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U.S. Government Shutdown Continues as Negotiations Stall; Trump Forces Out Defense Secretary Two Months Early. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired December 24, 2018 - 07:00   ET

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

[07:00:04] ERICA HILL, CNN ANCHOR: No.

AVLON: No. The third government shutdown of the year enters its third day, and there appears to be no end in side. Negotiations between the White House and Senate Democrats essentially stalling, with both sides digging in over funding for President Trump's border wall. Acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney says it's possible the shutdown could last into the new year.

HILL: The chaos, though, just one day before Christmas does not end there.

President Trump abruptly forcing out Defense Secretary James Mattis two months early. This after coverage of the general's bruising resignation letter, criticizing the president's sudden decision to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria and Afghanistan. CNN has learned senior military officials are worried about the uncertainty the military upheaval is causing, and it's triggering anxiety among U.S. allies, as well, and in markets around the world.

AVLON: That uncertainty leading to alarming headlines on the front pages of newspapers across the country.

So let's bring in White House reporter for Bloomberg News, Toluse Olorunnipa; the former Clinton White House secretary -- press secretary, Joe Lockhart; and Republican strategist Alice Stewart. Thanks for being all with us, and merry Christmas Eve. A lot of news to get to.

Joe, you suffered through a pretty epic shutdown. How is this different? Should we be worried that this is a new normal?

JOE LOCKHART, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, I don't know about new normal, but I think this one may go on for a while. I agree with the acting chief of staff. And it's because both sides think they're winning. And in some senses, they are.

For Trump this is about his base. It's always about his base. It's about his promise. And in some ways, this is a much better debate than Mattis leaving, the markets tanking, the Mueller probe.

Democrats also think they're winning. There's not public support for this border wall. Standing up to the president helps them with Democrats, their own base, but also independents. They're playing a larger game.

So right now, the incentives are to keep the government shut down, politically. And the solution to this will have to be political. Someone is going to have to start feeling the pain; and I don't see that in the short term.

HILL: And what -- in terms of that pressure, there is no incentive, really, as you point out, Joe, on either side here. But what's happening at the White House this morning? The president very busy, very active on Twitter over the weekend, as we're learning and reporting, too, increasingly relying on his gut, which we know he's talked about in the past. He certainly has no plans to change his mind, it seems, Toluse.

TOLUSE OLORUNNIPA, WHITE HOUSE REPORTER, BLOOMBERG NEWS: No, the president was actually supposed to be down in Florida at his Mar-a- Lago resort on the golf course this week, but instead, he is virtually alone in Washington. The rest of the town has basically cleared out. You have the House speaker and the Senate mostly out of town, the president on his own, tweeting up a storm in the residence of the White House.

And he is really sort of being his own chief strategist, his own chief of staff in deciding to take this fight all the way into 2019, when Democrats are going to take over the House; and it's not clear what the end game is here. I think he just wants to show his base, as Joe said, that he's fighting as much as possible for this border wall.

But we've seen the Republicans take counteroffers over to the Hill that have been rejected. The number keeps going down. First it was $5 billion. Now it's somewhere between $1.6 billion and 5 billion. And Democrats don't have any incentive to cooperate with this president, especially now that Congress is going to be out until December 27.

Just a week later, Nancy Pelosi is going to become the speaker of the House. And she can send a clean bill over to the Senate. And then the Senate will have to decide whether to defy the president. And then the president will have to decide whether to veto a spending bill to open up the government. And at that point, if everyone is frustrated with the fact that the government remains closed, the president may have to just cave. And that is where we may find ourselves early in -- in the next year.

AVLON: So Alice, over the last 25 years, we've had a limited number of shutdowns, but of pretty long duration. We've had two under President Clinton, one under President Obama, and then this is the third under President Trump. First two just for one day and three days respectively. This is going to go on much longer.

