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Lawmakers Slam Potential Troop Withdrawal from Afghanistan; Trump Demands Border Wall Funding, Refuses to Sign Bipartisan Legislation. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired December 21, 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: For Secretary Mattis, who's never been known to quit anything, this was the breaking point.

[05:59:28] SEN. RICHARD BLUMENTHAL (R), CONNECTICUT: This decision to resign is virtually our worst nightmare.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The president is entitled to a secretary of defense that shares his world view.

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I've made my position very clear. Any measure that funds the government must include border security.

SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY), MINORITY LEADER: The Trump temper tantrum can shut down the government. It will not get him his wall.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome to our viewers in the United States and all around the world. This is NEW DAY. It's Friday, December 21, 6 a.m. here in New York. America is less safe this morning.

That is the sentiment I heard overnight from government officials, active-duty service members, Republican lawmakers -- Republican lawmakers. That's the reaction to the resignation of Defense Secretary James Mattis, who quit in protest, the reaction that just can't be overstated.

Add to that a looming shutdown. Matt Viser of "The Washington Post" ominously -- ominously notes that, A, I can't talk; B, that this December 21 will be the darkest day of the year.

The headlines in the papers from "The New York Times," "Upheaval in Washington"; from the Washington Post, "'A tailspin': Under siege, Trump propels the government and markets into crisis."

On the surface, General Mattis quit over the president's decision to pull U.S. troops out of Syria and the sudden order to withdraw half of U.S. forces from Afghanistan. But his resignation makes clear he thinks the president is too ungrateful to U.S. allies, too solicitous of U.S. adversaries. One former official quoted in "The Washington Post" says, quote, "He quit because of the madness."

And that madness now includes a Russia investigation that could be closing in, a wall that will likely not be built, and a stock market that is plunging.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: And then, there is the very real threat of a partial government shutdown at midnight tonight. The president insists that he will not sign any spending bill that does not include billions for his border wall.

Well, that sent the House scrambling to bass a bill with border wall money included. But that measure looks dead on arrival in the Senate. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell plans to schedule a vote today to begin debate on the House bill. Fifty votes are needed to advance it, and even that is a long shot. Unless someone compromises, more than 800,000 government workers will go without paychecks in the days before Christmas.

So we have a lot to cover on this very busy Friday morning. We begin with Abby Phillip, live at the White House to make sense of it all -- Abby.

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Alisyn.

The White House is in turmoil this morning facing duel crises: the resignation of Secretary of Defense James Mattis and also a looming government shutdown that is likely to come just before Christmas.

One House GOP conservative who supports President Trump telling CNN the wheels are coming off.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIP (voice-over): The Trump administration in crisis mode on several fronts. Secretary of Defense James Mattis dropping a bombshell on Washington resigning from his cabinet position.

Congress facing the very real possibility of a partial government shutdown over the president's border wall, plus rising interest rates sending the markets into freefall, the Dow dropping more than 460 points. Secretary Mattis announcing his resignation in a letter, explaining his views aren't aligned with the president's, writing, "My views on treating allies with respect and also being clear-eyed about malign actors and strategic competitors are strongly held and informed by over four decades of immersion in these issues."

The retired four-star Marine general announced his departure one day after President Trump declared he's pulling U.S. troops from Syria.

TRUMP: We have won against ISIS. We've beaten them, and we've beaten them badly.

PHILLIP: CNN learning Thursday the president also plans to with withdrawal about half the U.S. troops serving in Afghanistan.

A senior administration official telling CNN Secretary Mattis was vehemently opposed to both decisions, and sources say he went to the White House Thursday to try to change the president's mind.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is an issue which has been going on for sometime now. I think this was the breaking point for Secretary Mattis, who has never been known to quit anything.

PHILLIP: The reaction was swift. Retired General Stanley McChrystal declaring, "The kind of leadership that causes a dedicated patriot like Jim Mattis to leave should give pause to every American."

Republican Senator Marco Rubio tweeting, "It makes it abundantly clear that we are headed towards a series of grave policy errors which will endanger our nation, damage our alliances, and empower our adversaries."

Senator Mark Warner, a top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee declaring, "This is scary."

REP. PAUL RYAN (R-WI), SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: The president informed us that he will not sign the bill that came over from the Senate last evening.

