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Dems Pass Plan to End Shutdown, Defying Veto Threat; Interview with Rep. Cheri Bustos. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired January 04, 2019 - 07:00   ET

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

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I have never had so much support as I have, frankly, the wall or the barrier.

[07:00:07] UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Purely political. The president has to stand firm.

SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY), MINORITY LEADER: Only one person is to blame for this predicament. President Trump is holding the government hostage.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The longer the shutdown drags on, the weaker the president's hand becomes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're going to look where Republicans were unwilling to look. But we should not be reckless.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't think you can just ignore transgressions that rise to the level of impeachment.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to your NEW DAY. We are now in day 14 of the government shutdown, and there are several new developments to tell you about.

Two Republicans in the Senate are breaking with President Trump, saying it's time to re-open the government, even without funding for his proposed border wall.

This comes as the new Democratic-controlled House passes a plan to fund and re-open the government. Five House Republicans voted with Democrats. In just hours, President Trump will again meet with congressional leaders in the situation room to try to break this impasse.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Eight hundred thousand -- 800,000 federal workers are not getting paid in the meantime.

Also overnight, a freshman member of Congress raising eyebrows for something she was caught on camera saying about President Trump, this is Representative Rashida Tlaib from Michigan. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. RASHIDA TLAIB (D), MICHIGAN: And when your son look at you and says, "Mama, look, you won. Bullies don't win," and I said, "Baby, they don't, because we're going to go in there and we're going to teach the mother-(EXPLETIVE DELETED)."

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: On that note, joining us now, CNN political analyst and White House correspondent for "The New York Times," Maggie Haberman.

Maggie, we're not actually going to make you comment on that one. We have a whole segment devoted to that.

MAGGIE HABERMAN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Appreciate it.

CAMEROTA: You're welcome. Let's talk about what's happening with this impasse.

Do you sense that President Trump has worked himself into a bit of a predicament, a pickle, because he has promised the border wall. He's promised that Mexico would pay for it. But neither of those things seem to be happening, and he has started to change his language.

Well, it's border slats. It's border security. It's border control is what I'm talking about. And will that ultimately work? Well, he -- I don't want to say cave, because I want to talk about compromise. But is he the person who's going to have to change his way of thinking?

HABERMAN: I think that they are -- both sides are going to have to come up with some version of give, but I think the Democrats have a lot of leverage. Right? And I think Democrats believe they have a lot of leverage right now, for the simple reason that, to your point, the president tends to speak in very sort of stark, clear symbolic language.

And so he talked about a wall. He didn't talk about steel slat. He talked about a concrete wall during the campaign. He talked about that kind of thing early in his term in 2017. And now he is, as you say, trying to get away from that.

As we know, the president is very likely to take whatever compromise ultimately comes up and paint it as a victory for him. I'm sure the Democrats will do the same.

But Democrats are not in the mood to give him something that he can claim as a victory. And he, by every -- according to everyone I talk to, feels very comfortable with this fight. He believes -- and I think there are obviously reasons to question this -- that he believes that this is good for him politically. He thinks that it helps him to be in this fight with Democrats. He thinks that it buys him some latitude for the future in terms of deals that he might have to cut with Democrats, because it gets him some credit with his base. Again, I think that there are reasons to question that belief, but that is what he thinks.

BERMAN: One of the new questions -- reasons to question that belief is two Republican senators overnight --

HABERMAN: Yes.

BERMAN: -- Susan Collins from Maine, and Cory Gardner from Colorado. You know, Colorado, which is now a blue state or purple state in presidential elections. Cory Gardner up for reelection in 2020, faces a tough battle.

Cory Gardner says, "Enough. I don't want to have this fight anymore." Listen to what he says.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. CORY GARDNER (R), COLORADO: I don't think shutting down the government is the right way to do this, so let's fund the border. Let's fund border security. But let's do so while making sure that the government is operating for the people in this country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: In other words, end the shutdown now. Two cracks, two Republican senators. Significant?

HABERMAN: It is significant, especially because the person who has been trying to absent themselves, at least from visibility on this, is Mitch McConnell.

Remember, the Senate now -- the Senate majority leader now seeing a divided government. He had passed a continuing resolution that the president was expected to sign, that had been agreed upon to weeks ago until the president got pressure to back away from it in exchange for border wall funding or whatever we're calling it funding.

