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President Trump Remains in White House as Government Shutdown Continue; Religious Leaders Discuss Coping with Recent Tragedies. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired December 25, 2018 - 8:00   ET

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

[08:00:00] UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What's the relationship between the campaign, the Russians, WikiLeaks. The Mueller probe is moving along.

BRETT KAVANAUGH, SUPREME COURT JUSTICE: You may defeat me in the final vote, but you'll never get me to quit.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Indelible in the hippocampus is the laughter.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It's a very scary time for young men in America.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The Republicans do not want the truth.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh takes his seat on the high court.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I sent her to school yesterday. She was supposed to be safe.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: President Trump, please do something! These kids need safety now!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What happened yesterday will not break us. It will not ruin us.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We can and we will change the world.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is NEW DAY with Alisyn Camerota on John Berman.

Good morning, everyone. Welcome to a special Christmas Day edition of NEW DAY. I'm Alisyn Camerota along with John Berman. Merry Christmas.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Merry Christmas to you and your family.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Your diamonds from me will be coming soon.

BERMAN: Yes, many, many diamonds.

CAMEROTA: Yes. He exists. We have a big show for you. Merry Christmas, everyone.

This day of course is filled with so much joy for many of you at home, but we know that some of you are dealing with tragedy and sadness. Of course, the holidays can be tough, so we're going to talk to religious leaders who endured unthinkable grief this year. We're going to find out how they're doing and how they get through tough times.

BERMAN: Plus, three big issues defining the second year of the Trump presidency. We'll tell you what they are as we look to the year in politics.

CAMEROTA: And we're honoring the troops this holiday season. What you can do to help them have a merry Christmas while they are overseas.

BERMAN: All that and more, but first let's get a check of your headlines at the news desk.

MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning and merry Christmas. I'm Manu Raju. It's day four of the federal government shutdown. No progress and no end in sight as President Trump marks Christmas stuck in Washington. White House correspondent Abby Phillip is live for us this morning at the White House. Good morning, Abby.

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Manu. President Trump becomes the first president in 18 years to spend Christmas here at the White House, but that's due to a partial government shutdown that's now entering its fourth day. President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump are here at the White House where they spent last night doing a number of Christmas-related activities. They spoke to children calling into the Santa NORAD tracker, and President Trump was asked in that setting about the progress or whether there is any progress being made on the government shutdown, and here is what he had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: There's nothing new, nothing new in the shutdown. Nothing new except we need border security.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: So the president there is clearly not abandoning his call for border security, and he had actually spent most of Christmas eve tweeting to that effect. He sent out a dozen tweets about a number of issues including his border wall, Defense Secretary James Mattis, who resigned last week, and also saying that he was all alone at the White House. So that was just minutes before Melania Trump returned from Florida where she had been just before the government shut down.

So here, President Trump is spending a relatively quiet Christmas morning at the White House, but there is, as of yet, no progress on this government shutdown. Tomorrow might be the first day where we will see any sort of movement on that front. Manu? RAJU: Abby Phillip live at the White House. Abby, thank you.

The Dow and the S&P 500 suffered their biggest Christmas Eve declines in history yesterday. Stocks initially fell after Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin spoke with bank CEOs. They told him they had enough liquidity to keep lending, but that spooked investors because liquidity was not considered a problem in the first place. Markets recovered later this morning, but slid again after President Trump tweeted the only problem our economy has is the Fed.

I'm Manu Raju. Merry Christmas. More headlines in half-an-hour.

CAMEROTA: It can be hard to keep hope and faith during turbulent times. So how can a person find light in the midst of tragedy, trauma, or adversity?

Let's discuss faith today with Rabbi Jeffrey Myers of the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh where, of course, this year many worshippers lost their lives in a massacre. We also have with us Pastor Eric Manning, he's the senior pastor of Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church of Charleston, or Mother Emanuel, where in 2015 the same thing happened.

BERMAN: Also with us Pastor Josh Gallagher, the lead pastor of the Paradise Alliance Church who survived the Camp Fire in California, Father Michael Nixon, the pastor of St. Dominic Catholic Church in Panama City, Florida -- it was severely damaged during hurricane Michael -- and David Gregory, the author of "How is Your Faith" which describes his journey of faith.

Thank you all for being here. It's a tiny subject, faith, in the country right now. And David, because you're the one that went to seminary for the longest here.

[08:05:05] DAVID GREGORY, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes, exactly.

BERMAN: Look, what do you think the most important questions are about faith in our society right now?

GREGORY: Well, I think people are wrestling with faith, not so much wrestling with an inner yearning that they have for a greater sense of meaning and purpose in their lives, but I think a lot of people lack the vocabulary to attach to that sense of meaning and that desire for meaning. So if God is at work in every one of us, it's a question of how do you access God, how do you access that grace.

