Source: Kelly Made Clear He'd Resign At Trump's Request; White House Gripped By Tumult Over Abuse Allegations; Trump Defends Ex-Aide: "He Says He's Innocent"; Kelly, McGahn Facing Blame For Porter Fallout; Source: Trump Talking To Friends About Possible Kelly Replacements
ERIN BURNETT, CNN HOST: "OutFront" next, President Trump's M.O. defend the accused, not the accuser. Why Trump's praise Rob Porter, says everything we need to know. And Chief of Staff John Kelly makes it clear to Trump he would resign over the Porter scandal. Are his days numbered? Plus, the number three at the Justice Department suddenly stepping down tonight, does this put Trump a step closer to taking out Bob Mueller? Let's go "OutFront". Good evening tonight, I'm Erin Burnett. "OutFront" defending the indefensible. There's no point in paraphrasing this, just listen for yourself to the President today in the Oval Office. He's talking about Rob Porter, his close aide who resigned after allegations surfaced that he physically abused both his ex-wives and his ex- girlfriend, something senior members of the White House knew for months.</s>DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We wish him well. He worked very hard. I found out about it recently and I was surprised by it. But we certainly wish him well. It's obviously a tough time for him.</s>BURNETT: Tough time for him. Sure, no mention of the three hers. And the President continued.</s>TRUMP: He did a very good job when he was in the White House. And we hope he has a wonderful career and hopefully he will have a great career ahead of him.</s>BURNETT: So the President hopefully -- hopes for Porter a wonderful career. Again, nothing about the three women. And the President continued.</s>TRUMP: It was very sad when we heard about it. And certainly he's also very sad. Now, he also, as you probably know, he says he's innocent. And I think you have to remember that. He said very strongly yesterday that he's innocent. So you'll have to talk to him about that, but we absolutely wish him well.</s>BURNETT: So the President wants you to know that Porter strongly says he's innocent and that he's sad about Porter. No mention of the three women. It seems impossible to imagine. I mean, what about this picture of Porter's first wife, Colbie? She says Porter did this to her according to "The Washington Post." Porter privately told people that this picture came when they were arguing over vase (ph) and she was somehow hit with the vase. And what about the words of Porter's second wife, Jennifer.</s>JENNIFER WILLOUGHBY, SECOND EX-WIFE OF FORMER WHITE HOUSE STAFF SECRETARY: I told them all of the details of my marriage, including verbal and emotional abuse and including the incident when he pulled me out of the shower. They were also made aware of the protective order that I signed in June of 2010.</s>BURNETT: No mention from the President of the United States that domestic abuse is abhorrent, that the victims here women are the women, three of them, including two ex-wives that he had before he was even 40. And what they suffered at the hands of Rob Porter, including the fact that one of them had filed a protective order against him. Or maybe the President should take a cue from Mike Pence who said this in an interview in Korea at the Olympics.</s>MIKE PENCE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: There's no tolerance in this White House. No place in America for domestic abuse.</s>BURNETT: The problem is that this President, the victims are the attackers, the predators, and the assaulters. It just takes his own words. Here he is on Senate candidate Roy Moore after multiple women came forward to say he abused them as teens. One of them, you may remember, was only 14 years old.</s>TRUMP: He totally denies it. He says it didn't happen and, you know, you have to listen to him also.</s>BURNETT: Here he is on then Fox News Chairman Roger Ailes who was accused of sexual harassment by multiple women. The network force to pay massive settlement.</s>TRUMP: He's been a friend mine for a long time. And I can tell you that some of the women that are complaining, I know how much he's helped them.</s>BURNETT: Fox News and former anchor, Bill O'Reilly, also paid a massive settlement to multiple women after he was accused of sexual harassment. President Trump said, "I don't think Bill did anything wrong." And of course when it comes to the President's own behavior, he bragged on tape about sexual assault, at least 16 women have come forward to tell their stories about him and he just says every single one of them is a liar.</s>TRUMP: These vicious claims about me of inappropriate conduct with women are totally and absolutely false. These claims are all fabricated. They are pure fiction and they are outright lies. These events never, ever happened.</s>BURNETT: Deny and defend, that's what President Trump does when it comes to abuse and assault by men of women. Pamela Brown is "OutFront" live at the White House. And, Pamela, the White House in chaos tonight over these abuse allegations according to your reporting.