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New Day

Blame for Government Shutdown; Trump Calls Presidential Harassment; Snow Impacts Travel. Aired 6:30-7a ET

Aired December 26, 2018 - 06:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:33:27] JOHN AVLON, CNN ANCHOR: The Syrian military says it has intercepted a series of missiles overnight it believes were fired from Israel. This video purports to show some of the missiles being intercepted. Three Syrian soldiers were injured in the assault targeting a weapons depot near Damascus. Israel has not confirmed the strikes. Its military did confirm it's intercepted an anti-aircraft missile launched from Syria.

ERICA HILL, CNN ANCHOR: One person is dead after a single engine airplane crashed into a Sioux Falls, South Dakota, neighborhood. It happened around 5:00 p.m. on Christmas Day. Officials say the two homes were heavily damaged. Investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board are expected at the crash site today.

AVLON: Now, Missouri Governor Mike Parsons says he wants to repeal the state's voter approved redistricting law. In an interview with the Associated Press, the Republican chief executive says he now thinks the process of how districts will be redrawn is questionable. The measure, which was just approved last month, carves out new districts based on the 2020 census and creates a new, non-partisan position that will head up drawing the maps. Governor Parsons say politics will still creep into redistricting. And while he says it may not sound good to voters, the governor says he also wants to raise the bar on what meets the standard for initiative (ph) petitions to appear on the ballot going forward.

Wow. I've got to say, that last one just drives me crazy. The voters just approved redistricting reform, against the partisan interests, and the governor is saying he wants to overturn the will of the voters, saying that the independent, non-partisan commission will be bring politics into it, which is the exact problem of the current status quo. It's just absolutely shameful.

[06:35:06] HILL: And yet here we.

AVLON: And yet here we are.

HILL: All right, just ahead, more than just talk. Why there is now some blame being put on conservative talk radio hosts for the shutdown. Is it really their fault? We'll discuss, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) HILL: The U.S. government shutdown now entering into its fifth day as President Trump digs in on his demand for billions of dollars for the border wall. This as Democrats are digging in, too. They're not budging. And there's increased focus on the words of two prominent, conservative talk radio hosts on their influence on the president to reject a bipartisan budget deal. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RUSH LIMBAUGH, HOST, "THE RUSH LIMBAUGH SHOW": Textbook example of what the drive-by media calls compromise, Trump gets nothing and the Democrats get everything, including control of the House.

ANN COULTER, CONSERVATIVE COMMENTATOR (ph): Trump -- it'll just have been a joke presidency that scammed the American people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HILL: Joining us now to discuss, Matt Lewis, senior columnist at "The Daily Beast," Tara Setmayer, former GOP communications director.

Good to have both of you with us.

As we listen to the words there, right? And I know, Matt, your column, "What Does Trump Really Care About: What Ann Coulter Thinks," which sums up pretty well the case that a number of people have made, that it was these comments that really pushed the president to reject that bipartisan deal.

Do they really, though, deserve the blame when it's the president who has to make the decision, Matt?

MATT LEWIS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, look, I -- and I -- in that column I juxtaposed two very important people within the conservative movement who are giving Donald Trump advice. One of them is Ann Coulter and one of them was General Mattis. And General Mattis was making a conservative argument that you shouldn't cut and run from Syria and Donald Trump was fine with ignoring the advice of his secretary of defense, General Mattis. The person he listens to is Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh. So I think it's very clear there's a dichotomy there, there's certain types of people who he's listening to, and I think it's his kind of populist, nationalist base.

[06:40:18] And, at the end of the day, Yes, Donald Trump is responsible. He's the president. He makes the call. But it looked very clear to me that it was Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh who persuaded him. He's, by all accounts, appeared to be poised to sign this stop gap funding bill, and it wasn't until Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh and Laura Ingraham and a few others started criticizing him very -- in very strong words that he backtracked and ultimately flip-flopped.

AVLON: But, Tara, he still needed the House votes to get to this point. So even if the tail wags the dog with regard to conservagency (ph) influencing the president's decisions, the conservatives in the House bear some responsibility, too. With no end game in sight, do you think they start to realize that they've been backed into a corner here as well?

TARA SETMAYER, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes and no. I mean I think they're facing the reality that they're losing power in the House and there's only so much they can do. So if they look like they're fighting, then that's appealing to their base. It's a similar circumstance with what Trump is doing. All he cares about is what his base thinks, and Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter speak to those folks.

But what they're -- what he's not realizing, and which he'll never seem to realize, is that he is president of the United States. There are 70 percent of the rest of the country that is not in agreement with him that border funding should be a priority, enough to close the border. That was just in a poll released by NPR and Marist. Sixty-nine percent of the American people say, no, this is not a priority enough to shut down the government.

So the president has never really represented himself as the president of everyone. It's always, always been about his base. And this is now, I think, going to be even more amplified as we go now into the 2020 election season and the president is facing a divided government in Congress. He's never really been interested in legislating to get things done or governing, like a normal president, it's always been about him, what "Fox and Friends" says every day, and whether he gets the accolades from his sickofans (ph), that makes him feels good and fuels his ego. It's never really been about actual good policy and governing, clearly.

