CNN "The Situation Room" - Transcript: Interview with Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI)

Interview

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BLITZER: Yes. We have a copy, clearly, of the document, as well. All right. Evan, thank you very much.

Let's get some more on all of these developments. Democratic Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island is joining us. He's a key member of the Judiciary Committee.

Senator, thanks so much. I want to begin with President Trump's surprise announcement this morning that the United States will now immediately and rapidly draw down, withdraw all its military presence in Syria, 2,000 U.S. troops. Do you believe that's the right decision?

[17:15:04] SEN. SHELDON WHITEHOUSE (D), RHODE ISLAND: Well, clearly, it's not clear yet how this is all going to shake out. But what is clear is that this was a rash decision, this was an unexpected decision. This was an ill-coordinated decision. And it is good for the Russians and bad for U.S. credibility. How bad remains to be seen.

BLITZER: The president is getting hammered, as you know, by some of -- several of your Republican colleagues for this decision, and for tweeting that ISIS and Syria has now been defeated. Do you see comparisons to President Bush's "mission accomplished" moment during the Iraq War?

WHITEHOUSE: Yes, I think obviously, the overstatement of the level of success compares with that Bush statement.

I think the longer-running piece of this is going to be that from the -- you know, America tries to do things through coalitions. And to make coalitions effective, you have to be creditable. And whether your coalition is at the international level, and you're dealing with other sovereigns or whether you're at the local level and dealing with local fighters and leaders who have come to trust our soldiers, all of that got disrupted today, and we'll just have to see how bad the consequences are.

BLITZER: Some lawmakers are applauding the president's decision. Senators like Rand Paul, for example, they worry about the U.S. military maintaining an indefinite presence in the region. They're happy to see some troops coming home. So if not today, when should American troops withdraw from Syria?

WHITEHOUSE: I couldn't say that. But I can say that, even if you are planning to withdraw from Syria, there's a right way to do it and there's a wrong way to do it. And this appears to have been very clearly the wrong way to do it.

BLITZER: Let's not forget, the U.S. still has 5,200 troops in Iraq and some 14,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, as you can see over there. We'll see what the president decides to do about those military personnel.

Let's turn, Senator, to the Mueller probe right now. I want your thoughts on the rather mysterious case of this unidentified company owned by an unnamed foreign government that a court just ordered to comply with a grand jury subpoena. You're a former prosecutor. What can you gather from the limited information the U.S. government, the prosecution, the Mueller probe, has put forward?

WHITEHOUSE: Well, I think the obvious thing that one can glean from all of this is that the early reporting that the Mueller probe is nearly finished are a long way from being accurate. I think there is a lot left to go. And clearly, the sentencing memorandum for Flynn and now this activity shows a very active continuing investigation.

To me, the biggest shoe that has yet to drop is what Mueller is doing and what they are going to do about the change, the pro-Russia change in the Republican Party platform relative to our national position on the Ukraine.

And when you consider this Trump business deal that was going on in and around that time period, when you consider that Manafort and Flynn were both engaged in those conversations, that Manafort was leading his team through that convention, that Manafort had his own interests, pro-Russian interests in Ukraine, and it's perhaps one of the most transactional people ever born on the planet, the idea that that all happened without there being quid pro quos and nefarious behavior seems very unlikely.

And so that's the big next piece that I am expecting to drop, based on what we already know. I wouldn't put it past Mueller to indict the Trump campaign. We're circling that wagon pretty closely, too.

BLITZER: I suspect you're right. This looks like it's going to go on and on. You see no end, at least right now, right?

WHITEHOUSE: Not immediately. And I honestly don't see how Bob Mueller or any prosecutor could walk away from that Ukraine plank switch at this stage. I think there's very likely something chargeable in all of that mess. So I think until that shoe falls, we know that the investigation will continue.

BLITZER: And on your suggestion that that's possible, that Mueller might actually indict the Trump campaign, what do you know about that? WHITEHOUSE: Well, I don't. I'm just drawing conclusions. Mueller

has done -- unlike Kavanaugh and Starr back in the Clinton investigation, Mueller has done a very professional job of not litigating his investigation in the media and in public. So we really don't know much about this.

But when you see the indictments of Manafort and look at his at least temporary period of cooperation; when you see Flynn's charge and sentencing coming up and his cooperation; when you look at some of the threads that connect into the Trump campaign, it's easy to imagine an indictment of the Trump campaign as a corporate entity. And then that would create further activity in the investigation.

BLITZER: But it doesn't exist anymore, that campaign. How do you indict an entity that really, at least for now, doesn't exist?

WHITEHOUSE: Well, it existed at the time, and I wouldn't be surprised if there were some lingering corporate presence that could be indicted and you worked through that to get to other people. I think that it's a credible thing for them to be looking at.

[17:20:08] BLITZER: Senator Whitehouse, thanks so much for joining us.

WHITEHOUSE: Glad to be with you.

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