PHILLIP: On Capitol Hill, lawmakers are scrambling with midnight deadline to fund parts of the government. President Trump standing defiant in the face of losing money for his border wall.

TRUMP: I've made my position very clear. Any measure that funded the government must include border security. Has to.

PHILLIP: The Senate expected to vote today on a new funding bill that includes $5 billion for a wall.

KIRSTJEN NIELSEN, SECRETARY OF HOMELAND SECURITY: The president will continue to advocate over what the men and women of the border patrol say they need. And this is what it is. It's a physical infrastructure along with the technology and personnel that go to it.

PHILLIP: But the bill is expected to be dead on arrival as Democrats prepare to take control of the House in January.

SCHUMER: The Trump temper tantrum may produce a government shutdown. It will not get him his wall.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIP: And here's where things stand right now. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell needs 50 votes to take up the House version of the bill but appears he doesn't have it. Many Republicans have already left town.

[06:05:08] And what can happen now is that the House and the Senate and the White House can negotiate a new compromise, or the House can take up the bill the Senate passed earlier this week that has no border wall funding. So it appears, John and Alisyn, we are no closer to averting this government shutdown happening, midnight tonight.

BERMAN: All right. Abby Phillip, stay with us. We want to bring in retired Rear Admiral John Kirby. He was the Pentagon and State Department spokesperson under President Obama; former Clinton White Houses press secretary Joe Lockhart; and CNN senior political analyst John Avlon.

We're going to get to the shutdown in a little bit in our next block, I think, which is testament to how big the news is about James Mattis.

CAMEROTA: Right. Something has eclipsed the fact that shutdown, hundreds of thousands of people could go without paychecks.

BERMAN: I have frankly never seen reaction to something quite like this, Admiral, including among active-duty military, you know, Republican staffers on the Hill, publicly from Republican lawmakers. They're just stunned this morning. They're simply stunned by what General Mattis did and said.

REAR ADMIRAL JOHN KIRBY (RET.), CNN MILITARY AND DIPLOMATIC ANALYST: Yes, big news for sure. Any time you lose a defense secretary, certainly now, one of this stature.

But look, as I talked about last night, I think he really had no choice. This is the honorable thing that you do when you ethically and morally just can't support your boss anymore and the commander in chief.

So I'm not surprised that he did it, even though I know it was the last resort for him. But I also think, you know, we need to wait and see who President Trump nominates to be his successor. I'm not willing to go so far as to say, you know, this is scary; this is the end of the world. He's going to be in the job until the end of February. I believe he will stick it out. And then we need to see who Trump nominates to replace him.

What worries me, John, is that he'll replace him with an ideologue, a lap dog, somebody who is completely aligned with his world view and his disdain for alliances, diplomacy, multilateral institutions. That's what worries me.

CAMEROTA: Well, some people are willing to go so far as to say this is scary. And I like your cool-headedness, Admiral. We always appreciate that.

But something happened yesterday. Something changed where people, even people who are generally reluctant to speak out like Mitch McConnell, for instance, felt the need to speak out. And so Mitch McConnell basically said, "I believe it is essential the United States maintain and strengthen the post-World War II alliances that have been carefully built by leaders of both parties, so I was sorry to learn that Secretary Mattis, who shares those clear principles, will soon depart the administration. But I am particularly distressed that he is resigning due to sharp differences with the president on these and other key aspects of America's global leadership."

Again, it's just rare to hear Mitch McConnell, Joe, break with President Trump. JOE LOCKHART, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I think that's what's so

stunning about it. I think for so many people in Washington and around the world, General Mattis served as a security blanket. The one person in the room that would keep Trump from being a full-on Trump.

And with him leaving, I think they've got -- and McConnell, you have not heard sharp words from McConnell in the last two years. He has played the role of "I will disagree with you privately. I will publicly support you."

And there, he not only gave a sense of distress here, he went on to the particular issues. He said, "I don't agree with the president here. I agree with General Mattis, and we may get through this but, you know, it has taken, like the anxiety level of the rest of the world from Defcon two to four.

JOHN AVLON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes, and look, the Republicans in the Senate have really fallen in line behind this president, because the economy's doing well, and he has been popular with the base. And so they've really ignored the obvious.

