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Federal Workers Won't Get Paychecks as Shutdown Continues; Trump Considering Declaring National Emergency to Build Wall; Michael Cohen to Testify Publicly Before Congress. Aired 6-6:30a ET
Aired January 11, 2019 - 06:00 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 the absolute right to declare a national emergency.
[05:59:00] REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA), SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: I think he's going to have to answer to his own party why he's usurping that much power.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: These communities along the border are among the safest in the country.
SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R), SOUTH CAROLINA: I have never been more depressed. Somebody has got to get some energy to fix this.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We've never had a top person like this testify in public.
JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN CHIEF LEGAL ANALYST: Democrats are going to treat him like he's St. Francis of Assisi. The Republicans are going to go after this guy as the criminal that he is.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We want to know as much as he can possibly tell.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY with Alisyn Camerota and John Berman.
ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: We want to welcome our viewers in the United States and the world. This is NEW DAY. It is Friday, January 11, 6 a.m. here in New York.
Happy Friday.
JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Happy Friday. But not so happy for some 800,000 people around the country today.
CAMEROTA: And we will speak to some of them on the program.
The shutdown of the U.S. government is now tied for the longest in American history, and unless there's a break-through today, this one will surpass the 1995 shutdown that lasted 21 days.
So 800,000 federal workers will not get a paycheck today. This is a pay stub on your screen right there from an air-traffic controller working without pay. He will get zero dollars this week.
After a breakdown in shutdown talks, President Trump is reportedly moving closer to the only option that can quickly get him out of this mess, and that's declaring a national emergency to bypass Congress and use some unspent federal funds to build that border wall.
The administration is said to be looking at diverting billions of dollars in disaster relief to make this happen. And that means money that was earmarked for places that were devastated by hurricanes, like Puerto Rico, Florida, Texas, could be used for the president's wall. Remember, nearly 3,000 Americans died on Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria.
The president insists he has, quote, "an absolute right" to declare a national emergency on the southern border and will, quote, "probably, almost definitely, most likely" do so.
BERMAN: That clears it up.
Also this morning, we're getting new information about where Robert Mueller is focused as he writes his report, namely on false or misleading public statements by President Trump and his team. Mueller trying to determine if there was an attempt to influence witnesses or obstruct justice. One witness tells CNN it's clear that Mueller is looking at the president's changing stories for corrupt intent.
And so what are your plans for February 7? The president's former lawyer and fixer, and convicted felon, Michael Cohen, will testify before Congress and before cameras on that day. One word to describe it: wow. This should make for some interesting executive-time viewing in the White House, for sure.
CAMEROTA: All right. So we have a lot to discuss, as always. Joining us now, we have CNN White House correspondent Abby Phillip; CNN senior political analyst John Avlon; and congressional reporter at Politico, Rachael Bade. Great to have all of you.
So Abby, the idea to spend these billions of dollars that had been earmarked for rebuilding places like Texas and Puerto Rico. Apparently, there were something like 14 or $13 billion in repair funds that have not yet been used to fix those places, and that's what the White House now thinks they can tap. How did all this come to pass?
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: In some ways, this could be the White House trying to find the lesser of two evils in terms of what the political fallout might be for using funds that were dedicated for something else in order to pay for the president's wall that Mexico was supposed to pay for.
This might be, in the view of some people in the White House and perhaps the president, a better alternative than taking money from the Pentagon, which was the first option, and using it for the wall.
But at the same time, I think the fact that it hasn't happened yet, the fact that the president has canceled so travel plans that's well into the future is probably an indication that this isn't a done deal. There's still quite a bit of deliberation happening in the White House.
And also they're making efforts to kind of go through the motions on Capitol Hill. I don't get any sense that there's any breakthrough on the horizon or even close to that.
But at the same time, it does not appear, according to what I'm hearing from White House aides and from administration aides, they don't appear to be on the cusp of a decision like this, because so many of these options are so unsavory. Nobody wants to explain why you're taking money from disaster relief to build the wall or taking money from the Pentagon to build the wall. And they are going to have to explain that if they decide to go down that route.
BERMAN: They're also going to have to explain to every single conservative theorist and Republican lawmaker who has complained of executive overreach over the last ten years about why they're taking this executive emergency action.
Look, "National Review" wrote this morning in an op-ed overnight, "It's an offense against the spirit of our system for a president to fail to get what he wants from Congress in a dispute involving a core congressional power, and then turn around and exploit a tenuous reading of the law to try to get it anyway." This is "The National Review," the conservative bastion. "The Wall Street Journal" writes the same type of thing overnight.
