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Source: Trump Sees Impeachment as 'Real Possibility'; Trump & Mueller Approval Ratings Down in New CNN Poll; Trump Upset about Chief of Staff Mess. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired December 11, 2018 - 06:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He has a continuing worry, and I think it's a mounting worry.

[05:58:40] UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The Democrats will do anything to hurt this president.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: These former senators are telling their current colleagues, please put your patriotism over your faith to the Republican Party.

GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: He feels somewhat humiliated by the way this has played out, and he doesn't have any Plan B.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The president will make the right choice for chief of staff when he's ready.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's tough under any circumstances, but under this kind of White House, extremely difficult.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY with Alisyn Camerota and John Berman.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Not really.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Are you good with this whole thing?

CAMEROTA: You know, the show starts when the show starts, whether I'm ready or not, I've noticed.

BERMAN: It's only three hours, don't worry. It will go like that.

Welcome to our viewers in the United States and all around the world. This is NEW DAY. It's Tuesday, December 11, 6 a.m. here in New York. Today kicks off days and days of legal proceedings and key events surrounding the Russia investigation and the illegal campaign payments to cover up alleged affairs investigation, which frankly needs a better name. But by any name it is clear the president believes it is all a real threat.

A source tells CNN President Trump thinks it's a real possibility he could be impeached. Of course, that's an effort that would be driven by House Democrats, but beyond that, it isn't clear the president has much to fear from Congress; because even with the mounting evidence that the president could very likely face indictment were he not president, even with the mounting evidence that 16 Trump associates had contact with Russians during the campaign or transition, even with the specter of a Mueller report which could expose even more, even with all of that, key Republicans, especially in the Senate, are saying, "Meh," which is a legal termed for "We don't give a hoot."

Orrin Hatch even went as far as to say, "OK, but I don't care. All I can say is he's doing a good job as president."

So those are the current senators. Forty-four former senators, including some Republicans, are sounding the alarm. In a "Washington Post" op-ed, they warn, "We are entering a dangerous period," and they urge current senators to put the country ahead of partisanship.

CAMEROTA: We will talk to one of them about that.

Meanwhile, accused Russian spy Maria Butina is set to change her plea tomorrow. A source tells CNN she is now cooperating with federal prosecutors. They say Butina cozied up to powerful figures like the NRA to push Russian interests, even asking candidate Trump a question at a campaign event in 2015 that now looks different when we replay it.

Her appearance in court is one of several events this week that could shed new light on the Russia investigation.

So today former national security adviser Michael Flynn will ask a judge for no jail time in his sentencing memo.

And there's a hearing in Paul Manafort's federal case as prosecutors explain the lies that they say torpedoed his plea deal.

Then tomorrow Michael Cohen will learn his sentence for his campaign finance and business crimes in New York. And if all that is not enough, we have breaking news.

There is a new CNN poll on President Trump and Robert Mueller and whether Americans believe the Russia investigation will implicate the president in wrongdoing.

So let's get right to CNN political director David Chalian in our Washington bureau with our new poll numbers hot off the presses -- David.

DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Good morning, Alisyn.

Let me just give you the headline here. These numbers are not going in the direction President Trump would like to see.

His handling of the Russia investigation is back to an all-time low in our polling. Only 29 percent of Americans approve of the way President Trump is handling the investigation; 57 percent disapprove. Take a look at this over time, and you'll see it had ticked up a

little bit recently, 33 percent approval in October, 30 percent in September. He's back down to where he was in the spring and June. And again, that is a record low point.

Now, none of these numbers are good. It's always one of the worst issues tested for him.

Take a look when you look at it by party. I find this fascinating. The big movement is among Republicans. He's lost about 17 percent support here in approval of his handling of the investigation. Only 51 percent of Republicans now approve of the way Donald Trump is handling the investigation.

Not a ton better news for Robert Mueller. Let's take a look at his approval rating on this investigation. Forty-three percent approve, 40 percent disapprove.