</s>PAMELA BROWN, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: That's right. It's been a week of confusion and division with internal strike finger pointing, a swirl of accusations. And while John Kelly, the chief of staff, has been more publicly blame, facing more of the public blame, those inside the White House are also blaming top lawyer, President Trump's top lawyer, Don McGahn and raising the questions why he didn't do more earlier because we're told resources that Don McGahn actually found out about some of these accusations, January of 2017, when Rob Porter actually went to him and alerted him that his ex-wives may say some troubling things about their past relationship to the FBI. And we're told that over the course of the year, Porter would inform McGahn and gave him more specifics about the allegations as it became clear that perhaps his security clearance wouldn't come through or hid a snag. And we're told, Erin, that the FBI actually turned over to the White House this past spring, some of their findings after interviewing the ex-wives which was brought to McGahn's attention and then Porter's ex girlfriend called Don McGahn over Thanksgiving telling him some of the allegations that she had experienced herself in terms of abuse and from the ex-wives. Now, McGahn told people around him that he called the security personnel at the White House to alert them about what the ex girlfriend had said, but others inside the White House feel as though, perhaps, he could have done more and that his personal relationship with Porter, whether he was lawyer worked closely with McGahn on legal documents, overshadowed or crowded his judgment in handling the situation allowing him to stay on board. So it has certainly been a chaotic week here at the White House, to say the least, Erin.</s>BURNETT: And as your reporting -- well, if you're inside over the handling of this, there are growing questions tonight, Pam, about John Kelly's future. What are you hearing?</s>BROWN: That's right because we are told that the President has also been unhappy with how his chief of staff has handled everything this week. And we are told that John Kelly today actually told the President that if he wanted him to resign, that he would resign. Now, we're told that it wasn't a formal sort of resignation or saying that, "Look, I will do this." But it was more of just telling the President that, "If this is what you want from me, I will do this." But sources tell us, Erin, that the President does not want his chief of staff, John Kelly, to resign. And apparently, this isn't the first time John Kelly has said this. Sources tell us that he has also said the same in the past and clearly nothing has happened, he's still in his job.</s>BURNETT: All right. Thank you very much, Pamela. "OutFront" now, let's go to Mark Preston, our Senior Political Analyst, Eliana Johnson, National Political Reporter for Politico, and Tim Naftali, our Presidential Historian and former Director of Nixon Presidential Library. Eliana, you've been doing a lot of reporting on this. The President defending Rob Porter, not uttering a single word about the ex-wives and the ex-girlfriend, all of whom have told the same sick and sad story.</s>ELIANA JOHNSON, NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER, POLITICO: I think for anybody who has been covering this President, his comments today should have been expected and not surprising in the least. This really fits a pattern for Donald Trump the way he responds when people around him or associated with him are accused of wrongdoing. We saw him respond in precisely the same way when Roy Moore, the Republican Senate candidate in Alabama, was accused of inappropriate sexual behavior and even molestation of younger women. He said essentially that while the allegations were troubling, Roy Moore was maintaining his innocence. And behind closed doors during the campaign when Steve Bannon had then campaign chairman was -- when reports surfaced that when Bannon was married decades ago, he had been accused of domestic violence. Trump made light of it behind closed doors referring to Bannon has "Bam Bam" and when donors expressed their concern that Trump was associated with somebody like this Trump said, "Oh, you know, Bam Bam locked away in a room 24 hours a day, 23 hours a day. He's nobody to worry about." So I think we have seen a reluctance by this President to take allegations of wrongdoing of various sorts by the people close to him seriously. That being said, he has seethed at the people close to him in private because of the negative coverage he and those around him have gotten in the news media. So it's not that he doesn't take the allegations seriously. He does when he gets bad press, but he has real reluctance to distance himself from people publicly.</s>BURNETT: I mean, Mark, it is stunning, you know, as Eliana said, this is the pattern and it fits the pattern. And yet to hear him come out today and say the things he said, he totally denies it. "We're sad. I wish him a great career," and not mentioned a single thing about what these women went through, somehow it is still stunning.