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News That Congress Has Reached A Deal In Hopes TO Avoid Another Shutdown; Donald Trump Is Simply Demanding Billions Of Dollars For Something That Bipartisan Groups Of People Say Is Not Necessary. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired February 12, 2019 - 07:00   ET

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


[07:00:00]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN HOST: They're also slamming the deal and you will remember they helped push the President toward the shut down in December. The money in this tentative agreement for border fencing is just a fraction of the $5.7 billion the President has demanded for this purposed border wall.

And it was a fascinating scene last night as the President argued for a wall in El Paso less than a mile away at a dueling event. There was Beto O'Rourke, the former Congressman and maybe a preview of a Presidential announcement.

He certainly looked and sounded more like a Presidential candidate than he has to date. Joining us now David Gregory, CNN political analyst, Jess McIntosh former director of communications outreach for Hillary Clinton's campaign, and Charlie Dent, a former Republican member of Congress.

David, let's start with the word of the news here. The news is that they have reached a tentative agreement on a deal. It's a deal that will not be for a wall. It specifically says it can't be a wall but 55 miles of new fencing. That might be something that Congress can agree on.

DAVID GREGORY, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Right. So it's good news that they got a deal, obviously, because they'd been working toward one. It looked like they hit a couple of snags but the big question is where is the President on this? Is it enough?

He's already getting chirped by the right (ph) on this for those who think it's a garbage compromise as Sean Hannity said on FOX NEWS last night and he has influence. He has influence on the President and those in the Republican caucus in the Senate.

And that will be the question. Do they ultimately put this on the floor or do they gauge if the President's going to support it initially or not.

He could support it and people I've talked to who are involved in the negotiation said, "you know look, he may then move money around and try to make up the gap in what gets allocated toward the barrier. That's what we have to watch in the coming hours".

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN HOST: Charlie Dent, you've lived through this, I assume, working into the late evening hours and then holding your breathe and waiting to see what the backlash is or what Jim Jordan tweets or what the President is going to say because at the moment the freedom caucus doesn't like this.

They don't like this compromise. You heard Sean Hannity, so what do you predict is going to happen in the White House today?

CHARLIE DENT, FORMER CONGRESS REPUBLICAN: Oh hey, news flash, the freedom caucus and Ann Coulter and Sean Hannity don't like this bipartisan agreement. Of course, they were never going to support this.

The White House will likely pocket whatever gains they receive out of this bill, $1.375 billion and by the way, I mean completely incompetent to think that they were actually going to get a better deal in the new year than when the Republicans controlled Congress, so that's absurd.

So he'll pocket the gains. Now he's going to try to move money, re- program money. Good luck with that because to re-program money from say one account to another, wouldn't it require the signature of the chair or the appropriations committee need a lowey (ph) and the subcommittee chair saying military construction, Debbie Wassermann Schultz. Not going to happen.

So I'm not sure how they're going to re-program this money or declare a national emergency, that's always a possibility as well, which would be a huge mistake. So I think that there's nothing shocking here.

They're at 40,500 beds (ph), which is where we are currently and they're at $1.375 billion so essentially they're not really getting anything.

BERMAN: No and again, the Republicans in the Senate offered them more last spring. They offered 65 miles of border barrier so this is less than that...

CAMEROTA: And a little bit more money.

BERMAN: ... in more money in December so the President, for the art of the deal, is ending up with less than he certainly wanted. And I don't think we can dismiss Sean Hannity and Ann Coulter though because they appear to have had veto power before on a possible deal, at least they did December. So let's listen to what Sean Hannity said overnight.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEAN HANNITY, FOXS NEW HOST: And this new so-called compromise I'm getting details, $1.3 billion? That's not a - and not even a wall, a barrier. I'm going to tell this tonight and we will get back into this tomorrow. Any Republican that supports this garbage compromise, you will (ph) to explain. Look at this crowd, look at the country, look at CBS NEWS, even they

say 72 percent of the American people want the heroin to stop, the cartel to stop, the gang members to stop.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Again, don't dismiss that because Sean Hannity and Ann Coulter talked the President out of a deal in December. Jess McIntosh, the other side of this, if Nancy Pelosi had said no new money...

JESS MCINTOSH, COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR: Yes.

BERMAN: ... but for a barrier - I mean I don't know if meant a barrier...

CAMEROTA: For a wall.

BERMAN: ... or a wall, but it's a barrier. I mean this is something to keep people out of the country.

