[Isha Sesay, Cnn Anchor:] Ahead this hour: President Trump tweets a Christmas greeting and then toots his own horn. Plus one of the most reclusive corners of the world appears to be losing some of its luster. Why North Korean tourism is taking a hit. And life after the hurricane: the Christmas holiday raising spirits in post-Maria Puerto Rico. Hello and welcome to our viewers from around the world, I'm Isha Sesay. NEWSROOM L.A. starts right now.
[Sesay:] Donald Trump is marking his first Christmas as U.S. President with tweets from his Mar-a-lago resort in Florida on Monday evening. He wrote, "I hope everyone is having a great Christmas. Then tomorrow it's back to work in order to make America great again, which is happening faster than anyone anticipated." Earlier in the day, he posted this holiday message.
[Donald Trump , President Of The United States:] Melania and I are delighted to wish America and the entire world a very merry Christmas.
[Melania Trump, Wife Of President-elect Donald Trump:] At this time of year, we see the best of America and the soul of the American people.
[Sesay:] Those weren't the only tweets Mr. Trump sent over the holiday weekend. In between his official duties and some Christmas celebrations, the president found time to praise himself and criticize a few favorite targets. Here's our own Sara Murray.
[Sara Murray, Cnn Correspondent:] It was a relatively quiet Christmas day for President Trump, he and the first lady spent it ensconced at Mar-a-lago. That's the president's Florida resort. But Trump fit in plenty of Christmas activities on Christmas Eve. That's when he sent a video message to U.S. troops who were deployed abroad. He and the first lady also made phone calls to children who were tracking Santa. And then after that they attended a Christmas eve service at the church that they were married at. Of course this would not be the president without a Twitter tirade. We certainly saw that over the weekend, heading into this Christmas holiday. That's when he took aim at the FBI, he took aim at the media and aired one of his deepest grievances of 2017, the notion that he is just not getting enough credit for all of his achievements, particularly on the economy Sara Murray, CNN, West Palm Beach, Florida.
[Sesay:] Mr. Trump will soon wrap his first year as commander in chief. Our own Dana Bash takes a look back at some of the major moments in 2017.
[Dana Bash, Cnn Chief Political Correspondent:] Let's be honest. The first year of the Trump presidency feels more like a decade because of the relentless stream of news. Here's a look at some of the key moments of President Trump's first year in office.
[Bash:] For candidate Trump, large campaign crowds were the norm. But at his inauguration, this was a sore subject. The new president grew angry watching reports his inaugural crowd size was smaller than President Obama's. One of his first presidential acts was to order his press secretary to do this
[Sean Spicer, Former White House Press Secretary:] This was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration, period.
[Bash:] That's thing the president himself amplified while standing in front of a CIA memorial to fallen heroes.
[Donald Trump:] We had a massive field of people. You saw that. I looked out. The field was it looked like a million, a million and a half people.
[Bash:] But the numbers didn't lie. And the episode set an early Trump administration tone. Government regulation: it sure doesn't sound exciting, so it's no surprise the Trump administration effort on this was not splashy 2017 news.
[Donald Trump:] One, two, three.
[Bash:] But the president withdrew hundreds of regulations. A dull term with a real-world impact from the safety of the products you use to the air you breathe.
[Donald Trump:] We have reduced unnecessary regulations to a point that this country hasn't seen in years.
[Bash:] It was a promise kept to Republicans, who argue excess regulation hurts business and economic growth.
[Unidentified Male:] Raise your right hand.
[Bash:] The most lasting Trump 2017 accomplishment is arguably the nomination and confirmation of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court.
[Judge Neil Gorsuch, Supreme Court Nominee:] I will do all my powers permit to be a faithful servant to the Constitution and laws of this great nation.
[Bash:] The seat was open for a year since the death of Justice Antonin Scalia and Senate Republicans refused to consider President Obama's pick, Judge Merrick Garland.
[Donald Trump:] You will go down as one of the truly great justices in the history of the United States Supreme Court.
[Unidentified Male:] Justices can disagree without being disagreeable.
[Bash:] Getting Gorsuch was noteworthy not just for the Trump legacy but the process.
[Donald Trump:] It is an extraordinary resume.
[Bash:] From announcement to confirmation, this success was the most conventional Trump undertaking of the year. After months of back and forth between Donald Trump and North Korea's dictator, words like "rocket man" and "fire and fury," the president took his insults to the world stage. His first speech at the United Nations
[Donald Trump:] If it is forced to defend itself or its allies, we will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea.
[Bash:] The rhetorical crossfire continued on Twitter and through regime statements.
[Donald Trump:] Rocket Man is on a suicide mission for himself.