</s>MARK PRESTON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: It is stunning. And I got to tell you, I've given up a long time ago trying to understand why the President is incapable or unwilling to show empathy, specifically when it comes to a subject similar to this, whether it is domestic violence or whether it's sexual assault. But it also does call into question his political and his messaging strategy. Remember, when Donald Trump ran for President, he talked about how he's the greatest salesman, how he's the greatest messenger. Well, any mediocre political consultant or messaging consultant would tell you that even if you didn't believe these, even if you didn't believe these women, Erin, that you would still come out and show some empathy. That's the smartest thing to do. Unless, and this is a very big unless, unless Rob Porter knows something that the President doesn't want him to speak about and he's trying to show him some loyalty. Now, we don't have anything to prove that that is the case, but you have to wonder the proximity of Rob Porter to Donald Trump over the past year certainly he knows some secrets.</s>BURNETT: Tim, that's actually an important question.</s>TIM NAFTALI, FORMER DIRECTOR, NIXON PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY: Yes.</s>BURNETT: Is that in this case something that you have to consider? I mean, considering Rob Porter who, again, did not have full security clearance but had his interim security clearance so he had access to absolutely everything, every piece of paper that went to the President's desk, all this private meetings, all of this interactions, Rob Porter knows.</s>NAFTALI: Well and he's been there since the beginning of 2017. You know, what's so disappointing and distressing is that our best Presidents appealed to our better angels of our nature and they understand that the White House is a symbol of entire country. And why this President once again when given the opportunity to set a nice and powerful ethical standard refuses to do it? Well, at this point we should never -- we can't expect him to do it. We can't expect him to do it. He's had so many chances to expect it now would be foolish.</s>BURNETT: Yes. I mean -- but Eliana, the other reality of it is, of course, in a sense he can't, because if he does, then he's opening the door to his own tape where he admitted to sexual assault being true and the 16 women who've accused him. He always takes the side of the accused when it comes to these men. I mean, every single time.</s>JOHNSON: It's interesting. This is an area in which Trump is consistent and he gives the same defense that he defends others in the same way he defended himself, where for those who have accused him of sexual harassment or sexual assault, he has dismissed the claims out of hand. And he does seem to do precisely the same for everybody around him. He's extremely consistent with that. And there does seem to be, I'm not sure how conscious it is on the President's part, but a concern that if he says something like, you know, women deserve to be heard, or expresses empathy for the women in these cases, that he's going to open the door to questions about the women who have accused him of impropriety.</s>BURNETT: I mean, which is in so many ways shocking. I mean, Mark, let me ask you about, you know, the Vice President obviously came out and said what the President should have said. The Vice President, I have no doubt he believes what he says, but he's also a very smart guy and he thinks before he speaks. And in the interview, he repeated what Raj Shah, the deputy press secretary, said on the podium yesterday when Raj Shah said that the White House had made mistakes. And then there was a lot of reporting. The President was really angry that Raj Shah made that admission. And yet, listen to Mike Pence and compare it to Raj Shah. Raj Shah is first.</s>RAJ SHAH, WHITE HOUSE PRINCIPAL DEPUTY PRESS SECRETARY: I think it's fair to say that, you know, we all could have done better over the last few hours or last few days in dealing with the situation.</s>PENCE: I think the White House has acknowledged that they could have handled it better.</s>BURNETT: Mark, did he do that knowing that the President was livid that Raj Shah made that admission, or is the Vice President that out of the loop?</s>PRESTON: No. I mean, look as you said he is very smart. He is right out of central casting for our President. As you said, he thinks before he speaks. He's very careful about what he says. And even as we have see him very loyal to the President, in this case he doesn't necessarily need to be loyal to the President because we're talking about a third party right now that the President has decided to defend. Now, Vice President Pence has come under a lot of criticism for his defense with Donald Trump. But it's been about the defense of Donald Trump not about folks that Donald Trump is defending. But also if you go back to what he said, Vice President Pence really did distance himself, didn't he, when he said they, the White House, even acknowledged that they didn't handle it correctly. Meaning, I had nothing to do with it.</s>BURNETT: Right. There is no we in there. There was no we. It was a they.</s>PRESTON: Right.