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Romney Slams Trump's Character in Scathing Op-Ed; Bipartisan Meeting Scheduled in White House to Discuss Shutdown. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired January 02, 2019 - 06:00   ET

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

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MITT ROMNEY (R), INCOMING ARIZONA SENATOR: Donald Trump is a phony, a fraud. He's playing the members of the American public for suckers.

[05:59:28] UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Incoming senator, Mitt Romney criticizing President Trump's character in a scathing new op-ed.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm not sure that it indicates that the president's going to lose much support in the Senate.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: President Trump has invited both parties to the White House.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It doesn't appear that either side really has an end game in sight.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He has kind of painted himself into a corner here, and it's not clear how he gets out.

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, January 2, 6 a.m. here in New York. Happy new year, happy 2019, a new year brought to you exclusively by Alisyn Camerota.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: You know, I am drunk with power, still, after New Year's Eve, because I did press the button that lowered the ball. And I took it very seriously. Please drop the banner here.

BERMAN: That's you in the white hat.

CAMEROTA: I'm not letting go of that crystal ball, OK? Everybody else has let go of it. You see, I'm afraid that it's going to fly back up if I don't keep my hand on it, or maybe go somewhere. So I kept my hand on it, which all of my friends texted to say, like, "Wow, you really took your job seriously on New Year's Eve."

BERMAN: You know you were closest to the ball there?

CAMEROTA: Yes, I basically wrestled that from the mayor's hands.

BERMAN: So 2019, it is brought to us by you?

CAMEROTA: I feel that way, because had I not depressed the ball, the other big ball would not have fallen and ushered in 2019.

BERMAN: 2019 would happen if not for you.

CAMEROTA: It would not have happened. Thank you, John. Thank you. That was what I was trying to tell everybody. It was such an honor; it was such a thrill. I've covered it before, and being in Times Square, I used to think, "Oh, my God, you could never pay me to be there." Apparently, you can pay me to be there. You can pay me enough, and it is thrilling. I mean, goosebumps. All the confetti falling, all the promise of a new year. I'm feeling renewed.

BERMAN: That's fantastic. And just remember, if anything goes wrong in this next year, your fault.

CAMEROTA: I kind of do feel that way.

BERMAN: All right. We begin 2019 with a Mitt storm. Mitt Romney, the onetime Republican presidential nominee, who will be sworn in as Utah's newest senator tomorrow, he came to Washington with a gift for the president: a scathing op-ed in "The Washington Post," in which he writes, quote, "The Trump presidency made a deep descent in December."

There is more for the president to chew on in this Mitt sandwich. Romney writes, "The president has not risen to the mantle of the office."

Now, there is no love lost between these gentlemen. Romney once called Donald Trump a phony and a fraud whose promises were as worthless as a degree from Trump University. But the question now is what is the former governor and future senator trying to get out of it today? How far will he push the president from inside or maybe outside the Senate?

We're going to speak with people who know Mitt Romney's mind better than most in just a few moments.

CAMEROTA: So that op-ed comes as the government shutdown hits day 12. At this hour, President Trump and Congress have hit an impasse. But President Trump has invited congressional leaders from both parties to the White House this afternoon. We'll see if they can have a breakthrough.

This will be the first visit by Democrats since the president told Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer that he would be, quote, proud to shut down the government over border security.

Now tomorrow, Democrats take control of the House of Representatives. They plan to vote to reopen the government without any funding for the president's border wall.

All of this amid questions about an American, a retired Marine, Paul Whelan, who is detained in Russia, accused of spying. Is Vladimir Putin trying to exact revenge for accused Russian spy Maria Butina, who pleaded guilty in a deal with federal prosecutors. Whelan's family is speaking out. They denied the spy charge, and we will speak with his twin brother, coming up on NEW DAY.

BERMAN: All right. Joining us now, Kevin Madden, a Republican strategist who worked on Mitt Romney's presidential campaigns; Doug Heye, a Republican strategist who has worked in the House, Senate and the Republican National Committee; and CNN political analyst David Gregory, who's worked for all of us in many capacities.

CAMEROTA: Don't we work for him?

