Trump talks foreign policy on CBS, but stays mum on Mueller report
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump declined to say Sunday whether he wants the findings of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation made public, saying he would instead defer to the Department of Justice.
“Totally up to the attorney general,” Trump said. “That’s up to the attorney general. I don’t know. It depends. I have no idea what it’s going to say.”
William Barr, Trump’s nominee to be attorney general, has not said whether he plans to release information to the public — be it the report he receives from Mueller or a different summation of the report. Some Trump allies and aides fear the findings will be damaging, and the president’s lawyers have said they are crafting their own report to counter Mueller’s.
The president’s comments on the investigation, which the attorney general said is wrapping up soon, came in a wide-ranging interview with CBS News. Among the highlights of the interview: The president said he is keeping another government shutdown on the table, outlined disagreements with top intelligence officials, argued that keeping troops in Iraq is vital to watching Iran, contended that having a Cabinet packed with interim secretaries is a plus for his administration and again attacked former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis by saying he forced him to resign.
“I don’t take anything off the table. I don’t like to take things off the table,” he said, when asked to rule out a second partial government shutdown in 12 days, when the government again runs out of money.
Much of the interview with host Margaret Brennan focused on foreign policy — one of the biggest areas of disagreement between Trump and Senate Republicans. Asked about dozens of members rebuking his foreign policy moves, he said that he ran against 17 Republicans in 2016 and won “very easily.”
Trump intimated that the U.S. government is close to a deal with the Taliban to end the war in Afghanistan, said he wanted to keep troops in Iraq so he could “watch” Iran and seemed to hedge on when troops would be coming home from Syria, saying it would be in a “matter of time.” Trump previously ordered an expedited removal of the 2,000 troops in Syria — which led to the departure of Mattis.
“I think that they will,” he said of a deal after 19 years of war in Afghanistan. “I think they’re tired, and I think everybody’s tired. We got to get out of these endless wars and bring our folks back home.”
Asked whether he was interested in striking Iran, the president said no. Trump said the slower departure in Syria was due to a need to protect Israel, among other reasons.
He repeatedly cited the costs of having troops all over the world as a reason to bring them home.
Trump revised history again concerning the departure of Mattis, saying that he asked Mattis to resign in December. “I told him to give me a letter,” Trump said. “He resigned because I asked him to resign.” At the time, White House and Defense Department officials said that Mattis, upset with Trump’s impulsive moves on foreign policy, arrived at the White House with a letter rebuking the president and quit.
The president again disagreed with his intelligence chiefs, saying there is a “very good chance” he can make a deal with North Korean President Kim Jong Un to give up his nuclear weapons at a summit next month, which the president said was already scheduled. Director of National Intelligence Daniel Coats said last week that it is highly unlikely that the country would ever give up its nuclear weapons. The president struck a buoyant tone, citing his abilities as a dealmaker.
“I get along with him great. We have a fantastic chemistry,” he said of the North Korean dictator. “We have had tremendous correspondence that some people have seen and can’t believe it.” He said the country could become an “economic powerhouse.”
“I’m in the real estate business. What a location,” he said of North Korea.