</s>BURNETT: You know, one of those things as you point out, a man who knows his words, not said slightly and not said without thought. Thank you all very much. And next the breaking news, John Kelly making clear to the President he will resign if the President wants him to. So what is Trump thinking tonight? And more breaking news, a sudden resignation at the highest levels of the Justice Department and it could matter a whole a lot for Bob Mueller and the Russian probe. And the clock ticking on the President, will he approve the release of the Democrats response to the Nunes memo? Where is the Democrat's memo?</s>BURNETT: Breaking news, John Kelly making it clear to President Trump he'll resign if that's what the President wants. And a source telling CNN, Trump is talking to friends about possible replacements for Kelly. Our Gloria Borger reporting Trump has called around the people, including House Freedom Caucus Chair Mark Meadows, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, Budget Director Mick Mulvaney, all as possible replacements. Source tells us his Chief Economic Advisor Gary Cohn and the CIA Director Mike Pompeo would also be on the list. Trump offered the job, apparently to long time friend and chairman of Trump's inaugural committee, Tom Barrack. We can tell you Barrack said no. "OutFront" now, former adviser to four presidents, including Nixon and Clinton, David Gergen, and former Army Commanding General for Europe and the Seventh Army Lieutenant General Mark Hertling who conducted multiple operations with General Kelly in Iraq and you know him very well from those times under a great deal of pressure. David, the question is here, is the writing on the wall for John Kelly?</s>DAVID GERGEN, FORMER PRESIDENTIAL ADVISER: Yes, it is. The very fact that within a few hours of all of this exploding in the White House we have a story now from the White House that White House aides are saying that General Kelly gave a false account of what happened at a staff meeting. People are very disturbed. They leaked that out. They -- it sends a clear message that John -- General Kelly may be heading for the door and there are some people pushing him in that direction on the staff.</s>BURNETT: Let me just ask you a follow up that, David, because we are learning that in a staff meeting today, Kelly pushed the narrative that some who are in the meeting, you know, they said it was -- appeared to them to be very untrue about when he learned about the allegations against Rob Porter and what he did about them. You know, Kelly, claimed that he took immediate action and enforced the resignation essentially of Porter. What does it say to you that people are willing there who work for him to come out and leak it and say he's not telling the truth?</s>GERGEN: I think that it says that there is a rebellion going on within. And that it must have the blessing of either Ivanka or Jared or someone for people to start doing this. You know, there has been story for some time that Ivanka wanted him -- General Kelly out. You know, so those surfacing outside, General Kelly coming there was a blessing. But he has crossed swords with a number of people inside and he said some things initially that caused the President some real trouble. I mean, one of the most disturbing things about this, of course, is what really bothers the President is not that people around him have been assaulting women, it is that he is getting bad publicity, so it's appalling.</s>BURNETT: Well, and it's clear that the abuse doesn't bother him, right, as he's wishing Porter well and a great career and saying how sad he feels for him and all of those things. I mean, General, we know General Kelly knew about the abuse allegations for months and obviously didn't act on them until it broke in the media. He strongly defended Porter when the "Daily Mail" first broke the story. You know General Kelly. Is this the man that you knew and served with?</s>LT. GENERAL MARK HERTLING, CONDUCTED OPERATIONS WITH GEN. KELLY IN IRAQ: Well, I met him in Iraq, Erin, and we conducted multiple operations together because we had a common boundary between the west and the north. So I knew him from a tactical and operational standpoint and I always saw him as a good commander. But truthfully, some of the actions that had occurred over the last couple of days tell me that he's missed something because good commanders don't do the kinds of things that he's done over the last couple of days and I'll give you an example of that. You know, whenever you have one of your -- the members of your team being accused of something or having something going wrong and you don't have the full facts, you don't put in a whole hearted defense, you kind of back away. In fact we're trained to do that, to let the legal system go through. So the comments about Porter's character and his integrity and his -- you know, he may have been a high performer and a great individual in terms of his daily duties in the White House. But when something like this comes up and evidently, John Kelly knew about this for a very long time, you start to back away. And you question and you actually do a little bit of investigation yourself as the commander, or in this case the chief of staff, to find out what the heck is going on. This seems extremely strange to me.