years, i for one, satisfied. >> and cnn is reporting, i was part of the reporting with jim sciutto and evan perez, contacts between people with the trump campaign and russian officials on the u.s. radar. we have not been able to confirm that these were russian intelligence officers and we were also told that sometimes, there are contacts between foreign officials and campaigns. but this was so frequent that it did raise alarms and want to get your thoughts on that. >> just to say briefly, i hear bob's skepticism and i've heard that from democrats on capitol hill who want an independent committee but there are members of the intelligence committee
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like the democratic senator angus king who has said that they already started to gather documents and if you look back at what the senate intelligence committee did on the cia's harsh interrogation program, they uncovered a lot and pushed ahead, publicized. so there are moments they can do work to bring abuses to the light of day. so this tussle is going to go forward. >> and i want to ask you, bob, as we wrap up, this russian spy ship that is lurking 30 miles off the coast of norfolk, virginia. what do you make of that? >> i think the russians are testing this administration, just as north koreans did with their missile launch, pamela. they want to see how far he's going to push back and this is the time to do it. and i think the russians enjoy the chaos in the trump administration and they're going to make the most of it until this guy gets his sea legs which i hope he does soon. >> what do you make about donald
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trump's posture now toward russia? can you see a change? >> i think there's a change. i think he's going to say, wait a minute, he had wanted to reconcile with putin but at this point while this cloud is hanging over this administration, i don't see how he could do it. he can't pull off sanctions over the invasion of crimea. it's not now. i think you're going to see this administration, especially general mattis and the secretary of state pushing back against the russians and i think putin will regret having hacked into this election. >> i'll leave it there. kim bdozier. bob bear. i appreciate it. protests over the immigration raids and border wall exclusive new details about what the wall could look like. >> do not worry. we are going to build the wall, okay? don't even think about it. >> and he's worth a fortune and
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that's what is costing to protect president trump and his family. we break down the numbers for you, the taxpayer iss, the prest spends a third straight weekend in florida. we have some live pictures for florida right here, the president about to rally his supporters but protesters as we see in this video also there. did you know 90% of couples disagree on mattress firmness? fortunately there's a bed where you both get what you want every night. enter sleep number and the ultimate sleep number event, going on now. sleepiq technology tells you how well you slept and what adjustments you can make. she likes the bed soft. he's more hardcore. so your sleep goes from good to great to wow! only at a sleep number store. for 5 days only, save 50% on the ultimate limited edition bed, plus 24-month financing. go to sleepnumber.com for a store near you.
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you get cash back on purchases with no annual fee. abdominayou may have ibs. ask your doctor if non-prescription ibgard is right for you. ibgard calms the angry gut. available at cvs, walgreens and riteaid. welcome back. you're looking at live pictures out of melbourne, florida, where protesters gathered across right there for president trump's
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planned campaign rally. he's been in office less than a month and hitting the campaign trail this early is a little unheard of, but so is the president's current approval rating. a new gallup poll, lower than any other president so soon after being elected. let's talk about this with me, jeffrey llord a jeffrey lord and mark lamont hill and host of b. e. t. news. jeffrey, i'll start with you. is this meant to boost america's morale or the president or both? >> first of all, it's not uncommon. i think president obama went to elkhart indiana on february 9th of 2009,less than a month after he had been sworn in as president. so there are precedents for this kind of thing. the permanent campaign as they call it going on through the last several presidencies long
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after the campaign trail raising money, et cetera. president obama was no exception. number one, nothing new about this. and i think it's always good for presidents, this one in particular, getting in touch with the fwoeolks who voted for him. it's always a relief to get out of the white house as he's learning to and a good thing to do. >> on that point, does it help mr. trump to get out of white house and among the people? >> it helps him sure, with his base but lingering questions i don't think get resolved if you stay on the campaign trail. jeffrey is right. the doctrine of the permanent campaign but it's how you promoted policy and engaged, not just your core but reached across the aisle. it seems like he's just trying to yell at the media, bark back at people who challenge him, and castigate anyone who's in disagreement with him and really try to gloss over a troubling
