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Trump Declared A National Emergency to Unlock Billions for His Wall; Trump Says, I Don't Need to Do This; Trump Says He Will Win in Supreme Court; Two Men Arrested in Alleged Attack on Actor Smollett. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired February 15, 2019 - 14:00   ET

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

[14:00:00] ANA CABRERA, CNN HOST: I'm Ana Cabrera in for Brooke Baldwin. Our country may have avoided a national dilemma, a government shutdown. President Trump has now put the country into a new one that will likely come to a head in the Supreme Court. Today the President declared a national emergency to fund his border wall. This unlocks nearly half of the $8 billion he wants for construction. It's also unleashed major backlash deepening the divide between parties, laying division within the President's own party. Several leading Republicans are expressing concern about the precedent set using a national declaration authority this way. In a move Democrats say is a work around Congress. The President was asked about that after today's announcement, and he pointed to 31 other current active national emergencies.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We're going to confront the national security crisis on our southern border. We're going to do it one way or the other, not because it was a campaign promise, which it is. When you look and listen to patients, particularly certain Democrats, they say it all comes through the port of entry, it's wrong. It's wrong. It's just a lie, it's all a lie. They say walls don't work. Walls work 100 percent. I expect to be sued. I shouldn't be sued. And then other people say, if you use it for this, then what are we using it for. We have to get rid of drugs and gangs and people. It's an invasion. We have an invasion of drugs and criminals coming into our country that we stop, but it's very hard to stop. With a wall it would be very easy. I think that we will be very successful in court. I think it's clear. And the people that say we create precedent. Well, we have 56 or a lot of times -- that's created precedent. Many of those are far less important than having a border.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: Let's head right to the White House and CNN's Abby Philip. Before we talk about the next steps involving this national emergency. How the President officially signed that spending bill to avert a partial government shutdown?

ABBY PHILIP, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Ana at midnight tonight the funding runs out, as of 2:00, right now, we haven't gotten any indications that President Trump has actually signed that bill. Though he did sign the national emergency declaration, and the White House tweeted out a photo of him doing that in the oval office earlier this morning, so far, no word on whether the President has signed that bill and whether he might say something in signing it, say something about what's in it, about the fact that he didn't get as much for the wall funding as he wants. We'll be on the lookout for that later this afternoon. A lot of the attention is turning right now to where this money is coming from. The White House has said that they have identified several pots of money that they believe the President can use. Some of which requires a national emergency declaration, money from the Defense Department military construction budget. And then there's also another large chunk of money coming from a drug interest diction program. And a smaller chunk that comes from drug forfeiture funds.

The White House has found this money all over the federal government. But it's not likely to go without some resistance, both from Congress, there are Republicans and Democrats raising questions about whether the President has the authority to do this. And where this money is coming from. Is it being siphoned away from other projects and moved toward the wall? President Trump is expecting legal challenges. They have been clear eyed about the likelihood there are going to be a number of parties filing lawsuits nearly immediately to try to stop this. If you listen carefully to what the President said earlier this morning, he laid out what he believed was how this would play out, it would get stopped in one of the courts. The Ninth Circuit, he's criticized repeatedly in the past. Then he predicted they would ultimately win if this case went all the way to the Supreme Court. Ana, what we're talking about there could be a matter of months of legal litigation. And that seems to suggest this process may not be as easy as President Trump makes it out to be. That it could take quite a long time, and there is definitely, regardless of how this goes down, going to be a lot of back and forth between him and Congress. The Democrats on the hill have already made it clear, they're not going to sit idly by while the President tries to take over some of the appropriating authority from the House and take it over for himself, Ana.

CABRERA: Abby Philip at the White House, with the latest for us.

Democrats say they plan to fight this declaration, as the national emergency act allows. Monty Raju is on Capitol Hill now.