</s>BURNETT: All right. And of course, I mean, one of the most basic things about domestic abuse is it is by definition not visible in almost -- in so many cases to anybody who is not in the relationship, right? You don't know someone's character outside in a way that he seemed to so quickly jump to.</s>HERTLING: Right.</s>BURNETT: You know, David, if Kelly goes, it's going to be the latest departure in the White House. We have seen a modern record for turnover in the first year of the Trump White House, more than a third of the White House staffs are gone. Whether fired or resigned, I mean just look at this on screen. That's twice Reagan, it is more than three times Clinton, it's nearly four times Obama, even more than H.W. and George W. Bush. What does this tell you?</s>GERGEN: Well, I mean, working for this President seems to be like riding a bucking bronco. You can only stay up on for so long before you get bucked off by just the circumstances. It is a volatile place. We know that they came in with very little experience. He didn't get the top people early on for his White House, that one would normally recruit because somebody had opposed him during the campaign they didn't like him because they were against him. And I think it's been a circus since then, which I just can't tell you. I just have never seen a White House with so many people around a President who have been accused at one point or another of being violent toward women or harassing women. I've never seen a White House that got information about a top person on their team. One of the most trusted people in the White House that he had -- that there was a dark side in which he was accused, there were credible reports that the investigators, the FBI and others had gotten about his past. And to sit on that, I don't know any legal counsel who would have sat on that. They would have immediately had red flags go up and say we've got to know more about this. I don't know of any chief of staff who would sit there and not have done something more. I don't understand. There is something about the culture in this White House that deserves examination because it's not right.</s>BURNETT: That's deeply broken. I mean, General -- yes, go ahead, General.</s>HERTLING: There is an old expression, those of us who study leadership says that the organization takes on the personality of the leader, the personality of the commander. In this case, I think there are certainly some issues with character across the board. We've seen that during the campaign and even during the first year with the President and I think that's unfortunately affecting some of the people in terms of what they are doing because it's what they think they are allowed to do. And it's represented in this most recent case in terms of what is happening with security clearances. As a guy who has worked with security clearances and having people within my organization required to have security clearances for the protection of the country and defending our nation, it's appalling what's going on -- [CROSSTALK]</s>BURNETT: Yes, 30 to 40 to give</s>HERTLING: And it is bubbling up with Porter, but this has been going on for a long time. And many of us have watched this saying, "What the heck is going on?" And people that don't have security clearances or have the interims are doing major engagements with allies, which require them to read intelligence. You don't go into the meeting with the Israelis or the Saudis without having some type of classified information at the highest level, the top secret SCI. So some of the folks who don't have security clearances are going into those meetings, either they're reading it without authority or they're not reading it at all, which is even more damaging, so all of this concerns anybody that's interested in national security.</s>BURNETT: And let me just -- to make the point, obviously there could be many people involved with those talks, but one of whose leading those talks, Jared Kushner, does not have full security clearance. It's been over a year and he is still operating on an interim. David, before we go, you know the Porter family. What can you tell us?</s>GERGEN: I do. Well, first of all, our major concern should be of course with the women, the victims here and I'm glad you've been emphasizing that. It is also deeply saddening to see what is happening to the Porter family. Roger Porter was the top domestic adviser in the White House.</s>BURNETT: That's Rob's father. [CROSSTALK]</s>GERGEN: He's been a friend. Roger is the father. And he's a wonderful man. He's been a friend for years, over 40 years. He and his wife, Ann, were deans or what we used to be called masters of one of the houses here at Harvard. He's very popular professor. He went to</s>BURNETT: All right. Thank you both, so very much.</s>HERTLING: Thank you.</s>BURNETT: And next the breaking news, the third in command of the Justice Department suddenly gone tonight. What does it mean for the Russia investigation? And Kim Jong-un sister not showing away from Vice President Pence at all. Look at this.