What's unusual is because this is happening with unified control of government, you didn't see a lot of Republicans rallying around the president yesterday on the Sunday shows. Not just Bob Corker squaring off with him. That's expected. But also, you know, Pat Toomey, Mitch McConnell. And Chris Christie with some pretty damning comparison that resonates across the holiday table. Let's take a listen. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRIS CHRISTIE (R), FORMER NEW JERSEY GOVERNOR: I want to ask everybody who's out in the audience today, if they have a 72-year-old relative whose behavior they're attempting to --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Just like Donald Trump?

CHRISTIE: Hold on. Whose behavior they're attempting to change, when people get older, let's get ready. Because it's happening to me now. When people get older, they do become more and more convinced of the fact that what they're doing is the right thing, and it becomes harder to convince them otherwise.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AVLON: So Alice, what's the end game for Republican here, and where is his support among prominent senators?

ALICE STEWART, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, I will say that Mick Mulvaney had some positive things to say for his boss on the Sunday shows, so that is a step in the right direction.

[07:05:05] But look, I think right now the president has made his point. He's proven his case to the base that he's willing to go to the mat for this wall, and now he needs to move the ball down the field and make some progress on this. And he's at 5 billion. We have the Democrats at 1.3 billion, and it's time to come to the middle. And the president needs to back off that 5 billion just a little bit in order to get something done.

It's one thing to sit there and pound your fists on the table, but unless you actually have an accomplishment, there's nothing to show for it at the end of the day, so he needs to back off.

I don't think we need to look at it as either side caving here. Both sides need to come together on an agreement. And we need to make sure that the president campaigned and won, in large part, due to his base wanting that wall that Mexico was going to pay for. I never expected that to happen. A lot of Republicans didn't.

But we need to look at this more as not just Donald Trump's big beautiful wall or steel slats. This is about border security. And we need to look at a more comprehensive plan that is palatable to the Democrats. That may include some DACA protections. It may include other forms of protection at the border that does not include a wall.

But as we're seeing, Democrats are in a position right now they can hold firm, and once they're in control in the House, nothing is going to happen with regard to this. So now is the time to start this negotiation in order to get something done.

HILL: And we should put up Mick Mulvaney saying over the weekend that the president is, in his words, willing to discuss larger solutions. It was Mulvaney who just a few words ago, in 2015, said when you look at this -- and I just want to make sure I get his wording correct here, he called it "simplistic, absurd and almost childish," in terms of looking at the border wall as the sole solution, saying the best way to protect the border, as we know, is manpower, is technology, is enforcing existing law.

The question then being, Joe, as this does come back to the Democrats. So let's just say that we now move into the new Congress and here we are. And we've got a shutdown, and we have to fix this. There's also going to be a fair amount of pressure. There was some agreement even a year ago --

JOE LOCKHART, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: That's right.

HILL: -- in Congress, in terms of --

LOCKHART: Sure.

HILL: -- an offer that included more comprehensive legislation. The president wouldn't bet behind that.

LOCKHART: Yes, no. And there's as recently as a week ago, there was the --

HILL: Right.

LOCKHART: -- there was outlines of a deal. Some of this is a semantic fight. You know, it's only Donald Trump believes that there's going to be a wall. Everybody else is having a different conversation about border security. And the rest -- you know, the wall stuff is just politics.

But for the Democrats to move now, there needs to be movement, as Alice said, on DACA, on more comprehensive immigration proposals. I don't expect that to happen this week. But the deal is in place.

You know, in some ways this reminds me of sort of the Mideast peace negotiations. The deal is going to be the deal, I mean, but everybody has got to stop arguing their own -- their own case for them to get there.

About -- it's now about ten days ago there was $1.3 billion for border security. Democrats can call it border security. Republicans can call it a wall, and that's the deal. The -- as I think Alice has said, the president has to move. Because there is no incentive for Democrats right now.

If he moves -- you know, my guess is the only driving force that would want him to move is to get to Florida to play golf, and that might move him. Sitting at the White House by himself might be just too much for him.