Organized religion has a lot of difficulties that get in the way of being able to communicate that message, but when I look at this group here, often in times of great joy and also great grief or personal hardship, we are drawn to community. We are drawn to grace. We are drawn to love, because we want to try to elevate ourselves in those moments. And so I think the trick is to capture the elements of faith that sustain us in really hard times and remind ourselves we actually need that in every day out of a sense of gratitude, a reminder of love, a reminder of wonder, a reminder of civility. And let's not silo faith for those moments of hardship and grief. CAMEROTA: I am so glad you said that, David, because I remember while

the massacre at Tree of Life while we were reporting and we met you, rabbi, David Gregory said, wouldn't it be wonderful if we had voices of church leaders or synagogue leaders, just men of faith, people of faith, on all the time in national our dialogue. Wouldn't those voices be valuable? And so your voice was so valuable during that time. So many people got strength from you, who was grieving, who had to hide in a room during that massacre. And so I'm wondering two months later, how are you doing?

RABBI JEFFREY MYERS, TREE OF LIFE SYNAGOGUE OF PITTSBURGH, PA: Your faith gets challenged, but I think it's because I have a deep abiding faith that that gives me the strength to persevere, to move on, not even day by day, still I think it's hour by hour, because for me October 27th has been just one long day. It's really hard to keep track of what date today is or which week it is. But my faith helps propel me, and I try to find ways to share that with my community to help give them some strength to move onward it on say that we're not alone in this immense challenge. It's a journey, and we're going to get through this together. I'm your tour guide.

BERMAN: Pastor Manning, when you see what Rabbi Myers is going through, do you see an image of yourself three years ago? Can you say I was there, I went through this, or is every experience different and unique?

PASTOR ERIC S.C. MANNING, SR. PASTOR, MOTHER EMANUEL A.M.E. CHURCH, CHARLESTON, SOUTH CAROLINA: From a point of clarity perspective, I came to Mother Emanuel a year after. So what Rabbi Myers, of course, experienced I cannot necessarily completely understand, but within Rabbi Myers I do see that hope, that strength as he leads the Tree of Life Synagogue and all of the family members through this time.

And as he draws strength from his faith and hope from his faith, it continues to encourage so many others. I share with the rabbi that the Monday after I returned that I had a moment of which I was overwhelmed again. And that sense of being overwhelmed reminded me still how far removed at times I find myself, and then needing to claim to that same faith, that same hope to allow me to know that, yes, I can persevere. Yes, I can make it. Yes, there is still much more work that needs to be done, and there's still much more encouragement that needs to be done. And we have to continue to walk by that faith and not by sight.

CAMEROTA: You are so right. Grief can be a roller coaster ride. You're never fully over it. It comes and goes. There are highs and lows, and I think it's important for people out there to know that with whatever they're struggling with.

And so Father Josh, you perhaps have had your recent trauma in Paradise, and I don't like that it's trauma that binds all of us here together, but you all are just great voices to talk to for people who may be struggling out there. So since yours is so recent with the wildfires, how are you coping?

PASTOR JOSH GALLAGHER, PARADISE ALLIANCE CHURCH, CALIFORNIA: I have been amazed at how God enters into our grief with us. Many times, when we have to go through things, like, I can't question God, and if I question God he's not going to like me. I've noticed in the middle of grief in talking with many people in my congregation and my community of letting lets them know, it's OK to be angry with God. You can still love him. It's OK to question him and still have faith at the exact same time. It's OK to be mad at God and tell him what you think, and he's still going to love you.

[08:10:09] Letting people know that message brings a lot of hope and encouragement because, wow, God can really relate with the situation that I'm in, the real emotions that I have, and what I'm feeling. I simply tell our people, if you want a real relationship with God you need to be real with God, and that has given people a lot of hope and encouragement. And instead of destroying their faith I think it's actually defined their faith.

BERMAN: And of course, your own personal experience you could look at it two ways, glass half empty, or glass half full. You got to Paradise, you moved to Paradise three months before the fire. And you can look at that say, oh, my goodness, I'm moving there just before the whole thing burns up. But the flipside to that is you got there just in the nick of time to do your job.

GALLAGHER: I couldn't think of anytime, anywhere else I would rather be serving than right now in Paradise, California, in the midst of all of this. A lot of people were worried because they're like, you just moved here, how can you do this? I thought, no, this is why I moved here. God has brought me to this community, to this church, to these group of people for such a time as this. And it's not easy. It is difficult, but when there's a sense of calling and a greater purpose behind what's going on, those are the things that get you out of bed in the morning and, say, OK, let's see what are the challenges today, tackle those one at a time.