[14:05:07] MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: House Democrats plan to make this a top priority after they return from next week's Congressional recess. They plan to move forward on a resolution of disapproval to try to block the President from moving forward. Now, the exact language of that proposal has not been hashed out yet. There are various Congressional committees that would have jurisdiction over this, they're discussing exactly how to proceed. But -- because one of the questions is exactly, what are the details of this national emergency declaration? Lawmakers have not seen the general top line numbers. They have not gotten any real readout. Precisely of how this may play out. Nevertheless, there's going to be a major fight here on Capitol Hill. Democrats are confident they'll get the votes in the House. The House Democrats, some Republicans as well. The big question will be in the United States Senate. Will there be enough Republicans to agree to move forward to vote to block such a measure. You can't, under this procedure, the Senate majority leader cannot deny this vote from actually happening. It will happen, no matter what, the question is, will Republicans join Democrats to block this? That is still uncertain. What we do know is a number of Republicans are publicly raising concerns about the President. Raising concerns about whether the President can do this constitutionally and say that he should not have taken this action. But will they vote to block the President from moving forward, still remains to be seen. In order for Congress to succeed, they would need a veto proof majority, that would be 20 senators in the United States Senate joining the Democrats needs to override a veto. A long way to go until there. The President does have his work cut out for him to ensure his party does not revolt or join the Democrats to block this moving forward.

CABRERA: On one hand you have Lindsey Graham saying, I stand firmly with the President. On the other hand, you have people like Marco Rubio saying, no crisis justifies violating the Constitution to Republicans with opposing viewpoints with this development. Thank you.

Now, you're unsure how this will play out, well, the President has an idea.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: We will have a national emergency, and we will then be sued and they will sue us in the 9th Circuit, even though it shouldn't be there. And we will possibly get a bad ruling, and then we'll get another bad ruling, and then we'll end up in the Supreme Court. And hopefully we'll get a fair shake. We'll win in the Supreme Court.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: There you have it. Let's discuss now with Gloria Browne- Marshall, Constitutional law professor. CNN political analyst Josh Dawsey. And CNN political analyst Julie Hirschfeld Davis. Does the President just think, boom, done deal, campaign promise kept, the wall is coming?

JOSH DAWSEY, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST AND WHITE HOUSE REPORTER, "THE WASHINGTON POST": That certainly is why he tried to signal his supporters today in the rose garden, he had been stymied by Congress. He had been time stymied by Republican leadership, he all but blamed Paul Ryan for this. He had been kept from doing this by almost everyone. He was fighting no matter what, he was going to declare this national emergency. The problem he has is as he said there, it's not that easy to do. Even he could have undercut his own argument, I didn't have to do this, which led a lot of lawyers to say, if you didn't have to do this, how do you declare this an emergency. I didn't need to do this. The President's rhetoric today was pretty decisive in saying I'm the one who's the executor, I'm the one who's going to take this action. Whether or not it gets done, I think we're on the 10-yard line, we have a long ways to go.

CABRERA: I want to play that little clip from his announcement that Josh just referenced. The President declares a national emergency, but at the same time says this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: On the wall they skimped. I was successful in that sense, but I want to do it faster. I could do the wall over a longer period of time. I didn't need to do, I would rather do it much faster. I don't have to do it for the election. I've already done a lot of wall for the election. 20. The only reason we're talking about this is the election.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: I didn't need to do this. Gloria, did he just undermine his entire case for an emergency?

[14:10:03] GLORIA J. BROWNE-MARSHALL, PROFESSOR OF CONSTITUTIONAL LAW, JOHN JAY COLLEGE OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE (CUNY): Yes, but he also packed the U.S. Supreme Court with conservatives. When you look at his plan of action, going to the 9th Circuit or any circuit, being turned back and then finally getting to the U.S. Supreme Court and winning there. He's already decided just like with the anti-Muslim ban that he said was a campaign promise, that was an anti-Muslim ban. And still he had the votes in the U.S. Supreme Court to keep that ban in place. I think he knows that despite all the rhetoric and the push back from even the majority Democratic House. That he would see this pushed through, despite the rhetoric that is obviously opposing what he's saying.