AVLON: And if any indication, the president has tweeted 23 times since the shutdown. No avails, but he's clearly preoccupied and weighing in via Twitter. I do want to say that the whole conversation of Mexico paying for the

wall, Mick Mulvaney, the incoming chief of staff, kind of gave away the ghost in an interview, basically saying that's not possible. Just in the spirit of a reality check, let's take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: None of that is Mexico paying for the wall. Let's just be clear.

MICK MULVANEY, DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET: You and I both know that it cannot work exactly like that. I can't spend any money at the Office of Management and Budget. that the Department of Homeland Security can't actually spend money from Mexico. We have to get it from Treasury.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AVLON: So let's -- let's give away that ghost. But Toluse, what are you hearing that the administration might want to make a deal on? Because the incentive for Democrats is very hard to see.

OLORUNNIPA: Yes, that's -- that's the issue. President Trump is supposed to be the dealmaker in chief, but they're not really offering that broader deal. They're not talking about a DACA for a wall deal that they were talking about earlier in the year, and in part because Democrats have less of an incentive to negotiate, because they tried that the first time. The president pulled out of the deal and asked for more.

And now we have another presidential election right around the corner, and Democrats may decide that they would rather just wait for President Trump to be out of office, if they're able to win in 2020, rather than negotiating a big immigration deal at this point.

So right now, it's just a series of different offers where the number goes down from $5 billion. We heard $2.1 billion last year. And as Joe said, a lot of it is just about semantics, talking about border security and having something that President Trump can call a wall or steel slats, while Democrats just call it, you know, fencing or border security money, or drones or personnel. And so a lot of it is just sort of figuring out the semantic language that allows President Trump to declare victory, even though it's probably going to end up being something similar to what Democrats have already supported, which was 1.3 billion or 1.6 billion for broader border security, including some fencing and some repairing of the fences that are already on the border.

So some of it is just negotiating around the language and not around the broader immigration discussion for a bigger deal.

AVLON: Christmas kabuki.

HILL: So it's coming up with the language that makes the president feel like he didn't have to give in or cave, in his words, Alice. And yet, as all of this is happening, we're starting to see some

cracks Within The GOP. And Some Of That Is Also Related To What Happened With Defense Secretary Mattis, him stepping down and the president over the weekend, apparently in response to finally realizing what's in the letter and not liking the coverage of his resignation letter, pushing him out now, even sooner. That is not sitting well with Republicans, and that could cause an issue moving into this new Congress.

STEWART: Certainly, you have some very serious members of the House and the Senate who are strong on the military. Senator Tom Cotton, for one, who has certainly taken issue with this. And others in the national security realm. When we have our U.S. envoy that deals specifically with ISIS, who recently last week saying, "Look, ISIS is not decimated. It's not time to say 'mission accomplished' yet." And now he is leaving, based on he has a different world view when it comes to national security then President Trump does.

And this is really important, that we look at a long-term strategy with regard to ISIS. At some point, yes, we do need to pull out of these areas, but now is not the time to do so.

So when you're losing some top military officials, and some national security leaders who have been on the same page with the president, and it appears as though he is not listening to advisers that have a lot of strength and credibility when it comes to national security and dealing with ISIS, that has created created created fissures in the Republican Party. And I hope that whoever steps into that role is someone that can reunite the party, because this is -- this is a serious issue.

And it's time now when we're having, certainly, issues with the border wall and funding there, and now some problems with national security, it is creating some concern amongst Republicans. And I'd like to think that the next person that steps into that role can bring things together. Because ISIS is one of the key components dealing with the national security and dealing with these issues, was another big factor that this president got elected. And it's time that he looks at both aspects of his base, when it comes to the fiscal issues that he was elected for, as well as the national security issues and get that house in order in order for us to continue to move forward.

HILL: All right. Alice, Joe, Toluse, we're going to have to leave it there. Thanks to all of you for being with us. Merry Christmas Eve, a quiet Christmas Eve.

AVLON: Very quiet.