CAMEROTA: Rabbi Myers, you had a similar experience. People think that you were at the Tree of Life forever because your congregation loves you so much and you're already so close knit, and you had only there a year when this violence happened.

MYERS: And as you were speaking I felt the exact same way, that God sent me to Pittsburgh to do some holy work, and that's why I'm there. And I couldn't see myself being anywhere else, but in Pittsburgh.

BERMAN: Father Michael, you had your roof blown off during hurricane Michael in Panama City, and I have to believe that was a moment when prayer came in useful. But then I also have to believe that while that's going on, you know that the minute the rain stops pouring and the wind stops blowing, that's when the real work begins.

REV. MICHAEL NIXON, ST. DOMINIC CATHOLIC CHURCH, PANAMA CITY, FLORIDA: That was actually I would say one of the graces that we were able to stay, myself and my associate pastor, our seminarian and my dog, we all stayed in the house there at the parish. So whether through the storm, we knew that there was going to be a need immediately following, and so actually one of the graces is just the utter devastation as you walk out, and it continues even now. There's just utter devastation and they very slow process of rebuilding.

But we knew that we'd be able to help and so work with Catholic charities. They day after the storm they got a truck full of water delivered to us, and we started unloading that, and people just kept coming. And that grew to, we didn't have buildings, we just had a parking lot serving thousands of people a day. Our own people that had lost their homes that were coming to help and people coming, volunteers from all over the country, and people coming from Canada, and just hearing about it on social media. So being able to serve tens of thousands of people, not being able to fix all of their problems but being able to be there with them to me is living the mission that God has for us in a really palpable and beautiful way.

BERMAN: Let's take a quick break. We have clearly, much more to discuss. We're just scratching the surface. This special Christmas edition of NEW DAY continues right after this.

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[08:16:30] ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: And we are back with Rabbi Jeffrey Myers, the rabbi of the Tree of Life Synagogue of Pittsburgh. We also have Pastor Eric Manning, the senior pastor of Mother Emanuel Church in Boston, Pastor Josh Gallagher, the lead pastor in Paradise, California, at the Alliance Church, and Father Michael Nixon, the pastor of St. Dominic Catholic Church in Panama City, Florida, as well as David Gregory.

So, David, we were just -- he's the author of "How is Your Faith," I almost forgot to mention that because as we were saying when tragedy happens, we talk about faith and we talk about how to get through tragedy, but we don't talk about it every day, and faith leaders 'voices are not part of or dialogue. Are we not comfortable with it?

DAVID GREGORY, AUTHOR, "HOW'S YOUR FAITH?": Well, I think there is secularism in the media generally. I also there are -- while there are deep people of faith within the media, there are many more that lack the vocabulary of belief. These gentlemen and their colleagues, they have it, their parishioners, their congregations want it, they see community and they build around it.

So I think we have a job to do to demystify it, to understand that there are institutions of religion that are under stress and for whom -- who have lost the trust of a lot of people, but that doesn't mean that people don't have a yearning, and part of the yearning is not only a relationship with God, but it's also a kind of return to the best of themselves, which these gentlemen can remind us of, it shouldn't be a revelation in the context of talking about news and current events. It should be a central part of the conversation.

BERMAN: To that end, and let me put this to you, Pastor Manning, how do you determine the line between the religious discourse, how you speak your flock and the public discourse, if you're going to choose to speak to the community at large or the nation because, you know, we all know that in each one of your cases, I can sit there and say there is a public policy discussion to be had, there's a political discussion to be had about each one of the tragedies whether manmade or national that have happened in each of your congregations.

PASTOR ERIC. S.C. MANNING, SENIOR PASTOR, MOTHER EMANUEL A.M.E. CHURCH, CHARLESTON, SC: Yes. So, John, from that particular perspective, you have to first and foremost pray about the proper response for anything, everything, even when I look back over the week leading up to the Tree of Life massacre, and I thought about that sermon that week. That sermon was given a week prior, the topic, the word, and then from that particular perspective.

And the congregation that your words matter and it took on a larger footprint, and I think when you -- when we trust God enough, God will give us those words that will speak only to our present congregation that we're serving, but also to the greater and larger community, and it does exactly what God has intended it to do. It challenges our thinking. It calls us to do the right thing.

It may not be the popular thing, but it calls us to do the right thing and it is a commonality, as David has said, which binds us to close together, that there is a yearning, that there is a desire to say we are all in this together, this being life, and this being the experience of life, this being the struggles of life, this being rebuilding, this being having a hope that continues to resonate not just within our own silos, but also with everyone else and even during the Christmas season, right?

[08:20:03] We all then tap into that hope. You know, people are more courteous. They will open their door for somebody. They will hold the door. They would give up their parking space. They would let them come in line first and the challenge then is we must be able to do that on a daily basis just because there is much more that unites us than divides us.