If you look over time, he also is trending in the wrong direction. In October he was at 48, in September he was 50. He's back down to a near low point back in the spring. So perhaps suggesting the country overall may be tiring of this.

And in fact, if you look at the party breakdown for Bob Mueller, guys, he's down ten points among independents who approve of the way he's doing his job. I think that may be something he keeps in mind as he wraps this up. You mentioned will this all implicate the president in wrongdoing? About half the country thinks it will. according to this brand-new poll by SSRS.

But take a look at this. A quarter, nearly a quarter of Republicans think that Mueller is likely to implicate Trump in wrongdoing. Independents split about evenly.

Finally, how is this all impacting Donald Trump's overall approval rating? He's back down at 39 percent job approval, 52 percent disapprove. If you look here this is about where he was right before the midterm election and a year ago he wasn't that far away at 35 percent.

When you are in the high 30s, and you've got this kind of cloud swirling over you, this is not where any president would want to be at this moment in their presidency, guys.

BERMAN: David Chalian, that's exactly right. If 39 percent at the beginning of a week or what could be weeks of event after event after event in this Russia investigation.

David Chalian in Washington, we really appreciate it.

Want to bring in CNN senior political reporter Nia-Malika Henderson; CNN senior political analyst John Avlon; and CNN legal analyst Elie Honig. He's a former federal prosecutor who has argued cases before the judge who will sentence Michael Cohen. If we can put up the calendar, and I think it's fascinating --

CAMEROTA: That would be helpful.

BERMAN: You know, as sands through the hourglass, so go the days of our Russia investigation. I mean, it's one thing after another. The Flynn sentencing memo. He gets to file his argument. A hearing on Paul Manafort. Michael Cohen is sentenced. Prosecutors reply to Flynn's sentencing memo.

And then we have this mystery hearing, which I don't even know if we're going to have time to talk about. We don't know what they're going to be arguing on the 12th here.

But Elie, as you look at all of this, and we already know an awful lot, what more information do you expect to learn this week?

ELIE HONIG, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Yes, I think we're going to learn a lot more.

Michael Flynn, let's not sleep on Michael Flynn. Everyone's focused on Cohen and Manafort. The sentencing memo that Mueller put in last week showed that Michael Flynn gave important information. He was a little vague. There was a lot of redactions, but he gave information to Mueller on collusion, coordination between the campaign and Russia. We could learn more about that --

BLITZER: Why would that be in his sentencing memo? He would say here is what I did, he might reveal that.

HONIG: Sure. When a defendant is putting in his sentencing memo he wants to make the best possible case to the judge: "I've given important serious cooperation to the feds." You get a benefit for that. He gets a 5k. So yes, he's going to want to go into as much depth as he can without crossing lines of confidentiality and grand jury secrecy. So we will see what additional details are in Flynn's memo today.

Manafort, if that results in a hearing, we're going to learn more about the ways that he lied, who he was looking to protect. Most interesting to me is that Manafort had these bizarre inexplicable contacts with White House senior officials as late as this year, into 2018. So we could learn more about that. So there's a lot of sort of threatening forces.

Michael Cohen's sentencing tomorrow, we could learn yet more about all the information Cohen has given. So the public record is building. We still don't know what Mueller knows. We may never know, but every day we're learning more and more, and I think you can see the picture coming together.

CAMEROTA: I mean, we don't know what Mueller knows, but we know some things. I mean, we know some things now that we didn't know, perhaps, a week ago.

I mean, we know that there were 16 people in the Trump orbit, close advisers, that had contacts with Russians. Many of whom forgot about those.

NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, yes.

CAMEROTA: And didn't disclose those, for whatever reason. So that starts to form a fuller picture of something not quite right, and -- yes, did you have a point about what else we know?

JOHN AVLON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: All of them forgot, basically. I mean, we're dealing with mass mass amnesia when it comes to dealing with the Russians.