HILL: As you -- as you set that up, as we move into, of course, next week, this new Congress, what I noticed too with the president is, he's been setting up his next narrative and his next catchphrase, presidential harassment. I just want to play, in case folks at home did not hear it, here's what he had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Well, then it's probably presidential harassment. And we know how to handle that. I think I handle that better than anybody. And there's been no collusion. After two years, no collusion. There has been collusion, but it's been by the Democrats.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HILL: A lot there. And this, of course, comes after just last month the president actually threatened Democrats that if they investigate him, he told "The New York Post," quote, I think that would help my campaign. If they want to play tough, I will do it. They will see how devastating those pages are. So a bit of a threat there.

But then also this, Matt, this idea of presidential harassment if Democrats were to launch some investigations, which, I don't know, maybe people look at as Congress doing their job, but we know checks and balances don't always -- don't always weigh in for this president.

AVLON: No. LEWIS: Well, no. But I think you set it up perfectly by calling it a narrative. I think this is what Donald Trump does very well politically. And it plays to his base. Now, we could argue as to whether or not playing to your base is actually smart or whether you should be trying to win over the middle. But assuming you buy into the base strategy, as Trump obviously has, what he's really good at is setting up these alternate realities and this alternative narrative, right? So, for example, one man's congressional oversight is another man's presidential harassment. If he bought into the narrative that says, of course it makes sense for Congress to have oversight and to do investigations, but there's nothing here, he would be playing their game. So he's going to -- he's going to cast this as, this isn't oversight, it's harassment.

AVLON: Sure.

LEWIS: And then it depends what channel you're watching as to which storyline you actually believe.

AVLON: Well, I mean, that sort of indicates the core problem. And I think Senator Corker, who's going to be leaving Washington in a few days, had a great quote. I'm going to throw it up on the screen. He said, do we want succumb to the tyranny of talk show hosts? We have two talk radio shows who have influenced the president. That's tyranny, isn't it? Well, that's probably not the textbook definition of tyranny but he's speaking to the deeper problem.

So, again, Tara, I'll go to you, at what point do Republicans in the House start to realize that they have a problem because they have deferred -- outsourced too much of their judgement to the conservagencia (ph), right wing talk radio and others? Is there an awareness that this is a problem that has brought them to where they are or, no, not yet?

SETMAYER: I think that the midterm elections should have been what wakes them up, not necessarily what's happening here.

[06:45:04] AVLON: Any sign of that?

SETMAYER: It doesn't look like it because --

AVLON: OK, just checking.

SETMAYER: Yes, it doesn't look like it. It looks like they're hunkered down. And that's going to be the posture. And I think that's unfortunate. If there's ever going to be a course correction, it's going to be through electoral losses. And so when -- when Republicans start -- it start -- it starts sinking in that they're no longer in the majority and that they've lost the kind of power that they had before, wallowing in the minority -- I mean I worked on Capitol Hill when Republicans lost in 2006, and when Nancy Pelosi first got the gavel. And I've got to be honest with you, I never thought I'd see the day where I was looking forward to Nancy Pelosi getting the gavel again, only because I want to see some balance, hoping that congressional Republicans have learned their lesson and realize that the brand that Trump has brought to the Republican Party is destroying it from their core.

And so will they? I don't know. Will they just hunker down and continue to follow Trump along off the cliff? Perhaps. And if they do that, they're just going to continue to destroy the Republican Party.

The Senate, different story. You see senators, Republicans in the Senate, expressing their displeasure, not only with the shutdown, but with the way the president's behaving because the Senate, you know, senators have six years. So there's some senators that will hopefully outlast Trump and they recognize there has to be some sanity brought back to the process, because that's not what we see right now.

HILL: Matt, there is more of that in terms of rumbling about senators perhaps now being more open to speaking up, speaking out against the president. A lot of that, of course, triggered by the president's decision on Syria.

Do you believe that's going to bear fruit, though, because up until this point, despite those rumblings, what we've heard publicly are the Bob Corker's, right? We've heard from people who are leaving, not from people who know that have to hang out a little bit longer.

LEWIS: Yes, look, unfortunately, I think that one of the trends is that Donald Trump, as per -- as his presidency progresses, is weeding out adults. So, you know, when he first came on, he was still a normal-breaking chaotic president, but he felt, I think, that he had to surround himself with some adults, some people who had gravitas and stature, and he liked the generals and I think that was generally good. They're gone. They're heading for the exit doors right now. So there's going to be nobody left to constrain Trump. And so maybe it does fall to the Senate.

I would bring up the fact that I believe Mitch McConnell is up for re- election in 2020. He'll be on the ballot with Donald Trump. That is going to be interesting -- nobody's really talking about that. But what kind of pressure does that put on Mitch McConnell in Kentucky, the Senate majority leader, whose wife is also in this administration? That's an interesting dynamic to keep an eye on.

AVLON: Fascinating point.

SETMAYER: And he's the originator of the -- of the presidential harassment term. He actually said that.