McConnell keeps saying he's not going to bring something to the floor that the president isn't going to sign. And so it is very clear the president has said he is not going to sign almost any option that is put on the table, that I think the more that you see pressure from members of McConnell's caucus, the more I think you are going to see McConnell possibly try to exert some pressure on the president privately. I don't think you will really see it publicly.

But I think that this is becoming problematic, clearly, for Republicans going into 2020. This is one of the things you will hear folks in the White House say as to why it is that they think Democrats will ultimately, if not cave but at least come to -- you know, come to a compromise, is that shutdowns are bad for everybody. And that is certainly true that shutdowns are bad for everybody.

[07:05:04] But they're also pretty bad for the president's party, and the president is the one who proudly said he would own a shutdown, and Democrats know that.

CAMEROTA: Let's talk about this change moment in the briefing room where the president surprised everybody by showing up.

And again, you hear the pivot in his language. He's no longer saying border wall. Let's just play a moment where he talks about he says what he wants.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: The wall about you can call it a barrier. You can call it whatever you want, but essentially, we need protection in our country.

I have never had so much support as I have in the last week over my stance for border security, for border control, and for frankly, the wall or the barrier.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: When he says so much support, and since it's not public opinion polls, we think it's Sean Hannity. We think that it's the phone calls from Sean Hannity that is supporting him?

HABERMAN: I mean, I certainly think it's that kind of thing, right. I think he's hearing from people who are allies or friends or who he likes to talk to and who are telling him stay strong. And I think he referenced that in tweets, as well. Unless I'm remembering wrong.

But look, to your point, the public does not support what he says, what he is saying. That is not true. I'm not sure what the goal of doing this stunt in the briefing room was, other than that it took headlines away from Nancy Pelosi. It made them look as if they were, you know, in charge again.

CAMEROTA: Was that the goal?

HABERMAN: I think that was part of it, but it's hard to know with him. It's something else going on, and we're not seeing exactly what it is.

What is clear from everyone I talked to, is that he is essentially, he is -- and you can see it in what he did. He is -- he is taking his own counsel. He is taking little advice from others unless it, you know, aligns with what he already thinks, unless it supports where he wants to go in the first place. And so you were going to see things like that.

We were told that was going to be a press briefing. That was not a press briefing. That was the president standing there and talking for several minutes and then refusing to take questions.

BERMAN: That was a bait and switch. I mean, look, if Sarah Sanders, something like that normally would lose a press secretary credibility with the White House press corps, to promise one thing and deliver another. This might be a unique relationship already.

We talked about Sean Hannity and the influence he has. Talked about the voices that the president is hearing. I thought it was significant last night when, at the open of his show, Sean Hannity, who we sometimes refer to as the co-president, said this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEAN HANNITY, HOST, FOX NEWS CHANNEL'S "HANNITY": This is now day one of the Pelosi shutdown. She obviously doesn't care about DACA, because the president is willing to negotiate DACA. He's willing to talk about DREAMers.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: He's willing to negotiate DACA. He's willing to talk about DREAMers. That was Hannity in the first minutes of his show. That seemed like --

HABERMAN: That's not a coincidence.

BERMAN: OK. So explain.

HABERMAN: Look, I mean, first of all, we know that Lindsey Graham has talked to the president of that. And Lindsey Graham is somebody who the president does talk to frequently and listened to, has talked to him about the possibility of a deal that would be, you know, border wall funding in exchange for some kind of DACA relief.

That deal was offered, you know, on the table before with Democrats a year ago and the president did not want it, because Stephen Miller, his hardline immigration advisor, keeps trying to pull away from that. So Lindsey Graham has floated it.

There's not much indication that the president would actually support it, but I don't think it's an accident that Sean Hannity said that. Sean Hannity is saying something that the president at least wants to float out there, and see what will come back.

But again, Democrats are not in a mood for that deal. What they will say is that was a deal that was open a year ago.

I think it depends on what we're talking about. It depends on the number of people who would be impacted. I think if you reached a very high number of DACA recipients or if you reached a very high number of DREAMers who would be affected, then I think you could see some movement toward that deal. But it's not going to be at the numbers that existed before.

CAMEROTA: But let's just reset for a moment. So if they're open to making a deal on the DREAMers and DACA, they're open to now calling it border security, not a wall. What more is there to haggle over? That's it. That's what Democrats say they want.