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rollout of his first 30 days. i'm sure this is for his base but not sure about anyone else. >> the president did tweet this message he's within putting out there time and time again saying the fake news media failing. "the new york times," abc, cbs, cnn, it's not my enemy but of the american people. and angela merkel responded this way this morning. let's take a listen to what she said. >> i think a free and independent press is at the essence. i have great respect for journalists and we have always done best when we show respect for each other and show mutual respect and whenever we differ, we talk about it openly but it's a pillar of democracy and that is something i think we all accept. >> which sounds more like the president of the united states
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to you? >> well, pam, i think we have to have the full context of what president trump said. i took a look at what he said in the press conference and he called for an honest discussion with the news media, which i think is a very good thing. >> that is a good thing, having an honest discussion. >> this has been going on since about 1969 with vice president spiro. the american people do not have a lot of confidence in the media and i think it is a good thing to have a discussion about it. >> but what does that do to democracy, jeffrey, to come out and continually call the media fake news? there is also the argument made by people that whenever the checks and balances, wherever he feels like they're threatening him, he attacks them. you saw what he said about the judiciary when it put a halt on his travel ban. you see the way he treats the
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media when we write stories or broadcast stories that he is not happy with. so what does it say to you? do you see that perspective or argument as well, jeffrey? >> sure. but he's a counterpuncher in terms of president trump himself but you have to say that for context, for example, this whole notion that the white house is in turmoil. i personally went back and took a look and found similar stories about the obama white house, the bush white house, the reagan white house and the media saying the same thing. my point is that there's no context given in these white house turmoil stories because according to the media, they've all been in turmoil. >> so why wouldn't the administration say, i want to bring you in, mark, when it comes to the travel ban, he said in the press conference, it was a smooth rollout. it wasn't. there were green card holders detained and not until two days
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later it was clarified. why not saying, every other administration has had some chaos in the beginning as we get our sea legs. why not just acknowledge that, jeffrey? >> i think when he says he made a mistake, for example, on the electoral college numbers. so that's fine but i think he really does believe and frankly, he's not alone. this has been gospel among conservatives and republicans for decades now that the media is liberal. they go out of their way and that president obama was hailed as one columnist, i think it was joe scarborough from another network like a black jesus, i myself had done a column on "time" magazine's person of the year when it was president obama after he won the election in 2008 and he was just fabulous. and then they put president trump on this cover for the same thing, and called him president of the divided states of america. america was divided in 2008 too. but they didn't really care about that. that's the double standard that
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i think drives republicans crazy. >> mark, and i want you to jump in here to be responding to this. >> so donald trump said this administration is running -- >> mark? go ahead. >> absolutely. newspapers report all the time that administrations are in turmoil. it doesn't mean that no administration is in turmoil. the difference is not what the media said but how the candidate or president responds. he's the first person to go all out into war with the media through twitter or any other means. obviously, whether he could have, he's the first to do it an it's an odd position to be placed in and not only castigates the the media but also the president himself. yes, president obama was hailed as a hero in 2008 and some was unreasonable. i think winning the nobel peace prize while pursuing a war was an interesting designation but
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trump's america to obama's america, it is more divided. the people suggest it and media suggests that. if he doesn't want media fact checks, he should articulate the facts but if you offer misrepresentations with the margin of victory or how people in dc or your smooth policy initiatives when there's trouble and attack judges all over the place, you're going to get a response at some point, president trump needs to stop campaigning and stop fighting and having tantrums and just trying to govern. >> let me just ask you this. if the majority of americans didn't think our country was a mess, would mr. trump have one this election? do they really care about this in-fighting about fake news and the media, what we're talking about or turmoil in the administration or do they want to know more about what's being done to give them jobs? clearly, americans put mr. trump in the white house for a reason, mark.
