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Trump to Declare Emergency Over Wall, Bypassing Congress; Top U.S. General Disagrees with Trump Over Syria Troop Pullout; Bombshells Revelations in Tell-All Book by Fired FBI Deputy Director. Aired 6- 6:30a ET

Aired February 15, 2019 - 06:00   ET

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

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY), MAJORITY LEADER: He's prepared to sign the bill. He will also be issuing a national emergency declaration.

[05:59:25] SEN. SUSAN COLLINS (R), MAINE: I'm disappointed that the president has chosen to go this route.

REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA), SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: We will review our options. We will be prepared to respond appropriately to it.

ANDREW MCCABE, FORMER DEPUTY FBI DIRECTOR: I was very concerned that, were I removed quickly, the case could not be closed.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What McCabe was trying to do was he was readying the lifeboats.

MIKE PENCE (R), VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I've never heard any discussion of the 25th Amendment, and I would never expect to.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome to our viewers in the United States and around the world. This is NEW DAY. It is Friday, February 15. We're still in red. It never -- Valentine's Day never ends for John Berman and me.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: It's a permanent state of mind.

CAMEROTA: It really is.

In just hours, President Trump is expected to announce that he is declaring a national emergency to reallocate $8 billion to fund his border wall, bypassing Congress.

Under Article I of the U.S. Constitution, only Congress has the power to appropriate funds. The bipartisan spending deal passed by Congress last night gives the president a fraction of the money that he wanted and only fencing and barriers, not a wall.

So he's now taking matters in his own hands. Democrats vow to challenge the president. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is warning the president that his move will set a dangerous precedent.

BERMAN: So you know who else warns this that this type of action is dangerous? Mike Pence.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PENCE: I think it would be a profound mistake for the president of the United States to overturn American immigration law with the stroke of a pen.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: So that was Mike Pence.

2014 Mike Pence thinks it's a bad idea to go around Congress. 2014 Mike Pence warns about the abuse of executive authority. 2014 Mike Pence and 2014 Republicans battled then-President Obama in public and in court over similar actions.

But, 2019 Mike Pence and many 2019 Republicans are already saying, "Thank you, Sean Hannity. May I have another?"

Not all Republicans agree, though. Overnight "The Wall Street Journal" editorial board came out against this, and some key senators have expressed reservations. This will end up in court for sure, facing near certain delays at a minimum.

Plus, breaking news overnight. Something you almost never see. A top active duty commander publicly disagreeing with the president over his decision to pull U.S. troops out of Syria, saying the terror group ISIS is far from defeated.

We have I lot to cover. Let's begin with CNN's Joe Johns, live for us at the White House -- Joe.

JOE JOHNS, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Well, John, the good news is there apparently is not going to be another government shutdown, and today in the Rose Garden, the president is expected to sign off on at least a couple things. Obviously, he's going to sign that legislation that's just been passed on Capitol Hill.

And he's also going to sign off on executive action, up to and including the declaration of a national emergency, in order to get his border wall built on the southwest border.

That's basically going to be compiling together something like $8 billion from different sources in order to get it done.

Here's a breakdown of where that money is supposed to come from. It's $1.375 billion in the homeland security appropriations bill you know of; $600 million from the Treasury Department's drug forfeiture fund; 2.5 billion in the Defense Department's drug interdiction program; 3.5 billion from the Defense Department's military construction budget. And that, of course, is what's going to require the declaration of a national emergency. Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader, had been opposed to

this idea and talked about that publicly. But understanding that the White House was going to need his signoff in order to get this thing through, McConnell changed his position. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MCCONNELL: He's prepared to sign the bill. He will also be issuing a national emergency declaration at the same time. And I've indicated to him that I'm going to prepare -- I'm going to support the national emergency declaration.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JOHNS: Now, there are some Republican senators who are opposed to this idea. Marco Rubio, Susan Collins, some others who are afraid that, when a Democratic president gets in, he can turn the tables by declaring some emergency that Republicans don't like.