BERMAN: Kevin, I want to start with you, because you've often been referred to as Mitt Romney's sixth son. We want to know, Kevin, what Mitt Romney was thinking. And as you ponder your answer to this question, let me just read you a bit more from this op-ed. P-111, guys in the control room.

Romney writes, "A president should unite us and inspire us to follow our better angels. A president should demonstrate the essential qualities of honesty and integrity, and elevate the national discourse with comity and mutual respect. And it is in the province where the incumbent's shortfall has been the most glaring."

Why did Mitt Romney write this, Kevin?

KEVIN MADDEN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, it seems to be a declaration of principles of sorts for Governor Romney, as he enters into this tenure as a United States senator.

And you know, but it's not really clear what exactly it's in service of in a larger strategy. Is he going to be able to go in and be a principled voice against the president? Obviously, we can see that.

A lot of what he said inside the op-ed is not new. Parts of it seemed as if they were lifted from the 2016 speech. But if we go back to the 2016 speech, it didn't really change or alter the trajectory of that particular race. Trump still ended up becoming the nominee.

So the question here and I think what's still unclear is whether or not this op-ed is in service of a larger strategy that -- that a Senator Mitt Romney will have as he begins to try and build, maybe, the coalitions that can stand in opposition on some of the big issues that he talked about in the op-ed while the United States senator.

[06:05:06] CAMEROTA: Well, it's a new year. Maybe Mitt Romney thinks it's a new day in Washington. I mean, maybe he's trying to set the tone that he's -- you know, Jeff Flake is leaving; Bob Corker is leaving. Maybe Mitt Romney will be that voice, David Gregory.

Here's more of the op-ed: "A president should unite us and inspire us to follow our better angels. The president should demonstrate the essential qualities of honesty and integrity and elevate the national discourse."

Did you just read this?

BERMAN: I did, but it was so good.

CAMEROTA: Are you kidding me?

BERMAN: It was so good, I would read it again.

CAMEROTA: You just read this one? I thought you read this one.

BERMAN: Yes, it begs reading again, it was so good.

CAMEROTA: No, we're done.

David Gregory, what do you think Mitt Romney's doing?

DAVID GREGORY, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Look, it is a statement of principle, of conscience, of character. And Mitt Romney is different from Flake and Corker, because he's sticking around. But it's still not clear who else is with him. And I think that's the critical piece. Is Republican leadership going to be with him in the Senate?

We have said on this program so many times, where are Republican leaders? Why don't they call out the president, who they may agree with on certain policy areas but who they don't agree with on things he says that are sexist or racist or anti-immigrant?

Here incoming senator Mitt Romney is saying, "I will speak out on those issues, issues of character." That speaks to the character of Mitt Romney and always has, as being such a standup person.

But I think this is the same question. Who else -- he's going to be looked at as the voice to speak out against President Trump. He's somebody who ran for the office before. He's got a very high profile. But how will some of his Republican colleagues treat him and treat this kind of criticism? Will they see it as a distraction? Will they be afraid to stand with him politically? And where will leadership be?

Mitt Romney stands the chance of being isolated as he has been before, when he started this kind of criticism in 2016. He also spoke with President Trump as president-elect about joining the cabinet. And then that didn't work out for secretary as state. So that's the big question about where we move forward, but I think it's quite possible we will see more of this criticism from -- from Romney moving forward.

BERMAN: You know, Alisyn, you said he could replace Jeff Flake and Bob Corker in the Senate, as well. It didn't go well for either Jeff Flake or Bob Corker. Flake probably would not have won reelection, had he run. He probably would have been knocked out in a primary. Bob Corker is an open question.

CAMEROTA: Mitt Romney doesn't seem concerned about that.

BERMAN: Not at all. Because Mitt Romney is in Utah. I mean, no one's knocking off Mitt Romney, one might think, in Utah ever. I mean, Mitt Romney can stay there as long as he wants.

Doug Heye, correct me if I'm wrong, but on Twitter last night, after Mitt Romney published this op-ed, you wrote, "Thank you, Mitt Romney." Why?