Yet, Rachael, you're hearing from your sources on Capitol Hill and congressional leadership offices among Republicans, they think this is basically over and a done deal and that we're headed to emergency powers?
RACHAEL BADE, CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT, POLITICO: Yes, some of those same Republicans that argued against executive overreach or what they saw as executive overreach from President Barack Obama now see this as a way to save face. They don't think they can win. Privately, of course not a lot of them are going out there and saying that for fear of being blasted by the president. But they just want a way out, and they want to move forward. And they don't want Trump to look like he caved to Democrats. So they see this as a way out.
I will say on the Democratic side in the House, they are already talking about a lawsuit. So the tables are definitely turned. They're looking at suing the administration for infringing and usurping the power of the purse, which is explicitly written in the Constitution and is guarded by the Congress.
And so the president, by declaring an emergency, basically has this authority to move money around. But, again, there's a question about whether or not this is a crisis situation. Especially if you're taking money that was potentially going to be going to places like Puerto Rico to help with hurricane reconstruction, post-hurricane reconstruction, money set aside for an emergency situation.
Democrats on the Hill say they're going to sue, and they're also going to have a lot of big hearings where they're going to grill the administration about this decision and highlight exactly what this money that was diverted, what did it mean by taking it away from other people and how did it hurt other people?
JOHN AVLON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: I don't think there is a question about whether this is a crisis. It's not a crisis, because if it were a crisis, it would have been dealt with in the last two years, when Republicans had unified control of government, which was operative until 10 days ago.
This is simply an expedient end run around Congress, because Donald Trump and the Republicans failed to do their job and prioritize this when they had a chance.
And it will face all sorts of court challenges. And I think, you know, "The National Review" and "The Journal" calling out the hypocrisy of it, that's right. But what will all of the alleged constitutional conservatives in Congress do, who railed against Obama for alleged abuse of powers, and now seemingly roll over when a president with an "R" after the last name does pretty much whatever he wants to try to clean up a mess of his own making.
CAMEROTA: As you know, Abby, the president is now backtracking on his promise, his campaign promise that Mexico was going to pay for it, as you alluded to.
In a campaign, just to remind everybody, of course everybody remembers how many times the president said that Mexico was going to pay for it, but he actually had a plan for how Mexico was going to pay for it. It wasn't just an idle promise. In a campaign memo of April of 2016, he said, "It's an easy decision for Mexico. You make a one-time payment of $5-10 billion." He said that they might even cut a check for it.
Then yesterday he said this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: When, during the campaign, I would say Mexico's going to pay for it, obviously, I never said this; and I never meant they're going to write out a check.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CAMEROTA: And so, I mean, Abby, look, everybody knows at this point that the president lies willy-nilly. I think people, sadly, have gotten used to that.
But what I think that yesterday showed was the brazenness with which he does so. When we have the documentation and the old videotape to prove it. I mean, here's just a few of those moments from the campaign trail.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: And who's going to pay for the wall?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mexico!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mexico!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mexico!
TRUMP: Who's going to pay for the wall?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mexico!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mexico!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mexico!
TRUMP: Who?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mexico!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mexico!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mexico!
TRUMP: Who's going to pay for the wall?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mexico!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mexico!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mexico!
TRUMP: Who?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mexico!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mexico!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mexico!
TRUMP: In the end, in the end, Mexico's going to pay for the wall.
They're going to pay for the wall, and they're going to enjoy it, OK? They're going to enjoy it.
They may even write us a check by the time then see what happens. They may.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CAMEROTA: Mexico is definitely enjoying this new plan.
AVLON: Yes.
CAMEROTA: To take the funds from hurricane-ravaged places and natural-disaster-ravaged places to pay for it instead.
And listen, Abby, I mean, we've been down this road before, but I do think the brazenness is important to point out. And also just that I feel badly for people who now believe the president when he says that this 315 miles worth of wall that he's planning to build is going to solve the opioid crisis and fix immigration and fix crime and all the other things that he thinks this border wall can fix.
PHILLIP: Yes. I mean, the brazenness really is amazing. And I was on the lawn when the president said that yesterday, and he brought up literally out of nowhere.
No one asked him a question about whether Mexico was going to pay for the wall, though we have many times in the past several weeks. But it just goes to show that the president is trying to rewrite history here on this issue. He's trying to frame this whole thing as a rhetorical device when, in fact, the Trump campaign put out a paper plan that says Mexico's going to write a $5-10 billion check to pay for the wall.