There's also, of course, the possibility that the United States Congress with a vote of both the House, as well as the Senate, can essentially rescind the declaration of a national emergency, but the president could also veto that. So a lot of action scheduled here on Capitol Hill and in the White House today.

Back to you.

CAMEROTA: Thank you very much, Joe, for setting all of that up.

Joining us now to talk about it, we have Joe Lockhart. He, of course, was the press secretary in the Clinton White House. We have Anne Milgram. She was previously New Jersey's attorney general. And Doug Heye. He was previously communications director for the Republican National Committee.

Doug, I want to start with you.

DOUG HEYE, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Uh-oh.

Remember, Doug, just a few years ago, as Joe was pointing out, when Republicans went ballistic with what they thought was President Obama's presidential overreach? And if you don't remember it, we have something handy called videotape that can remind everyone of how they felt very recently. Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MCCONNELL: The action he has proposed would ignore the law, would reject the voice of the voters and would impose new unfairness on law- abiding immigrants, all without solving the problem.

SEN. TED CRUZ (R), TEXAS: We, the Senate, are waiting in our duty to stop this lawless administration and its unconstitutional amnesty.

[06:05:09] REP. MICHAEL MCCAUL (R), TEXAS: Immigration reform is an emotional and divisive issue. There's no doubt about that. But the president's unilateral actions to bypass Congress, undermine the Constitution and threaten our democracy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Lawless administration, unconstitutional, Doug, what has happened to that sentiment?

HEYE: Well, I remember this not just from the videotape but quite often I'd help draft the statements, whether at the Republican National Committee or working in House leadership for then-Majority Leader Eric Canter.

And what's happened is I think what we've seen so often over the past few years in politics. It's that tribalism rules the day, and it's OK if my side does it.

And what I would caution my Republican friends on is remember what Mitch McConnell said to Harry Reid when Harry Reid went with the nuclear option. He said, "Be careful what you wish for. This will have broad implications." And at some point, I think it's safe to assume there will be another Democratic president. That Democratic president now has a precedent that they can look at, the Trump precedent. And we know that once you cross a threshold, you never fully -- you never fully cross back.

And so it's very easy to see, and Nancy Pelosi has intimated this or said it outright, that the next Democratic president could do this on climate or on guns or something else. Republicans, be careful what you wish for here.

BERMAN: Just to put a find point on this, Doug, it was your job to get ticked off at this type of thing when you worked for the Republican National Committee and Eric Canter, correct?

HEYE: Absolutely.

BERMAN: This was your job. And -- and there's a word, I think, for Republicans now who don't feel the way that they felt five years ago when they stated these things, isn't there?

HEYE: Yes, I think there is. And look, certainly, you can say circumstances change in politics, and you deal with what's in front of you at this given moment.

But it's disappointing to know Republicans had said so often -- and again I would help draft some of these statements and send them to you and Alisyn -- that we've done a total 180 on this.

And, again, be careful what you wish for. This may feel good right now. Although to a lot of senators and House members on the Republican side, it doesn't, especially given that the criticisms that have come from the Democrats really are almost buttresses to argue for the bill and not to do the emergency move. This will have implications once there's not a Republican president that Republicans will not like.

CAMEROTA: Is there a particular word you were thinking of? BERMAN: He didn't say it out loud. I think the word is "hypocrite."

CAMEROTA: Oh, I thought that was --

HEYE: I was too busy banging my head against the wall.

BERMAN: It's a hyphenated word, but they mean the same thing.

CAMEROTA: And is there a difference between President Obama did with executive action and an emergency declaration legally?

ANNE MILGRAM, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: There is. There's an enormous difference. The president does have authority to issue executive orders, and they do that. An emergency declaration is basically circumventing the funding that has been decided by Congress.

CAMEROTA: Funding is the difference. This is about the allocation of funds.

MILGRAM: Which has already been done. And in our country we have separation of powers. The president has some powers, and the Congress has others. And essentially, to do this, there has to be an unusual -- an unusual and extraordinary threat.

And the president has made no -- in my opinion, has made no factual basis to support this kind of extraordinary and, in my view, unconstitutional action.

