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Trump Proposal to End Shutdown Getting Little Support; Interview with Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-NJ); Trump Planning Second Summit with North Korean Leader. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired January 21, 2019 - 07:00   ET

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


(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He keeps having to readjust his stories as more facts come out.

[07:00:07] UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The president said he had no dealings with Russia during a time period when he was in contractual negotiations with them.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The president can say what he wants to say, if it's not under oath, it's not impeachable.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Good morning and welcome to your NEW DAY. Alisyn is off. Erica Hill joins me this morning on this Martin Luther King Jr. holiday.

Great to have you here.

ERICA HILL, CNN ANCHOR: Nice to be with you. The Red Sox won the World Series, and the Patriots are going to the Super Bowl.

BERMAN: I can't keep it straight.

HILL: I noticed that.

BERMAN: I really can't. They're winning so much.

HILL: There's so much joy in your life, you're trying to bring it all in there.

BERMAN: The Patriots, in case you didn't know, are going to the Super Bowl.

Also new this morning, the president is very much aware he's losing the public opinion war on this one. That quote is straight from "The Washington Post" as this country enters day 31 of the government shutdown. Eight hundred thousand workers begin a week where they will miss their second paycheck. Now, the president, who you will remember, initially announced he

would own this shutdown, he does have a new proposal to end it. Temporarily extend protections for young immigrants brought to this country illegally as children in exchange for $5.7 billion to build his permanent border wall.

The plan doesn't seem to have enough supporters, really, from either side, Democrats sticking by their demand that no border negotiations will happen until the government reopens, while some conservatives accuse him of embracing amnesty for immigrants in the country illegally.

HILL: The president's lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, meantime, telling CNN's Jake Tapper it is, quote, "possible" the president spoke to his former lawyer, Michael Cohen, ahead of his congressional testimony. His comments, of course, come after a now-disputed report which claims President Trump directed Cohen to lie to Congress about a Trump Tower project in Moscow.

Cohen pleaded guilty to lying to Congress about the project. He's now a convicted felon. Giuliani went on to say, if the pair did talk, it was, quote, "perfectly normal."

We've got it all covered for you this morning, beginning with CNN's Lauren Fox, who is live on Capitol Hill.

Lauren, good morning.

LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Erica.

After a month of the stalemate on Capitol Hill, the president mixing things up on Saturday with that proposal: $5.7 billion for the border wall in exchange for a temporary extension of DACA and temporary protected status.

But Democrats rejecting it out of hand. Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the House, saying even before the president spoke, that the deal was a no go. Then the top Democrat in the Senate, Chuck Schumer, had this to say about the president's proposal.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D), NEW YORK: It was the president who singlehandedly took away DACA and TPS protections in the first place. Offering some of those protections that took away back in exchange for a wall is not a compromise but hostage taking.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FOX: This week, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell will bring the president's proposal to the floor of the Senate. Of course, it doesn't -- we don't expect that Democrats will get behind it, that it will have enough votes to pass. So we are still where we were four weeks ago. This is a showdown between the president of the United States and the speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi. Until those two central players can get in a room and negotiate, don't expect to this -- an end to this shutdown anytime soon -- John and Erica.

BERMAN: All right, Lauren, thanks very much.

Joining us now, Scott Jennings, former assistant to President George W. Bush. And importantly for this discussion, a key advisor to Mitch McConnell; Laura Jarrett, CNN justice reporter; and Joe Lockhart, former Clinton White House press secretary.

Scott, I want to start with you. You're quoted everywhere over the weekend about these negotiations, noting that during shutdowns, what often happens is each side figures out a way to get something. You say the Democrats need to figure out a way to get something they want out of this. Are you, though, honestly surprised that they don't find the president's offer to be enough of that something?

SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, I'm surprised they are treating the offer like take it or leave it, when it's actually just the beginning of a legislative process. By the way, that's a direct quote from Vice President Pence over the weekend.

The president tried to break the logjam, as he said, by throwing something out that showed a willingness to move, to deal, to negotiate.

Before he ever even took the podium, you had Pelosi and Schumer rejecting it outright. In a normal situation, you would have the minority party leaders here, the party not in power saying, "OK, we'll respond with a counteroffer. We'll have a legislative process, and then we'll come up with something that everybody can live with at the end of the day."

Pelosi says Trump's not operating in good faith. Well, if you treat every counteroffer or offer like it's not good faith, how does the shutdown ever end?