But what Mattis resigned over wasn't just a Syria policy. What McConnell criticized was not just that; it's about a basic vision of American leadership that has undergirded the American system for a half-century that this president shows disdain for, too often siding with Vladimir Putin over the Pentagon.

And what we're being forced to confront today on the winter solstice is this. The president is the prime driver of instability in the United States today, not the guarantor of our security, as we've come to expect, but the prime driver of chaos and instability in the United States and, arguably, around the world.

BERMAN: I have to say, again, to go back to Mitch McConnell, he says, "I am particularly distressed." That is Mitch McConnell speak for "Holy crap."

CAMEROTA: I know that.

BERMAN: Right. And I mean, that is what he is just saying right there. And I have to say, John, to the idea of what the political ramifications are and impact of this, I heard from a Republican staffer on the Hill who said this makes impeachment more likely.

Now, I don't need to tie this into the Russia investigation right now. We're going to have tie to talk about that over the course of the show. But the ripple effects of this are that Republicans are shaken, and their support for the president is shaken. And that might be an underestimate.

AVLON: In a deep, fundamental way. And remember, the so-called axis of adults of whom Mattis was the last, is last to leave the room, gave a lot of security to folks who could say, "Pay no attention to what he says. Look at what he does." Because there's a continuity. H.R. McMaster, Jim Mattis, you may have

your disagreements with the president, as John McCain did, but express confidence in those folks. Those folks have been summarily thrown out or alienated for disagreeing with the president's instinctive isolationist world view.

[06:10:10] And so Republicans on the Hill have been stalwart, are going to begin to break. Combine that with the fact that we have a self-inflicted shutdown by a Republican president, not a Congress of the opposite party. And you've got chaos, and conservatives can't ignore it anymore.

CAMEROTA: Admiral Kirby, you know, James Mattis just could not have spelled out any more plainly what his concerns are and why he was resigning and why he was standing on principle. So I'll just read another portion of his letter.

"While the U.S. remains the indispensable nation in the free world, we cannot protect our interests or serve that role effectively without maintaining strong alliances and showing respect to those allies."

I thought that that was really a key phrase because, let's face it. There have been a lot of fraying of the alliances, while President Trump has realigned things to side more with Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un.

KIRBY: Yes, that's exactly right. And I think the line and that the basis for his resignation shows you the key difference between Trump and the generals and admirals that he claims to like and respect so much.

He has -- he has fundamentally misread how hard the United States military men and women have, over the last five, six, seven decades, tried to build this international world order now, which is based on alliances and partnerships and coalition building and consensus among international partners.

And so Mattis was not only a benefactor of that system. He was a creator of it. And Trump just doesn't understand that. He had the same problem with McMaster, and he's obviously got the same kind of problems with John Kelly. He thinks that generals and admirals are about all about just kill, kill, kill. And there's much more to service and the military, in there's much more to leadership at that level than that. That's what Mattis, I think, was very, very hard trying to get him to understand and clearly wasn't able to get there.

BERMAN: You know, Abby, it's really interesting. I can figure out who's telling the president to shut down the government over the border wall. I get the politics of that. And you can see who in the White House thinks that's a good idea and not.

I can't figure out who's telling the president it's a good idea to do something that forces James Mattis to quit. You know, who are the people whispering in his ear that this is the path he should be taking?

PHILLIP: The person whispering in his ear is himself. This is what's so different about this moment.

You know, frankly, reading James Mattis's letter, he's had these concerns about President Trump for a long time. It didn't happen this week that he realized out President Trump has disdain for U.S. alliances, that he treats his friends like enemies, that Russia and China are not viewed in a frame as adversaries and as competitors on the local stage.

Those things have always been true from the last two years. What's different about this week is that President Trump demonstrated by rejecting Mattis's strenuous advice on the Syria issue, that he's no longer listening. He was no longer listening to the people that he used to listen to.

When President Trump first came into office, he surrounded himself by people who he called his generals. That was Mad Dog Mattis, H.R. McMaster and later, John Kelly. And it was, for a long time, a comfort to Republicans on the Hill that President Trump would defer to them when it came to national security and on issues involving the military.