HILL: Merry Christmas. Really good.

AVLON: We have get some lights on the Christmas tree.

HILL: Well, we're not going to see the national Christmas tree lit, though, apparently.

AVLON: This will not stand. HILL: They are -- the park service is looking for donations to be able to light the national Christmas tree.

AVLON: It's up to us. It's up to we, the people, huh?

HILL: Maybe a GoFundMe is in order.

AVLON: That's not a terrible idea. Let's do that.

HILL: We just discussed General Mattis' departure. Why was it pushed up to next week? We'll take a closer look at what we know, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:17:28] HILL: President Trump ousting his defense secretary two months early after General James Mattis told the president he wanted out because he does not agree with Trump's sudden decision to withdrawal from Syria and Afghanistan.

CNN's Barbara Starr is live this morning at the Pentagon with new details -- Barbara.

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Erica.

Let me start with this. Two top officials, the commandant of the Marine Corps and the secretary of the Navy, are traveling overseas, making holiday visits to the troops, and what they are getting is questions from the troops. There is growing concern, a bit of anxiety in the rank and file about what will come next? How soon will they come home? What will happen to the conflict they have left behind?

Now, Secretary Mattis had planned to stay, he told the president, until February 28, two months from now. He will be gone by January 1. President Trump yesterday having Secretary of State Mike Pompeo call Mattis and tell him he'll be gone by January 1.

That puts Deputy Secretary Patrick Shanahan in place as acting secretary, Shanahan the No. 2 here, has been most involved with sort of the inside part of the Pentagon: acquisition, reform, innovation. With no foreign policy experience, this long-time Boeing executive will now step on the world stage. He will go to a NATO summit. He will have to deal with America's military allies, keep a sharp eye on America's military foes, and oversee those withdrawals from the war zones that the president wants.

And if you wonder about the reach of James Mattis, this morning, Cher, the entertainer, singer, actress has tweeted, thanking Mattis for his service to the country -- John.

AVLON: Once you've lost Cher -- Thank you, Barbara.

Joining us now, CNN military analyst and former Army commanding general of Europe and the 7th Army, Lieutenant General Mark Hertling; and CNN military analyst and retired Air Force colonel, Cedric Leighton. Gentlemen, thank you for joining us. General Hertling, let me start with you. What are you hearing from your former colleagues in the Pentagon?

MARK HERTLING, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Not just from the colleagues, John, but also some former foreign military and civilian officials in Europe. My last job was commander of forces in Europe.

And when this announcement came last week, the morning after, I was deluged with notes from different people that I had knew -- that I knew and I had worked with over there. They are very distressed about this.

And Barbara Starr brings up a very good point. Secretary Mattis wanted to stick around for a while to go to that NATO ministerial. That's a time for, really, calming of the allies when they're concerned about things that the current administration is doing. He won't be there for that.

[07:20:10] And they're very concerned, because Secretary Mattis was a calming influence and would tell them exactly what was going to happen after the president would normally sweep through at some of the big seminars.

So yes, both U.S. military that had an overwhelming approval rating of Secretary Mattis, you never see that in a civilian secretary, but he had something like 84 percent approval rating from the military forces. Plus, our allies and friends around the world has been significant, and they're all troubled by this.

AVLON: So a time of high anxiety and concern among allies alike.

Colonel Leighton, let me ask you about Brett McGurk. He served in three administration. The president's envoy to ISIS was in Iraq taking meetings on ISIS when he suddenly heard about the president's change of policy via tweet.

The president, on the other hand, didn't seem -- doesn't seem to know who he is, tweeting over the weekend after McGurk put in his resignation, this. "Brett McGurk, who I do not know, was appointed by President Obama in 2015. Why is Fake News making such a big deal about this nothing event!"

A, should the American people be concerned that the president apparently doesn't know who his lead envoy to ISIS is? And B, what has been your experience with Mr. McGurk, and how much of a loss is this?