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>> absolutely. but they're not competing claims. americans can want jobs and still be concerned about the news. they can want the economic situation to improve and at the same time, be skeptical of a president that goes to war in the media and when you look at the numbers, the tell graphics demographics, the white college educated men and non-college graduates and core base, shrinking. his poll numbers hung the lowest in american history this recently after an inauguration. the people who gave him their trust are now raising questions. it doesn't mean it's a disaster. i think it will be, but it doesn't necessarily mean that but what it does mean is that donald trump has work to do and it can't happen on twitter. >> jeffrey lord, mark lamont hill. this discussion no doubt will continue. thank you, gentlemen. >> thank you, pamela. thank you, mark. coming up, trump's great wall. is it more of a fence? exclusive new details on what it really could look like. ♪ when you have digestive sensitivities,
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steel with a cement base. call it what you want but security experts and homeland security officials who will be charge of building it call this a fence. this is the most recently built barrier between the united states and mexico near brownsville, texas. and cnn has been told by multiple sources within the agencies involved in building, paying for and enforcing this barrier, that this is what president trump's wall may look like. u.s. customs and border patrol is planning to prevent the plan for border security to its bosses possibly this week and cnn has learned new details. first, they say, the wah shoulld not be a wall but a fence and that could become a sticky situation for a president who insists otherwise. >> on the fence. it's not a fence. it's a wall. just misreported it. we're going to build a wall. >> the biggest job in moving forward is convincing the
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president that the fence is more secure and it will be up to homeland security secretary john kelly who must find a way to allow the white house to spin the promise of a wall into a fence. secretary kelly seems to have already begun in testimony to congress repeatedly referring to the border fortification as a barrier. >> there are many, many places that we need some type of physical barrier right now, backed up by men and women of boarder protection. >> why would president trump agree to a fence sthinstead of beautiful wall? security and common sense. u.s. customs and border patrol officials on the ground and in charge of actually securing the border tell cnn a fence offers more security than a solid wall. one source telling cnn you never want a barrier in place to obstruct your vision. that prevents you from seeing the other side of the border. another saying, i'm not calling it a wall because we're talking
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about a fence that we can look through. that's what we need. it's more secure for border agents. it eliminates environmental factors like drainage and costs will be significantly lower. if the current plan is approved, it will look like this bollard style of fencing 6 feet below grown and 18 feet above. reinforced with rebar and cement. another part of the proposal according to sources, it will not go coast to coast. this is the current fence from the pacific ocean to the gulf coast with large gaps in between for a total of 654 miles. the latest plans involve adding 177 new miles of fencing and replacing 272 miles of already built fence. according to one high level source with knowledge of the project. that means the total barrier between the united states and mexico would cover 831 total
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miles of a nearly 2,000 mile border. still, not even half according to these sources. >> drew griffin, thank you so much for that report. coming up, the campaign is long over, but we're about to see another big trump rally and of course, we'll bring it to you live when it happens. ♪ ♪ ♪ only at&t offers you all your live channels and dvr on your devices. data-free. entertainment. your way. only from at&t.
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i don't know what that is. but yes. innovation runs on supercomputers... ...and supercomputers run on intel. you are super smart. and super busy. ♪ ooh! ufo! false alarm, eyelash! we'll see president trump back in campaign mode. athena jones, set the stage for us. >> reporter: hi, very loud here. so forgive me if i have problems hearing. i got to tell you, this rally is something the president is very much looking to and all about getting around the media facilitifilter and speaking directly to the people, his fans. the rally is a place he's been very comfortable. something that's energized him
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on the campaign trail and that's why he was looking toward to today and if you combine today's rally with that press conference on thursday, this is something of a chance for a reset for the president and for the white house. he's facing sagging approval numbers. i believe the latest ratings we can put up on the screen show he is underwater. more people disapproving. that's 55% of the job he's doing as president than approving. that approval number at 40%. this rally is coming at a time when the president is hoping to be able to reset and show his followers that everything is fine at the white house. so we expect him to highlight what he views as his administration's accomplishments over the course of the first month in office. >> it's very loud there, so i'm not sure if you can hear the follow-up question and fine if you can't. but of course, this is all happening as the president is trying to find a replacement for the national security advisor. is there a front-runner?