CABRERA: There's the court route, there's also the Congressional route in terms of where this could play out and push back against the President. We know Republicans have been on the record publicly against the idea of an emergency declaration, in fact, Trump was warned, including Congress might end up passing a resolution to disapprove of any emergency declaration, by going this route, did the President essentially call their bluff?

JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, I mean, it's true that Republicans have spoken out against this. In fact, before this week. Senator Mitch McConnell, the majority leader said he was not inclined to support something like this, but he changed his tune when it became clear that the President might otherwise not sign this spending bill to keep the government open. He's kind of maneuvered around on this issue in the way he saw was need. The big question as you alluded to earlier, will there be enough Senate Republicans in Congress in general to oppose -- who are willing to come forward and oppose this. We know many of them have already expressed concern. Some of them privately are concerned. The question is, how many of them are willing to go on the record against this. Whether there is enough critical mass to block this, or even if they block it, this would be a resolution the President would sign or veto. If he vetoed it, the likelihood that they're going to get enough Republicans to come and override the President's veto on something he has clearly staked his presidency on at this point. That seems pretty farfetched. Of course, anything could happen.

CABRERA: Nancy Pelosi has said they're looking at different options. What is the obvious move for the House to push back on the emergency declaration, and why not do that? Wouldn't that just be the obvious route?

DAVIS: Well, I think that there's no question we are going to see that happen, Nancy Pelosi has made clear she's going to bring forward a resolution like that, to try to block him, at the very least to get that through the House. As we heard earlier, that would be something that would have to come up on the Senate floor, under the Parliamentary rule. They will have to vote on this they'll have to go on the record on this one way or the other, the Democrats in the House are going to force the issue, which they now have the ability to do. Even if it doesn't get through the Congress, there will be a moment where we see divides among Republicans about how appropriate this is, about whether the President should be trying to go around the Congress and do this on his own. Democrats had some internal divisions as well, over border security and other issues, there's no question now the national emergency, they're going to be unanimously against that. We'll have to see where the Republicans come down.

CABRERA: Josh, I was reading your latest reporting. I know you talked with one senior Republican aide yesterday who told you, we thought this morning that it was good to go all morning. And then suddenly, it's like, everything is off the rails. Who in Trump's inner circle believes the President has handled this appropriately?

DAWSEY: Well, what happened was yesterday morning a number of his aides briefed him on the bill. And the President got frustrated. He had not read it all yet, it was a lengthy bill. And basically, threatened to not sign it. How serious he was on the threat. It led Mitch McConnell and other senators, particularly Mitch McConnell. McConnell called the President at least three times yesterday, in a bartering, pleading, begging. Please keep the government open to sign this bill. The Republicans were reluctant to vote before they knew whether the President wanted to support it or not. Yesterday, by all accounts in the White House, based on folks I talked to. It was a pretty topsy-turvy day. They were preparing to do a national emergency one way or the other. Whether he was going to sign this seemed an open question for some time. As Abby said earlier, there's no indication he signed it yet. I checked with a few folks before I came on television, I asked, had the President signed the spending bill. At that time, he had not. We'll be curious to see if he signs it before he goes to Mar-A-Lago.

CABRERA: What's the hold up?

[14:15:00] DAWSEY: That's a good question. Certainly, reluctant to do it, it's hard to imagine he's going to make a big fuss of doing it. I'll be interested to see frankly, a lot of others in the White House will be too, if he makes any public comments and criticizes the bill when he signs it. He did it with the spending bill last year, I'll never sign this again. It's a terrible bill, and he signed it, whether or not the signing will come with one more bit of drama today, I think we don't know yet, but we'll see.

CABRERA: Gloria, I owe you another question the next time you're back. I'll start with you. Thank you all for joining us. Good to have you with us.

We have breaking news. Chicago police have made two arrests in connection to the alleged attack against Jussie Smollett. The latest twist in this case next.

The Supreme Court will decide the fate of a key citizenship question on the 2020 census. A lower court blocked the Trump administration from adding the question, so what could this mean? Stand by.