COL. CEDRIC LEIGHTON (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Well, I think, John, it's a significant loss, because Brett McGurk is one of the most influential and astute diplomats out there. He has not only led the diplomatic fight against ISIS but he's also been the one person who has, in essence, put together all the elements of national power. And when you talk about that, what you're looking at is not only the diplomatic part, which of course, was his province, but also the military part. So from my perspective, he was really the one person that you could go

to to make things work, and that was true not only for the U.S. government, the U.S. side of things, but also for our allies and partners around the world. He was extremely influential that way.

And you know, as far as whether or not this is a big deal, it's a huge deal, because if Brett McGurk goes, if someone like he goes -- and he's probably doing this in solidarity with Secretary Mattis -- when someone like that goes, it becomes a really -- a critical notice to the administration that their policies and their way of doing business has really not worked with the folks that are -- that are carrying out those policies.

AVLON: And so presumably this is someone the president should have known, as well.

LEIGHTON: Absolutely.

AVLON: General, let me turn to you. Because one of the key questions that apparently led to Mattis's -- Secretary Mattis's resignation, was the fact that our Kurdish allies in the field are being left to -- being hung out, in effect. And I understand you have been communicating with folks in the field who have expressed real concern about the circumstance we're going to be leaving our Kurdish allies in?

HERTLING: Yes, I think that's the biggest point, John, that a lot of people are caught up in the pro-war/anti-war piece, about boy, we should have gotten out of Afghanistan or Syria a long time ago. That wasn't the point of Secretary Mattis's letter. His letter had to do with alliances and processes.

And as Barbara mentioned, again, earlier, you know, there is confusion amongst U.S. military people. But the confusion really is with our foreign alliances. We've spent decades building these kind of alliances. We can't let people down. Allies are important. And words matter when someone from the administration says something.

So when you see, specifically, the Kurds, who know the danger that now faces them because of this rapid pullout from Syria, you can't just take a look at the Kurds. You have to look at our other allies and what they think about this, that the U.S. has let an alliance down. But you also have to look at our foes, too. They are ecstatic with this, because they know it further breaks the trust that many of our allies have in the United States.

So all of these things are part of the issue that were the key -- the critical piece of the secretary's letter. It wasn't about pulling out of Afghanistan or Syria. If he was ordered to do that, he would make sure that happened in a -- in a very procedural and unique sort of way.

What he was concerned about is this rapid communication which undercuts alliances and the trust in the United States, and I -- that's what I read in Secretary Mattis's letter.

AVLON: So abandoning allies and emboldening adversaries.

Colonel Leighton, on the end with you. The incoming acting secretary of defense, somebody who had a 30-year career at Boeing but no government or military experience up until this service, Patrick Shanahan. What are your thoughts on that profile, someone who doesn't have a military or government experience jumping into this pivotal position?

LEIGHTON: Well, I think Mr. Shanahan was a perfect fit for a position like deputy secretary of defense, the one that he currently holds, because as Barbara Starr mentioned in her report, it is the type of position that is, in essence, the glue that holds everything together from an acquisition perspective and a planning perspective.

Of course he can do this job. The question is, you know, how much will his experience really come to bear in this? You know, you look at other secretaries of defense, like Robert McNamara, for example, who have had a business experience. Sometimes it works out; sometimes it doesn't.

And I think what we're seeing here is, in essence, the diminution of the generals and other people with professional experience in the Department of Defense, when it comes to assuming positions of power within the Trump administration.

And, you know, he had that love affair with his generals at first, but now, I think that love affair, unfortunately, is waning. And I think that's going to be a real problem for our country going forward.

AVLON: General, Colonel, thank you for joining us and merry Christmas Eve.

LEIGHTON: Merry Christmas.

HERTLING: Merry Christmas, John.

HILL: President Trump making it clear he relies heavily on his gut instincts and doing things his way. Up next, we'll speak with a former top adviser to the president about the prospects of striking a deal to end this government shutdown and what he thinks the president's gut might be saying this morning.

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