HABERMAN: Right.

CAMEROTA: That's what Republicans say they want. The impasse makes no sense if that's where we are.

HABERMAN: It's -- right now it's primarily about the dollar figure, because you're correct. He has changed his language about what we're talking about.

You saw this interview with John Kelly over the weekend, his exit interview with "The L.A. Times," which was really striking, where he had this line about how, you know, he said, "To be honest, it's not a wall." And then he said it had not been a wall since very early on in the administration. I don't think the president liked that particularly.

We certainly know that when John Kelly said the president's views had evolved to lawmakers, many, many months ago, the president then tweeted the wall was the wall. And again, this is the problem he gets himself into, where he makes these declaratives that you generally try not to make in politics and that seasoned negotiators wouldn't make, because they know that they're backing themselves into a corner.

BERMAN: Seasoned negotiators won't make comments like this in the Oval Office?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I am proud to shut down the government for border security, Chuck, because the people of this country don't want criminals and people that have lots of problems and drugs pouring into our country, so I will take the mantle. I will be the one to shut it down. I'm not going to blame you for it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[07:10:08] BERMAN: That's not how a seasoned negotiator would have posed brinksmanship like this? "I'll own this"?

HABERMAN: There's a reason that Chuck Schumer was sort of grinning while looking down during that, because both he and Nancy Pelosi, who again, Pelosi is playing a long game.

One of the things that is important to bear in mind in the distinction between Nancy Pelosi and Donald Trump, both of whom grind down their opposition. But she does it patiently and with an end game in mind. He does it by sort of yelling over the person or tiring them out.

But he doesn't usually have an end goal in mind. And he certainly has not here. They still can't really articulate what their end goal is. I know what the end goal of his more conservative supporters is, but I don't know what his is.

CAMEROTA: You have some reporting on somebody being considered for the next defense secretary, or at least someone who's being considered, is. Jim Webb, interesting choice. And you know, Jim Webb was critical of -- here's who's Jim Webb? He was a Democratic presidential candidate. Mostly, he was critical of President Obama's approach to some places like Iraq. And I think that perhaps that's what got President Trump's attention.

HABERMAN: The president, as we know, is notorious for considering someone and tossing out a name and then seeing what sticks. And so to be clear, I think that the chances of it ultimately becoming Jim Webb are not high because I think a lot of people would try to stop it. And it's not clear to me that Webb would be interested, per se, but they have discussed it.

Yes, his views align more closely with the president's on a number of issues in terms of foreign policy, in terms of national security and defense. And that is something that is very appealing to some of the president's supporters, and, you know, at least on first glance to the president, because he felt as if he -- and with reason -- that he has had people who have served in his cabinet whose views did not align with his. Jim Mattis made it very plain in that resignation letter that "You deserve to have somebody, a secretary of defense whose views align with yours."

And so Webb would certainly fit that category, but I think we're going to be doing this for a while.

BERMAN: You'd go -- Webb is a Democrat, also, or is a Democrat, we still believe. He was a Republican, switched parties to become a Democrat, Democratic senator. Was secretary of Navy, a job he quit after nine months.

He's got his own opinions on all things. The idea that he would line up in lockstep with anybody is difficult to imagine.

HABERMAN: Yes, and I think line p is probably a term we're using loosely. Right? I think that they have some overlapping views. The president does not have, necessarily, a straight line, clear foreign policy view either.

But I think that there is a feeling that there are areas of symmetry, where they could do well. And I think there are people in the administration who like the idea of reaching out to a Democrat or someone who has served as a Democrat.

And that has been something that has appealed to them for the last two years. Again, I think that we're a long way from home on this. But that is where the current thinking is.

CAMEROTA: OK, so the congressional leaders are going over to the White House, the situation room, at 11:30 this morning. Does the shutdown end today?

HABERMAN: I would be very surprised if the shutdown ends today. Again, I just think that there's still way too much distance between the two sides on a deal. And I think that, as we have seen, there's a reason you are seeing purple-state Republicans cracking on this, and looking for movement from the president.

Anything could happen. The president can always change his mind very quickly, but I don't think today is going to be the end of the shutdown.