DOUG HEYE, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I agreed with everything that Romney wrote in that. It was, certainly, a continuation of what he said in his 2016 speech. There's not a false note in that -- in the op-ed that Mitt Romney wrote, and I was very appreciative of it.

But at the same time, I think we need to be clear, and this is what David and Kevin were both referring to. There are going to be different reactions to this publicly versus privately.

Privately, it's hard to think of a lot of Republican members who won't agree with parts or the whole op-ed in its totality. Publicly it's going to be a different issue. You know, Republicans are often asked, as David mentioned, "When are you going to speak out? Why aren't you going to speak out louder?"

The reality is, they don't, because Republican voters overwhelmingly approve of Mitt -- of Donald Trump, and that affects how they react. So Republicans aren't really going to line up to joining Mitt Romney, and at the same time, I think Romney needs to realize that, for certain Trump critics, certainly in the media, Democratic leadership and so forth, there's nothing you can do that is enough. You can't just speak out once and hope to move on.

Unless Mitt Romney is filing articles of impeachment, which let's be clear, A, he can't, because he's not in the House of Representatives; B, it's not clear that he would want to do so anyways. Unless you are doing that, you're not really opposing Donald Trump enough. You have to always be vigilant against Donald Trump to get that credit. One op-ed doesn't give you that credibility, unfortunately.

CAMEROTA: Well, it got the attention of the 2020 Trump campaign manager, Brad Parscale. He said, "The truth is, Mitt Romney lacked the ability to save this nation. Donald Trump has saved it. Jealousy is a drink best served warm, and Romney just proved it. So sad. I wish everybody had the courage that Donald Trump had."

First of all, Kevin --

MADDEN: Yes.

CAMEROTA: -- I've been serving my jealousy cold for the past few years. Is that wrong? Should it be warm?

MADDEN: I have no idea what that statement means.

Look, I think it's just the tip of the iceberg, Alisyn. We're going to see more of that. I mean, I don't know if the tweet storm has started yet from the president; but you can expect that the president is going to come out, you know, with his tweets blazing on this one.

And one other thing that -- that Senator-elect Romney mentioned in the op-ed, which is that he said he's not going to respond to every tweet or every statement. Fat chance. He has yet to take a stroll through the halls of the Senate. Every single reporter is going to be looking to him to be the voice of opposition or the voice of conscience of the Senate every time there is a statement from the president on every single policy.

[06:10:00] So he has defined himself very early in his Senate career, in his opposition to the president, and more people are going to be looking to him every time there is a flash point of debate here in Washington.

BERMAN: Hang on one second, David. Hang on one second. Will Ritter, who Kevin Madden knows very well, of the hot cup of jealousy that Brad Parscale was talking about. Will Ritter wrote, "It's something that a confused mid-level super villain would say in Austin Powers." That's Will's assessment of that.

But -- but to the point that Kevin was making on Romney's sort of disclaimer that he's not going to do this every day, let me read that for you. P-104. "I do not intend to comment on every tweet or fault, but I will speak out against significant statements or actions that are divisive, racist, sexist, anti-immigrant, dishonest or destructive to democratic institutions."

So David Gregory, if dishonesty is the bar for Mitt Romney speaking out, he might be busy.

GREGORY: Right. Those things are -- that's a full-time job. I mean, that's a daily job, where you're going to decide to step out of that phase.

But I think what's important is who is Mitt Romney politically, and who else is like him. You know, 2019 is going to feel like a lot like 2020 with our look at presidential politics. And if President Trump continues to be as weak as he is, as you look out at the electorate, I wonder whether the conservatives, the business Republicans, the core of those supporters who -- who are represented by someone like a Mitt Romney feel that they've got more political juice to speak up and speak out against President Trump, because they sense that he is weaker as he moves closer to 2020.

CAMEROTA: Doug, just to remind people of the relationship between Romney and Trump, which has been hot and cold, to run with our Goldilocks theme, here's a little montage.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It's my honor, real honor, and privilege to endorse Mitt Romney.

ROMNEY: Being in Donald Trump's magnificent hotel and having his endorsement is a delight.

TRUMP: I like him a lot. He's a friend of mine. I like him a lot.

ROMNEY: Donald Trump is a phony, a fraud. His promises are as worthless as a degree from Trump University.