That changed this week when President Trump basically sidelines most of his military advisors, he sidelined Capitol Hill. And he said, "I'm going to do this thing. I'm going to pull us out of Syria. I'm going to pull us out of Afghanistan."

And that changed not just the moment or this particular issue but the way in which people around the president felt like they could advise him. I think that's what makes this a breaking point. That's probably why you're seeing people like Mitch McConnell speaking out where they haven't before.

Because there was a guard rail for President Trump int eh past, in the sense that he could be advised. Now it appears that he's listening to himself. He is taking his own counsel and relying on his instincts, doing things that he believes are core campaign promises, especially as he's going into a very important political period. He has to do.

The problem, though, is that Republicans are ringing the alarm bells, because this is the one element that they thought that President Trump was really going along in a pretty normal sort of conservative frame. He's not really doing that any more, and they're having problems with it.

But frankly, this is -- this is Trump. This is who he's been the entire time. I think Republicans have just been looking away.

AVLON: And this is why you can't simply say ignore what he says, look at what he does, because people generally do what they say eventually.

And Trump has had this impulse consistently. But it's the experience gap. You know, the generals who helped, you know, do the surge in Iraq in '06, '07, at the same time you've got Donald Trump doing Green Acres at the Television Association.

BERMAN: Literally. AVLON: Literally. And that gap speaks to the problem we're dealing

with right now. And so the question will be, whether -- because it's the Afghanistan withdrawal on top of this that is the one-two punch.

This isn't about a front in a war. This is about larger decisions that have geopolitical ramifications for decades, again, playing into Putin's larger interests rather than the Pentagon's. And so one of the questions will be, and brother Lockhart had a good suggestion about this. What republic -- does this change any Republican attitudes towards the Mueller protection bill that McConnell has blocked over and over again?

CAMEROTA: You know --

LOCKHART: Go ahead.

CAMEROTA: Well, only -- I was just going to say what Abby was saying, this should not be a surprise. For instance, in Bob Woodward's book, he talked how senior aides, including Mattis, were quite troubled and exasperated by the president's impetuousness. I mean, the words he used were erratic behavior, ignorance, penchant for lying. Back then, according to Woodward, Mattis said Trump only understands issues at an elementary school level.

But Mattis was hanging on because of all the things that we've talked about that he saw his role, I assume, as a guardrail --

LOCKHART: Yes.

CAMEROTA: and that he believed in duty to country until yesterday.

LOCKHART: And I think Abby hit it right, which is Trump has a limited shelf life for how he'll listen to anyone. At the beginning I think he was in awe of the generals, Flynn being one of them; and that explains a little bit about what's going on. But the more they disagree with him, the more he disregards them.

I think two points. The biggest thing from the letter, I thought, was Mattis was signaling that we're going to lose our position as the indispensable nation. And that's -- that's critical. You've heard that through initiatives. Madeline Albrecht talked -- used to talk about American exceptionalism and the indispensability of America. We are losing that.

I think what John was referring to is I do think there's a deal to get out of all of this. And I wish they would look at it, which is Trump wants some money for the wall. They can give him a little money.

What Democrats and I think increasingly, Republicans post this week want is to make sure that Mueller is allowed to finish. They don't want to get rid of Trump. If Trump needs to go for the wrong purposes, they want Mueller to do it for them. And if they could put those two things together, that Trump signs that bill and he gets some money for border wall, we could get out of office.

BERMAN: So you think up arrow, if you're the old "Newsweek" from, you know, 1982, you think Mueller has an up arrow this week?

LOCKHART: Yes. I think -- I think again, Republicans, this may be -- we may look back at this week and say, "This is when Republicans turned. This is when impeachment became real."

And impeachment is only real, not that they're actually going to have a trial. It becomes real if they stop supporting the president and they go down to the White House and tell the president, "You've got to go."

CAMEROTA: To be clear, that means that you think that Democrats today should compromise on the border wall and give him more money?

CAMEROTA: If -- if they can get protection for Mueller, because without that, you know, we could have Matt Whitaker shut this thing down. You know, a couple of weeks ago people just said Whitaker would never shut this down. I counter that with a couple weeks away, we said we're pulling out of Syria and Afghanistan. and Mattis quits? Anything's possible.

