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Democrats Reject Donald Trump's Latest Offer To End The Shutdown Before It Was Actually Out Of His Mouth; Senator Kamala Harris Announces Presidential Run for 2020; Government Shutdown Continues over Border Wall Funding; Rams Beat Saints for Super Bowl Bid after Controversial No Call. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired January 21, 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] JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Appreciate it.

There's been a big announcement in the race for 2020. Let's get to it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is CNN breaking news.

BERMAN: Good morning, and welcome to your NEW DAY. It is Monday, January 21st, 8:00 in the east on this Martin Luther King Day. Alisyn is off. Erica Hill joins me for some pretty big breaking news in the race for the president. A major new entry into the Democratic field, this was just moments ago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You have an announcement you'd like to make?

SEN. KAMALA HARRIS, (D) CALIFORNIA: I am running for president of the United States.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well --

(LAUGHTER)

HARRIS: And I'm very excited about it. I'm very excited about it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Senator Kamala Harris of California, no exploratory committee here. She is all in and now.

ERICA HILL, CNN ANCHOR: So that is a big focus this morning, as of course is the government shutdown, now spanning a full month. And just stop me if you've heard this one before. There's no end in sight here. A proposal from the president to temporarily extend protections for DACA recipients in exchange for $5.7 billion to build his border wall shut down, called a nonstarter by Democrats.

And in case, by the way, you've missed any of John Berman's excitement and joy this morning either on air or on the Twitter, the New England Patriots are going to the Super Bowl for the ninth time. That's not, though, the only big story this morning. A call also blown. A lot of fans in New Orleans very upset this morning. We'll have more on that in just a few minutes, which of course means the Pats will be facing the Rams.

BERMAN: All because of a bad call, honestly.

Joining us now, Frank Bruni, "New York Times" op-ed columnist and CNN contributor, Toluse Olorunnipa, White House reporter for "Bloomberg News," and Jackie Kucinich, Washington Bureau Chief for "The Daily Beast" and a CNN political analyst. I want to start with the breaking news. Jackie, to you, Kamala Harris is in. No exploratory committee. She is running for president, a major new entry into the field. The impact?

JACKIE KUCINICH, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Absolutely, and we've been anticipating this. There's a lot of interest in her from Democrats, and some excitement. She's not really quite as well nationally known at this point, but, obviously, she's been on this book tour. She's headed to South Carolina which is going to be -- she is not going straight to Iowa and New Hampshire like you have seen Elizabeth Warren and Senator Gillibrand do. But she's going to be focusing on these southern states.

The really interesting thing is, where is she going to be in the ideological spectrum that we're starting to see candidates place themselves? We've seen -- she's not going to be railing against Wall Street like we've seen Elizabeth Warren doing. But she's not quite as middle of the road as Senator Gillibrand. She's a lot more progressive. So we'll have to see. It will be fun to watch.

HILL: It will be fun to watch. It is officially, I think we can now say official, for anybody who was doubting that we are all in on 2020, I think by this morning, we are officially all in for 2020.

FRANK BRUNI, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: The campaign has begun. And Kamala Harris is a formidable candidate. We've heard some announcements and we're going to hear more announcements of candidates who I don't think right out of the gate have the kind of chance she does. Every one of these people has to prove two things. They have to prove that they can catch fire, that they can have that moment when they catch fire, then they have to prove they can use that moment well. She has already caught fire. If you look at her Twitter following, if you look at her book sales right out of the gate. If you just kind of look at how people respond to her and the interest in her, she has proven that she can catch fire. The question is, over these next couple months, how does he refine her message, how do people respond to it? And as Jackie pointed out very, very accurately, where exactly is she going to be on the ideological spectrum and how are people going to respond to that? She wants to straddle the progressive/moderate divide, and is that possible in today's Democratic Party in the primaries?