So what Republicans want is a negotiation and a legislative process, and the Democrats won't give it to them.

HILL: Joe, is there a point -- or at which point, I should say, do Democrats need to step up with something? Because, you know, we're hearing it, too, in the questioning of lawmakers over the weekend.

OK, so this doesn't work for you, but what are you bringing to the table?

JOE LOCKHART, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Right.

HILL: They don't have as much incentive, but 800,000 people may be an incentive.

[07:05:03] LOCKHART: No, but they an incentive to get comprehensive immigration reform, and they have the leverage here; and they're using it.

So they can very easily come forward with a proposal that says open the government. And what we need to -- whether it's for three weeks or six weeks, what we need is comprehensive, permanent DACA and TPS, a number of other things.

And, you know, it's very hard to say that the president's come forward with good faith, because this is the basic deal that they've come forward with twice, and when Democrats said yes, the president said, "No, no, no, I've changed my mind."

So it's incumbent upon the president. It's his shutdown. He said it was his shutdown. The election matters here. The American public spoke and said, "We don't want this wall." The Democrats are going to stand firm on the wall, and it's up to the president to find a solution.

BERMAN: He's got -- the president obviously ran on being a deal maker, the whole "Art of the Deal" thing. Do Republicans on Capitol Hill, does leadership think he actually is good at deal making? Have they seen evidence of that?

JENNINGS: Well, I think in this particular case, he's trying to show that he can be good at it. I don't think he's been particularly good at it throughout the month of January in the way he's handled the shutdown.

But the statement on Saturday -- Saturday, I think, was an acknowledgement that, hey, in order to get a deal, somebody has to step up to the plate and throw out an opening bid.

What Republicans are dumbfounded at is that the Democrats -- you know, in these situations, you try to get something that you want. And I agree with Joe, by the way. I do think they need permanent status. and there's other things the Democrats could get.

What the Republicans are dumbfounded at is that the Democrats appear not to want any policy wins. They only want the political win. And they are winning the shutdown. Look at the polling; it's clear.

In shutdowns past, both sides came to the table and tried to get policy wins. So that's the difference here. Democrats don't appear to actually care as much about the policy wins as the political wins, and that's got everybody flummoxed about how to move forward.

HILL: Flummoxed about how to move forward. I mean, Joe, how long do you wait this out? We could see, obviously -- you know, we could see everything happen in the Senate. McConnell is supposed to bring these seven different appropriations bills out this week. They could bring out their own bills in the House, obviously. We could be sort of right back where we were.

Is there a chance, though, that either one of those could actually start to move these discussions forward, do you think?

LOCKHART: Yes. Listen, I don't agree that Democrats aren't interested in the policy. They're standing firm, because they think that DREAMers and TPS should have -- should be permanent. And they think the wall is a terrible idea. And they're not alone.

Congressman Will Hurd, a Republican who has the largest district, with 512 miles, along the border, says the crisis here is a myth. He doesn't want the wall.

A Democratic congresswoman over the weekend came out and said she has talked to every member who has a border with Mexico. None of them support a wall.

Remember, this wasn't an idea that came from South Texas. This idea came from about two blocks from here in the Trump Tower from Roger Stone and Sam Nunberg. So I think on the policy front, enough -- enough said on the wall.

BERMAN: Hurd is the only Republican who does have a district on the border. The rest of them are Democrats.

LOCKHART: Yes.

BERMAN: So the idea that there wouldn't be a single supporter there may not be all that surprising.

Laura, you've waited patiently. You are here to talk about the legal developments that have taken place over the last 48 hours in the Russia investigation. And the president's own defense team -- and I was saying this before in the 6 a.m. hour. I think we now have to treat the Buzzfeed story as if, in a way, it didn't happen. I mean, you know, it is part of the discussion now, because the special counsel's office has denied it.

LAURA JARRETT, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Which they never do.

BERMAN: Which they never do. And you pointed that out strongly on Friday, and thank you for making that so clear to all of us who don't cover it as closely as you do.

Rudy Giuliani, the president's lawyer, however, this weekend said some things that were fascinating. Let me play you the exchange that Rudy had with Jake over the weekend, where Giuliani tells Jake Tapper that the president may have talked to Michael Cohen about his testimony to Congress before it happened.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RUDY GIULIANI, ATTORNEY FOR DONALD TRUMP: As far as I know, President Trump did not have discussions with him. Certainly had no discussions with him in which he told him or counseled him to lie. If -- if he had any discussion with him, they'd be about the version of the events that Michael Cohen gave them, which they all believed was true.

JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: But you just acknowledged that it's possible that President Trump talked to Michael Cohen about his testimony.

GIULIANI: Which would be perfectly normal --

TAPPER: So it's true?

GIULIANI: -- which the president believed was true.

TAPPER: So it's possible that that happened? That President Trump talked to Michael Cohen about his testimony?

GIULIANI: I don't know if it happened or didn't happen. And it might be attorney/client privileged if it happened, where I can't acknowledge it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: You can see in Jake's eyebrows there, Laura, that he doesn't think it's necessarily perfectly normal that the president spoke to Michael Cohen.

So Counselor, is it perfectly normal?

JARRETT: No, there's nothing normal about this situation at all. Any good defense lawyer would tell you the first rule of the game to your client in any government investigation is absolutely do not talk to other witnesses or subjects of the investigation for this very reason, so that the government can't later accuse you of somehow colluding or coordinating your testimony.

[07:10:09] Now, we still don't know how all this will play out; and it could be that Giuliani is just opening the door to a future story, as we've seen him to do in the past. So probably more to come on that.

But the idea that Trump is talking to Giuliani, either in late fall -- we don't know exactly when because he won't say -- but before the testimony, I think, poses real risk to the president.

And, again, we don't know what was said, but the idea that it's privileged and somehow protected, it's not privileged. There's no legal advice. You can't coordinate your testimony and hide behind privilege. It doesn't work that way.

BERMAN: It wasn't just the only place that Giuliani laid down a new marker over the weekend. Again, which was so notable, particularly in the wake of the Buzzfeed story.

And I think we have some sound here, when he's talking to Chuck Todd, where he not only said that the president may have spoken to Michael Cohen before the testimony, but also makes clear that the discussions about building the Trump Tower in Moscow went so far longer and further than we had ever known before. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GIULIANI: Well, it's our understanding that they went on throughout 2016, weren't a lot of them, but there were conversations. Can't be sure of the exact dates. But the president can remember having conversations with him about it. The president also remembered --

TAPPER: Throughout 2016?

GIULIANI: Yes, probably up to -- could be up to as far as October, November. Our answers cover until the election. So anytime during that period, they could have talked about it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: So he said that casually there. Much more clearly to the "New York Times."

So he wants that out there, that the president and Michael Cohen talked about this deal just much longer than we thought.

JARRETT: Right. It's not an accident. And as Jake, I think, tried to point out to him, this obviously runs counter to everything that the president has said when he said repeatedly no deals with Russia whatsoever.

But it also means these conversations are happening at the exact same time as the president is sort of floating the idea of pulling out of NATO.

This whole deal is happening at the same time that the president is saying, "Russia, if you're listening, why don't you try to go find Hillary Clinton's missing e-mails?"

And so I think that those things running in parallel present a new light of the story. The Moscow project is interesting, because it raises the specter of, well, what was going on at the time in the president's mind? And why was he being so chummy with Vladimir Putin?

HILL: You also make a good point. I mean, Rudy Giuliani, as confused as we may be sometimes about what he is saying and how he is saying it. Then typically, not that long after, we sort of have this light bulb moment where we go, "Oh, wait a minute. This other piece of news just dropped, and now in hindsight, when I look at what Rudy Giuliani says, I see it in a new light."

How much of what we heard yesterday do you think will fall into that category, Joe?

LOCKHART: Well, it's hard to know, because as I've said many times here, part of his job is to confuse people. It's to get people to say this is way too complicated. But he -- he made -- if that's his strategy, he made a mistake yesterday, because this is very simple.

People have been trying to figure out why would Trump be so pro- Russia? What does he get out of it?

And, remember, he didn't think he was going to win this election. He didn't write an acceptance speech. What -- what was in it for him?

Well, what was in if for him was an ongoing discussion, at least, maybe more, an ongoing discussion about building a Trump Tower in the middle of a presidential election. Building a Trump Tower and financial gain for the Trump Organization. That's easy for people to understand.

BERMAN: And Scott, I think back to the election. I just think what the other Republican candidates would have said about that on a debate stage, had they known. And what Hillary Clinton would have said that -- about that on a debate stage, had they known. You know it would have been a fraught political issue for the

president, had he been honest about it.