BERMAN: Any sense how the president felt watching Speaker Pelosi take the gavel again yesterday, watching that ceremony inside the House? All the new faces? HABERMAN: I mean, I don't think he loved it. I don't think he ever loves when the spotlight is on somebody else, and I do think that was at least part of the motivating factor in terms of him going to the briefing room podium yesterday.

But I do think it is worth remembering the president had zero relationship with Paul Ryan, less than zero. Doesn't really love Mitch McConnell. They don't trust each other.

He has known Nancy Pelosi a long time. One of the first stories that I did about current iteration of politician Donald Trump was in 2011 when he was considering running for president back then, and he had sent, you know, one of his famous Sharpie on an article notes, whatever you would call it, to Nancy Pelosi. I think it was "The New York Times" front page, actually, when she became the speaker. And it said, "Nancy, you're the best, love Donald." So he does like her. That doesn't mean that he's going to give her what she wants politically. But I think that it was -- it was less of a fraught moment than one might think, other than he just likes to be the center of attention.

BERMAN: Maggie Haberman, thanks so much for being with us. Happy new year.

HABERMAN: Thank you.

BERMAN: Great to have you here.

All right. She got four votes from her Democratic colleagues in the House speaker race, so what did she say to Nancy Pelosi moments later? The representative who was catching the eye of very many people joins us next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:18:12] BERMAN: In just hours, President Trump will once again meet with congressional leaders in the situation room. This comes hours after House Democrats defied his veto threat and passed a plan to end the government shutdown.

Joining us now is Democratic Representative Cheri Bustos of Illinois. She is the new chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

Representative, first of all, congratulations, because by my count, you finished third in voting for speaker of the House. That doesn't happen every day. What do you make of that?

REP. CHERI BUSTOS (D), ILLINOIS: Four whole votes. Yes. You know, here's what it was. I built very close relationships with many of the incoming freshman.

My job at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee last cycle was to work with candidates in mostly in 12 states but who were in some of the toughest races in the entire country. So I got to be very close to them. And these were folks who, for one reason or another, couldn't get to the point where they wanted to vote for now-Speaker Pelosi. And so they threw my name out in the ring.

BERMAN: Actually, we have sound of you speaking to now, once again, Speaker Pelosi after. I want to play that.

BUSTOS: OK.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BUSTOS: Thank you. Congratulations to you. Congratulations to you. Sorry about those floor votes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: You said, sorry about the votes, to which she smiled. Why did you feel like you had to say that?

BUSTOS: Well, you know, look here's what I -- a couple of kind of behind-the-scenes things.

Joe Kennedy, a member of Congress from Massachusetts, you know, the grandson of Bobby Kennedy, a Kennedy, a close friend of mine. We were elected in the same class. I turned around to him at the end of the votes. I said, "Well, this is the first time I've ever had to face- off against a Kennedy, and I beat you 4-1."

[07:20:11] So you know, there was just some banter back and forth.

But the only reason I said that to Speaker Pelosi, I don't want there to be any feeling that I was trying to gain any votes or anything like that. I support her 100 percent, wholeheartedly. I think she will -- she was a remarkable speaker of the House, and I think she will continue to be a remarkable speaker of the House this session.

BERMAN: You finished third and beat a Kennedy, a big day, as we said.

BUSTOS: Yes, how's that? How's that?

BERMAN: There's a meeting at the White House in just a few hours. A new attempt to try to reopen the government. The new Democratic House passed a measure yesterday to do just that. The president promised to veto it. Where is the room for a deal?

BUSTOS: Well, the room for a deal is that there's got to be some give and take.

I worked in the private sector my entire career before coming to Congress. In fact, I was a journalist for 20 -- almost 20 years, almost two decades. And then worked in health care for another ten years.

As you know, when you're not on camera, when you're working with your producers and your photographers and all of that, you know, you've got to have a little give and take. And if we are unwilling to do that, we will not improve the way this place -- I'm standing in the U.S. Capitol right now -- we will not improve the way Congress functions. And, you know, if it were up to me I would go into a room. I'd lock

the door and say, "We're not going to leave until we open up the government again." It is not that hard.

And I think one other point worth making: the wall that President Trump has talked about now for many years, because this was a defining theme when he was a candidate, it is nothing more than a symbol, if you look at it from this perspective.

