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Trump Heads Overseas as High-Stakes Week Begins in D.C.; House to Vote on Blocking Trump's Emergency Declaration; More Diversity at 2019 Academy Awards; Trump Delays China Tariffs Hike Amid Trade Talks; Manafort Legal Team to Respond to Scathing Mueller Memo; Interview with Rep. Sean Duffy (R-WI). Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired February 25, 2019 - 06:00   ET

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


(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D-CA), CHAIRMAN, INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE: What other light can he shed now that he's cooperating?

We think he has a lot to offer.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Michael Cohen will be testifying in public the same day that President Trump is meeting with Kim Jong-un.

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We see eye to eye. As long as there's no testing, we're happy.

(MUSIC: QUEEN'S "WE WILL ROCK YOU")

JULIA ROBERTS, ACTRESS: And the Oscar goes to "Green Book."

SPIKE LEE, DIRECTOR: The 2020 presidential election is around the corner. Let's all mobilize. Let's all be on the right side of history.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Well good morning, everyone. Welcome to our viewers in the United States and around the world. This is NEW DAY. It's Monday, February 25, 6 a.m. here in New York.

Do you still have your Oscars hang-over?

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: I stayed up a little later than usual to watch it, but I missed the Lady Gaga/Bradley Cooper moment that everybody's talking about.

BERMAN: Because they almost kissed, right?

CAMEROTA: I -- apparently.

BERMAN: Do we have it? CAMEROTA: Well, we're going to.

BERMAN: We're going to have it?

CAMEROTA: Pay it.

BERMAN: Because they almost kissed, and that's what you wanted.

CAMEROTA: Yes.

BERMAN: More than anything.

CAMEROTA: Pretty much.

BERMAN: OK. I wanted "The Meg" to win, which was the movie about the prehistoric shark. All right. It didn't win anything.

CAMEROTA: Weird.

BERMAN: So we are -- we were both disappointed.

CAMEROTA: Yes.

BERMAN: There's disappointment from both of us.

CAMEROTA: Well, we'll get into all of that.

BERMAN: And Olivia Colman was in "The Favourite." She won Best Actress. I watched it Saturday night, and she was really good until I fell asleep. And I assume that maybe she only got better after --

CAMEROTA: That is not a ringing endorsement.

BERMAN: No, she was great. I mean, she was, like, the part of the movie that would keep me awake.

CAMEROTA: Great to put you to sleep -- OK, to keep you awake.

BERMAN: the rest of it put me to sleep.

All right. Beyond that, do we have a week for you? Tomorrow, Michael Cohen begins three days of testimony on Capitol Hill. Cohen, of course, is the president's former lawyer/fixer/convicted felon who has now implicated the president in a crime.

His testimony on Wednesday is open to the public and on the TV broadcast around the world, including Vietnam, where that very same day, the president will sit down for a high-stakes meeting with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un.

Tomorrow, the House will vote to block the president's emergency declaration to get funding for a border wall. New this morning, a bipartisan group of 58 former national security officials has put themselves in the middle of that debate. They will issue a statement saying there is no factual basis for the emergency. CAMEROTA: Also this morning, the lawyers for President Trump's former

campaign chair, Paul Manafort, need to respond to Robert Mueller's sentencing memo. In that memo, Mueller's team slammed Manafort as a, quote, "bold criminal who repeatedly and brazenly broke the law."

And we are all over Hollywood's biggest night. "Green Book" taking home the big prize for Best Picture. That sparked controversy.

BERMAN: Because "The Meg" didn't win.

CAMEROTA: No, that was not the controversy.

BERMAN: All right.

CAMEROTA: That was not it. But we will get into it. Director Spike Lee appeared to walk out in protest. But he did not leave empty- handed. We have all the highlights from the star-studded event just ahead, including all of the buzz about Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga.

BERMAN: They almost kissed, right?

CAMEROTA: Well, I mean, I don't know what they were planning to do. I don't know if they were just so caught up in the morning. I don't -- I mean the moment. We're caught up in the morning.

BERMAN: Very different.

CAMEROTA: Yes. Lauren Fox, she's live on Capitol Hill for us with more on this blockbuster week in Washington. What do we expect, Lauren?

