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Government Shutdown Continues over Border Wall Funding; Missing Wisconsin Teenager Found Alive after Three Months; Interview with Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD). Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired January 11, 2019 - 8:00   ET

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

[08:00:00] ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Maggie, great to have you there from Washington. So, the shutdown, and you had told us earlier in the week, maybe even yesterday, that you thought that it was likely that the president would declare a national emergency. Is that moving closer to reality?

MAGGIE HABERMAN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: I would say it's inching closer to reality, right. I think that the president has a lot of people who are pulling on him not to rush ahead with this. And it's from a variety of corners. There are people in his own White House, his son-in-law Jared Kushner, who has said that he might want to be cautious and look for alternatives. Kellyanne Conway, the White House counselor, said that he would be letting Congress off the hook and essentially giving them a pass by doing this, their duties. Then he has conservative allies who are telling him it will look like the kind of government overreach that conservatives typically criticize and that they certainly criticized with Obama.

That said, there is no easy way out of this right now. They are looking at whether they can divert all of these funds without a national emergency declaration. Some people believe it can be done only with a national emergency declaration. I still think that is likeliest offramp for him because it is the only way to break this impasse, and essentially it will still be a mess. The fallout will be terrible for him in many respects if they have a court loss, and it is not likely to go his way by almost every lawyer I talked to, but it will allow a way for Congress to move forward and get the veto-proof majority and get the government open.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: With or without a national emergency, the new wrinkle overnight that they have asked whether or not they could use funds from the Army Corps of Engineers meant for disaster relief, that's a heck of a piece of news there, Maggie. Hurricane victims in these affected zones could have some of the money that was meant for them diverted to the wall, I can't imagine politically that's something this White House is prepared to deal with the impact from.

HABERMAN: Look, we have seen repeatedly, and they have looked at it for some time, whether they could make exactly that move. We have seen repeatedly that the president didn't necessarily get penalized in terms of how he spoke about or dealt with hurricane victims in Puerto Rico. But I do think that if you are talking about hurricanes that get closer to mainland U.S., I think that he will end up getting a lot of blowback from people. I think he is, as always, testing the limits of what he is going to be able to get away with.

And as you noted earlier, today is the first day of a lot of people missing a paycheck. And I think we haven't quite seen how that difficulty that people are having in their homes, this assumption that federal workers have a ton of money saved up somewhere that they rely on is wishful thinking. You are going to have a lot of people experiencing pain in the days going forward, and I think that the unhappiness is going to get louder.

And again, shutdowns are not good for anyone. They're not good for Democrats, they're not good for the president. But the president is still the one who said that he would own the shutdown, that he would proudly shut down the government. And those words remain very problematic for him.

CAMEROTA: The president is also the one who said that Mexico would pay for it, and obviously at the time when he kept saying that at political rallies, so many journalists scoffed at that notion. Mexico scoffed at the notion. And now the president has completely backtracked, as though we don't have videotape, as though we didn't hear it with our own lying ears, and it's the brazenness with which he does an about face and said, no, I never meant that. I never said Mexico was going to directly pay for it. You didn't hear what you heard. And I'm just wondering if at this point two years in if anybody in the White House is embarrassed that things like that are so public.

HABERMAN: No. I think people would rather he would be consistent, but I think that we all underestimate the degree to which people who work in the White House, they all develop sort of a bunker mentality and they feel as if we all don't cover him or them correctly. And if they are going to to choose between him or us they're always going to choose him. So, no, they're not looking at the objective facts and laying out of the tape. They wish he would stop doing these things, but increasingly people have just found that it's just easier internally to go along with what he wants.

That said, the general viewing public can see the two tapes and they can look at the difference. And it's rare that we have these cases, although it is increasingly common with him, but it is still generally rare where there is such a diametric opposite, right, where he said one thing and then he claims he didn't say that, just completely line them up. Usually he gives himself some wiggle room, usually there's some corner where it can be, well, he sort of meant that.