CAMEROTA: Let's talk about people out there who may be struggling. The holidays are hard for people. It brings up sometimes past trauma or pain. Rabbi Myers, you're still grieving. You're still traumatized by what happened two months ago.

So what words can you say to people who today are struggling?

RABBI JEFFREY MYERS, TREE OF LIFE SYNAGOGUE OF PITTSBUGH PA: You're not alone is the most critical thing. People feel that they're the only one going through a particular hardship in their lives and they're not alone. There are many others and there are many people there who want to help. The challenge is, how do you bring the people who need to help together with the helpers so that we can make this work?

For me, as a religious leader I try to keep my eyes on my congregants, but I don't regularly see each of them every day so I can't know what they're going through on any given day and who really needs my attention. I can only focus on the ones I see and there are only so many phone calls you can make in the course of any given day to touch base with people.

CAMEROTA: That's an important message. People need to reach out. People who are struggling also need to reach out and I know it's hard and there are people who you say will help them.

MYERS: Yes. What I found regrettably a lot of the people who need help in many spheres sometimes feel paralyzed with that and don't know where to go, what to do. It's kind of like saying there are plenty of food pantries, but the people who need the food don't get to the wherewithal to get to the food pantry, and they need to get the food to the people and how do you get it them?

GREGORY: One of the great faith lessons doesn't have to do with god. You know when you can ask somebody how are you? Oh, I'm great, but then stop and say, how are you? It's a penetrating question.

It's kind of like in the bible, you know in the Hebrew bible when Abraham is called and he says I'm here. It's not like I'm here and I'm raising my hand like I'm in class. No, I'm here, fully present for you.

That's what we need more of, is to remind whether you've gone through grief and to pick up and reach out to someone and say I'm here. I'm just here. That's all you need to know. That's what's so comforting, I think.

BERMAN: Father Michael?

REV. MICHAEL NIXON, ST. DOMINIC CATHOLIC CHURCH, PANAMA CITY, FLORIDA: I love the aspect of you talk about the religion and the faith and the tradition that's represented here and I was talking to the rabbi about a psalm that moved his heart and our common prayer coming together ensures in a sense or at least opens up the door to realize that we're not alone, to realize that not only we're not alone because we're with this community that is hurting and encouraging us and we're not alone through the ages, that thousands of years people have been praying these psalms and have been struggling with these questions where is god in the midst of that and encountering god and that god enters into our mess and brokenness.

And that's at the very heart of Christmas season that we're entering into and I find so much strength and hope there, but it's never a solitary reality and it's always a part of this big, messy family of god.

GREGORY: Don't you guys feel that in part the promise of faith is the promise of community? The message of god and faith is also an antidote to media addiction and to the silos and social media. It's a reminder that there's a different community.

I mean, that's what you represented on our air is the idea that you were representing community and you became part of the wider community because people want to come forward and say, we're here for you and we're here for anyone who is the victim of that kind of violence, and we're here to also learn about how to forgive, how to be moved instead of being united in opposition to something which is a lot of what public discourse is about.

CAMEROTA: Father Josh, what gives you solace? PASTOR JOSH GALLAGHER, PARADISE ALLIANCE CHURCH, CALIFORNIA:

Unfortunately, during tragedy, it takes a tragedy to see the best in people. A lot of times we have faith community over here and then our other community over here, and what I noticed and encouraged me is seeing the communities come together and we are one community and we maybe don't believe the exact same things, but we both have the same goal of we want to see this community move forward any seeing the love that people have for each other. We're not labeled anymore. You went to this church in Paradise or this community in this part of Paradise, but truly the community coming together.

[08:25:03] Having enough respect for each other to say I don't fully understand everything that you believe, but I can still love you and care for you, and I will respect your beliefs and at the same time I'm going to let you respect mine and it's been the best definition of community coming together.

It's unfortunate though that it takes these devastations and tragedies, so for anyone struggling, maybe you don't have a faith community, if you can reach out to any faith community that could be a shoulder to cry on, someone just to listen to your story and encourage you during this season because we are one community.

BERMAN: Gentlemen, I don't think we can thank you enough for coming in. I think is such an important discussion for any faith or for those that aren't part of a faith community just to talk about the community that David brought up there. Wonderful to have you here. Happy holidays to all of you.

CAMEROTA: Thank you all.

BERMAN: All right. President Trump finishing his success year in office. What accomplishments, what controversies will define his 2018? That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: Good morning. Welcome back to this special Christmas day edition of NEW DAY.

We have a lot to get to this half hour, including a look at the biggest issues that defined president Trump's presidency this year.

CAMEROTA: But first, let's get a check of your headlines at the news desk.