MCINTOSH: I mean at this point it sounds like the money that they've allocated in this deal is about the same as the Senate appropriations that already allocated for something they called pedestrian fencing.

I think at this point Donald Trump just needs to be able to say that he got something but he has walked away from increasing bad deals for him. It's going - last night at the rally he actually stood up and as the crowd is chanting his iconic build the wall chant back at him, he say's what you really mean is finish the wall because we've really built a lot of it already.

So he's already sort of kind of pitifully pretending that he's getting what he wants. So I think reallocating some money that we had already allowed for a chunk of pedestrian fencing where experts said it might be helpful and nowhere else. Maybe that allows him a little bit of cover to call this a win, but the most important thing is that we don't shut down on Friday.

[07:05:00]

CAMEROTA: David Gregory, I think it's going to be really interesting to see what happens this morning because will the President stand up to the freedom caucus or will he - was he so kind of burned or at least affected by the government shut down that, that was a teachable moment and he's going to try something different.

Or as we know from our history with the President, sometimes the last person in his ear is who he going with.

GREGORY: Right. Look I think both Jess and Charlie are making important points, but we should remember that the President did get spooked by the shut down. And ultimately took a lot of heat from some of the same people we're talking about the right for caving in on that, but he was spooked and for good reason so he probably doesn't want to do it again. I mean it's still using a rational calculus that doesn't always hold

up with the President, but he's got to be able to do two things. Declare some victory, which he - I mean just the evolution of what this big, beautiful wall - great wall between Mexico and the United States is becoming is funny, except it's such a serious issue.

So he can kind of dumb down his explanation of what is victory but he's also got to be able to take on his base in some way and say no, this is the right thing to keep moving this forward because Democrats are in a similar position where they don't want to be seen as giving in.

They got control of the House and they don't want to see that as a capitulation to him either, so both sides are trying to thread the needle at this point.

BERMAN: You know, Charlie Dent, in December the President talked the Republican House - it was Republican then into voting against a compromise at that point. If he doesn't support this do you think Republicans in the Senate will fall in line?

Does he have the juice to keep Republicans in the Senate voting for this deal? If he decides over the next 20, 30, 40 minutes he doesn't like it?

DENT: Oh I think at the end of the day Senate Republicans will vote for this deal. Look at what - the President actually does get something here. The secure fence act authorized 700 miles of barriers.

They have 650 built. They'll be able to complete the secure fence act so I think there's actually something they can hang their hat on. It was just an act of legislative and governmental malpractice to shut the government down over this.

I mean we could all see how this was going to end up. Not much is occurring here, so bottom line is Senate Republicans will vote for this. They will vote for this - most of them.

CAMEROTA: Yes. I mean we had Congresswoman Nita Lowey on earlier who said that in good faith this is a bipartisan effort and when I asked her about what Charlie Dent has talked about and what David Gregory is talking about, which is the President could raid a different pot of federal dollars.

So if he isn't satisfied with the $1.3 he can take it from maybe a victims fund for hurricane victims and she said that she felt...

BERMAN: Disaster relief fund.

CAMEROTA: Yes, exactly. Thank you. Disaster relief fund and she said that she felt there would be bipartisan push back.

BERMAN: Absolutely.

MCINTOSH: I think that there is bipartisan pushback to a number of Trump's attempts to end run keeping the government open. I think it's important to remember that usually when the government shuts down it's because both sides can't agree on how to fund it.

This is not what's happening right now. Both sides continue to agree on how to fund it. Donald Trump is simply demanding billions of dollars for something that bipartisan groups of people say is not necessary. We don't have the money and it wouldn't even be helpful.

So while we're at that impasse, yes he could do a number of other legislative gymnastics or executive branch gymnastics to get around the fact that what he wants is deeply unpopular but there are going - there's going to be push back on those as well.

BERMAN: I mean bottom line is we don't know what he's going to do and we keep on looking at Twitter to see because that's where he makes major Presidential proclamations that could affect 800,000 federal workers.

David Gregory, we had a chance yesterday to talk about Minnesota member of Congress Ilhan Omar, who had sent out statements that were anti-Semitic when she suggests that there were people in the United States who do things just because of the money - Jewish money.

She has since apologized for that. What do you make of the apology?

GREGORY: I think she did the right thing. I mean she apologized unequivocally, talk about how she wants to listen and learn from her colleagues because the Congresswoman has a choice to make.

Does she want to be a hater on Twitter or does she want to be a responsible member of Congress? But again, I think she did the right thing and I hope there's not a back lash to this. I hope the back lash on social media isn't, oh well there they go again.