Look, he talked about the wall in very specific terms over the campaign, concrete, 30 feet, Mexico will pay for it. Those were digestible, easy to understand terms that a lot of voters responded to, and he has now handcuffed himself with them.

BERMAN: This is a case of black is white and night is day. That's just what's going on here. It's interesting to me that he woke up tweeting about it this morning. He's clearly still obsessed with trying to rewrite history here. The other thing he wrote this morning, Maggie, is talking about H-1B visas holders, offering a pathway to citizenship. I know there is always a risk trying to do a Talmudic parsing of his tweets here and exactly what he means. But I was wondering when I saw this if this is some kind of an offer, the beginning of some kind of an offer. Let's talk about some other things involving immigration.

[08:05:09] HABERMAN: I just asked somebody who was involved in this process, and their belief is that this is some kind of a technical rewording of a law or rule regard H-1b visas that he's referring to and he's trying to blow up to a bigger deal. The fact that he's using the phrase pathway to citizenship is not going to please Stephen Miller, his top immigration adviser, who is pretty hardline and does not like that program, does not like the notion of a path to citizenship. I don't think anyone is entirely clear on what the president is talking about, and I don't think we're going to hear a ton more on that, but we'll see. Who knows?

CAMEROTA: Michael Cohen will be testifying publicly in front of Congress on February 7th. President Trump was asked about this. And let me play this moment for you, and you can divine what he meant.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Michael Cohen has agreed to testify before the House Democrats next month. What do you think of that? Are you worried?

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I'm not worried at all, no.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: When the president, Maggie, lowers his voice to a different register and uses his sedate mode, I feel that's a tell sometimes. What did you hear in that response?

HABERMAN: I heard somebody who didn't know that this was coming. It suddenly got reported by you guys, by us, and I think ABC as well, and he was caught off guard.

Look, I think we have never seen somebody who has been at this level of an adviser to the president who has been involved in this level of scandal testify publicly. I think the last time we have seen something that would be of this nature, and I'm certainly not comparing them in terms of experience, but James Comey and Michael Cohen. James Comey gave public testimony in 2017 that was riveting and I think really turned a lot of public opinion about the president.

Michael Cohen comes in with a different set of attributes. He has really pleaded guilty to crimes. He is going to prison in March if things stay on their current track. And so Republicans are going to try to pummel him as a liar, and I think Democrats are going to say Robert Mueller has said that he offered credible information about the Russia investigation. How much Cohen is going to be allowed to get into remains to be seen. I think that there are going to be areas where Muller would probably rather he not get into. I do think the fact that Cohen is testifying publicly indicates that Mueller is approaching the end of what he is doing. I don't think that he would be OK with Cohen going forward and doing this. I do think his testimony is going to be very bothersome to the president in real time.

BERMAN: I think your last two points there are fascinating. Number one, I agree, that unless Mueller, I'm sure Mueller is probably close to done given that he gave Cohen the green light to do this. And even if Russia is walled off and a no-go area in these questions, otherwise it could be the wild west, Maggie. Michael Cohen is going to jail. He has got no reason to hold back. And if the questions are as broad and, hey, Don, Jr., what was his role? Michael Cohen, spill. The president, I can't imagine that he would like that.

HABERMAN: Look, I don't know that it is going to get to that type of questioning because, again, I think the Democrats are going to try to defer to Mueller in terms of sensitive areas. But I do think that there is going to be a range of things.

I don't think it has to go to Russia or collusion. I think if they start asking Cohen how did it exactly work. Walk us through play by play with the payments you made to a lawyer for Stormy Daniels. I think that is going to be very, very unnerving to the president. Again, I don't know the durability of it. I don't know how much new information we will have. But I do think that it is going to be something we have never seen before.

CAMEROTA: Do you think it means that Robert Mueller's report will be out before February 7th?