BERMAN: I want to listen to a little bit more of what she had to say this morning. One of the things we're going to try to do over the next several months, or maybe days, as more and more candidates enter, is listen. Listen to the pitch that they're making. This is Kamala Harris.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. KAMALA HARRIS, (D) CALIFORNIA: My entire career has been focused on keeping people safe. It is probably one of the things that motivates me more than anything else. And when I look at this moment in time, I know that the American people deserve to have somebody who is going to fight for them, who is going to see them, who will hear them, who will care about them, who will be concerned about their experience and put them in front of self-interest.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Her campaign slogan is "Kamala Harris for the People," harkening back to her legal record. Toluse, it's so interesting to me. I'm looking at the list of people who have either officially entered the race and have formed exploratory committees. And there are four women from Congress who are already in the race or exploring. Elizabeth Warren, Kirsten Gillibrand, both senators. They have exploratory committees. That's all but in. Tulsi Gabbard, Representative from Hawaii, she's running for president, and now Kamala Harris officials running for president. Four women already, and it's not even the end of January.

TOLUSE OLORUNNIPA, WHITE HOUSE REPORTER, "BLOOMBERG NEWS": Yes. And we may see even more women jumping into the race. We have people like Senator Amy Klobuchar who is thinking about running as well.

[08:05:01] And this is, obviously, going to be the year of the woman. We saw it in 2018 where women candidates were able to win in several different races, ousting male candidates, male incumbents in a number of cases. We saw high turnout among women voters. We've seen the women's marches that have taken place. The backlash against President Trump's administration, against his election, has been particularly fierce among women and it's sparked more women wanting to get in the race and wanting to run themselves.

I think Hillary Clinton's loss actually impacted a lot of women who felt like they saw sort of the level of sexism in our political discourse that they didn't find acceptable and decided they wanted to run and change things. And I think that's part of the reason you're seeing a larger number of women jumping into the race on the Democratic side. You've seen so many women who are freshmen in Congress who are starting to make waves and make an impact. So we're starting to get more used to women in our political system taking the reins, deciding not to wait but to jump in and to run and make things happen.

And I think it's the antidote to the Trump administration which in the eyes of many Americans has been combative towards women, have used negative nicknames towards women like Senator Warren. And I think this is a sense from a number of different candidates that enough is enough and that they're going to jump in and not wait for their turn but take the reins and decide that they're going to take down Trump and try to build the coalition that's necessary, including women, young people, minorities, and millennials in order to beat Trump in 2020.

HILL: One of the things each of these candidates will be talking about, and we can be sure that as Kamala Harris is going to make the rounds today, she will get asked of course about the shutdown. We saw the proposal over the weekend from the president which Democrats deemed a nonstarter, saying let's open the government first, then have this discussion. Jackie, how much is this going to dictate, you think, these conversations about 2020 while we're still in this shutdown?

KUCINICH: It is going to be top of mind, though I think what you're hearing from Democrats, not only the ones that are running for president, is that the government needs to open up before anything else gets done. That has been Democrats, particularly the ones that are in Congress, have really held firm there. I think you're going to hear it on the trail. I think you're going to hear it on the capitol. I think you're going to hear it here on CNN when you interview them, because they've really have held firm there. And some temporary protections for DACA recipients and TPS recipients, right now, where we are right now is not going to be enough to move them off of that line.

BERMAN: I just spoke to Congressman Tom Malinowski from New Jersey, a Democrat, who was in a Republican district who told me he's feeling no pressure at this point to negotiate or to concede anything to the president here, Frank. But I will note "The Washington Post" editorial board this weekend put out an op-ed -- not an op-ed, an editorial where they said, look, you're refusing to talk about things before the government opens. What's the point in that? What does that do for the 800,000 workers?

BRUNI: I do think at some point very soon, I think you're going to see this week Democrats are going to have to talk more than they have. But they have had public opinion surveys on their side, and they know that. What the president put out this weekend is not going to be enough, but it is a starting point. It is somewhat of a compromise, and I think it begins things. And the other crucial development here, we talked last week I think on this show about where is Mitch McConnell? Mitch McConnell has shown up. He's now entered the game, he's involved, and I think that only means good things in terms of some progress legislatively.

BERMAN: Proof of life.

BRUNI: Proof of life of Mitch McConnell, yes.

(LAUGHTER)

HILL: It's an important thing. As we look at this, too, "The Washington Post" reporting the president is very much aware he's losing the public opinion war on this one, as Frank just pointed out. One senior administration -- it's Monday. And I wasn't even up late watching a football tame. Basically saying he knows this, he's looking at the numbers. So he is looking at the numbers going into this proposal Saturday. Monday morning, though, Toluse, we've seen a lot of tweeting from the president over the weekend. He knows, too, that his proposal isn't necessarily getting a lot of love on either side. How is that influencing things on a Monday morning at the White House?