TRUMP: Mitt is indeed a choke artist. He choked, and he choked like I've never seen anyone joke.

He was begging for my endorsement. I could have said, "Mitt, drop to your knees." He would have dropped to his knees.

ROMNEY: These discussions I've had with him have been enlightening and interesting and engaging. I've enjoyed them very, very much.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Oh, boy, it's going to be a bumpy ride.

HEYE: Yes. Yes, look, this is, you know, the consistent inconsistency with the back and forth on this. It also shows how Donald Trump, his supporters like to say he's a counter puncher. We know that he never misses an opportunity to punch anyone that he can, whether it's above or below or at his station.

Clearly, we're going to see him come out, and I think Kevin used the term, "guns a-blazing," doing exactly that this morning. And it's also going to define the meeting with congressional Democrats that he has, the bicameral and bipartisan meeting. This is going to be about Mitt Romney as much as it is the shutdown or anything else.

GREGORY: And you know, this, just speaking to Mitt Romney's integrity, you can think he's hypocrite. You can think he's all over the place. The truth is, he did speak out strongly against Trump. He got brushback really hard in 2016. He was also willing to work with President Trump and has in the op-ed talks about those who worked with him, whether it was Kelly or Mattis or others, who he had confidence in. He's not -- the purity test for him is not going to be, can you oppose everything? You'll work with him where he can. But he'll be outspoken. And the question just is how much will he do it and who else does he bring with him?

BERMAN: Kevin, last word here. You said, you know, the tweet storm is a-coming. How do you think the president will respond? And will this end up overshadowing the next couple of days? The president has Democrats to contend with. Might now also he have Republicans to deal with?

MADDEN: Yes, look, I think he's going to come out very hard against -- against Romney. He sees him as a perfect foil in many ways. I think he also feels like he has -- he'll be speaking with the voice of his -- of his strongest base supporters when he does.

And I think there will be -- one of the problems, one of the challenges that now-Senator-elect Romney is going to have, is that some of his colleagues and his new colleagues in the Senate will see this as a distraction, where he's essentially picking a fight inside the party at a time where the shutdown requires a lot of unity.

BERMAN: David, Doug, Kevin, Mitt happens, right, as we like to say. Kevin knows. See, Kevin knows. Kevin's smiling. He's got -- he's got years of service in the administration there.

All right. A programming note, incoming Senator Mitt Romney will give his first live interview after this scathing op-ed. He will do so on "THE LEAD" with Jake Tapper at 4 p.m. Eastern. A lot could transpire before then. In other words, Mitt Romney may have some reaction from the president to respond to by 4 p.m.

CAMEROTA: All right. Meanwhile, we may see the first bipartisan meeting today since the government shutdown began. Will lawmakers and President Trump reach a compromise?

BERMAN: And heart-pounding video of a dramatic standoff between police and an armed man with a baby inside that car. Oof. Terrifying. We'll show you how it all went down, ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:18:45] CAMEROTA: OK. We are now in day 12 of the federal government partial shutdown. President Trump has invited a bipartisan group of congressional leaders to the White House today for talks, as Democrats take control of the House tomorrow and they plan to vote on the funding bill without any money for President Trump's border wall.

So joining us to discuss what's going to happen, we have David Gregory back with us. We also have Margaret Talev, senior White House correspondent for Bloomberg News, and "New York Times" columnist Frank Bruni.

So Margaret, Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer may feel like Charlie Brown, because they have done this before. They have gone to talk to President Trump before about things like -- about immigration and thought they had a deal, and then left, and the deal had kind of evaporated. And so it sounds like Nancy Pelosi has a new plan to bundle all these appropriations bills together to see if that can pass separate from the border funding. What do we think is going to happen today?

MARGARET TALEV, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, the president wants to get the leaders from both parties there on his terms, and as I think you'll remember, it wasn't that long ago that he had Chuck and Nancy over for what turned into an impromptu news conference in the Oval Office, and it was the president who tried to kick the ball and missed.

And I think he's been looking for a redo on that for a couple of weeks, and I guess today he gets his chance. So they'll go over there. They'll get some sort of a briefing on the status of border security. Not sure how much more new information will be revealed.