[Bash:] By year's end, the escalation reached new heights. North Korea tested its most powerful missile yet, with the capacity to reach the U.S. mainland. No discussion about Donald Trump's first year in the White House would be complete without talking about his favorite little birdie. He sent more than 2,000 tweets in 2017 alone, from the mystery of covfefe to a series of really consequential posts, like unprecedented attacks on his own party's leadership and some head-scratching retweets. This anti-Muslim video sent by a Brit convicted of hate crimes caused a diplomatic rift with the British prime minister. Plus his claim that President Obama wiretapped Trump Tower. Yet the one that may come back to haunt him the most, taunting fired FBI director James Comey. "Better hope there are no tapes of our conversations." The hands-down biggest 2017 Trump defeat, failure to repeal and replace ObamaCare. John McCain's dramatic no-vote sealed its fate but Republicans were split how to fulfill their ObamaCare repeal promise, one that helped them win control of government. That loss made President Trump and Hill Republicans quest for tax reform a political life or death mission: must-pass legislation.
[Unidentified Male:] Tax Cuts and Jobs Act as amended is passed.
[Bash:] And it worked.
[Donald Trump:] People are going to be very, very happy. They're going to get tremendous, tremendous tax cuts.
[Bash:] Whether most Americans, especially working class Trump voters, will see that as a win, to be determined. And finally, the most important Trump moment of 2017: firing FBI director James Comey. Sacking Comey while he was investigating potential 2016 Trump-Russia collusion caused a political earthquake with aftershocks still rattling the president.
[Donald Trump:] Let's see what happens.
[Bash:] Not the least of which, Comey's revelation that he kept detailed memos documenting meetings with the president, which Comey asked a friend to leak to the press.
[James Comey, Former Fbi Director:] I asked a friend of mine to share the content of the memo with a reporter. I asked him to because I thought that might prompt the appointment of a special counsel.
[Bash:] That's exactly what happened. And special prosecutor Robert Mueller's Russia investigation was a cloud over the first year of the Trump presidency, which so far produced indictments of two former campaign officials and the guilty plea of foreign national security adviser Michael Flynn for lying to the
[Fbi. Bash:] What a year. What will 2018bring? Buckle up.
[Sesay:] Oh, we are buckled. Jessica Levinson is professor of law and governance at Loyola Law School and joins us now. Jessica, great to have you with us on this day. So I guess here's my question, are you in agreement with our own Dana Bash in that the firing of James Comey is the most consequential action taken by President Trump in his first year in office?
[Jessica Levinson, Loyola Law School:] Well, I'm not actually I think that the most consequential action may have been the appointment of Neil Gorsuch and not just Neil Gorsuch but also all the other lower judges that President Trump has appointed. And so I think that when we're thinking about we saw that story where he repealed a number of regulations and he wasn't able to repeal ObamaCare. But one of the things that he's been doing that's been so underreported is that he's reshaping one of the three branches of our government. He's reshaping the judicial branch and people aren't really talking about it. But if we look at all of the things that he's done that we talk about, the travel ban and the ban on transgender, people serving in the military, all of these things have ended up in federal court. And in all of these cases, it's been judges who have thwarted what President Trump wanted to do. And so I think the most consequential thing is the reshaping of one of our three branches of government.
[Sesay:] And wondering whether that would be your choice because we have seen not only this reshaping of the lower courts and appointment of Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, but we've also seen a president willing to take on one of the bedrocks of this country, the independence, impartiality of the judiciary. Where do you see that going in 2018? Do you see more of that, given the number of challenges being leveled at his administration in court?
[Levinson:] Well, I do. And I think this is one of the most disheartening aspects of what I'm seeing, which is that he's undermining the bedrocks, the integrity of our government. So we saw this when it was candidate Trump, where he was talking about "so- called judges." And we see this with President Trump, where he's saying, well, this decision that if it's a decision that goes against him, he says this is just a liberal activist judge. And we have three coequal branches of government. And we see the same behavior when it comes to the FBI investigation. And it is very important that the American public and the world really has faith in this FBI investigation, in the appointment of a special counsel, in former FBI director Robert Mueller looking into these issues of whether or not the Trump campaign conspired with the Russian government. And so for him to be taking so many of the bedrocks of our system of government and trying to basically just lie about them and undermine them and harm their integrity is something that makes me deeply concerned. And I think we will continue to see it throughout 2018.
[Sesay:] And as you talk about the president and his reactions to the special counsel investigation, when he was in Mar-a-lago he's been posting all these tweets and he's continued to lambast the FBI. He put out two tweets over the weekend, slamming deputy director Andrew McCabe. We want to put them on screen. The first one seizing on the fact that McCabe's wife who is a Democrat ran for office and this is what he said. He said, "How can FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe, the man in charge, along with leaking James Comey of the phony Hillary Clinton investigation, including her 33,000 illegally deleted emails, be given 700,000 for wife's campaign by Clinton puppets during investigation?" He did not stop there. There was another message that he posted, which appears to be responding to news reports, that McCabe is considering retirement. And this is what that president said there. "FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe is racing the clock to retire with full benefits 90 days to go?!!!" Let me ask you this. Some are speculating that the president is trying to erode confidence in the Russia investigation. Do you think he is succeeding? We're seeing a number of individuals on the Right, lawmakers and other networks, right-wing networks, certainly parroting a line that this investigation is tilted against the president. What about the broader populace? Will they go along with this line of operation, if you will?