You know the powerful lobby and those who are influenced by that Jewish lobby shut her down and shut down her free speech because that's the wrong argument.

This is really about getting educated and I think House leaders on the Democratic side and there's a plenty of education that has be done on the Republican side, need to do just that. Need to explain what kind of responsible discourse is about taking on Israel or taking on lobbyist in general.

[07:10:00]

GREGORY: You know, the congresswoman out to read a great new book that I'm reading by Deborah Lipstadt, who's taken on holocaust denial, called "Anti-Semitism: Here and Now". That's how you really, you know, get educated about this so you can have responsible dialogue about this without getting into anti-Semitism.

DENT: She's a terrific professor and terrific writer and I just want to know. I mean, there is a way to talk about Israel and be against the policies that Israel discusses and takes on without saying that it's all about Jewish money. I mean, that's -- that's where the line is, I think.

CAMEROTA: But Charlie Dent, in terms of the way Congresswoman Omar handled it, she pretty quickly succumbed to the bipartisan pressure that was bipartisan for her to apologize, she apologized, it seemed fulsome and she said that she is in the process of being -- becoming better educated and she apologizes unequivocally. But yet there are still Republicans who are calling for more of a pound of flesh. They want her stripped from some of her committees. What do you think?

DENT: Well, I think Democrats have a problem on their hard fringe left with some folks making some anti-Semitic comments, and that was the case with Representative Omar. I'm glad she apologized. I think this is probably enough for the time being. Republicans have to deal with this, too, not so much the anti-Semitism but they have to deal with members on the hard fringe right who will make, you know, ethnically intimidating statements, or, you know, like Steve King did, that are, you know -- you know, racially incendiary.

So both parties have to -- to contain this. So I think for the moment, the apology should suffice.

MCINTOSH: I think Republicans absolutely do need to deal with anti- Semitism on their side. You -- you had the president stand up and say about a group of Nazis that they were made up of some very fine people. The Anti-Defamation League put out a report saying that all of the extremist murders that happened in 2018 were right wing extremism. We have -- anti-Semitism is on the rise in this country in a terrifying way that is already being -- it's already costing lives. A lot of that is coming from the leader of the Republican party and the things that he is condoning.

So I think Republicans very much need to clean up their own house on this issue. I hope that maybe this prompts them to do it, but they have no business talking about what Ilhan Omar leadership opportunities ought to be at this point until they can talk about what's happening within their own party.

GREGORY: Well, I -- I agree with that, I'd just make a final point, which is the getting into kind of who gets stripped of what committee, who gets punished loses something important, which is that social media and a lot of times on cable news is not the place to hash out these issues, unfortunately. It is about really understanding when it comes to racism, sexism, anti-Muslim bigotry and anti-Semitism, really getting educated. When you talk about anti-Zionism, how often that overlaps with anti-Semitism. They all -- everybody ought to get some education about this and be able to talk about it and that's what -- that's what is missing when this becomes just an issue on Twitter.

BERMAN: Friends, appreciate it. Excellent discussion, even on cable news, where I think it is important to talk about it.

CAMEROTA: We can begin the conversation --

BERMAN: Exactly.

CAMEROTA: -- on cable news. GREGORY: No, all -- all I'm saying is that it gets super polarized

super fast and it's not always the place to get all sides.

CAMEROTA: No, agreed.

GREGORY: I mean, we are an island of great discussion here.

CAMEROTA: Yes. A tropical island. I totally agree and I think that cable is a great place for the conversation to start but we will take your reading suggestion and begin our book club. Thank you all very much. Which 2020 Democratic candidate best represents the electorate today and is the Democratic field going too far left? Harry Enten with his analysis, next.

[07:15:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Walls save lives. Walls save tremendous numbers of lives.

BETO O'ROURKE, FORMER CONGRESSMAN, TEXAS: We know that walls do not save lives. Walls end lives.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: All right, that was Beto O'Rourke and President Trump going head-to-head in Texas at the border. So, was Beto O'Rourke's rally, a mile away from the president, the official start of a presidential run? Well, our Jeff Zeleny asked him.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEFF ZELENY, SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT, CNN: But how close are you? How close are you?

O'ROURKE: Before the end of this month, I'll -- I'll make a decision.

ZELENY: Sure looks like a yes.

(CHEERING)

O'ROURKE: We'll see. We'll see.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: OK, I really need subtitles.