If we have a partial wall, if we have fencing, if we have technology used to keep our border safe, all of that is fine, but it has just become the symbol that the president is not having any give or take when it comes to this $5 billion.

What we passed out of the House yesterday on our first day of session, were two mechanisms to open up the government again, most of it to fund the government through September, another portion where we would give the president another month. We'd say open the government. We'll give you another month, and we can work out this deal. And yet, we had only a handful of Republicans support that, and the Senate won't even take it up.

BERMAN: So you said there needs to be give and take. And then you said that you are a supporter or are at least open to the idea of a partial wall, fencing technology. Is that the give here? Are you willing to give some additional funding beyond the 1.3 billion for a partial wall, fencing or technology?

BUSTOS: Well, keep in mind, I'm not sitting at that table doing the negotiating. I mean, I'm running the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. It means I have a seat at the leadership table.

BERMAN: But you have a vote in Congress.

BUSTOS: Of course I do.

BERMAN: And you are a member of Democratic leadership, and people are -- you got four votes for speaker. And I don't mean to diminish that People listen to you here. So are you saying that that is where you believe Democrats should give?

BUSTOS: I believe that when we are looking at many issues, whether it pertains to rebuilding our country and passing what I hope will end up being a trillion-dollar infrastructure package, to rebuild our roads or bridges, roads and bridges and waterways, and rural broadband; or whether it has to do with lowering the cost of health care, including the exorbitant prices of prescription drugs, whatever it is, what I'm saying is we can have a starting point that we go in there, and we say "This is ideally what we would like to see happen."

But in the end, we might have to give or take a little bit. It's just the way the world works. It's the way our families work. I'm a mother of three sons, and it's the way I work with my -- with my husband and with my children. It's just the way the world works. And why should we in Congress in this building in the U.S. Capitol be any different than the way anything else works in this world? BERMAN: A couple more questions. Sean Hannity, who I don't think

speaks out of concert with the president -- in other words -- I don't think this is a coincidence -- said that -- he says the president is open to an idea of a deal that includes some legal status for DREAMers, for instance. Is that an area, funding for the wall, status for DREAMers, you think Democrats should explore?

BUSTOS: Well, I definitely think that we should explore helping our DREAMers.

Where I would stand on this is I hope sometime over the next two years that we can actually look at comprehensive immigration reform. I come from a congressional district that the No. 1 economic driver is agriculture. And our family farmers also want to see comprehensive immigration reform. They can't fill many of the jobs where, to milk cows or to take care of the pigs. We literally need people to come into our country to fill many of the jobs that make agriculture tick. I hope at some point, we'll be able to get to a comprehensive immigration reform package. But as it pertains -- as it pertains to DREAMers, absolutely. I hope we can do something to help them.

BERMAN: You noted you come from a district that has a lot of farms. You also come from a district that President Trump won in the last election. It is a Trump district. So this will be of interest to you.

[07:25:10] A new member of Congress, Representative Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, just elected, she wrote an op-ed yesterday where she called for the impeachment of President Trump. That is an old position for her, from her. But there was new language that she used last night talking to supporters. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. RASHIDA TLAIB (D), MICHIGAN: And when your son looks at you, and says, "Mama, look, you won. Bullies don't win," and I said, "Baby, they don't, because we're going to go in there and we're going to impeach the mother (EXPLETIVE DELETED)."

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: All right. There are two issues there: the language and the call for an impeachment. Let's separate them. First of all, was the language appropriate from a member of Congress?

BUSTOS: Well, passions are running high. Let's just leave it at that, OK?

But as it pertains to impeachment, as I said just a little bit ago, John, I was a -- I was a print journalist. I was a newspaper reporter and editor for 17 years. And as you know, what guides reporters, what you've always got to go by is follow the truth.

And we are in the middle or maybe toward the tail end of an investigation with Robert Mueller. What I would like to see happen is let's let that play out. Let's see what he reports back. And then we'll take it from there.

We have very able and competent and reasonable men running our oversight committees -- Oversight, Intelligence, the Judiciary. They will follow the truth. And where the truth leads, we'll have to respond when we get to the end of that.

BERMAN: Representative Cheri Bustos, thanks so much for joining us this morning. Please come back. Great to have you on the show.

BUSTOS: Thank you, John.

BERMAN: Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: OK, John. To re-open the government, does there have to be a wall or not? Rick Santorum tells us, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)