This is both not -- it is not only that Mexico's not going to pay for the wall, but the president has, in being president, realized that the problem isn't really that Mexicans are coming over the border illegally, as he was saying repeatedly on the campaign trail. It's a broader problem than that. It's a regional problem. Central -- you know, a handful of Central American countries, basically, are more than just Mexico.
And I think the president is really struggling to square all these things he said on the campaign trail with the difficult reality of what is actually happening on the border. He's still trying to frame this as a -- as a problem of Mexican criminals coming over the border and murdering and raping.
Yesterday he was on the border, and they had a table set of drugs, and guns, and weapons, and all kinds of things that were seized. All of those things had been seized at ports of entry, legal ports of entry, which really doesn't speak to the president's argument that there needs to be a wall.
So there's -- there's a problem here with the president really squaring all of these things with the reality of what is actually happening on the border.
[06:10:06] BERMAN: Look, the Mexico thing doesn't even qualify as a lie. Glen Kessler at "The Washington Post" said it sort of explodes the work. It's a complete rewrite of history. It's "1984"-level stuff. It's what you are seeing and what you are reading is not really happening. It's a counter-reality.
CAMEROTA: Which the president has said.
AVLON: Which the president has said.
BERMAN: Which the president has said. I mean, it is -- it is really truly staggering to see.
Also staggering to see -- and I just want to put this up there again, to remind people what's happening here. This paycheck with a $0 amount. Because this is today. This is now tied for the longest shut-down in history. Zero dollars.
And why is this shutdown happening? The president told us. The president told us in December, just a reminder of who he said would own this shutdown.
(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)
BERMAN: "I will be the one to shut it down. I'm not going to blame you for it."
AVLON: Yes.
BERMAN: It is now tied for the longest ever, Rachael.
BADE: Well, yes. Now it's Chuck and Nancy's fault, as he will -- he's trying to say and push the blame on them.
Look, it's -- it's like whiplash on Capitol Hill, you know. The president said he was willing to go below $5 billion. He sort of floated the idea of doing a broader immigration deal. And then he slammed the door shut on that yesterday, just when some of his top allies on Capitol Hill, Senator Lindsey Graham, started to talk about a way to probably go get out of this, by adding something like DACA protections for these DREAMers.
Just like a year ago, we saw a government shutdown because Democrats wanted these DACA protections for DREAMers, and they shut the government down to try to get them. They didn't get them, and they floated wall for DACA as a potential deal. And the president said no; Republicans said no.
And now the roles have been totally reversed with Republicans on the Hill, who want a way out of this again, feel like they can't win, and are trying to float this. But, again, the president says one minute he's OK with it, the next minute he's not.
It's just -- it's just amazing that we are 21 days into this. It's now the longest shutdown in history or partial government shutdown in history, and we're getting nowhere here. And so this is another reason why I think a lot of people on the Hill believe that we are going to see an emergency declaration at some point, because they're getting nowhere.
AVLON: This is the opposite of "The Art of the Deal." This is total incompetence on the part of the executive. Because this has been going on, again, two years to get this done. This has been dragging on. We're now tied for the longest, and it's going to fall over. And if you wanted to make that DACA deal, which Republican senators
were working with, that could have been easily spun as a win/win for the nation. A degree, both parties gave a little bit, got something done; and he could have looked big. Instead he looks small.
CAMEROTA: And he could have had more money.
AVLON: Yes.
CAMEROTA: There you go.
AVLON: And look, 200 times on the campaign he said Mexico pays for the wall. You know, he may have forgotten about that campaign, you know, piece of paper. Probably did. But it's the brazenness, and then the incompetence to actually lead, the inability to bridge governing and grandstanding that we see over and over.
BERMAN: And just to be clear, he could have made the deal again yesterday.
AVLON: Yes.
BERMAN: The White House refused a partial deal for some protection for the DREAMers for the border wall.
We have you here, Rachael. We're getting killed on time here, but in about 30 seconds, you've got some reporting this morning on Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Democrats trying to crack down?
BADE: That's right. There's this quiet campaign going under way to bring her, self-described Democratic socialist with 2.2 million Twitter followers, into the fold.
Remember, Ocasio-Cortez, she won a primary by taking out an establishment Democrat that was set to replace Nancy Pelosi. She sort of built this name for herself, can command a national audience at whim. And Democrats see her as a potential asset for them but also a potential loose cannon.