CAMEROTA: OK, and one other, I think, big headline is that Mueller believes that Individual 1, Donald Trump, directed Michael Cohen to break the law. Campaign finance.

HENDERSON: Yes. And that was the big revelation of this past week. And we had some hint of that from Cohen in his testimony in court, but then to see it in the filings there, that Individual 1 was the person who directed this. Essentially directed Michael Cohen to pay these women off, to shut them up before -- before the election.

And you have the president trying to sort of dismiss this and say, "Oh, this is something that Obama did during his campaign." It was completely different. We'll see.

I mean, one of the things that's fascinating in these poll numbers is to see the shift in Republicans in terms of how they think the president is handling this. Sixty-eight percent believed in October. It's 51 percent now. That is a massive dip in terms of how they see this president handling this.

And we know how he's handling it, right? He's tweeting constantly about it. He's calling it a witch-hunt. He's saying it should end. He's saying that Mueller is biased and all of the angry Democrats who are surrounding him are biased. We'll see if they change their strategy, if they're able to sort of change the minds of Republicans who seems to be, in some ways, bailing on him on terms of how he's handling this.

BERMAN: I don't know if they're bailing so much if you listen to Orrin Hatch.

HENDERSON: Yes, but he's bailing, right? I mean, he's retiring.

BERMAN: He's retiring, but the other guys are really -- there's a collective, like, "I don't really care about this." I mean, do you want me to do a dramatic reading from John Kennedy?

AVLON: Please.

BERMAN: He's talking about Michael Cohen. He says, "Jesus loves him, but everyone else thinks he's an idiot," is what he says of Michael Cohen.

CAMEROTA: You didn't do it in his sort of -- Southern patois.

BERMAN: We have a detente right now, and I don't want to upset him by a Louisiana accent. But I also want to play for you a short version of what Orrin Hatch,

again, who is retiring, says about all these revelations that are coming to light. Let's listen to Orrin Hatch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. ORRIN HATCH (R), UTAH: I don't think he was involved in crimes, but even then, you know, you can make anything a crime under the current laws if you want to. You can blow it way out of proportion. You can do a lot of things.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Yes, and he also went on to say, John, "I don't care. All I can say is he's doing a good job as president." I mean, Orrin Hatch is saying, "I don't care."

AVLON: I don't care. That's sad for Orrin Hatch to leave the Senate after a distinguished career on this kind of a note, because this eviscerates a basic principle of justice, which is that a Republican crook is the same as a Democratic crook. That you do care, if you're in a co-equal branch of government, if a president is accused of breaking the law.

And the hypocrisy, of course, is particularly stunning when you look at how Orrin Hatch, Republicans, dealt with Bill Clinton. And now, while the White House is embracing, on the one hand, a "What, me worry?" strategy and hoping that Republicans will just say it doesn't matter, doesn't matter what the facts are, reports are the president is actually concerned about impeachment.

HENDERSON: Yes.

AVLON: So you get these two colliding forces right now, because all the arguments that Republicans who are still left indignantly used against Bill Clinton for impeachment, now are -- magically no longer apply.

BERMAN: You know, we actually have one of those.

AVLON: Let's do that, yes.

BERMAN: Let's put it up on the screen. From someone who knows Orrin Hatch, is familiar with his thinking: Orrin Hatch.

[06:10:02] This is what Orrin Hatch said in 1999 about Clinton: "Committing crimes of moral turpitude such as perjury and obstruction of justice go to the heart of qualification for office. These offenses were committed by the chief executive of our country, the individual who swore to faithfully execute the laws of the United States."

AVLON: Source close to Orrin Hatch was right back then.

Look, this is the situational ethics that makes people sick about Washington. Frankly, when you're a senator of this kind of long standing, you should hold yourself to a little bit higher standard than that kind of sleazy hyper-partisanship that excuses whatever the president of your party does.

Hatch was basically right then, in terms of the standards that should be applied to the president, and he's dead wrong now. But you're going to see that situational ethics flip.