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>> reporter: that's right. there is a front-runner. during this weekend, with the white house calling a senior administration official called a working weekend, the president is meeting with several possible replacements for the now former national security advisor michael flynn and rising to the top of the list we're told is the former ambassador to the u.n., john bolton. he is someone who has the support of people like texas senator ted cruz who said he would make a very, very strong national security advisor because he understands the threat from radical islamic terrorism. and we understand bolton is a strong favorite among the t political staffers on the national security council. his supporters believe he brings a mix of an anti-establishment approach to all of this, which would fit the alignment with the president's own political temperament but also combining with knowledge of washington and the way the foreign policy process works. so that is the latest we're hearing on the several names up for discussion for that post.
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>> athena jones, thanks so much for breaking it down for us and coming up on this saturday, you can call it the reassurance tour by president pence face to face with european allies unnerved with statements on russia and nato. so what was his message? "most ribs eaten while calf roping". yep. greatness deserves recognition. you got any trophies, cowboy? uh, yea, well, uh... well, there's this one. "best insurance mobile app"? yep, three years in a row. well i'll be! does that thing just follow you around? like a little puppy. the award-winning geico app. download it today. knows how it feels to seees your numbers go up, despite your best efforts. but what if you could turn things around? what if you could love your numbers? discover once-daily invokana®. it's the #1 prescribed
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attending the annual global security summit there and vice president told nato alliance that despite comments made by president trump during the campaign, the u.s. commitment to the european partnership is strong. >> today on behalf of president trump, i bring you this assurance. the united states of america strongly supports nato and will be unwavering in our commitment to this transatlantic alliance. >> our global affairs correspondent. so elise, russian officials are not happy with the vice president's firm stance with nato which as you know, an alliance to face off against the soviet union so many decades ago. what has the russian response been? >> pamela, you had sergey lavrov essentially saying it was nato expansion that really has created the tension in the region and if you think about it from russia's point of view, these great expansion of nato
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and several eastern european countries on the backyard. that got russia back up and sees that as an affront on its sphere of influence in europe. so that is what it says created all of this tension and essentially saying, you're forcing us to go into ukraine and forcing us to do this because we're feeling a threat. i mean, obviously, europeans don't see it that way, but you heard russian foreign minister lavrov essentially saying that the post-cold war order is over. and, you know, russia needs to be considered a super power once again. >> are you're peeeuropeans conc? how is the new trump administration viewed abroad in general? >> i think european leaders don't know what to expect. i mean, clearly, vice president pence said a lot of encouraging words today about the commitment to the alliance. i think they would have liked to hear more about the european
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union. president trump hasn't been all that keen on the idea of this european union that wants to have more bilateral relationships. i think there's a lot of concern about what they see going on in the white house that there's no national security advisor. i mean, i think the whole chaos regarding mike flynn and the issue of the russia issue and intelligence and meddling in the election and those communications is one thing and they don't have a lot of interlocker at the white house and concerned, who do they reach? secretary of state rex tillerson just standing up his team so there's just not a lot of people to talk to get answers not just about specific policies coming down the pipe but who do they talk to right now in a crisis? >> and secretary of state, rex tillerson, you mentioned him. he was forced to stay at a sanitarium 30 minutes away from other world leaders, g-20
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meeting is a major event. does that speak to a lack of coordination within the administration? what's your view on this and the reaction internally? >> kind of like a health spa. when he was getting in and out of his car, they were like, elderly people going to get their kind of salt bath treatments or something. i think what it is like secretary tillerson came into the game a little bit late. he's just been on the job for about 10 days. he does not have a lot of people at the state department. it's a bare bones staff. some people in the administration quit before he came on, just a lot of people who typically offer their resignations but a lot of times, those are not, the white house asked these people to stay on to get the administration going and so i think it's this backlog of staff that's really working bare bones in a gorilla operation and