And a lot of them are afraid of her. They've compared her to Donald Trump. And they want her to get her to turn her fire on Republicans and are really concerned about this notion of her primarying other Democrats.
So they're trying to bring her into the fold. I don't know if it's going to work, because that's why she's famous now.
CAMEROTA: It's a really interesting read, Rachael. I recommend it for everyone. Thank you all.
BERMAN: All right. President Trump's former lawyer, Michael Cohen, now a convicted felon, plans to tell his side of the story. And not just to, like, one or two people, but to everyone. He's going to testify before Congress and in front of cameras. What is he going to say? CAMEROTA: And breaking news overnight. That young girl who
disappeared months ago after her parents were murdered -- you'll remember this story -- she's been found alive. We have the incredible story, next.
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[06:18:22] BERMAN: So what are you doing on February 7? Michael --
CAMEROTA: Popping the popcorn.
BERMAN: Yes. Popcorn and beer. A good combination. Mark your calendar. Michael Cohen, president's former lawyer, fixer, right-hand man, and now convicted felon will testify before Congress in public. This is really the Democrats' first attempt at bringing someone in the middle of the Russia, the larger Russia investigation to testify before the entire country and the world.
What does it mean legally? What does it mean politically? Let's talk about all that.
Joining us now, Abby Phillip; former counsel to the U.S. assistant attorney general Carrie Cordero; former assistant U.S. attorney for New York's Southern District, Elie Hoenig.
Elie, this is going to be something.
ELIE HOENIG, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Yes, I would say it's going to be a circus, but I think circuses have some structure.
If you think about the things that we've learned from Michael Cohen on the record, they've all been in a very sort of carefully-controlled environment. Legal briefs submitted by Mueller or the Southern District or his own team, sworn under oath before a judge. This is going to be wild.
Picture what this scene is going to be like. You've got Michael Cohen, an unpredictable personality, I think, to say the least, being questioned by U.S. senators, half of whom are running for president with national TV cameras there, and no real restraints.
BERMAN: This will be in the House.
HOENIG: You're right. You're right, I'm sorry. But still, politicians with -- with every one of them --
CAMEROTA: Ambitions.
HOENIG: -- will have an agenda and ambitions; and they all think they should be senators and probably then president. And no real restraints on the topics that they can go into.
So I have a little hit list that I would want to ask Michael Cohen. I would want to hit the hush-money payments. Who else was involved? Who are Executive 1 and Executive 2, the people who made those payments? Could it be Eric Trump? Could it be Donald Trump Jr.? Could it be Jared Kushner? Those people are in trouble.
[06:29:04] And I would want to know about his prior lies to the Senate about the Moscow project. Who else was in on this? There's some indication in Mueller's papers that Michael Cohen was part of a larger plan to lie about that project. So I'd want to know who else is in trouble here.
CAMEROTA: Here's the statement from Michael Cohen, Carrie, yesterday. "In furtherance of my commitment to be cooperate and provide the American people with answers, I've accepted the invitation by Chairman Elijah Cummings. I look forward to having the privilege of being afforded a platform with which to give a full and credible account of events which have transpired."
He sounds ready to spill the beans on some level.
CARRIE CORDERO, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: He does. I think the key for this hearing, assuming it goes forward, is what will Michael Cohen be able to say in a public forum about the Russia investigation, about his cooperation in a way that doesn't compromise things that the special counsel is still investigating.
So, I think one of the most important things from the perspective of the overall investigation is what he can say about the Moscow project and how that played into -- that was the project for the Trump organization to build a building, a project in Moscow. And there were talks going on throughout the campaign about that, apparently.
So the question will be what can he say about that that would provide additional information to the public to reveal whether or not the campaign was under influence from Russia in some way.
In other words, were they taking actions? Were they adopting policy positions? Or were they doing things that put them in a compromised position? And does that continue, in some way, into the presidency? I think that's one of the important things that he can provide if he -- if he's allowed to do it.
BERMAN: So the president was asked yesterday what he makes of all of this. This is what he said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Michael Cohen, he's agreed to testify before the House Democrats next month. What do you think of that? Are you worried?
TRUMP: I'm not worried about it at all, no.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BERMAN: Abby, I don't believe him. I don't believe him, because this president, among the things that he knows -- TV and entertainment and electrifying moments, one of them. And this is going to be a moment, and I bet you he watches during executive time that morning in the White House. PHILLIP: Yes. And I think that, as this becomes closer and closer,
you're not going to have to guess about whether the president is worried or not. We'll know, because very likely, he'll be tweeting about it or tweeting about Michael Cohen or letting his agitation about the situation be well-known on social media, as he does almost every time something like this comes up.