BERMAN: Now (ph), you submit that when he said, we'll see, he was nodding yes.

CAMEROTA: Well, I saw him nodding yes. So the body language says yes to me. But he said, we'll see. BERMAN: All right. Meantime, Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar, she

has already said yes. She is running and she's also taking on some critical reports that say that she's been too tough on her own staff.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR (D), MINNESOTA: I know I can be too tough sometimes and I can push too hard. That's obvious. But a lot of it is because I have high expectations for myself, I have high expectations for the people that work with me.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: All right, so where is every Democratic candidate along the ideological spectrum. There's something about Harry, as you know. CNN Senior Politics Writer and Analyst Harry Enten joins us now. Hi, Harry.

HARRY ENTEN, SENIOR POLITICS WRITER, CNN: Hi, how are you?

CAMEROTA: You have ideological spectrum analysis for us.

ENTEN: We do. In fact, there was someone in our 9:00 am meeting yesterday, I think it was, or somewhere along the lines who was asking -- you know, we keep saying the Democratic field is further left but why are we saying that? So here's why we're saying that. I basically looked at the last three Congresses that these senators or members of the House were involved in and looked at their voting records -- this is from VoteView.com -- and essentially said, OK, how far left are they? And what we see is that generally speaking, the people who have been running in the past three cycles for the Democrats on a scale where zero is most liberal and 100 is most moderate, they tended to conglomerate right around in the 60 range, right? But look at where the average Democrat that's running this year is. They're at 51, which considerably further to the left than where the Democratic nominees of the last three cycles have generally been.

BERMAN: So more left than Hillary Clinton --

CAMEROTA: That's really interesting.

BERMAN: -- more left than Barack Obama --

ENTEN: Obama --

BERMAN: -- more left than John Kerry.

ENTEN: -- John Kerry.

CAMEROTA: Considerably so.

ENTEN: Considerably so. And more than that, what's really interesting is look at the candidates who are further to the left. They tend to be the frontrunners. The people who are further to the right -- Tulsi Gabbard, John Delaney, Amy Klobuchar though, she's more interesting -- tend to be the ones who are the more moderate members versus the people that we think are the frontrunners like Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren and Cory Booker.

[07:20:00]

They are well to the left of where everybody else is, at least if you were to go back here and look at where these nominees have generally been.

They were in the 60s and then you look here and these folks are in the 20s and 30s and 40s.

BERMAN: It's interesting to me how far apart Elizabeth Warren is from Amy Klobuchar. And Amy Klobuchar is even more moderate than the past Democratic nominees have been.

ENTEN: That's exactly right. I mean, Elizabeth Warren's folks are -- at least supporters of hers will say, you know, we want a real liberal, we want to take someone to really create an ideological contrast with Donald Trump and Elizabeth Warren can make a very goo case based off of these numbers versus Amy Klobuchar. I think her case to be made is electability and she's going to say hey, look, I'm more moderate, therefore I can sell myself to the center of the electorate, and that's exactly what these numbers say. She's actually probably the most moderate candidate since at least Al Gore if she were, in fact, to become the nominee.

CAMEROTA: This is based on how they voted or how they speak?

ENTEN: This is based upon how they voted. And what I should point out -- and we'll get to this -- is that this is just one way of looking at it, right? How they speak the positions that they create on the campaign trail may be different than the way that they have voted so far.

BERMAN: And there are a couple things that a little bit hankie, as we like to say about this. Looking about (ph) Kirsten Gillibrand and Cory Booker.

ENTEN: Right. So look at Kirsten Gillibrand. She is somebody who I think a lot of people have said oh, she changes with the wind. And there is some support for this, at least in the numbers. When you look at her average rating over the last three congresses, she's at 35. That's pretty far to the left, right? But look at where she was when she first came to the congress when she was representing Upstate New York. She was at an 81, which is even more moderate than Amy Klobuchar was. She has very much so run to the center -- to the left, excuse me, over the last few congresses.

And indeed, if you look at just the last one, she's even further left than this. Her score is around 20.

BERMAN: Wow.

ENTEN: So she has very much moved to the left. She has the most anti-Trump record than any senator in the United States Senate at this particular point. She's clearly trying to gear herself up for a Democratic party that we believe is moving to the left. CAMEROTA: That's an interesting distinction. OK, Cory Booker.