LAUREN FOX, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Alisyn, you can look forward to plenty of high-profile hearings up here on Capitol Hill, from Michael Cohen to a hearing on family separations to a hearing on whether or not the president had the authority to issue that national emergency declaration. All of that coming up in the next few days.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FOX (voice-over): A heart-pumping week on Capitol Hill. The main event: Michael Cohen, President Trump's former lawyer and fixer, scheduled for three rounds of testimony, including his first public hearing with the House Oversight Committee Wednesday. He'll also meet privately with Senate and House Intelligence Committees.

Democrats are expected to grill Cohen about Trump's taxes, businesses, and finances, including paying hush money just before the 2016 election to women accusing Trump of affairs.

REP. JIM HIMES (D), CONNECTICUT: Step one is to re-ask him the questions that he felt he needed to lie to us about when he -- when he testified in the last Congress.

FOX: In the private sessions, Congress will likely probe Cohen about the Russia-related issues.

SEN. ROY BLUNT (R-MO), INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE: We need to get the facts out there, get this behind us.

FOX: Cohen pleaded guilty to lying to Congress last year, about Donald Trump's knowledge of a proposed Trump Tower project in Moscow during the campaign. President Trump said last week, he's not worried about Cohen's testimony.

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: No. No. No.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mr. President are you still considering --

TRUMP: Lawyer/client, but you know, he's taking his own chances.

FOX: Now with sources saying Robert Mueller's investigation is nearly done, House Democrats say they're willing go to extraordinary lengths to make the full report public.

[06:05:07] REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D-CA), CHAIR, INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE: We will obviously subpoena the report. We will bring Bob Mueller in to testify before Congress. We will take it to court, if necessary.

FOX: And now the president's emergency declaration to fund a border wall facing fresh criticism. A bipartisan group of 58 former national security officials say there is no factual basis for the proclamation. That comes ahead of a House vote on the Democrats' resolution to block the emergency declaration.

REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA), SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: There is no emergency at the border. It's a mythology of the president, not a reality.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FOX: And the president has already said that he would veto that resolution from Democrats, but it certainly sets up an interesting fight between Congress and the White House. We'll be watching to see which Republicans vote with Democrats against the resolution -- Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: Thank you very much for setting that up so beautifully, Lauren.

Let's bring in CNN political analyst Jackie Kucinich. She's the Washington bureau chief for "The Daily Beast."

So Jackie, let's start right there. Let's start with this vote that we will be watching in the House tomorrow --

JACKIE KUCINICH, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Right.

CAMEROTA: -- where they are expected to block the president's national emergency declaration. So what is going to happen when that bounces over to the Senate? What are Senate Republicans going to do?

KUCINICH: That is the open question of how they decide to cast this. I can see a situation where some Senate Republicans who have objected to -- to what the president has done say that this is a political move by House Democrats and say that they're not going to engage in that. That said, this will put a lot of them on the spot who really have

expressed being uncomfortable with what the president has done. It just depends on whether they're willing to take a stand. This only needs a simple majority to pass the Senate and send it to the president's desk.

Now, should he veto it, of course, they would need a 2/3 majority. And that is a much, much harder to come by, particularly in the Senate.

CAMEROTA: OK. So at the same time that that's happening, Michael Cohen will be testifying in Congress for three days.

KUCINICH: Right.

CAMEROTA: Wednesday is the public hearing. What will you be listening for?

KUCINICH: You know, I'll be listening for a lot of the things Lauren laid out there. What he says about the president's financial dealings, what he says about the president's taxes.

Elijah Cummings, the chairman of that committee, laid it out, what the scope of this will be, in a memo last week. So we might -- Cohen's not going to be allowed to talk about a lot of the Russia investigation, we assume, during this hearing; and Cummings said that that won't be their focus.

But the Trump Foundation, the president's businesses, all of these red lines that the president said that Congress cannot cross, are going to be crossed all over the place.

The other interesting thing to watch is, usually when these witnesses come to Congress, one side is kind of soft on them, and the other side isn't. That's not going to happen this time. Congress is over Michael Cohen. They seem pretty upset with him, how he's sort of given a lot of tug of war in terms of whether he's going to show up or not.