But the president realizes this is bearing down, that this is getting real. Now, whether, you know, his payoffs to the women in the closing days of the campaign rise to, you know, impeachment standard is one of the many debates we'll be having, but you've got to love the fact that after months and months of denials, now it's a simple private transaction, folks.

HENDERSON: And you -- and you do hear Democrats sounding a different note at this point. Jerry Nadler slightly different, talking about impeachment, saying that this did rise to the level of impeachment, still this idea of whether or not it quite rises to the level of impeachment, meaning removing him from office.

So you wonder if there's going to be pressure from the grassroots of Democrats, essentially saying that, you know, you've got to move forward with impeachment.

CAMEROTA: Sure, but then nothing would happen in the Senate.

HENDERSON: Right. Exactly.

CAMEROTA: And that brings us to this legal loophole where the statute of limitations could pass. So the president could be impeached by Democrats, if they were to choose that route, and then let's say that he's reelected. Then the statute of limitations passes, and there's -- there are no legal repercussions.

HONIG: Most statutes of limitations under federal law are five years. So if he wins in 2020, 2024, that's -- he's eight years in.

CAMEROTA: And that's new motivation to win.

HENDERSON: Right, right, right.

HONIG: It could become a political selling point.

HENDERSON: Or to vote against him. I mean, if you're --

HONIG: Could be either way.

But you know, there's this question that John and Nia were talking about: is this enough to impeach? Let's focus just on the campaign finance piece.

I mean, John read the quote. Clinton was impeached over crimes of moral turpitude. Campaign finance goes to the heart of the process, the political process, that landed Donald Trump in the White House. It's much more relevant to the office of the presidency than the things that Bill Clinton did, lying in a civil deposition -- CAMEROTA: It's also connected to moral turpitude, by the way. The

payments were connected to covering up --

HONIG: It is morally turpitudinous (ph).

AVLON: And just imagine for a second if Bill Clinton had been found to have paid off two women in the closing weeks of the 1992 campaign. The chorus of indignation from the Orrin Hatches and the David Bossies of the world, and they wouldn't have been wrong.

BERMAN: I have to also say, and you know this, John, and we all know this. Being elected by corrupt means is one of the areas that the framers intended impeachment to be used.

CAMEROTA: Were concerned about.

BERMAN: They talked about this out loud. There are records of the discussion. So this isn't that far afield of what they intended, whether or not Democrats think they should do it.

I'm actually -- our reporting, I think Jim Acosta has done great reporting on this. The president says he's concerned about impeachment. It's not clear to me that he's genuinely concerned the Democrats do this or he's floating this out out there like he was in the campaign to rile up his base.

HENDERSON: Yes, that's a good point. Yes, yes. Of course, we did hear that before, you know -- before the election in November, this idea that you can't elect House Democrats, because they would impeach him. So it's unclear as to why they're doing it.

They clearly want this story out there, that he's thinking about impeachment, what would that mean. But it is unclear as to whether or not it's just to rile up his base and galvanize some of these people who at this point don't think he's handling the Russia investigation well.

CAMEROTA: Elie, when people say, "Well, Barack Obama did this." No, he didn't.

HONIG: Very different.

CAMEROTA: Right? He did not pay off porn stars that he'd had an affair with. No, he didn't.

AVLON: Top line level.

CAMEROTA: No, that did not happen.

HONIG: Right.

CAMEROTA: But when people say that he had campaign finance violations, what does -- what does that mean?

HONIG: Obama was completely different. He just failed to fill out, essentially, certain paperwork. It was an administrative violation. It was pointed out. His people remedied it, and that was that. It's a completely different situation.

And what's really different here, and Nia mentioned this, my old office, the Southern District of New York, went on record in writing and said there -- there is now evidence Michael Cohen committed these campaign finance crimes for and at the direction of the president.

And as soon as I got that memo, I said is this -- are they going to vouch for this? Because I come from that office, and there is no way on this earth that the Southern District would make that representation to a judge in writing based solely on the say-so of Michael Cohen. It tells me they have more. They have hard evidence proving that.