BERMAN: But, the other difference between executive action and declaring an emergency, is the emergency is declared through a congressional act.

MILGRAM: Right.

BERMAN: It's the 1976 National Emergency Act. So what you will hear from White House lawyers, and many legal scholars, is there may be a leg to stand on here as this goes through the courts. Because this is -- this is power that Congress gave the president.

MILGRAM: Right. So there is -- there is -- there is a congressional law, but keep in mind that the United States Constitution trumps the laws. And so you cannot have a law that basically circumvents separation of powers.

And so the question is, No. 1, is this a true emergency that justifies this type of action? We've watched now for months where they've been having political debates. The president could not to do through Congress what he is now trying to go around Congress to do.

And, to me, it sets us up to basically have a president who can fund anything and do anything he wants; and that's not the way that the United States government should work. So we'll see what the courts do, but I think it's deeply problematic.

CAMEROTA: Do you want to show your favorite graphic? BERMAN: Well, it's just -- again, the issue of an emergency here.

This is a chart that I like to show. This is illegal border crossings in the United States.

So look at 2018. At or near a historic low of illegal border crossings. That is when the president says it's an emergency. It's an emergency when there are fewer illegal border crossings now than there were in the year 2000. So the year 2000, 2001, 2002 when there are many, many more border crossings, not an emergency. Now an emergency.

CAMEROTA: I mean, you can also make the point that it wasn't an emergency for the past 720 days when the president -- when Republicans controlled both houses of Congress, they could have done something. Why now?

JOE LOCKHART, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, you can also make the case that, in an emergency situation, you wouldn't expect the president to go to Mar-a-Lago and play golf the weekend before and the weekend after he declares it.

I think you've got to take one step back and look at this. This started as a Roger Stone mnemonic device for the president, the border wall; and it has been built to this point on lie upon lie upon lie.

[06:10:09] It's "We're going to build this wall that's going to go 2,000 miles. We're going to get Mexico to pay for it. We're going to get a trade agreement to pay for it. Well, it's not really a wall; it's steel slats."

You know, you can just -- it's one thing and another. But to me the most stunning thing here is, you know, Trump is Trump. There's not much we can do about it. But the Senate majority leader has now just shown how impotent the Republican Party is to stand up to their president.

CAMEROTA: It's stunning.

LOCKHART: It is.

CAMEROTA: To watch what has happened with Mitch McConnell. And this is snot -- we don't even have to go back to 2014.

LOCKHART: Yes.

CAMEROTA: We can go back three weeks to watch his about-face. So let's show how McConnell used to feel about an emergency declaration and how he feels now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MCCONNELL: I'm for whatever works, which means avoid avoiding a shutdown and avoiding the president feeling he should declare a national emergency. The national emergencies that have been issued in the past have not been contentious. I'm pretty sure that this one would be. And I've indicated to him that I'm going to prepare -- I'm going to

support the national emergency declaration.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: That's in the space of about two weeks.

LOCKHART: Yes. And it's, you know, this -- this is Trump taking the view that 2020 is going to be about immigration; and he's going to make it about the wall. This will probably get stuck in the courts, so he'll be able to say, "The Democrats are keeping me from building the wall."

And it's almost like he slept through 2018. That's what the midterm elections were about. And, again, you know, it's -- sometimes in politics lie upon lie works. But we're going to have an election to find out about it.

BERMAN: Again, and, Doug, I just want to put a point here. I happen to think that, legally speaking, there's an argument that the president and his allies can make, and maybe they will win in court.

But being legal and being the right thing to do, that's a different argument here. And when you're talking about the separation of powers and you're talking about traditions, and you're talking about what some people consider to be an abuse of power, a president going around Congress, it is a major, major action; and it needs to be noted.

HEYE: It does. And this is -- this is a long-term problem, and this is a problem that's gone on for a long time before this point, where Congress has continually ceded its authority to the executive. That was true under President Obama, certainly under President Bush, and well before that.