I think both sides, he's going to be a volleyball. And we're also going to hear why Michael Cohen felt threatened, why he couldn't show up the last time he was supposed to in front of House Oversight.

CAMEROTA: OK. So on a scale of one to ten, how do you rate the action that we're going to be seeing on Capitol Hill this week, with ten being the most dramatic?

KUCINICH: Oh, man, Alisyn, that's so hard. It's going to be a dramatic week, for sure. The real question is, how much of this drama is sort of kabuki theater, which we're used to on the Hill? And how much of this will yield new ground in what has been several new investigations and old investigations into the president's conduct in the 2016 election?

CAMEROTA: Jackie Kucinich, thank you for previewing it for us.

KUCINICH: Thank you so much, Alisyn.

BERMAN: Sounds like an 8 1/2 to me. I think she was 8 1/2 in terms of drama there.

So in just hours, President Trump will travel to Vietnam. This is for his second summit with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un. This trip will start later than expected.

CNN's Joe Johns is live at the White House to explain why. Delaying the start a little bit, Joe?

JOE JOHNS, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: That's right, John. The president delaying his departure for Vietnam, at least long enough to meet with some of the nation's governors who are in town for a conference. The president last night appeared to be trying to lower expectations or at least build some suspense in advance of his big second summit with Kim Jong-un.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: We see eye to eye, I believe. But you'll be seeing it more and more over the next couple of days, one way or the other. What's going to happen, I can't tell you. I think eventually it would, but I can't tell you. And I'm not in a rush. I don't want to rush anybody. I just don't want testing. As long as there no testing, we're happy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JOHNS: The long-term goal, of course, is denuclearization for the United States, but the president indicating there he'd be happy if they could just put an end to the testing.

The president, of course, unclear about how all of this is going to play out, especially given the fact that the president will be dealing with Kim Jong-un and the North Koreans at a time when much of the United States is asleep. So he won't have that opportunity for the big stage on primetime television.

[06:10:14] A big week for the White House. The president on his way out of the country later this morning.

BERMAN: No, in some ways, Michael Cohen has a better TV time slot than the president will when he's meeting with Kim Jong-un.

Joe Johns at the White House, thanks very much.

Joining us now from Hanoi, where this meeting will take place, CNN international correspondent, Will Ripley. Will, of course, has been to North Korea 19 times.

Will, thank you so much for being with us. A huge meeting. Obviously, a lot of the preparations already under way. What's the atmosphere in Hanoi this morning?

WILL RIPLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: the anticipation's really building here, John. This is a city that has been preparing for this historic second meeting between Kim Jong-un and President Trump.

You have word just within the last few hours from the South Korean Blue House that the two leaders may announce a deal to formally end the Korean War. And I'm standing here in front of Melia Hotel, which I'm not a betting man, John, but I'm going to bet you 500,000 Vietnamese dong, which is about 20 bucks, that this is where Kim Jong- un is going to be staying.

We've seen his security detail arrive here at the hotel. We've seen the Vietnamese army conducting a bomb sweep here. And guests at the hotel have had notes put underneath their doors that a head of state will be coming here.

So, you know, obviously, they keep these things top-secret to prevent reporters like me from standing in front. By the way, there's a whole line of us here, but we'll be watching to see if Kim Jong-un's motorcade does roll up. And certainly, he has a lot to discuss with President Trump.

BERMAN: Will Ripley, we knew you were a high roller, but that really puts it in perspective, a 500,000 note right there.

Listen, the issue here is how will they define success? And just yesterday Jake Tapper had the secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, on his show, and they had this exchange about the issue of denuclearization. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: Do you think North Korea remains a nuclear threat?

MIKE POMPEO, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: Yes.

TAPPER: But the president said he doesn't.

POMPEO: That's not what he said. I know -- I know precisely what he said.

TAPPER: He tweeted it, that there is no longer a nuclear threat from North Korea.

POMPEO: What he said is that -- what he said was that the efforts that have been made in Singapore, this commitment that Chairman Kim made have substantially taken down the risk to the American people.