So, now, what will become of it politically is a different question. Whether it be enough for impeachment? I don't know. Different Congress, people say different things. But it's a huge step to have the United States Department of Justice commit in writing to a federal judge implicating a president in a federal crime.

BERMAN: And it wasn't just Cohen paying Stormy Daniels. Don't forget: they had "The National Enquirer," American Media, they went through a company, a shell organization, essentially, to make this happen, and then they doctored the accounting after the fact.

[06:15:05] HONIG: And people have -- people have said, well, Trump's defense has sort of vacillated from "I didn't know" to "I did know, but it was totally normal and fine."

But then I ask, why the shell companies? And why is everyone lying about this? Why is Trump lying about this? I mean, the lies are --

HONIG: Because it's so telling. Because tone comes from the top. The litany of lies that is the first defense of this organization and this president on this subject all falls apart. And we just see it over and over again, and the entire story of the Russia investigation, denials fall apart in the face of facts. And then they try to normalize it.

CAMEROTA: I think the Orrin Hatch moment is really helpful, actually. I appreciate his candor. I think it's really helpful, because when so many Democrats who are wringing their hands, now Republicans will see the light, finally Republicans -- when they have this hard evidence, where it shows that Donald Trump directed this to try to sway the campaign, now they'll see the light. No.

HENDERSON: Well, I would --

CAMEROTA: I just want one last point. One last point. They like what he's doing. They like what he's doing as president. And that's the end of the story. That's the bottom line here.

HENDERSON: And I mean, I do think Orrin Hatch is in a different position, because he is retiring. He's got a couple more days left in Congress, and he'll go back home to Utah. It would be interesting to see if people like Susan Collins, right, who is literally up for reelection in 2020. If people like that would on camera say the same kinds of things, this doesn't really matter. He's a good president. We don't care if he broke the law.

AVLON: It's a total abdication of their basic responsibility to uphold the Constitution. Let's not monkey around here. This is about we're a nation of laws or men.

BERMAN: So far she says we have to get all the facts.

(CROSSTALK)

BERMAN: I've not reviewed the filings that you've referred to. It doesn't seem like she asks --

CAMEROTA: It doesn't get stronger than that.

AVLON: And this is where moderates get a mad name for being, you know, in the middle and wishy-washy. But this is basic, folks.

BERMAN: Yes.

AVLON: This is not something where folks can say, "Oh, it's cool. You know, nothing matters, and what if he did. He's the president of our party and the economy is doing fine."

This is about basic responsibilities of the office and the oath they've taken.

BERMAN: Can I ask very quickly, Elie, because it's not often I have such an accomplished lawyer sitting next to me professionally. Professionally.

Knowingly and willfully, that's the standard the president would need to be convicted of this campaign finance. So they knowingly and willfully violated the campaign finance law. He had to know that this law existed.

HONIG: Yes, so that -- I think they're trying to distort that a bit, too. The president doesn't have to have been able to recite chapter and verse on the campaign finance law. There's five people in the entire country who can do that.

What they have to show is that the president knew his acts were wrong and unlawful. So that's the level of knowledge.

And again, look at the shell corporation. If you didn't know it was wrong and unlawful, why the shell corporation?

HENDERSON: Yes.

HONIG: Yes, look at the lies. So that's the kind of argument I'd be making in court, but look, there's a fair argument to be made both ways. It's a tough one for prosecutors.

If he says, look, I didn't know that the sub, sub, subsection of the details of the campaign finance law, that's not what prosecutors have to show. What they have to show is that he had bad state of mind, corrupt intent. BERMAN: Elie, Nia, John, thank you very, very much.

A source tells CNN that President Trump is, quote, "super pissed" about the chief of staff mess. The mad scramble to find someone to do the top job inside the White House. The latest frontrunners for the job, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [06:22:01] CAMEROTA: One source describes President Trump as angry.