JENNINGS: Yes. I assume if, you know, to build a time machine and go back and play out a hypothetical scenario, what he would have said is, "Look, I'm trying to do business all over the world. I'm a businessman, not a politician," and you know, we would have had to have seen how his opponents would have handled it.

As it relates to what happened over the weekend, you know, Buzzfeed's story started crumbling and immolating from the moment you guys on NEW DAY Friday morning got the reporter to admit that he hadn't personally seen the documents and text messages that were referenced in the story.

It got only worse from there, and it got even worse on Sunday when Brian Stelter questioned Ben Smith, and Jason Leopold didn't show up. So the president's team would have been smarter to not put Rudy on television this weekend this weekend and just let this thing crumble and catch on fire and burn on its own.

Rudy, I think, sort of messed up the momentum they had out of the crumbling that began on Friday morning.

So I agree with Joe. He is -- I'm confused. I listened to that interview, and I'm confused. When I really just wanted Buzzfeed to sort of burn down over the weekend, Rudy kind of messed it up.

BERMAN: Can I ask Laura? We're lucky enough to have you here. You're doing "EARLY START" this week.

HILL: I know.

BERMAN: The flagship show of the network. Is there still smoke coming from the Justice Department in the wake of the Mueller statement Friday night?

[07:15:04] JARRETT: Well, as I said, they never ever do this. Especially, they never knock down a story. You know, every once in a while, they'll provide some guidance on a court filing or something like that. But to see them knock down a story as just inaccurate is so, so rare.

The question is, what happens after this? And where does it leave us? Because Buzzfeed is doubling down and saying, "We stand by our reporting. We went back to our sources, and we feel more strongly than ever."

I do not expect to see the special counsel come back around and say, "Well, here is even more reason why you're wrong."

BERMAN: It was, like, two words worth of words and one night we got from Peter Carr, so I can't imagine he'll speak again, at least for another two.

JARRETT: Yes. We're never going to hear from him again. BERMAN: All right, Laura. I really appreciate it.

Scott, Joe, thanks so much.

So we have broken down the president's proposal. What will bring Democrats back to the table to end the shutdown? We're going to ask a member of the House, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: It is day 31 of the longest government shutdown in U.S. history. Eight hundred thousand federal workers haven't been paid in weeks. This week, they will miss their second paycheck. So what's being done in Washington to get a deal done?

[07:20:04] Joining me now is Democratic Congressman Tom Malinowski of New Jersey. He is a member of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. Also Foreign Affairs, right?

REP. TOM MALINOWSKI (D), NEW JERSEY: Yes.

BERMAN: Congratulations on both of that.

MALINOWSKI: Thank you.

BERMAN: Thanks so much for being with us right now.

The president made a proposal on Saturday. He says, "Give me my $5.7 billion for the border wall, and I will agree to an extension of three years of protection for DREAMers and people with temporary protected status." What do you say to that deal?

MALINOWSKI: Well, let me come back to that, but remember, we had a deal in December when we thought the president was asking for $1.6 billion for border security and we gave it to him, Republicans and Democrats.

And now we're dealing with, basically, a hostage situation, with 800,000 dedicated patriotic American public service -- servants held hostage by this president. And that's the most difficult and delicate thing that you can possibly deal with, because you fear that, if you don't negotiate with a hostage taker, he may just be nuts enough to kill the hostages. But if you do, there will be no end to the hostage taking.

And so like any good hostage negotiators, what we are insisting on is first release some hostages. Reopen the federal government, at least for a month, so that we can negotiate without that gun to our heads. And at that point, things could get interesting.

BERMAN: You don't even think you should talk about this proposal until the government's reopened?

MALINOWSKI: Well, we can talk, and I'm sure we'll talk about it here, but I don't think real negotiations can begin, because this is really not about border security right now. This is about whether it is right to shut down the entire United States government when you don't get your way from the United States Congress. And we think that's wrong.

BERMAN: "The Washington Post" over the weekend did an editorial, and again, I don't think anyone would say "The Washington Post" is some great editorial supporter of the president necessarily. They say to refuse to even talk until the government reopens does no favors to the sidelined federal workers and contractors. And you were just talking about the 800,000 people who won't be paid. Does refusing to talk do them any favors?