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didn't have enough time and planning by people at the state department to get his delegation on the ground in a hotel. usually, these reservations are made weeks if not months in advance. >> as you point out, only been on the job for ten days. so elise, thank you for putting it all in perspective. coming up right here on this saturday in the newsroom, the price of protecting a jet setting president from trips to mar-a-lago to properties in new york and new jersey. is the secret service not to mention the american taxpayer paying? president trump back on the trail with a big rally planned in florida. we are standing by and we'll be right back. it's the phillips' lady! anyone ever have occasional constipation,diarrhea, gas or bloating? she does. she does. help defend against those digestive issues. take phillips' colon health probiotic caps daily with three types of good bacteria. 400 likes? wow! try phillips' colon health. on a perfect car, then smash it into a tree. your insurance company raises your rates. maybe you should've done
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welcome back. you're taking a look at split screens here. one side inside an airport hangar full of donald trump supporters there. they're to see him arrive for a campaign rally at 5:30 eastern and then a group of protesters gathered outside of the hangar and donald trump just tweeted about 20 minutes ago he'll be on his way soon and expected to begin at 5:00 p.m. eastern time. clearly, the president back in campaign mode as he goes to melbourne, florida, to speak to the crowd there. right now, third straight weekend in florida, palm beach,
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florida. trips costing you, the taxpayer, money. lots of it. not only does the secret service have to protect multiple sites at one time but white house north of new york, the trump tower, and white house south in florida and white house in washington and a matter of protecting a very big first family. here's tom foreman. >> reporter: the cost of protecting the jet setting first family could be epic starting with the president, vice president, their wives, confidants, children, grandkids, over 20 people from the get-go. >> that's unprecedented. it's not unattainable to protect them all. it's just unprecedented. >> reporter: the equation is complicated by the trump family working out of so many places. the white house, the mar-a-lago club in florida, several private residences in and out of dc and trump tower in new york where the first lady calls home. joseph clancy. >> when i go into trump tower,
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the restaurant is tfull, the starbucks is full of people. is challenge is to permanently hiring out a whole floor for security operations. to give you a sense, that would be 13,000 square feet of prime new york real estate at four-year market value of $6 million. although the president could give his team a deal. another worry? most of trump's children grown and involved in business. meaning lots of travel. the "washington post" put the secret service hotel bill for his son's trip to south america at $100,000. two sons are opening a golf course in dubai this weekend. >> i would say the most challenging trips for us, are the foreign trips. >> every time the president takes off, up to 300 people go along. teams for personal security, counterassault, military
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support, transportation, communication, staffing and more, intelligence. a price tag is hard to pin down, but a government study found a three-day trip by president obama in 2013 cost taxpayers $3.6 million. so will the total security bill be tens of millions? hundreds? >> it's very hard to forecast what the cost is going to be. >> other presidents have raised security challenges with their lifestyles and travel. bill clinton's vacations in martha's vineyard. george bush's retreats to texas. barack obama's holidays in hawaii. and cnn is told just for protecting vice president biden's family took nearly 50 agents. >> our thanks to tom foreman. let's talk it over with former secret service agent, author of "life inside the bubble: why a top-ranked secret service agent walked away from it all." dan, do you think president trump should consider camp david, a presidential retreat as a weekend location, instead of