It's the mission of the secretary of state and the president of the United States to keep American people secure. We're aiming to achieve that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: All right. The president absolutely did say North Korea is no longer a nuclear threat. But the question is, what is success from the U.S. perspective here? Is it just, as the president said last night, no more nuclear testing? RIPLEY: Well, you and I were in Singapore. You know, they signed

this vaguely-worded statement back in June, saying that they would work towards the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. That's the ultimate goal. That hasn't happened. That North Korea probably has more nuclear weapons, or at least more fuel to make nuclear weapons than they did at the beginning of this process.

And while some experts say that, you know, not testing has somewhat diminished the North Korean nuclear threat. They still have their fuel arsenal.

So Kim Jong-un is coming here, a second meeting with the U.S. president, and all the legitimacy that that provides without having to make a single concession. So of course, what the United States wants to walk away from Hanoi summit later this week with is North Korea making a commitment to actually take some steps to get rid of their nuclear weapons.

BERMAN: And very quickly, what does Kim Jong-un want out of this?

RIPLEY: He wants economic relief as soon as possible. He wants normalized relations with the United States. He'd like to have Pyongyang be a kind of a model here in Hanoi, a country that rose from the ashes of a conflict with the United States. Of course, the Vietnam War, and now has a booming economy. They had 7 percent growth last year. You know, good relationships with the United States; opens up trade and all sorts of other opportunities that Kim Jong-un would like for his country.

Will Ripley covering this better than any reporter on earth. Thank you so much for being with us this morning. We look forward to speaking to you as the week progresses.

CAMEROTA: OK, John. Big surprises at this year's Oscars. "Green Book" winning Best Picture despite controversies that plagued the movie. And a major snub also getting some headlines.

CNN's Stephanie Elam is live in Los Angeles. It's been a late night for you, Stephanie. So tell us all the surprises.

STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Late night, early morning, who knows at this point, Alisyn? But really, when it comes to "Green Book," it seems that the Oscar voters paid less attention to the criticisms of the movie and focused more on the chemistry between the two stars, Viggo Mortenson and Mahershala Ali.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ROBERTS: And the Oscar goes to "Green Book."

ELAM (voice-over): "Green Book's" Best Picture win capping a historic night at the Academy Awards. A record 15 women winning Hollywood's top honor, and more than a dozen people of color earning golden statues, including Alfonso Cuaron, who won Best Director for "Roma." The film won Best Foreign Language Film and Best Cinematography. Spike Lee winning his first competitive Oscar for Best Adapted

Screenplay for "BlacKkKlansman." He thanked his grandmother before turning to politics.

[06:15:02] LEE: Make the moral choice between love versus hate. Let's do the right thing.

ELAM: Plenty of diversity in the acting categories. Regina King and Mahershala Ali winning best supporting acting awards. And Rami Malek winning Best Actor for his portrayal of Queen front man, Freddie Mercury, in "Bohemian Rhapsody."

RAMI MALEK, ACADEMY AWARD WINNER, BEST ACTOR: We made a film about a gay man, an immigrant, who lived his life just unapologetically himself. And the fact that I'm celebrating him and this story with you tonight is -- is proof that we're longing for -- for stories like this.

ELAM: Perhaps the biggest upset of the night, acting legend Glenn Close losing to Olivia Colman, who won Best Actress for her performance in "The Favourite."

OLIVIA COLMAN, ACADEMY AWARD WINNER, BEST ACTRESS: Any little girl who's practicing their speech on the tele, you never know.

ELAM: The night beginning with a high-octane performance by Queen and Adam Lambert.

QUEEN FEATURING ADAM LAMBERT (singing): We will, we will rock you.

ELAM: The band kicking off the first host-less Oscars since 1989.

(MUSIC: "SHALLOW" from "A STAR IS BORN")

ELAM: And this passionate performance by Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga. The superstar duo from "A Star is Born" singing "Shallow," which earned Lady Gaga her first Academy Award for Best Original Song.

LADY GAGA, ACADEMY AWARD WINNER, BEST ORIGINAL SONG: It's not about winning, but what it's about is not giving up. If you have a dream, fight for it.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ELAM: That performance really lived up to the hype. But you know what? "Black Panther: continuing to break records with two women from the production of that winning Oscars. You have Hannah Beachler, who won for production design, and Ruth E. Carter, who won for costume.