MALINOWSKI: Look, let's -- let's reopen the government. And when they do, remember, what Democrats have proposed is only a one-month extension for the Department of Homeland Security, which means we will have a real negotiation where Republicans control the Senate, Democrats control the House. We're evenly divided. Both sides have leverage.

Now, let's talk about the deal that the president proposed for that moment in the negotiation. If we were to take it, every single change in immigration policy since 2016 would be in President Trump's favor. The DREAMers would be worse off than they were then, because they had permanent renewable protection; and this time it would be temporary.

And on top of that, he'd get his wall. And on top of that, he'd keep a virtual elimination of refugee admissions to America; criminalizing asylum seekers at the border; the Muslim ban, which was supposed to be temporary, restrictions on getting citizenship; the whole agenda of changing the face of America would remain in place.

BERMAN: They say it's a starting point.

MALINOWSKI: Well, it if it's a starting point, look, I'm -- I'm one of those pragmatic Democrats who was elected in a swing district, and absolutely, I would be willing to have a real negotiation with real compromise. But that requires concessions on both sides.

BERMAN: Let's make clear what those real concessions and real compromise would include. Would it include funding for a border barrier in exchange for protections for DREAMers?

MALINOWSKI: The most painful concession for me to make as a Democrat, who ran against this kind of stupidity and fear, would be money for a border wall. If you want to -- if you want me to consider something like that, I need to see comprehensive immigration reform. I need to see an end to the cruelties of the last two years.

If President Trump wants border security on his terms, I've got to see America restored as a welcoming country of immigrants and refugees, not just protection for the DREAMers, who are but a small fraction of the victims of this president's immigration laws.

BERMAN: But permanent protection for a border wall, and I know the details would have to be worked out, but permanent protections for a border wall is something you would at least talk about? MALINOWSKI: I would talk about it if we expanded it so that it's

really a big deal. If we give President Trump everything that he wants, and everything that he wants is a border wall, I want to see immigration reform on the table. I want to see raising the refugee cap. Tens of thousands of families not allowed to come to the United States.

BERMAN: If you're willing to talk about this, though, you know, ten years from now, we're all going to look back at this historical moment. And do you think people will be confused? Well, why were Democrats waiting to talk about if it? If they were willing to talk about it in general, why did they wait? Why wouldn't they go to the table?

MALINOWSKI: No. 1, because again, it gets back to this is a hostage- taking situation. If we were to do a deal in response to shutting down the government by a president who didn't get something that he wanted, then my fellow Americans, you will have this crisis again and again and again for the next two years.

[07:25:09] We have to establish this is wrong. You do not hold 800,000 people hostage every time you don't get what you want. It would be wrong for me do it. It's wrong for President Trump do it. But you release some of the hostages, and then we can start talking, and it will be a complicated negotiation, because immigration reform is not something we will settle in a week.

BERMAN: No one ever said it was going to be easy.

I do want to get you on the record on an issue involving foreign relations, because that's where you spent so much of your career. The president has said there will be a second summit with Kim Jong-un. We don't know exactly where it will take place. It will take place at the end of the February.

Do you believe it's good to continue these face-to-face discussions with the leader of North Korea?

MALINOWSKI: Oh, my. You know, I don't want us lurching from extreme to extreme. I don't want us to go back to fire and fury and being on the verge of war with North Korea. So in that sense, I'm glad we're talking.

But I don't want us to be falling in love with the most cruel and brutal dictator in the world, who has offered President Trump literally zero in the last year that he has not offered for 20 years or that the North Koreans haven't offered for 20 years. They're still developing nuclear weapons. They've not made a single concession. And I don't believe they will, just because our president negotiates face-to-face.

BERMAN: The president has said he hasn't exploded any nuclear weapons, or tested them, or shot off any rockets during that time frame.

MALINOWSKI: That's -- that's something, but we do not need to -- we do not need to be falling in love with the most brutal dictator in the world to achieve that. We have deterrents. We have a strong alliance relationship with South Korea. Really important that we not pull back from that. You know, we've heard President Trump has repeatedly proposed withdrawing our troops from South Korea, which would be an absolute disaster.

BERMAN: Congressman Tom Malinowski of New Jersey, thanks so much for being with us this morning. Great to have you here in the studio.

MALINOWSKI: Thank you so much.

BERMAN: Erica.

HILL: It is video that created a social media firestorm over the weekend, and now you're hearing from the student in the center of that controversy. What he is saying about this scene, next.

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