HABERMAN: No, number one, I don't. But I think we also have to recalibrate what we mean by "out." I think Robert Mueller is supposed to give a report, and I do not believe it will be before Michael Cohen testifies before Congress. He is expected to give a report to the Justice Department. We don't know whether that is ever going to be made public. We don't know how heavily redacted it would be. We don't know what that will look like. So I think it is really important for viewers and the general public to understand that we are headed into a period where we don't know exactly what is going to happen with this report. There has been this assumption, and I hear this lot, where people say, when the report is made public or when pages are being read in Congress -- we do not know what this is going to look like.

BERMAN: And I think that's a great question. What we're seeing now is this preview of the fight that will ensue the minute that Mueller is done here. We're seeing it really from both sides. Maggie Haberman, great to have you with us this morning. Thank you.

Breaking news, missing Wisconsin teenager Jayme Closs has been found alive three months after her parents were murdered in their home and she disappeared. This is a huge development overnight. So many questions. CNN's Ryan Young is live in Barron County, Wisconsin, with the breaking details. Ryan?

RYAN YOUNG: John, that's right. So many questions in this. There will be a news conference today around 10:00 a.m., so hopefully we be able to ask the sheriff some more questions about this investigation. [08:10:06] Just think about this -- thousands of people were looking

for this young lady. There were billboards all across the state. And according to the "Star Tribune" who talked to a woman who was walking her dog, she all of a sudden saw someone in the distance and she realized it was a little girl. They had a conversation, and she realized it was Jayme. They ran to a neighbor's home, they called 911, and investigators got there. About 10 minutes later they were able to arrest a suspect. We have no details about who the suspect is. But as you can imagine for this family that lost so much in this case, they are just happy to have this young girl back. Listen to her aunt talk about that moment she found out that Jayme was OK.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SUE NAIBERG ALLARD, JAYME CLOSS' AUNT: There were rumors earlier today. And I prayed and prayed they were true, and they come to not be true. And I just shut myself totally down because I thought today was going to be the day. Two hours later she was found, I just cannot believe this.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

YOUNG: John and Alisyn, you know how this works. Sometimes as a reporter you make phone calls over and over again. I talked to the sheriff just a month ago and asked him had they had stopped searching for her, and they said no, of course not. They were going to keep pushing. In fact he released a notice that said, hey, we're going to bring her home, that's exactly what we did. So we want to hear from the sheriff today to figure exactly out where she's been, and what has been going on. We do know that she was wearing some oversized shoes, not sure how she broke away from that situation. She was taken to a hospital for evaluation. But there's so many questions involved in this case. But the good news here, after all these months, she's been found alive. But so many questions at this point. We have to figure out what happened to her over the last few weeks.

CAMEROTA: Thank goodness for the observant neighbor. That's often how these cases are broken. Ryan, thank you very much.

So what will Democrats do if the president declares a national emergency and raids disaster funds to build his wall? We have a Democratic leader at the center of the negotiations joining us next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:15:36] ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: White House lawyers are laying the ground work to strengthen their legal defense in the event Donald Trump declares a national emergency to bypass Congress and fund and build his border wall.

President Trump says he has the absolute right to do it. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I have the absolute right to declare a national emergency. I haven't done it yet. I may do it. If this doesn't work out, probably I will do it. I would almost say definitely.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Joining us now is Democratic House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer.

Good morning, Congressman.

REP. STENY HOYER (D-MD), HOUSE MAJORITY LEADER: Good morning.

CAMEROTA: What will the Democrats do if the president declares a national emergency and raids the funds earmarked for victims of Hurricane Harvey in Texas, hurricane victims in Puerto Rico and Florida?

HOYER: Well, first thing we need to do is get the government open. We have 800,000 people who are either locked out of their work or working with no pay. That is not a moral pursuit. That's not the proper pursuit to treat our federal employees and hundreds of millions of people served by government are out in the cold today because their government is shut down. So, that's the first thing we need to do.