And ultimately, you know, when we talk about having a working appropriations process, it's not really the sexiest issue, but I would tell your viewers, look at the segment that Dana Bash produced on Nita Lowey, the new appropriations chair, and Kay Granger, the new ranking member, the first time two women have helmed a committee, the Appropriations Committee. That's how we avoid these things in the future.

If we have a working appropriations process, we don't have the shutdown. We don't get to the place where we have these kinds of emergency declarations and so forth. It's not the sexiest thing in the world. But frankly, it's Congress doing its job instead of ceding its own authority to the executive and ruining -- or really stepping back from separation of powers time and time again.

CAMEROTA: One last note, because Donald Trump used to feel this way, very strongly. He, as a deal maker, would never have to rely on the executive overreach that President Obama did.

Here was his tweet: "Republicans must not allow President Obama to subvert the Constitution of the U.S. for his own benefit and because is he unable to negotiate with Congress." I just leave you on that note.

BERMAN: Is that the same guy who's president now?

CAMEROTA: It actually is. We checked that, fact checked that.

BERMAN: All right. Thank you all.

Breaking news, a top U.S. general leading the war against ISIS in Syria is publicly breaking with President Trump. This is a major deal. You almost never hear an active duty commander splitting with the president in public. What's going on here? We have a live report. This is a CNN exclusive, next.

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[06:17:47] ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

CAMEROTA: We do have some breaking news right now. This is first on CNN.

The top commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East is publicly breaking with President Trump. General Joseph Votel, who leads the war against ISIS, tells CNN in a new interview that he disagrees with President Trump's decision to pull U.S. troops out of Syria and insists the terror group is not defeated.

CNN's Barbara Starr, who just interviewed the general and is the only TV correspondent traveling with him, joins us live from Oman with all of the breaking news.

What did he tell you, Barbara?

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, Alisyn, good morning to you from Oman in the Persian Gulf.

General Votel very candid, very blunt. You might be a bit surprised about what he had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GEN. JOSEPH VOTEL, COMMANDER OF U.S. CENTRAL COMMAND: It would not have been my military advice at that particular time.

STARR (voice-over): The top U.S. commander in the war against ISIS flatly disagreed with President Trump's decision to pull out of Syria. In an exclusive interview with CNN, General Joseph Votel says it's too soon to bring U.S. troops home.

VOTEL: I would not have made that suggestion, frankly.

STARR: President Trump announced in December he would pull more than 2,000 remaining troops from Syria.

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We have won against ISIS. We've beaten them, and we've beaten them badly. STARR: Votel aligning himself with the U.S. intelligence community

assessment that, despite significant advances, there are tens of thousands of ISIS fighters spread across Syria and Iraq. And the decision to pull out of Syria leading Defense Secretary James Mattis to resign last year.

Last week Votel made a stunning revelation that the president did not consult him on the decision to withdraw.

VOTEL: Certainly, we were aware that he had expressed a desire and intent in the past to depart -- depart Iraq.

SEN. ANGUS KING (I), MAINE: So you weren't -- you weren't consulted before that decision was announced?

VOTEL: We were not -- I was not consulted.

STARR: Nonetheless, Votel emphasizing he is carrying out the president's orders.

This morning Votel stressed military pressure must be maintained, and success relies on the U.S.-allied Syrian Democratic Forces.

[06:20:02] VOTEL: When they are capable of handling this threat on their own without our assistance, that will be another key criteria, indicating to me that we have accomplished our mission of defeat of ice.

STARR (on camera): And as you sit here today?

VOTEL: We're not there. No, we're not there on terms of that.

STARR (voice-over): Votel adding that he believes Iran still remains the biggest long-term threat to the Middle East. He sees indications that Iran's advanced ballistic missile technology could be a precursor to a more significant weapon.

VOTEL: It shouldn't be lost on anybody that an advanced ballistic missile program could also be used to move weapons of mass destruction or do things that could very easily be converted over for that.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

STARR: You know, I think it's important to understand who Joe Votel is. This isn't just any general in the U.S. Army. Thirty-nine years of service. He's about to retire in the coming weeks. Most of his career spent in Special Operations Forces. When you get to this level in the U.S. military, your best military advice usually centers around you leave when the job is done. He does not feel the job is done -- John.