But, you know, to Kerry's point, if Michael Cohen can't say much in this public forum, there's something he can say. And he can be basically a devastating character witness against the president. I think that is probably the one thing that Michael Cohen is almost certain to do, no matter what legal cases are still kind of pending or the Mueller probe still in limbo.
He can talk about who Donald Trump really is, in his view; what Donald Trump asked him to do on his behalf, which he's already said was break the law. And I think those kinds of public statements are going to be damaging to the president, because they're going to be playing out on national television for the entire world to see. And they're not going to dissipate into thin air. It's going to be out there for a really long time.
And I think the risk is that it's going to get further under President Trump's skin and cause the kinds of eruptions that we've seen from President Trump over the last many months, you know. This is not a probe that the president has taken easily. It has consumed him, really it has. And I think that this is going to be one of those moments where his -- a person who's basically betrayed him is going to be out in public saying things about him that are going to be very, very unflattering.
CAMEROTA: We already got a taste of that in the George Stephanopoulos interview, where he said, basically, that he sold his soul, he felt, for Donald Trump and his, quote, "dirty deeds." And that's why think I think you hear Rudy Giuliani and President Trump involved in character assassination of Michael Cohen so that they can say you can't trust what this person says.
Let's talk about Tony Fabrizio. Who is Tony Fabrizio, you may ask? Here's who he is. He's a long-time pollster. He's a political strategist. He worked with Paul Manafort on Ukrainian elections in 2012, 2013. He was recruited by Manafort in 2017 to poll for the Trump campaign.
He fought with the campaign over a disputed bill of $767,000. I mean, the amount of people who fight with Donald Trump over unpaid bills is a whole other segment that we could get into.
So anyway, what is the significance to you that we now know that Robert Mueller a year ago met with Fabrizio?
KOENIG: He's a typically shady character in this mix. This is Robert Mueller closing the loop. Like, we already have the front end. We learned the front end accidently the other day when Manafort's attorneys failed to properly redact it. [06:25:04] We learned that Manafort was giving highly confidential,
highly proprietary internal polling data to Kilimnik, who was part of Russian intel. This was the back end. What's being done with that? Was there a connection that sort of circled around? Were there other people?
I would ask this pollster, "Did anyone contact you from Russia? Anyone associated with oligarchs? Anyone associated with Kilimnik? Was there any follow-up? Did you do any coordinating with the Russians?"
Because if that falls into line, then you are going to have a complete picture of collusion. This guy, you know, we talk about the unpaid bill, the dispute. He may -- he may have a beef now with the Trump people. He may have a reason to come clean if there was a problem. So it's quite possible that Mueller got something useful out of him.
BERMAN: And Carrie, one other piece of really interesting reporting overnight that witnesses are -- people who have testified before Robert testified are telling some of our Justice Department team, in great reporting, that they've been asked a lot of questions, that they believe Mueller's been trying to make a case that the president's public statements were made with corrupt intent in order to obstruct or influence the investigation that's been going on.
How do you assess that -- that report?
CORDERO: Well, I think it's consistent with what we've been seeing in terms of all the other reporting over the course of the year, which is that clearly, there is a significant part of the special counsel's investigation that's focused on obstruction and whether or not the president tried to obstruct the investigation. I think that pertains to both the Michael Flynn case individually and the broader investigation that involves the heart of the investigation, the foreign influence and Russian influence on the election.
So I think this latest piece just indicates that there's a possibility that the special counsel's team is including the president's many public statements; and they're not going to exclude public statements or tweets or things that he did out in the open.
Obstruction doesn't necessarily or -- attempt to tamper with witnesses, doesn't necessarily have to take place behind closed doors. It could be some of the things that did he and the pressure that he applied to senior government leaders out in the public domain.
CAMEROTA: All right, Carrie, Elie, Abby, thank you all very much.
OK. Breaking overnight, the Wisconsin teenager who vanished months ago -- you probably recognize her on your screen -- after her parents were murdered, she has been found alive. This is a shocking development. We have the incredible details of how authorities found her in a report next.
BERMAN: Plus, a barefoot toddler captured on video wandering alone on a freeway in frigid temperatures. The brave person who came to her rescue, next.
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