OLORUNNIPA: We saw when the president came out and made his address over the weekend, he tried to call for bipartisanship. He said I'm offering of the Democrats a little of what they want. I'm putting something on the table. Let's all come together and put away our partisan labels. And then shortly after that he's calling Nancy Pelosi a radical and using nicknames and really attacking Democrats.

I think part of what we're seeing is that the president is feeling that he put something on the table the Democrats would have wanted and now he's feeling a little bit burned because they rejected it out of hand. They said it's not enough. They said it's not a serious offer. And he also got a little bit of backlash from his base from people like Ann Coulter who said the president is offering amnesty, and he had to defend himself on Twitter, saying I'm not offering amnesty in this deal. Amnesty would only come later as part of a bigger package. But now the president is realizing that even showing a little bit of compromise and feeling the heat from this government shutdown is going to potentially hurt him with his own base and also leave him in a position where Democrats feel even stronger.

[08:10:02] They feel the pressure is on this president to try to make some sort of deal to get out of the shutdown which he said he would own, and now he is owning it, at least according to the polls, the large majority of Americans blame him for it. So Democrats feel they are in a strong position, and they're not going to play this hostage game with the president where he's taking people in the DACA program, the TPS program, government workers, and saying, I will help them if you give me what I want, which is the wall.

BERMAN: I've got to say, both "The New York Times" and "The Washington Post" have stories that the president is not the dealmaker in this case that he always purports to be. He's not going to like those stories one bit. We'll see how that figures in. Frank, Jackie, Toluse, really appreciate it.

The other big story this morning is not in the political sphere but the world of sports after one of the wildest championship Sundays ever. Super Bowl LIII is set. It will be the Rams taking on the Patriots. The Patriots, they won fair and square. The Rams, totally different situation. Andy Scholes has more on this morning's Bleacher Report. Andy?

ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORT CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, guys. This is as devastating as it gets if you are a Saints fan. I can't even imagine what they're going through this morning. The Saints were on the wrong end of the Minnesota miracle last year, losing in devastating fashion. And now probably the worst no call in NFL history has cost them a trip to the Super Bowl. It was fourth quarter, tie game. The Saints were a first down away from running out the clock and kicking an easy game-winning field goal. On third down, Nickell Robey-Coleman just drills Saints receiver Tommylee Lewis before the ball arrives. It was obvious pass interference. Not to the officials watching the play. And in case you're wondering, there were two officials in position to make that call. One right behind the play and then one right in front of the play.

But Bill Vinovich's crew, they threw the fewest number of flags in the NFL this season. They should have thrown one more there. The worst no call ever ends up deciding this game and the Rams win in overtime, 26-23. And the no call was so bad, the NFL's vice president of officiating called Sean Payton after the game to say they blew it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEAN PAYTON, SAINTS HEAD COACH: It's a disappointing way to lose a game. Frustrating. Just getting off the phone with the league office. They blew the call. It should never have not been a call. They said not only was it interference, it was helmet to helmet. They couldn't believe it. It happened, though, so we can't dwell on it. We'll probably never get over it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCHOLES: And this highway sign outside New Orleans sums up how the fans feel this morning. Robbed. And this is the cover of "The Times Picayune" this morning, "Reffing Unbelievable" is the headline. Also it says it sets up a tainted Super Bowl LIII between the Patriots and the Rams, guys. My heart goes out to all those Saints fans because I can't even imagine being robbed of a Super Bowl.

BERMAN: It wasn't even close. It wasn't close. They blew the call there. That headlines "Times Picayune" "Reffinb Unbelievable," that's genius. That's one good thing to some of all this.

HILL: That's very clever, yes.

BERMAN: All right, Andy, really appreciate it.

Democrats rejecting President Trump's proposal to end the shutdown. What kind of Republican offer would they accept? We're going to ask a key Senate Democrat, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ERICA HILL, ANCHOR, CNN: The President coming to the White House saying, "Only I can fix it." We remember this. Leaning on his deal- making credentials, yet the Democrats just rejected his latest offer before it was actually out of his mouth and with no end to the record- breaking shutdown in sight, just what will it take to get a deal done? If only we all had the answer to that question. CNN senior political analyst, John Avlon joins us now with our "Reality Check." Good morning.