CAMEROTA: Yes. On that note --

BERMAN: All right. Merry Christmas, everybody.

AVLON: Merry Christmas.

BERMAN: So adding to the chaos in Washington this morning, the government on track for a partial shutdown. Can lawmakers and the president reach a compromise before midnight?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:22:00] CAMEROTA: All right. A partial government shutdown is looking more likely to happen today than it was yesterday. The House passed this funding bill to keep the government open, and it includes President Trump's $5 billion demand for his border wall; but that bill is likely to die in the Senate.

So we're back with Joe Lockhart; Abby Phillip. We're also joined by former director of legislative affairs at the White House under President Trump, Marc Short.

Marc, I want to start with you. You're obviously a supporter of the president and his policies, which is why we always appreciate your perspective on NEW DAY. Did yesterday give you any agada, watching what happened with Mattis and this government shutdown seeming to ramp back up?

MARC SHORT, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Well, Alisyn, I think Secretary Mattis' resignation is a big loss for the administration. Secretary Mattis, obviously, is somebody that the men and women in uniform admire enormously. They love working for him. And he was one of the few cabinet members who, I think, enjoyed bipartisan support on Capitol Hill. So he could go to the Hill and advocate for the administration's policies.

So -- so I do think that's a significant loss for the administration.

On the shutdown, I feel like it was good to have the vote last night. It's good to have people on record on this. I hear the continued talking points that Democrats favor border security; but I don't think, actually, there's any record that supports that. I think that, unless you go back to 2006, when 80 percent of our conference actually voted for the Secure Fenced Act, to authorize the construction of a wall.

So I think it is a good contrast to have. But I do think this process has been very poor on all sides. We haven't passed appropriations bills on time in this country in 22 years. Congress has failed to do that. So we're always left with this Christmas brinksmanship. And the administration and Congress --

CAMEROTA: Just I hear you -- I hear you, Marc, but not speaking historically. Just yesterday, did you think that there was something particularly chaotic about the way it all unfolded?

SHORT: What I was about to say, Alisyn, is I think this is a -- this is a process that should have played out long before yesterday.

I mean, if the administration was going to continue to push for this vote, then this vote should have happened before we reached the midnight hour. And that's something that should have been worked out with Congress long ago.

Having said that, I still think it was good to have the vote. I think that it's good to put people on record, and I think that, you know, there are still some ways out of this. I do think you're probably headed toward a temporary shutdown.

But you know, even to the last segment, Joe's suggestion: if I was advising the president, I'd advise him to support that, because I don't think that the president has any intention of firing Mueller, so if the Democrats would support his wall for the condition of putting on Mueller language, I think that's what I would advise him to support.

BERMAN: Well, you guys have made more progress negotiating before 6:25 a.m. than the White House and the Congress has in the last three weeks. So thank you for that, gentlemen.

Joe Lockhart, two points. No. 1, one of the things that the president pointed out rightly overnight is that Nancy Pelosi said that the House wouldn't pass this, that Nancy Pelosi said they didn't have the votes. It turns out they did. They did get this through.

LOCKHART: Yes. Again, and I don't think this vote -- yesterday's vote was a P.R. exercise. It's --

CAMEROTA: Why? Because they know the Senate is not going to do it?

LOCKHART: Because they know the Senate is not going to do it. And it was -- Trump put House Republicans in a corner. They did -- they did what they had to. [06:25:08] CAMEROTA: Can I just stop you there right there for one

second, Joe? I mean, again, because we live in upside-down world, how can we say declarative statements like the Senate is not going to give to do it? The Senate's Republican-controlled. Mitch McConnell controls the Senate. How do we know the Senate isn't going to give him his border wall funding?

LOCKHART: Because they need 60 votes for it, to start, and my guess is that I don't think that they can get 50 votes. I think there are a number of Republican senators who think building a wall is a P.R. exercise and kind of silly.

I think the most interesting thing of this week, though, has been, and we were talking about this yesterday morning, yesterday morning was this is going to sail through. And the great television anchor Alisyn Camerota was looking at "FOX & Friends" while we talking about it.

CAMEROTA: Yes, I was. That's where I get a lot of my wisdom.

LOCKHART: And -- and that is Trump, Monday through Wednesday, was going to sign this, and he was going to say, "I'll get it down the road. And we don't -- we don't really need this and that."