ENTEN: Yes. So Cory Booker is someone who the left also views with suspension. And we look at his score right here, 46 over the last three congresses. But there's another way, as I mentioned, we can look at ideological scores in different ways. And one way we could look at is the -- based on the prior political contributions that these candidates have received. And this is through 2014. And what we see here was he was at a 55, so he was considerably more moderate than he was right now over the last three congresses.

He was getting a lot of political contributions from people who are connected with Wall Street and that's part of the reason why those on the left view him with very much suspicion. That does, in fact, show up in the numbers. And I'll point out one other thing. If you were to look at, for, say (ph), just the last few congresses -- not just the last three but the last two, his score would be closer to a 30, not a 46. So he is another candidate who's been moving very, very quickly to the left.

BERMAN: Even as his support comes from more of the middle or the right, in some cases, in terms of financial dollars.

ENTEN: Exactly right. Now, let's talk about, you know, where do we think the Democratic party is going and sort of why it is that these candidates have been moving to the left, right? Look at this. This is from Pew Research and this is essentially looking through the years of how liberal the candidates have been saying that they -- or excuse me, how liberal the voters saying that they are. 30 percent said they were liberal in 2004, 44 percent that they were liberal in 2018.

CAMEROTA: Wait a minute, is this a voters or Democrats?

ENTEN: This -- this is Democratic voters.

CAMEROTA: Democratic voters. So how Democratic voters identify themselves along the spectrum.

ENTEN: That's exactly right. They say that they've been moving more to the left. But here's the thing. If you were to ask Democrats who they want this time around, they say actually say they want a more moderate party than a more liberal party even though the voters themselves, Democratic voters are moving to the left.

BERMAN: That's because what? Electability?

ENTEN: They believe this is about electability. They want someone who they believe can beat Donald Trump.

BERMAN: Tell us about dogs quickly.

ENTEN: I just want to say something about dogs. Westminster Dog Show. This is who has won the last few years. I'm rooting for the toy group right here.

CAMEROTA: I like this one. BERMAN: Let me tell you something --

CAMEROTA: That one looks like something out of Star Wars. Isn't there like an ewok or something that looks just like this dog?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

ENTEN: I think there is an ewok that looks like that. I will say I'm rooting for this group, the Havanese is the toy -- is the toy group representative.

BERMAN: You don't know this about me but nothing upsets me more than Westminster Dog Show because a lab or retriever has never won. Usually what you get is these, which are cats, that win. A dog -- a dog has never won.

ENTEN: Look, the lhasa apso, my childhood dog, Cody, who represents me on Twitter, my Twitter avatar has never won either, so I'm very --

CAMEROTA: You're hurt also.

ENTEN: I'm -- I'm very, very hurt.

BERMAN: There's another word for lapdog -- cat.

ENTEN: I don't -- cats are not me, although, you know, some people like cats but I'm a dog person.

BERMAN: All right, Harry. Thank you. Very much.

ENTEN: Thank you.

CAMEROTA: Thank you. All right. Be sure to watch a special CNN town hall tonight. Poppy Harlow is going to talk to former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz. He is considering an independent run. Tune in tonight at 10:00 pm only on CNN.

BERMAN: Also mutts aren't even eligible and mutts are the best dogs of all.

CAMEROTA: You feel strongly about this.

BERMAN: I do. It's ridiculous. I also had to cover it way too many times, so that built up a bitterness.

CAMEROTA: I can that see that there's --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (Inaudible).

CAMEROTA: -- some residual issues.

[07:25:00]

BERMAN: All right. 20 years ago today the impeachment trial of President Bill Clinton, it ended with an acquittal. Up next we're going to bring together two key figures from that historic moments in American history. I'm not sure they've ever appeared together at the same time, largely because they were on way different sides. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: Where were you 20 years ago today? That was the day that Bill Clinton became the second president in U.S. history to be acquitted in an impeachment trial. We're now going to bring together two key figures that have never appeared together before on television, and it will be obvious why. CNN Political Commentator Joe Lockhart. This is what Joe said about that moment in American history 20 years ago today when he was the White House secretary.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE LOCKHART, FORMER WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: I think the president expressed to you the responsibility he takes for the action -- for his actions. We looked for a process that was fair, bipartisan, constitutional, and I think by and large the process has been that. But this needs to be and must be a time of reconciliation and renewal. We can be relieved it's over but there's really nothing to celebrate.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: That was Joe Lockhart 20 years ago, I frankly think he looks even better today.

[07:30:00]

Also joining us now, Ken Starr, he led the independent counsel investigation into the president. He is also the author of "Contempt, A Memoir of the Clinton Investigation".

END