JOHN AVLON, SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST, CNN: Good morning. So welcome to Day 31 of America's longest and dumbest government shutdown. This self-inflicted crippling of the Federal government is now four times longer than the average shutdown we've seen since 1976. Created by a President who said he'd own it, who is now being blamed by a majority of the American people as a result.

What's worse is that the self-installed art of the dealmaker has offered no real plan to deal with the reality of a Democratic Congress until this weekend, but here's what he proposed.

Now, there's a lot in there, and it's a sign of progress that the President is reaching out a bit beyond his base. But a three-year temporary stay for about half the population of Dreamers isn't exactly balanced by 230 miles of permanent steel barrier on the border.

Now, on the left, Nancy Pelosi, didn't even wait to hear the speech to call it a non-starter. And on the far-right, Ann Coulter lost no time in proclaiming "amnesty" and denouncing that Donald is a "Latter Day Jeb." The cheapest of all insults.

As always, though some of the President's claims were highly questionable like this one.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The crime rate and drug problem in our country would be quickly and greatly reduced. Some say it could be cut in half.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AVLON: Okay, there's just nothing to support the idea that America's crime and drug rate could be cut in half by building 230 more miles of wall. But the President is correct in saying that Democrats have supported building a barrier as part of border security in the past. Specifically the 2006 Secure Fence Act which was backed by the likes of Senators Obama, Clinton and Schumer.

That's evidence that the President's insistence that Democrats want quote "open borders" is BS. But it's also evidence that building a wall as part of a broader security effort isn't a nefarious new idea that Democrats could never support.

Since 2006, border fence was built, the number of undocumented immigrants arrested at the border has declined dramatically, which shows why Trump's talk of crisis is overheated play to the base politics, but overheated play to the base politics is why we're here, folks.

Just days away from some 800,000 government workers missing a second paycheck. Now Democrats want to see the government open before negotiating on policy. Republicans are concerned that nothing will get done on a border wall if Trump relents.

Meanwhile, Mitch McConnell has re-emerged to put forward a plan that builds on Trump's bid by adding $12.7 billion for disaster relief.

In the end, a truly balanced plan could involve permanent protection for Dreamers, for border security package including a wall. It's a version of a bigger deal Trump turned down a year ago, but, hey, it's something or the President could go big and propose a finite reopening of the government, say three months, with a specific State of the Union challenge to pass bipartisan immigration reform.

The Center for Migration Studies recently found that twice the number undocumented immigrants overstay their visas than enter stay illegally. So only a comprehensive plan can address the real problem. And it's fair to say that only Trump has the conservative cred to do it.

[08:20:08]

AVLON: But that's if he wants to go big and show that the art of the deal is more than just a hollow slogan slapped on a ghost-written book. And that's your "Reality Check."

JOHN BERMAN, ANCHOR, CNN: Meanwhile, 800,000 people missing a second paycheck this week and that matters. I mean, that digs deep. All right, John, really appreciate it.

AVLON: Thanks guys.

BERMAN: Joining us now is Democratic Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Senator, thank you so much for being with us. This offer from the President, his first real offer since January, is it a starting point?

JEFF MERKLEY, U.S. SENATOR, OREGON, DEMOCRAT: Well, it's a starting point in that it's better than silence, but what we really need is for the President to release the seven spending bills he took hostage and then proceed from there.

BERMAN: You're the second elected Democrat who has used the phrase "hostage" this morning. It makes me wonder if that is something that's being passed around and language that all Democrats are using. What's wrong, though, with talking specifics of back and forth with the White House, with negotiators before the government is actually open?

MERKLEY: Well, remember the reason we use the term "hostage" or certainly, I've been using it throughout this is because these are all bills that the President signed off on before he withdrew his support and that was after he was beaten up by Breitbart for a couple days.

So this is a very significant action on the President's part to undo an agreed arrangement and from here, you know, it's fine to start having this kind of dialogue about ideas, but the ideas that the President is putting forward which is to say that the courts have said that, "I can't send Dreamers home, so now I'll agree, I won't send Dreamers home and that's my big concession." I don't think that that is going to persuade anyone.