BERMAN: It wasn't angry. The quote was -- look, I'm not advocating this kind of language, but the actual quote is "super pissed."

CAMEROTA: OK. I was trying to avoid saying that over morning television. As you know, I can be a little rhetorically prudish on TV.

BERMAN: Only rhetorically.

CAMEROTA: Yes. And only on TV.

OK. This all comes after Mr. Trump's topic, Nick Ayers, turned down the chief of staff job. Why is it so hard to fill this position? Let's bring back John Avlon and Nia-Malika Henderson, along with CNN political director David Chalian.

Nia, what's -- why is --

HENDERSON: It's a terrible job. It is a terrible job, more so because of the president, because he's so undisciplined. He loves the chaos. Oh, as well, his daughter and son-in-law work in the White House. So you've got to, you know, kind of manage those folks, you've got to figure out if they're going around you.

So, yes, I mean, it is a rolling Dumpster fire of an atmosphere for anyone to want to work there. Oh, and not only that, you might have to have a lawyer on retainer because of the Mueller investigation that's swirling around this White House.

So, you know, all of these folks -- yesterday around this time, people were pulling their names off the list, right, basically saying absolutely not. That was Meadows, and now you have a sense we're -- well, they're trying to, you know, kind of at least acknowledge maybe this would be a good job, kind of play nice with the president.

Still unlikely, I think, that a lot of those folks are on the list actually want the job and will take it. We'll see.

BERMAN: One of the reasons I think the president is angry --

CAMEROTA: Thank you.

BERMAN: -- as you would like to say, David Chalian, is that the reporting on the story has gone from bad to worse for the president. You have both "The New York Times" and "The Washington Post" reporting overnight that the president had no Plan B. The exact same quote, no Plan B after Nick Ayers.

One of the stories said that the president was left at the alter by Nick Ayers. I mean, this is tough stuff for the president. My one other favorite thing is one of the reasons the president liked Nick Ayers all along is because he looked like Donald Trump as a young man.

CAMEROTA: That's right. He does look like Donald Trump as a young -- yes, he does. I don't -- we're going to do a split screen.

BERMAN: But we digress. The bottom line, David, is that I can see where the president is upset about how this is being covered. Which is not to say he doesn't bear the majority of responsibility for how it got to this point.

CHALIAN: I would say more than the majority. Almost entirely.

But yes, I mean, listen, Nick Ayers gets the best of both worlds here. The world knows that Donald Trump wanted him for chief of staff, and now he doesn't have to have the headache of actually being Donald Trump's chief of staff.

But -- but there's no doubt that the president would be -- any president would be angry to have himself sort of just hanging out there, publicly announcing that he got rid of the other guy but not having a plan locked down to unveil and roll out.

Here's the problem, though. We spend a lot of time dissecting and thinking about and talking about, you know, all the president's men and the people that he puts around him.

But there has been no presidency that has been as solely concentrated in the person sitting in the Oval Office in terms of its personality in modern times as much as this one.

[06:25:10] And so why would anybody want this job? What is the chief of staff in a Donald Trump White House? It's not some job that's going to be a huge resume builder. It's certainly not a job where you're going to be able to bring order to the White House and the way the government works, because the president doesn't want order to the White House and the way the government works.

CAMEROTA: "The Wall Street Journal" put a finer point on it, I mean, that left-leaning rag, said this this morning: "There are many unpleasant jobs in the world, but somebody has got to do them. One is being Donald Trump's chief of staff. And so as he prepares to be liberated from the White House bondage this month, John Kelly deserves the nation's gratitude." Wow.

BERMAN: That's the editorial board.

AVLON: Yes, that's the editorial page. Yes. Yes.

Look, I think everyone should be thanked for their service, because this is an administration where some people are serving at the risk of their reputation. Normally, the chief of staff's a reputation maker. This is a reputation taker. Famously, like Ken Duberstein was like, Reagan's chief of staff to Reagan for, like, two months and has an incredibly successful career dining off that. Normally, that's the way of things. This is instead the opposite. This is the reverse Midas touch. No one wants to go near the job, because it's seen as so thankless, because there's a reason why you shouldn't have children and sons and laws serving in the West Wing. It becomes a thankless process.