And just really quick, really quick, the point about Syria waking people up. You know, the Senate has more influence on foreign policy as opposed to the House. The Senate ratifies treaties and other things. So the senators speaking up about foreign policy, even -- you know, the president's now losing Lindsay Graham again on this. That's important. I was just in -- I was just in Israel on the border with Syria a couple weeks ago and that is a very significant problem, us pulling out of Syria, and how that threatens our allies, particularly Israel there. And our -- our senators recognize that. So I think this has actually woken them up, and it should have.

AVLON: Well, Tara, Matt, thank you both very much for joining us on NEW DAY. Take care.

SETMAYER: Thank you.

AVLON: So, one seven-year-old knows Santa is real. And that belief can't be shaken even by the president. What she's saying about her now famous call with President Trump, up next.

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[06:52:20] HILL: Chances are you've heard part of the president's call as he was helping out NORAD on Christmas Eve. Well, now we're seeing and hearing the other end of the now infamous Christmas Eve phone call between President Trump and a seven-year-old very excited about Santa. Collman Lloyd called NORAD to check on Santa's progress and was then transferred to the president, which is when Mr. Trump asked her the following question. So here's a little bit more of their conversation, including the video now of her end.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: What are you going to do for Christmas?

COLLMAN LLOYD, SEVEN-YEAR-OLD STILL BELIEVES IN SANTA: Probably put out some cookies and then we're hanging -- we're hanging out with our friends, so that's pretty much all.

TRUMP: Well, that's very good. Well, you just have a good time.

LLOYD: Yes, sir.

TRUMP: Are you still a believer in Santa?

LLOYD: Yes, sir.

TRUMP: Because at seven, it's marginal. Right?

LLOYD: Yes, sir.

TRUMP: Well, you just enjoy yourself.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HILL: Collman told "The Post" and "Courier (ph)" newspaper she'd never heard the word marginal before because she's seven and her family didn't expect the call to go viral.

As for the rest of their night, they just went about with their plans. They left out some iced sugar cookies and chocolate milk for Santa and on Christmas morning the treats were gone, left in their place, an American Girl doll. The family also noting they didn't take issue with the president's question, and they really don't want this to be political. It certainly set up a number of discussions, though --

AVLON: Yes.

HILL: Both in real life and in the Twitter verse. Bottom line, Santa's real, people.

AVLON: Oh, yes, Collman, there is a Santa. But, still, I mean, the whole conversations were marginal. I mean that was just -- that was just this radical transparency --

HILL: Yes.

AVLON: By the president. A primo example of that.

HILL: Que the twitterverse convo (ph).

AVLON: Yes, absentively (ph).

All right, a major snowstorm is pushing east as people try to head home from holiday celebrations.

CNN meteorologist Jennifer Gray has our forecast.

Jennifer.

JENNIFER GRAY, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Hi, guys. Yes, this is going to be a big one. There's actually two sides to it. There's a really snowy side and there's also a severe side to the south.

We'll start with the snow threat. And blizzard conditions are possible. And we're talking about winter storm warnings all the way from southern Colorado all the way up through the upper Midwest. Northern points of North Dakota, Minnesota, where we could see a foot to a foot and a half of snow across some of these areas shaded in pink. Of course a foot of snow possible across much of Minnesota.

The southern side, the severe side, we're going to see a lot of rain across the south. This is going to impact travel from coast-to-coast. We could see the possibility of hail, damaging winds, even isolated tornadoes. This is mainly for Texas. And you can see, guys, all of that rain pushing east. So we could have some slow travel days ahead.

[06:55:01] HILL: Oh, just what folks want to hear, right?

AVLON: Yes.

HILL: Oh, stay in your PJs a little longer.

AVLON: It's supposed to happen on Christmas.

HILL: Jen, thanks.

As the president calls for more border security, we're learning of another tragic death of a child in custody of Border Patrol. So, what's being done to prevent this from happening again

AVLON: But first, the new CNN film "Love, Gilda" looks at the incredible life of comedy legend Gilda Radner. It airs New Year's Day, 9:00 p.m. on CNN. And here's a sneak peek.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) GILDA RADNER, COMEDIAN: Hi, I'm Gilda Radner, and -- OK, now.

People want to know, what made you funny? From the time I was a kid, I loved to pretend.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She was the very first performer chosen for the cast of "Saturday Night Live."

RADNER: (INAUDIBLE).

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They just loved her.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I basically stole all of my characters from Gilda.

RADNER: I can do almost anything if people are laughing.

Boom, ba, ba, boom.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Gilda was just not quite herself.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: One morning she just said, I don't know what's wrong with me.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The comedian gets the most unfunny thing in the world.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She felt that she could be of help, and that's exactly what she did.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How often do we get to know exactly how brave we are?

RADNER: I always felt that my comedy was just to make things be all right.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: "Love, Gilda," New Year's Day, at 9:00 p.m.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Customs and Border Protection is saying an eight- year-old boy has died while in their custody.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: These tragedies are happening because Congress and the administration have not adequately provided resources.

[07:00:05] UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: To have it happened in U.S. custody twice, it's beyond words.