[14:20:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CABRERA: 24 hours after the "Empire" star insisted he did not lie about being a victim of a racist and homophobic attack, Chicago police have now arrested two men in connection with that incident. Ryan Young is outside Chicago police headquarters, are those suspects now in custody? Same man from the surveillance photo?

RYAN YOUNG, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: They are the persons of interest, but one point of clarification, I just got off the phone with the Chicago police department. They say they have actually arrested these men officially as of Wednesday night when they got off the plane from Nigeria.

It's taken some time to clarify this, they haven't been officially charged just yet. The story keeps twisting. As we try to figure this all out. We know the interrogation has started. I was on the inside just about 10 minutes ago, and saw the lawyer walk into the building. It will be interesting to see what they pick up over the next few minutes here. We know the detectives will be talking to these two men. At some point they may reach out back to the actor. They talked about the fact the actor was on "GMA," he gave a detailed account of what happened to him and how he fought back.

Taking our viewers back to what happened two weeks ago. Jussie Smollett told investigators he went to get a bite to eat, and he attacked two men. Put a noose around his neck while screaming things at him. This had the entire city, the entire country thinking about how could this happen in Chicago? This is an area where people don't get attacked like this, all these questions started unfolding. On top of that, in this same interview, he said the camera he thought would have captured this was pointed in another direction. The detectives have been working this case nonstop. What they've been able to discover so far put the pieces together. Not only have they used ride share technology. They may have left in a cab, they also were trying to use those cell phone records to see how everything may have worked together. That's how they tracked down these two. They went to their apartment. They got personal computers, other items from inside, and now we know the detectives are trying to press them on the inside to figure out how this case may unravel here in terms of what is the next step. We've also been talking to other sources for this case. The actor has acknowledged that the internet has gotten ahead of this, and he felt like he had to defend himself.

The two things about this, though, the two men who are inside are Nigerian descent, they are black. That makes this interesting considering people calling this a modern-day lynching. All these things are happening, detectives are working this case, at this point, what the Chicago police department and detectives are trying to do is to make sure the media doesn't get ahead of the investigation. Because obviously there's certain things they want to keep in House before it's unveiled to all of us, at the end of the day, the victim in this case, or the alleged victim in this case should have a chance to talk to detectives about whatever he wants to talk about. The two men on the inside, apparently were on the set of empire at one point. One of them may be appearing on the show. All of this together throws a big question mark, people are asking, how did this all come together. What's the next step. It looks like it's going to be a very long night.

CABRERA: What is the motivation. What possible charges could be coming. Ryan young, thank you for bringing us the latest. Now we know, two men have been arrested in this case. Thank you.

Up next, President Trump making the claim that a wall will stop drugs from coming into the U.S. even though his own government has disputed that.

More disturbing details coming out of Andrew McCabe's new book. Did the President believe North Korea launching long range missiles was a hoax? Wait until you hear who told him that.

[14:25:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CABRERA: Confirmation the President has signed the government spending bill. Sarah Sanders saying, he signed it just 20 minutes ago. So now that's something we all breathe a little easier about. The President has declared a national emergency at the southern border. In his speech today, as he was defending and making a case for doing just that. He needs more money for his border wall. He said he used more than his share of questionable statistics. At one point the White House correspondents asked the President to explain where he gets the facts to back up these claims. He led to this exchange.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm asking you to clarify where you get your numbers, because most of the DEA crime reporting statistics that we see show that drugs are coming across at the ports of entry, that illegal immigration is down and the violence is down. So, what do you base your facts on?

TRUMP: Let me come on -- let's go.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And secondly.

TRUMP: No, no, you get one.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, the second question is.

TRUMP: Wait, sit down. Sit down.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Can you please answer it? TRUMP: Sit down. You get one question. I get my numbers from a lot

of sources, like homeland security primarily. And the numbers I have from Homeland Security are a disaster.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So, your own government stats are wrong, you're saying?

TRUMP: I use many stats. You have stats that are far worse than the ones I use. I use many stats, I also use homeland security.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: Brian Stelter is here with us.

BRIAN STELTER, CNN SENIOR MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: The looser he is on the facts. He was very loose today saying he's built a lot of wall.