[06:20:12] But this is, I think, the president's effort to reset the negotiations in a way where he can look like he's in charge. There's going to be a lot of battle for optics over the next, probably, couple of weeks before this is resolved.

BERMAN: Our reporting from inside Capitol Hill is that Democrats think today will be a stunt. Now, is it a stunt that they have to take part in? Probably.

We haven't heard an official "yes," I believe, from Nancy Pelosi's office, but it's hard to imagine that the incoming speaker won't go to the White House for this meeting today, Frank. What do you think the president will do? And what if there is this sequel to the Oval Office, you know, tete-a-tete?

FRANK BRUNI, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: It could exactly that. And do we know how long the cameras will be there? Do we know any of that?

This is not just a legislative battle at this point. This is a public relations battle. And I think he's not only trying to show that he's taking charge. I think President Trump is trying to say, "I'm trying to solve this. I'm trying to make a deal. I'm trying to bring an end to this.

Democrats are sending out the same message, and I think what today is about mostly is who makes the best case afterwards, or in what we see of it to the American people? Who seems to be occupying the reasonable position? Who seems to be concerned about getting the federal government open again?

CAMEROTA: David, deal-making involves compromise, usually. I mean, usually, that's part of the definition of making a deal: What are you going to offer me? What am I going to offer you?

But, you know, for the past week or 12 days or whatever, President Trump has been dug in, saying that, like, everything is a deal breaker, unless they give him the $5 billion for the boarder wall.

GREGORY: Right. And I don't think the president thought this through when he was in the Oval Office, saying, "Yes, I'll shut the government down. It will be on me. It won't be on you. I'll do it because it's worth it for border security." And now here he is 12 days later, looking for some compromise. And certainly, Democrats are, as well.

I think you also see the administration and the White House, particularly, moving towards a different way to describe the wall. John Kelly, who gave his outgoing interview to "The L.A. Times," said we're kind of beyond the wall. It's barriers, it's reinforcements. All those things.

And we should remember, the Democrats voted to give him funding before on all of this, as part of the DREAMer legislation. You've seen Lindsey Graham now suggesting there could be a broader immigration deal; that we've heard this, you know, this promise before; and -- and it never got there in negotiation.

But those are the contours of some kind of compromise here. But the president -- the one thing the president can do through all of his bluster is remind people that this is a core belief to him, something he campaigned on that he wants desperately, some kind of border reinforcement -- wall, barrier, all the rest -- and he's got a real constituency for it.

BERMAN: So Alisyn was up all night, putting together a video montage explaining how the president went from a concrete wall 30 feet high along the entire U.S.-Mexico border to Venetian blinds, you know, in a nearby hotel.

GREGORY: Level (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

BERMAN: No doubt. Let's listen to what the president has said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: We actually need 1,000, because we have natural barriers.

It's going to be so big. It's going to be so powerful. It's going to be as beautiful as a wall can be.

The wall, also called -- so that I give them a little bit of an out, steel slats. We don't use the word "wall" necessarily.

It's not going to be open until we have a wall, a fence, whatever they'd like to call it.

So we're looking at between 500 and 550.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: The problem is whatever you want to call it, is what the sticking point is here, Margaret. And the president, even in the last three days, in the 75,000 tweets he sent from the Oval Office, made clear he still is in favor of a concrete wall in some places.

CAMEROTA: The problem is that he doesn't -- he has not defined what it is he wants to spend the $5 billion on.

TALEV: Well, I think he's defined it twice in two parallel ways. Because the messaging to the president's base is it's going to be a concrete wall and not any other kind of wall.

And then the messages, for purposes of negotiations, with the legislative team up on the Hill and the backchannel conversations, is, "Lok, my border guys don't want a concrete wall anyway. They want something that they can see through, and we want something that, most importantly, works and is what the professionals at the border want."

So there are some places that already have some barriers. There are some places, you know, that would need, you know, this or that.

And so both things can't be true at the same time. But he's got to talk to both groups at the same time, and therein lies part of the problem.