But -- but the serious point is this. Yes, this president is uniquely self-centered in defining his administration. We've also never had a president with this much executive time. By which to mean, there's actually plenty for the nation's business for a chief of staff to do. So it really is an important job. It's not simply Kremlinology and -- and, you know, wallpapering.

The fact that there is no Plan B, the fact that, you know, Nick Ayers basically seems to have almost played the president in terms of reputation enhancement and mitigation of disaster personally indicates the problem. It's another depth of the Captain Chaos approach to the Oval Office that doesn't serve the nation's business well. And given the seas that this administration is heading into, even rockier times ahead, folks.

BERMAN: You wanted to put up. Let's just quickly, I just want to show some of the names being discussed. I'm not sure it will reduce the Captain Chaos aspect of this.

Mick Mulvaney, who's in the administration right now; Steve Mnuchin, treasury secretary; Mark Meadows, head of the Freedom Caucus; Robert Lighthizer, trade representative; Chris Christie -- I wouldn't bet on that -- Matt Whitaker also; and then David Bossie, who was a politico insider for a long time, was big in Whitewater and whatnot.

Look, we don't know who it's going to be. We can handicap which way or not.

David, we're talking about the nation's business, though. Coming up later today, there is a key moment in the nation's business, which is that Chuck Schumer, the Senate minority leader, and Nancy Pelosi, who we'll be, we think, the House speaker, coming in are going to meet with the president to discuss this budget deal or vote. I say deal. There's no deal, about what might happen. How do you see this meeting playing out, David?

CHALIAN: Right. So we're getting to that point where the rubber is going to hit the road on how much money the president is asking for his border wall in terms of funding -- in exchange for funding the rest of the government, getting his signature on a bill there and the Democratic leaders are say -- are going to go in and say, "You're only getting this much money for its border wall, and we need to -- you need our votes to pass the spending bill."

So we're going to learn here what that magic number will be. But what I find so interesting about this dynamic right now, Chuck Schumer is in the same job he's going to be in next year, but Nancy Pelosi is going into this meeting not yet -- although as you said, we presume that she is going to be the speaker. But not yet does she have 218 declared votes all locked down.

She's still doing the business of wooing her members and making sure they feel good about making her speaker, which is going to impact her ability to really negotiate with the president here to some extent.

CAMEROTA: Nia, our reporting is that they are willing to offer President Trump $1.3 billion to build the border wall. Why are they capitulating? If he said that Mexico was going to pay for it?

HENDERSON: Yes. That's right. That was a campaign promise and, you know, he hasn't talked about that in a while. It had been, I believe, Chuck Schumer talked about $1.5 billion at one point.

BERMAN: It was at one point six, 1.3 for a fence.

CAMEROTA: Call it fence, wall, whatever you want, but I mean, they're giving him money.

HENDERSON: They're giving -- I mean, you're right. If you're a grassroots Democrat, you don't want any money given to that wall. I mean, his whole problem has always been that Republicans don't even really want this wall. We'll see what comes out of these talks today. As we have known from these sort of Chuck and Nancy, Trump summits before, something will come out and then, a day later, it will change based on a tweet from the president. So we'll see.

AVLON: The strangest form of after-dinner theater, dinner with Chuck and Nancy.

Here's the deal, though. We've got a real deadline coming down, folks, December 21. We've got a potential shutdown. And we know what the parameters are, right? Democrats said they're offering over $1 billion for a fence. It's concession against their base's wishes. Freedom Caucus is saying if it's not $5 billion for the wall, we're not doing anything. So is the president going to try to use his political capital to create a deal, build something big and not shut down the government, with unified Republican control or are we going to go careening off the cliff again?

BERMAN: Stay tuned for our next episode.

AVLON: That's right.