BERMAN: You know, I get that. But there are two different arguments going on here. One, there are those who say that what the President is offering isn't enough and there are others who say "We're not going to listen to anything he offers until the government is reopened." You are no on both counts, I think.

MERKLEY: If the President had come forward with a very significant proposal regarding Dreamers, regarding border security that is smart rather than border security that is a waste of our moneys or regarding something that is a go big proposal, such as back to the bipartisan 2013 immigration bill, we'd be having a very different conversation.

BERMAN: Just to be clear, Democrats, including you, I believe have supported some kind of new fencing in the past. You would be willing to support some new fencing as part of a larger deal?

MERKLEY: Absolutely willing to support smart border security, but not a 30-foot wall that wastes our money for sentry strategy, ineffective and the President has turned it into a symbol of racism, which means that I think you're going to find very few Democrats support it.

BERMAN: All right, you are involved, you've asked the FBI to investigate Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen for lying to Congress and let me help people understand why.

She said before Congress on June 17th, 2018, "We do not have a policy of separating families at the border." You were part of a group that released a memo that surfaced from inside Homeland Security which was a draft apparently that said, "Separate family units - separating family units," it says, "Announce the DHS is considering separating family units placing the adults into adult detention and placing the minors under the age of 18 in the custody of HHS as unaccompanied alien children." You see this as proof that she lied to Congress?

MERKLEY: There's - actually, it's a piece of an entire framework. So in December 2017, the planning is under way and they're talking about - the administration is discussing child separation as an integral part of a policy that will deter families from coming to our border.

Then in May, when Jeff Sessions announces the policy, he uses the words "child separation." When John Kelly gets on the television and talks about it, the President's Chief of Staff, he talks about child separation as a key piece of deterrence.

But then we have the Secretary of Homeland Security absolutely denying all of this under oath to Congress and it comes down to this, John, I am just sick and tired of this administration lying to the American people, lying to Congress, doing it under oath, and it's time for some real accountability.

BERMAN: Has the FBI responded to your request?

MERKLEY: They have not responded yet, no. But this is the official right way to initiate a referral to the FBI for pursuit of an investigation regarding perjury.

BERMAN: Senator, if I can ask you a political question, your colleague to the south, Senator Kamala Harris of California, just announced about half an hour ago, she is running for President, running for the Democratic nomination. Your reaction to that?

MERKLEY: I think it's so great to have so many capable colleagues into this race. They are bringing many perspectives from many different regions of the country. All of them would make a President a thousand percent better than where we are right now.

[08:25:10] BERMAN: You have been considering your own run. Don't you have to

decide soon? Everyone is getting in. Can you wait much longer?

MERKLEY: I'll decide some time in this first quarter, but I'm not in the same rush than some of my other friends are.

BERMAN: And back to the shutdown here, is there any way that any discussions can take place? And I'm not talking about discussions on TV - real substantive discussions at the table between Democrats and the White House, in your mind, before the government is opened?

MERKLEY: Yes, I think discussions are - the door is always open to them. The conversations, many of them, are done in an informal fashion probing what we could possibly put together that would work. Where do my Republican colleagues stand?

I can tell you that informally, many of them are wrestling with how do they get out of the corner that the President has painted them into? They know that they voted for these bills that the President had agreed to, they stand behind them. They don't like the fact that we're doing nothing in the Senate, and they're very disturbed by where we are and they are looking for a way out of it.

And hopefully that way out will involve releasing the hostages and proceeding to do real border security and the security for people with overstaying visas, rather than this symbol that the President is pursuing.

BERMAN: And very quickly, 800,000 Federal workers will miss a second paycheck this week. What's your explanation to them about how the President's proposal is a nonstarter?

MERKLEY: It's a nonstarter because he's not addressing real border security. He wants to do - he agreed to spending bills. He's withdrawn that. He's determined to hurt people, the same - basically as part of a temper tantrum, and if you indulge a temper tantrum now, then what else terrible things is this President going to do?

The message is we have to deal, stand by the deal, release the hostages, and let's do real border security.

BERMAN: Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon, thanks for being with us this morning, appreciate it.

MERKLEY: Thank you, John. Good to be with you.

HILL: The government shutdown putting a strain on the airline industry. Could it impact safety in the air? Air Traffic controllers and flight attendants weighing in. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:30:00]