[Hala Gorani, Cnn Anchor:] Hello, everyone. I'm Hala Gorani live from CNN London. Thanks for joining us this hour. This is THE WORLD RIGHT NOW. A new chief of staff in the White House with an old headache for the American president. A fresh revelation in the Russia investigation, we'll get to that in a moment. Right now, this is the east room of the White House. We're waiting for Donald Trump, the American president. He's meeting this hour with small business owners to talk about creating jobs in America. We'll monitor any developments from that. But today's top story, the "Washington Post" reporting President Trump personally dictated his son's initial misleading statement about a meeting with a Russian lawyer despite repeated denials from the president's attorney and the White House. We have been in the last hour been updated by the White House press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders. She has confirmed that the president in fact had input in the statement.
[Sarah Huckabee Sanders, White House Press Secretary:] The president weighed in as any father would based on the limited information that he had. This is all discussion frankly of no consequence. There was no follow up. It was disclosed to the proper parties, which is how the "New York Times" found out about it to begin with. The Democrats want to continue to use this as a PR stunt and they are doing everything they can to keep this story alive and in the papers every single day.
[Gorani:] That was Sarah Huckabee Sanders. Of course, she's saying the president weighed in. You heard it there, but the president's own lawyers have said he didn't have anything to do with the drafting of that statement that initially suggested that the meeting was simply about a Russian adoption program. When after the fact e-mails from Donald Trump Jr. released by the president's eldest son himself revealed the fact that this was about opposition research on Hillary Clinton. Let's get the latest from Washington. Josh Rogin is a CNN political analyst and columnist for the "Washington Post," and also joining us is CNN's Dan Merica. So, Dan, I want to start with you. And Sarah Huckabee Sanders had very well-prepared facts and figures and statements about all the stories that she was asked about in the briefing room. She comes out today and said and confirms, yes, the president did weigh in on that statement about Don Jr.'s meeting with that lawyer.
[Dan Merica, Cnn Political Producer:] Yes, she weighed in by saying yes, he did. He did weigh in on that statement, which directly contradicted what President Trump's lawyer said after the meeting was first revealed. So, what you now have is the White House saying, yes, in fact, he did weigh in after the president's lawyer said he had no involvement at all. Sarah Huckabee Sanders did take some issue with the word dictation or dictate that the "Washington Post" used saying that the president did not dictate a statement. But what I was what really struck me in all of this is how it gets to the fact that President Donald Trump went against the advice of his aides and advisors and lawyers and actually worked on this statement with his son. It gets to this idea that President Trump thinks he is his best spokesperson. He is his best political adviser and that his gut instincts will get him out of anything. We've seen this throughout the campaign where he has gone against the advice he's getting in from experts because he thinks he can figure it all out. That again happened in this situation it seems on that flight from Hamburg, Germany back to the United States. It could get him in trouble, land him in legal trouble with the special counsel.
[Gorani:] Yes, because Josh Rogin, the initial statement was misleading at best, all right, it suggested that the meeting had nothing to do with the campaign or campaign issues. That this was about a Russian adoption program. Of course, later it was revealed that wasn't the case at all. With Sarah Huckabee Sanders essentially making this admission in the briefing room. What impact will it have on the White House's sort of management of this Russia investigative question that's been hanging over the White House from day one?
[Josh Rogin, Cnn Political Analyst:] It's just a continuation, another in a long line of instances showing that the White House doesn't really have a strategy to deal with the continuing revelations about this investigation. Now this will add to the list of things that all the investigators will have to look into. It represents another attempt by the White House to obfuscate what really happened and how they dealt with it. You know, there is also a total error in what Sarah Huckabee Sanders said. You know, she said that Donald Trump Jr. released the e-mails when in fact he released only after "The New York Times" already had them, was about to publish them. So, their entire narrative which is that there is nothing to see here is contradicted by their actions. You know, when the president of the United States is scrambling on a plane to work out his son's statement. And that shows a level of awareness that this meeting was a problem and their activities to shape the narrative throughout in the meeting show that they have not figured out exactly how they want to deal with it.
[Gorani:] Josh, it's going to lead to inevitably to questions about what President Trump knew about this meeting, right, when it happened shortly after it happened and not simply learning about it as he said many months later when it was reported.
[Rogin:] That's exactly right. Now, you know, in the end, this meeting may not prove to be evidence of any actual collusion. But what it is, is evidence of the Trump team trying to collude with the Russians. And if that in of itself is a subject of the investigation. Also, we know that the investigators are looking into members of the Trump team on allegation of obstruction and if they were trying if this was part of an attempt to obstruct the investigator's ability to get to the bottom of this meeting and that in of itself can become a subject of the investigation. So, whether or not President Trump knew about the meeting then, he's involved in it now, and that's not going to go away.
[Gorani:] All right. And the president, Dan Merica, once again tweeting about fake news. It's a regular occurrence, but this is happening after the publication of this "Washington Post" piece. Now one of the authors of the report had this to say about the White House's dismissal of the content of the reporting on this the drafting of the statement. Listen.