The second thing is to look at the legislation that provides for the Congress to act in the face of the president declaring an emergency. We don't believe this is a national emergency. We think the president will not be sustained by the courts. Mac Thornberry, the Republican chairman of the -- now the ranking member of the Armed Services Committee urged President Obama not to declare an emergency and divert military items to this emergency.

This is a challenge. There is no doubt about it. It is a challenge we ought to work together to make the borders secure. But it is not a national emergency any more than it was a national emergency during the campaign when the president said we were being invaded by this large group of people marching up from the south.

CAMEROTA: Yes.

HOYER: This is a device the president is using. But the real problem here is the president is using what Republicans have done before. They did it for the Affordable Care Act. They did it under Bill Clinton when he refused to cut education as much as he wanted to.

They have used shutting government, taking government employees hostage and taking people who rely on government on a daily basis hostage to get their way. That's not democracy. That's dictatorship.

CAMEROTA: Yes.

Congressman, is it possible Speaker Pelosi and Leader Schumer misplayed their hand on Wednesday when they refused by all reports to even counteroffer , to even make a counteroffer to the vice president who after the president walked out, said, OK, tell me your demands and they said, no? HOYER: First of all, let me say what the president said to Nancy

Pelosi. He said to Nancy, if we wait 30 days, presuming we open the government for 30 days, will you then be for a wall? Nancy said no. She didn't say she would be against border security as was reported by people in the meeting. I have talked to them. They said they made a mistake.

It was simply a question about the wall. She wasn't going to negotiate at that point in time and say, yes, 30 days from now, I'll be for the wall. We don't think it's good technology. We don't think it works. We think there are better ways to secure the border, as to many, many Republicans and experts think that.

CAMEROTA: Yes. But, Congressman --

HOYER: But the main issue here is this president is using a device, shutting down the government, which should never be pursued. No president ought to run on the basis that I'm going to shut down your government.

CAMEROTA: Yes.

HOYER: No president ought to put 800,000 people at risk. No president ought to put the people who use the services of government at risk of being unable to settle on their home, pay their mortgage, get their farm payment --

CAMEROTA: But, Congressman, here's what's confusing, is that by Wednesday, the president had moved away from the wall. He was then calling it a barrier. He was calling it a steel barrier.

Democrats aren't opposed to a barrier at the border, are they?

HOYER: Let me repeat. We are prepared to negotiate on border security.

Let me give you a fact that may be interesting for you.

[08:20:01] The largest amount of infrastructure money that was spent in the last 10 years was in 2009 when Democrats were in charge of everything, $823 billion. So, this is not a question where we are not in favor of strengthening the border and making sure that our border is secure and Americans are safe.

CAMEROTA: And that's why it's so perplexing. That's why it's so perplexing.

HOYER: No, what is not perplexing --

(CROSSTALK)

CAMEROTA: If you say you believe in border security and the president wants border security --

HOYER: Yes, I don't believe in --

CAMEROTA: -- surely there is a compromise.

HOYER: What I don't believe in shutting down the government and saying if you don't do what I say, then I'm going to keep the government of the United States of America shut down. That's not a policy that ought to be pursued. It's a policy that Senator McConnell said was a failed policy.

We have been passing Republican bills. We passed them on the first day that we were in session. Republican bills, not our bills. We fully compromise.

We have, this week, been passing four major Republican bills passed 92-6 through the United States Senate. And we are going to be sending them back to the Senate this week.

We can open up government. The only person stopping the opening of government is Donald Trump.

Senator McConnell says he'll put bills on the floor if Trump says it is OK. That's not the coequal branch of government that the Congress is. We don't have to ask the president, by your leave, can we send you legislation?

We send him legislation we think is good policy.

CAMEROTA: Yes.

HOYER: If he chooses to veto it, well, we either have the votes to override or we don't.

CAMEROTA: Yes.

HOYER: But shutting down government is not a policy they ought to be pursued. And the Republicans have done it now three times.