And when, you know, the great powerhouses like Brian Kilmeade and, you know, Steve Doocy weighed in and then Ann Coulter weighed in, Trump folded and folded quickly. And that's why we're at this point. That, you know, you have this juxtaposition of "I'm not going to listen to General Mattis. I'm going to listen to Steve Doocy."

CAMEROTA: Well --

LOCKHART: That is scary.

CAMEROTA: The great philosopher queen, Alisyn Camerota --

LOCKHART: Yes.

CAMEROTA: -- knew that.

LOCKHART: Yes.

CAMEROTA: Because we do know where the president gets his --

LOCKHART: You should have been here yesterday. It was remarkable.

CAMEROTA: Yes, it was really --

BERMAN: This sounds like a really good day.

CAMEROTA: -- one of my finest.

The point is, is that he's proven time and again this is where he gets his talking points and eve policy. And it's not a joke. This is for real, which is why I'm watching now the next secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, is weighing in.

BERMAN: I will say this. When you are referring to yourself in the third person --

CAMEROTA: Things have gotten serious.

BERMAN: -- things have gotten very serious.

Abby Phillip, John Berman wants to ask you a question this morning, which is this. Look, one of the things we heard overnight is that, if the government is shut down, the president is not going to go to Mar- a-Lago. Is he going to sit around the White House for the next two weeks, stewing, if this thing doesn't pass? I mean, and I don't think it will. So I'm not quite sure I understand where the White House thinks this is going?

PHILLIP: That is a very good question, John Berman. I think the fact that President Trump acknowledged -- and I should say the timeline on this was that, initially, we were told by an administration official that the president was going to go if there was a government shutdown.

And then shortly thereafter that, something happened; and the president changed his mind and decided to stay in Washington. Now, there are few things President Trump likes more than being on the golf course in Florida when he has time off. And so the fact that he's decided to stay here, I think, really does change the dynamic around this.

I think it perhaps might incentivize him more to try to find some way out of this predicament, that he cannot go down to Florida, at least not at the moment given what they're seeing with the government shutdown, with, you know, thousands of government workers on furlough over Christmas.

So -- so in some ways, this could be a positive thing for the deal, but at the same time, you know, one of the problems -- and I think Mark really touched on this a moment ago -- was that we are doing this at the very last second.

The White House waited until yesterday to decide what their position was going to be on the bills that were moving through the House and the Senate. And this is a last-minute thing.

So if they're going to get out of this, the White House has to also decide how they are going to lead in the negotiations between the House and the Senate to find a compromise bill.

I don't really see any evidence that the White House is -- is yet leading on that particular issue. It is not going to be the case that Mitch McConnell is going to take up exactly what the Senate, the House has put forward, because he can't get it passed.

There has to be some kind of compromise, and they're going to need to have more clarity from President Trump about what he is willing to accept. And so far Trump has been very unwilling and reluctant to do that until he's up against a wall like we were yesterday.

BERMAN: And can I add just one quick thing?

CAMEROTA: Yes.

BERMAN: Mitch McConnell is already upset at the president. He's doubly upset. Mitch McConnell is angry at the president for how he's handled the shutdown.

CAMEROTA: How could you blame him? I mean, he was blind-sided in -- because of the lack of clarity. He thought that he was doing, I think, what the president had wanted, based on his tweets. But then the president reversed course.

BERMAN: And now he's doubly upset with the president, as we talked about last segment for the Mattis thing. So you've got an angry majority leader right now who you need to be the guy to force this through.

CAMEROTA: Because I'm on a roll, I'm going to make another prediction. The president will go to Mar-a-Lago, even if the government is shut down.

BERMAN: Alisyn Camerota.

CAMEROTA: You heard it here first.

Marc Short, again, I know that you can talk about how this -- watching the sausage being made has always been not pretty. However, the lack of clarity from the president did trip up Mitch McConnell. Do you agree?

SHORT: Alisyn, I said I think the process has been broken all the way around; and I think the administration deserves some of the blame for that, too. Having said that, I do think when you say that, you know, the president just flipped on this, he's been an advocate for border security for quite some time. I think what --

CAMEROTA: But his -- but hold one one second.