[Tom Hamburger, Reporter, "washington Post":] What you may not know is that we actually sent multiple detailed questions to Mr. Sekulow asking him to respond in some detail. Instead what we got is the rather broad denial. I understand others at the White House and the White House team may already have described our story as fake news. We have multiple sources and are confident in our reporting.
[Gorani:] And the "Washington Post" reporter there, Tom Hamburger, basically referring to the one of the lawyers of the president, Tom Sekulow, who has denied that the president dictated the statement, Dan?
[Merica:] Yes. He said it was total misinformation and the president has said multiple times [inaudible] about CNN or the "Washington Post" that this is total fake news, a total fabrication, the biggest witch-hunt in political history. You know, you got to pin him down at some point and say what is the witch- hunt? Is it the Senate investigations? Is it the House investigations? Is it the special counsel? You really can't get an answer out of the White House on that topic because they don't really have one. They don't have one to describe why the president thinks this is a witch-hunt when Republicans are going along with these investigations as well. And on the point that he sent detailed questions to the lawyers. The statement last night was the typical non-denial, denial. It's not denying the story or the facts in the story, but it's saying that it's misstated or misinformation. He didn't say the story was untrue. He just kind of obfuscated and muddied the waters a bit.
[Gorani:] And Josh, I would ask you about the sanctions bill there that was overwhelmingly passed on Capitol Hill. It's sitting increasing sanctions against North Korea, Iran, and Russia. It's sitting on President Trump's desk. He hasn't signed it. His vice president, Mike Pence, is currently in that part of the world. He was in one of the Baltic states. He's in Georgia today. He's been asked repeatedly about when or if even the president will sign this bill. And we put together a few many answers to that same question over the course of the last few days. Listen.
[Mike Pence, Vice President Of The United States:] And in a further sign of our commitment very soon, President Trump will sign legislation to strengthen and codify the United States sanctions against Russia. The president made it very clear that very soon he will sign the sanctions. In a sign of our commitment, very soon President Trump will sign legislation to strengthen and codify the United States sanctions against Russia.
[Gorani:] All right. When you hear soon that tells you what? I mean, because it's still sitting there and the clock is ticking, Josh.
[Rogin:] That's right. Well, just minutes ago, in his first ever state foreign press conference, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson also commented on the Russia sanctions bill. He said that neither he nor the president was happy about the legislation, but that they've accepted it and that he expects the president to sign it. So that matches in a way what Vice President Pence said in Europe in the sense that we all expect the president to sign it reluctantly and eventually. Now if he doesn't sign it or if he were to veto it, it would still become law. It has overwhelming congressional support. So, these sanctions will go forward and then the president and the secretary of state will have to mitigate the effect of those sanctions on the U.S. relationship with Russia. Nevertheless, the sort of lack of comment by the president on the expulsion of 755 diplomats and staff from Russia and the lack of his any clear position on the U.S.-Russia relationship leaves a lot of incoherence and confusion about what the U.S. is really doing with respect to Russia.
[Gorani:] Josh Rogin at the "Washington Post," thanks very much. Dan Merica in Washington, thanks to both of you. Turning our attention now to Venezuela, the government there moving swiftly to take down its opponents after a controversial election handed the president even more power. Two leading opposition figures are back behind bars. The Supreme Court says it revoked house arrest for Leopoldo Lopez and Antonio Ledezma after intelligence officials told the court the men were trying to flee. The U.S. ambassador to the United States says the jailing of the two men shows President Nicholas Maduro's, quote, "regime has lost all legitimacy." Leyla Santiago joins me now from Caracas with an update on what's happened since Sunday's election. And we saw some dramatic video as well of authorities in Venezuela taking into custody one of the opposition leaders there.
[Leyla Santiago, Cnn Correspondent:] Yes, Hala. And now it's a big wait and see, wait and see what is next with the constituent assembly and what is next with the opposition. Now we know that opposition leaders are urging protesters to continue to fight, to not back down from this government. In the meantime, the government of Venezuela is working to establish the legitimacy of this election and the constituent assembly that will be in place very soon. The government has said that it will gather on Thursday and as soon as it gathers, it will have the power to begin rewriting the Constitution and could give President Maduro even more power. Now a lot of people have been very critical of this move saying that this is the road to dictatorship. Several countries have said that they are not seeing this is as a legitimate election. There is mounting pressure across the world, really, and the opposition is hoping that they count on that to continue their fight. In the meantime, you know, we haven't seen the protest that we typically do here today. And so, one has to wonder, you know, are protesters afraid to come out? Are they waiting for another day? We are still waiting to get a better idea of how the opposition will move forward given that two of their big names, two of the leaders were taken in the middle of the night from their homes. One of them in pajamas at that time and making for some very dramatic video that we've seen in social media.
[Gorani:] Right. And we are seeing some of that video on our screen there. Leyla Santiago in Caracas, thanks very much. We'll get back to Leyla soon. Still to come this evening, an extraordinary prediction from a European head of state. He thinks Brexit won't happen despite a referendum result and months of uncertainty. Prime minister of Malta tells me he thinks the U.K. won't leave the E.U. That conversation is up next. And away from the halls of power, a stunning number of people say they'd be happy to lose their jobs or see a family member out of work if it means leaving the E.U. We look at why next.