CAMEROTA: Yes. Cong --

HOYER: And we don't want to be vulnerable to that. I asked the president when we were at the White House, Mr. President, if we agree on an issue two months from now, are you going to shut down the government until we agree with you?

CAMEROTA: What did he say?

HOYER: He didn't really respond.

CAMEROTA: Congressman, I want to ask you about something one of your fellow congressmen, Steve King from Iowa, said this week. He said in "The New York Times": White nationalist, white supremacist, western civilization, how did that language become offensive, Mr. King said. Why did I sit in classes teaching me about the merits of our history and our civilization?

What's your response to the fact that Steve King doesn't understand why white supremacist is offensive? HOYER: It's sad. It's sad and frankly, he ought to be rejected at

the polls by Americans who believe the values that are shared by our country of equality and justice and equal treatment for all are the principles which has really made this country great.

I'm not surprised that Mr. King made those comments. He's made similar comments in the past. But very, very disappointing.

In a democracy, the voters who believe America is the land of the free, a land that respects individuals, a land that respects equality and justice should not have a congressman who articulates those kinds of sentiments. It was sad.

CAMEROTA: Have you heard enough from your friends on the Republican side denouncing it?

HOYER: Probably not. I have had some Republicans privately tell me that they thought it was awful. But I haven't heard a lot of public comment on it.

CAMEROTA: Congressman Steny Hoyer, we really appreciate your perspective. Thank you. We' obviously will be watching every hour of what unfolds today.

HOYER: Thank you very much. Let's hope we take action to put people back to work and make sure they get paid.

I was talking to a veterans' representative yesterday. And he said the number one reason for suicide among veterans -- and there are a lot of veterans unable to work or not getting paid -- is financial instability. This is a serious matter.

I would hope the president would say, look, we are going to negotiate border security. And I think the Democrats and he -- I will assure him the Democrats are prepared to sit down and come up with a number of items that he believes are important and we believe are important to make our country more secure. But we ought to stop putting such doubt and angst in the heads of our employees and the heads of those who rely on them.

CAMEROTA: Yes, thank you for that tragic reminder about veterans.

HOYER: Thank you.

CAMEROTA: We'll be watching today.

HOYER: Thank you.

CAMEROTA: Steny Hoyer, thank you.

John?

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Should a national emergency be declared at the border? One congressman says absolutely. He tells us why, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:28:28] CAMEROTA: Today, 800,000 federal workers will get no money in their paychecks.

CNN's Jessica Dean is live in Washington with how the shutdown is affecting everyday Americans.

Hi, Jessica.

JESSICA DEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning to you, Alisyn.

And that's right, today is the day that 800,000 workers all across the United States in every single state will have no paycheck. One person told me it's like she's been hit with a hurricane and there is no relief in sight.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DEAN (voice-over): Daily routines like helping with homework continue at the Virginia home Joanna McCleland shares with her son and husband. But her paychecks have stopped, making life far from normal now.

JOANNA MCCLELAND, FEDERAL EMPLOYEE: It makes you sick. It's a pit in your stomach. It's worries. Just emotions and, you know, you don't know when this is all going to sort itself out.

DEAN: McCleland works for the Department of Homeland Security as an analyst and has been furloughed since the government closed December 21st.

MCCLELAND: It's quite possible, even if we open this week, I don't see a paycheck before the 1st of February. And where is income come from? How do I pay my bills this month?

DEAN: Her story is a familiar one. Some 800,000 federal workers remain either furloughed or working without pay, not just in Washington, D.C., but in every state. Like TSA employees in Portland, Oregon.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My wife is on social security. I'm it for income.

REPORTER: So, missing one paycheck will be a burden on you.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, absolutely.

DEAN: Coast Guard families in Ohio.

AMBER OLSEN, COAST GUARD WIFE: We are the only branch of the military not getting a paycheck. My husband is making homemade bread because it's cheaper than buying a loaf bread at the store.

DEAN: And federal employees in Ogden, Utah.