BERMAN: Yes, Barbara, I can't think of a time like this. It's very unusual for a general like Votel to publicly split with the president. So the entire world knows that he doesn't agree with the decision that's made here.

Still, though, he did make clear he will carry out the order to put troops out, yes?

STARR: Absolutely. You know, does not agree with the decision at the time, but what has happened since is Joe Votel is a four-star general. He carries out the president's orders.

We saw it with Jim Mattis. If you can't carry out the order, you have to leave. Joe Votel is a loyal Army general. He is carrying out the president's orders.

But he, you know, to be clear, he's also waiting to see what develops in the coming weeks, whether there might be additional decisions about how to move ahead, how to still support the U.S.-backed fighters in Syria and try and help them out. What he doesn't want it is to leave them to a potential blood bath, and he does not want ISIS to come back -- John, Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: Barbara, thank you very much for that exclusive reporting.

All right. Startling revelations from former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe's new book. And it is not just about the president. What he says about former attorney general, Jeff Sessions, next.

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[06:26:42] BERMAN: New revelations this morning. The book coming out by fired deputy FBI director Andy McCabe. Not only does he say that justice officials talked about ways to remove the president back in 2017, but he all but calls Jeff Sessions a racist. And he says the president was getting some of his intelligence from Vladimir Putin.

Joining us: Laura Jarrett, a CNN justice reporter; Josh Campbell former FBI supervisory special agent who worked with Andy McCabe; and Greg Brower. He previously was a U.S. attorney and also served as assistant director for the Office of Congressional Affairs at the FBI. He, too, worked with Andrew McCabe.

And Greg, I want to start with you on the 25th Amendment. We knew this yesterday. This was the first thing to come out from the book. McCabe says there were discussions inside Justice about how they might go forward if they needed to with the 25th Amendment, which is how you remove the president from office if a majority of the cabinet votes so.

The question looming over this for so many people is, was it just the firing of James Comey that made McCabe and others ask this question? Was that enough to have a discussion about the 25th Amendment? Or were there other things that they were looking at? Was there other information they had that made this discussion, in their minds, so relevant?

GREG BROWER, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: John, that's a very good question, and I suspect the answer is that there was more, and likely much more, that was underlying that discussion.

We -- of course, we don't know the exact contours of that discussion. We don't know who initiated it. We don't know exactly how it ended. We do know that there was, obviously, no real effort beyond a meeting to pursue a 25th Amendment-type scenario.

But it will be interesting to hear more from both McCabe and others who are in that meeting about exactly why it came up, how it came up, and what -- what happened with -- with the idea.

CAMEROTA: And we'll supposedly hear more on "60 Minutes" when they, obviously, play the full interview on Sunday.

Here's another shocker. In McCabe's book, he talks about President Trump again believing Vladimir Putin over the evidence. Here is this excerpt.

"Trump dismissed the July 2017 missile launch as a hoax." This is from North Korea. McCabe writes, "He thought that North Korea did not have the capability to launch such missiles. He said he knew this, because Vladimir Putin had told him so."

Josh, that -- I don't -- I don't even know where to begin with -- this is the U.S. president, where he's getting his information.

JOSH CAMPBELL, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Yes, I mean, there's obviously the Putin angle there, which is startling.

But I think as with the 25th Amendment discussion, a lot of that's going to come down to context and were there others there that can actually corroborate?

I think with a lot of -- a lot of this book it's going to turn into a "he said, he said," and a lot of it is unknowable as far as what the actual context was.

I know -- we all know there's no love lost between Andy McCabe and Rod Rosenstein and, certainly, no love lost between Andy McCabe and the president. We know the president and the White House, they're going to come out and say that, because Andy McCabe, you know, lied to the inspector general, these are all lies. And so I think they're going to be refuted.

But again, until we hear some other type of corroboration about what this context was, it would really be hard to really nail down what the president was saying and what Andy McCabe heard and what it all meant.