[Levinson:] Well, I'm very worried that that they will. And I think the thing that is worrisome is that all of these tweets are like one- sentence headlines, that if they're true, tell you a very small picture, a very small part of the overall story. And so this issue, let's take specifically the issue with deputy director Andrew McCabe and the idea that his wife was paid by Hillary Clinton associates. So we need to look at what actually happened which is before FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe ever got close to the Hillary investigation, before there was an investigation he could be involved with, his wife was running for state senate. And she obtained funds from a PAC that was run by Virginia governor Terry McAuliffe, who previously had worked for the Clinton administration. So the full story takes a few sentences to explain. And it doesn't sound as damaging or doesn't sound as scary. But that's the truth behind it. And What I worry about with all these tweets, is that he really is sowing the seeds of doubt and that all it takes for the populace is to say, well, you know, I heard this one thing or somebody posted this on Facebook or I heard it, I saw a quick headline or I heard part of a radio story. And all of a sudden this incredibly important investigation that is looking into whether or not there should be criminal charges brought against members of the Trump campaign and members of the Trump administration., all of a sudden, we say, well, can we really trust those people? Are they biased? And it's again, it's the same thing that we see happen with the judiciary. At that point, we no longer have faith in our institutions. So I think it's very important for the American public and the public at large to really look at what's happening and, unfortunately, we now have a president where we can't just accept what he's saying as truthful or factual.
[Sesay:] Democratic congressman Adam Schiff of California, who's the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, he essentially tweeted the same thing. And I want us to put that up on screen. He said, "FBI would set a dangerous precedent if it forced out dedicated career public servants in capitulation to Trump and White House pressure. President has already removed one top FBI leader, Comey, over Russia. McCabe would be another." That's what he goes on to say. So obviously, echoing in what you're saying, saying that this would be a very, very bad move
[Levinson:] I think this is part of, if you say it three times then maybe it will be true. I don't see anything to indicate that we're close to the end of the FBI investigation and particularly with respect to President Trump. Instead what I'm seeing is that this is a big and complicated investigation and it's proceeding exactly as we would expect. So you're starting from the outside of the investigation; you're going after the smaller players or the peripheral players or you're going after the people who are closer on the outside but to unrelated crimes, like for instance we saw Paul Manafort, who was indicted for making false sometimes. Not directly related to a Russian conspiracy but enough to get him to cooperate with the investigation. And so if you look at who has been indicted thus far, what they've been indicted for, if you look at the probable inquiry into what documents were looked at, I don't think there's anything to indicate that we're close to even it's entirely probable to me that we're not even close to the middle at this point. So I understand that President Trump has a political purpose in telling his lawyer that he should say we're close to the end, because then when we're not, it feels like, why is this dragging on so long? But the truth is we're not.
[Sesay:] Well, the longer it goes on, the more tweets we shall see. Jessica Levinson, we appreciate it. Thank you so much. Merry Christmas.
[Levinson:] Thank you. You, too.
[Sesay:] Puerto Rico is still reeling from the devastation caused by Hurricane Maria. Thousands on the island remain without power and some still have no water after the storm hit in September. One senator is still trying to make the most of the holiday season and make sure kids who lost everything in the storm are not forgotten. Leyla Santiago has this story.
[Leyla Santiago, Cnn Correspondent:] Even for Santa
[Manny Rivera, "santa":] Merry Christmas!
[Santiago:] This Christmas just hasn't been the same this year.
[Rivera:] The devastation in Puerto Rico was at another level.
[Santiago:] For many, the magic of Christmas has been overshadowed by the daily struggles of life after Hurricane Maria.
[Rivera:] A kid yesterday asked me to bring back his house the way it was before Maria.
[Santiago:] As he's done for the past five years, this Santa is gathering his elves to make sure the children of Puerto Rico know Santa is still watching.
[Rivera:] I'm going on my sleigh, my personal sleigh and even though Maria banged it up a bit.
[Santiago:] This year Maria has forced some of the same kids he visited last year to move in with relatives in homes powered only by generators.
[Rivera:] This part over here was hit pretty bad also when Maria
[Santiago:] Other children are in homes without water. And Santa can relate.
[Rivera:] I don't I don't have power. Still don't have water. And still got to fix the roof to the house.
[Santiago:] Maria destroyed his home, too. But when Santa visits these children, they forget, even if just for a moment, about the challenges of the last few months, the concerns for the future. She says this year because the children lost everything, they were concerned, not just about life, but also about Santa coming. But that's what makes this so special, that he did come this year. For this moment, six-year-old Alejandro forgets he doesn't get to spend Christmas in his own home. He says this is what he put on his list for Santa to bring him. And he's just grateful he got it this year. And 7-year-old Jamelle forgets he even doubted Santa finding him this year. Enough proof for at least a few families on the island to believe Santa is real Leyla Santiago, CNN, Puerto Rico.
[Sesay:] Quick break now. Russia is urging the U.S. to smooth things over with North Korea. Why Moscow's top diplomat thinks the U.S. should reach out first. That's coming up.