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mar-a-lago in florida? >> well i don't see any benefit to doing that for him. he's the president, he's clearly more comfortable being in down at mar-a-lago, where he's been going to for years. it's not unprecedented or overwhelming. i like john wakero. but i don't know where he's getting this from. there's nothing difficult about securing mar-a-lago. there's some logistical hurdles, getting hotel rooms in the area. but if you're the president of the united states, this is whether under barack obama or george w. bush. it's obviously a very stressful job. if he's more comfortable in mar-a-lago, whether than camp david which is more isolated. i think he should focus on being the president and worry about that, not so much the logistics of the secret service getting a few hotel rooms. >> when it comes to the price tag, as tom pointed out, you had bill clinton going to mar-a-lago. you had president bush going to
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kennebunkport and so forth. but every weekend when it comes to taxpayer dollars can you kind of give us perspective going to mar-a-lago, rather than a camp david? >> well taxpayer dollars we should always be concerned about. the issue came one barack obama and president bush as well. it should come up, it's our money. but it's really not that overwhelming for the secret service, nor is it going to be in the long run that expensive. let me tell you why. the secret service can preposition assets we don't have to protect mar-a-lago. if we have a reasonable idea about how many times the president going to go down. twice a month, three times a month, you can preposition a lot of assets it saves a lot of costs of moving people around back and forth. you can also fortify the field office with some agents so you don't have to constantly fly people back and forth. so is it going to cost money? sure, should taxpayers be concerned? they should always be concerned. but is this unprecedented? that's hyperbolic to say the
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least. i'm not hearing that if anyone in the secret service that i talked to. >> i interviewed the former head of the secret service, joseph clancy who is now retiring. they said look this is what we do. with every president it's a different set of circumstances and we adjust. how do you feel about the price tag for secret service protecting eric and donald trump junior when they go abroad on official business for the trump organization. like this weekend's grand opening of a trump golf resort in dubai? should the u.s. taxpayers pick up the bill? >> they don't have the choice, as the law is written now, title 18, united states code 3056, the president's children will get secret service protection. until lawmakers say otherwise, i think it would be foolish to give up the most elite protection force in the world. for me it's not a matter of cost. it's a matter of keeping them alive. think about this, does the average citizen in the united states, god forbid, want one of
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the president's kids taken hostage or hurt overseas because we were worried about the cost of them traveling? we should always be concerned about the cost. >> but we're not, i'm not asking whether secret service should protect them overseas. it's a matter of who should foot the bill. >> well yeah, we do protect the president's kids. that's what we've elected representatives in congress who voted on laws and that's what we do. and i think we should. the secret service does it better than anyone else. and frankly, i would be very uncomfortable leaving the president's children prime targets for any terror group open to private security. i know they do a great job, but the secret service has a very specific way of operating, a very specific way of working with the united states military. i would be hesitant to turn that over to anybody else. i think there's a reason we delegate that job to the secret service for the president's family. >> all right. dan bongino, thank you very much. on this saturday, crowds gathering to welcome president trump at a rally in florida.
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what will the president say after a tumultuous first month in office? we bring it to you live in the cnn news room. (mic thuds) uh, sorry. it's unlimited without compromising reliability, on the largest, most advanced 4g lte network in america. (thud) uh... sorry, last thing. it's just $45 per line. forty... five. (cheering and applause) and that is all the microphones that i have. (vo) not just unlimited. verizon unlimited.
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what certainly feels like it. just a few days short of marking a moth in office, president donald trump is already hitting the campaign trail. set to hold a major rally in florida and a small crowd of protesters have gathered. you see the people there toe see trump inside the airport hangar. while it's not clear what mr. trump is campaigning for, two things are understood. the president is in need of a serious boost. he wants to take a bleak control of the narrative coming out of the white house. this morning mr. trump tweeting, don't believe the mainstream fake news media the white house is running very well. i inherited a mess and am in the process of fixing it. one thing the president hopes to fix this weekend, that's finding a national security adviser to replace michael flynn. so far mr. trump has been turned down by at least one person. we're hearing reasons why, including concerns the white house is too chaotic. cnn's ath
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