Then the other part of the problem, as you know, is that Democrats are taking over the House of Representatives. So as long as -- as long as they hold out, he can't get what he wants. So here we are. It's January 2.

[06:25:03] CAMEROTA: I mean, Frank, actually, I was really trying to figure out what the president was asking for. I mean, really.

And we challenged on Monday, I think, congressional lawmakers who came in to say -- I said, "Do you know what the president is

asking for?" And nobody could answer that. OK? Because is it 1,000 miles long? Is it 500 miles long? Is it 32 feet of concrete or is it steel slats? I mean, we truly do not know today. So I actually took to -- I -- I ended up texting Ann Coulter, because

I said, she knows what she wants; and he responded to her, knowing what she wanted. And she said that her definition is exactly what Israel has, nothing less.

BRUNI: Right. Well, I mean --

BERMAN: That's a big concrete wall.

CAMEROTA: Absolutely. Now, Israel is the size of New Jersey. So it's a smaller wall than what the president is asking for.

BRUNI: Right, right, right. You can't figure out what he wants. Neither can the guy who are negotiating with him. And if they can't figure that out, how do you ever come to a resolution? I mean, Nancy Pelosi hilariously joked that it's a beaded curtain at this point. I think we're almost to the point where it could be a pricker bush or border topiary. Right?

But what -- what is his red line? What will he accept and what will he not? If you don't know that, how do you come to a solution here?

BERMAN: And Nancy Pelosi will be speaker of the House tomorrow. As she goes to the White House -- if she goes to the White House today, she's still got a day to go.

But tomorrow she has power, David Gregory, and tomorrow they're setting up this series of votes where House Democrats are going to approve what Senate Republicans have already voted "yes" on. House Democrats are going to go in and say, "OK, we take 'yes' for an answer, Mitch McConnell. How are you going to handle this now?"

But from what we've been told, Mitch McConnell is going to say, "Well, never mind. The president says he won't sign this, so I'm not going to support this legislation that was basically unanimous in the Senate a few weeks ago."

GREGORY: And that's the stunt-making ability that Nancy Pelosi has and that she'll use. And Mitch McConnell has said, you know, "We will ultimately do what the president is going to sign. We're not going to waste our time with anything else," shifting blame but also making it clear he's going to have to eat the fact that they voted on this before.

And I do think, you know, Nancy Pelosi was very shrewd. She's -- she's been a very effective negotiator in the past, even with the Democratic president, as well, with her Republican colleagues.

I don't think she wants to resolve this shutdown and cave on a wall just to end the shutdown if it's not part of something larger. And I think Lindsey Graham probably understands that. Lindsey Graham would like to get to a place of more comprehensive immigration reform, as well. Whether this is the vehicle, I don't know.

But I think she's got a big constituency, and she's got a lot of priorities here that have to do with investigating the president, being a check on the president. And, you know, the last time in the Oval Office, she had a pretty good turn.

CAMEROTA: Margaret, Democrats are willing to offer $1.3 billion for border security. Can't the president just call that a down payment and we call this a day?

TALEV: Well, it doesn't seem like it's so easy thus far.

I do think that the biggest leverage that the president has, other than if he were some somehow to turn public opinion against Democrats, the biggest potential leverage he has is that Nancy Pelosi and the House Democrats did, in fact, have an entire plan of legislative priorities they wanted to focus on. And as long as the shutdown remains in place, that overshadows all of their message.

Now, they may think that they can win on that path for a while, but at some point when you're in governing, you want to show that you're doing something that actually makes a change. And at some point they're going to want to get to their narrative.

I don't think before they take power they're at that point, but at some point in a couple of weeks into the new year, both are going to be feeling the pressures more than they are now to reach some kind of a compromise.

CAMEROTA: Margaret, David and Frank, thank you all very much. It will be interesting to watch what happens this afternoon.

Coming up on NEW DAY, we will speak live with the incoming chair of the Democratic Caucus, Congressman Hakeem Jefferies.

BERMAN: So a dramatic standoff captured on dashcam video. Police, they drew their weapons as they were surrounding an armed man inside his car. There was a baby inside that passenger seat. We'll tell you what happened next.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Listen, man, it's not that big of a deal.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)