And I talked to her at the Governor's Ball, Alisyn. She says that she's ready to blaze this trail for more women of color to come behind her. She's ready to be that role model.

CAMEROTA: What a big night. Stephanie, thank you very much for laying it all out for us.

Joining us now is Brian Stelter, CNN chief media correspondent and anchor of "Reliable Sources."

Brian, "Green Book" --

BRIAN STELTER, CNN CHIEF MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: Yes.

CAMEROTA: -- won Best Picture. Did you see that coming?

STELTER: I did not, and I think this has a lot do with preferential ballot voting.

CAMEROTA: What does that mean?

STELTER: Imagine having this in politics. What happens is the Oscars voters, they rank all eight Best Picture nominees from their favorite to their least favorite, and then PricewaterhouseCoopers goes through and starts to take out who is the least favorite and the least favorite.

Basically, what it means is, if no movie gets 50 percent of the voters, then it starts to get into who was the No. 2, who is No. 3.

And I think "Green Book" is the kind of movie that was a lot of people's No. 2 or No. 3, at least within the Oscar voting pool. It's a movie that is really polarizing, as Stephanie was talking about. It's a polarizing movie, but it's a feel-good movie for a lot of people. I know a lot of voters, a lot of movie critics may disagree with that. There were a lot of controversies around this movie.

But at the end of the day, as the filmmaker said, it's about love; and I think it was an easy movie to pick as No. 2 or No. 3 on the ballot.

CAMEROTA: That's so interesting. So it wasn't people's favorites.

STELTER: Maybe.

CAMEROTA: But because of the algorithm, it ends up winning.

STELTER: There was also a Netflix factor here. There is a resistance to change in some quarters in Hollywood. Again, this is kind of like politics. There's a group in Hollywood that does not want to see Netflix coming up and busting the Hollywood party.

So "Roma," even though it was the No. 1 for a lot of people, it was rejected by some other groups of voters.

So I think there was a resistance to Netflix in this year's voting. It was nice to see Netflix win Best Director for "Roma," Best Foreign Language Film. But some resistance to make it the Best Picture winner. I think that might have had something to do with this, too.

CAMEROTA: So was that the biggest upset of the night, or were there lots of surprises?

STELTER: I think Glenn Close not winning for Best Actress was the other big upset. Olivia Colman won for the movie "The Favourite," an incredible performance by her. But Glenn Close has been shut out in this category, like, seven times now. It's actually an historic number of defeats for her.

CAMEROTA: Can we talk about Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper?

STELTER: Please.

CAMEROTA: I'm enjoying living vicariously through their forbidden love.

STELTER: Yes.

CAMEROTA: But I'm not enjoying it for his girlfriend.

STELTER: Right.

CAMEROTA: So what -- I mean, look at this. This is --

STELTER: But that's what acting's all about.

CAMEROTA: Are they acting, Brian?

STELTER: They're putting on a stellar performance, I think.

CAMEROTA: Yes.

STELTER: And Bradley did admit behind the scenes there was chemistry between them.

CAMEROTA: Uh-huh.

STELTER: But sometimes that's what makes this work. And I think viewers, they do. They love seeing this. I would have loved a cutaway shot of the significant others.

CAMEROTA: Me, too.

STELTER: Just to see that.

CAMEROTA: Right.

STELTER: And look, "A Star is Born" was, getting into the Oscars, a lot of people thought it could be the Best Picture winner. Again, I think preferential ballot, preferential voting had something to do with it. I personally will enjoy watching "A Star is Born" over and over again, a lot more than "Green Book." But hey, to each their own.

CAMEROTA: There you go. Brian Stelter, thank you --

STELTER: Thanks.

CAMEROTA: -- very much -- John.

BERMAN: They almost kissed. All right.

Breaking overnight, President Trump announced he is delaying an increase in tariffs on billions of dollars in Chinese goods. That increase was originally set to take effect on Friday. The president announced the move after what he called significant

progress in trade talks with China over the weekend. The president later told governor at the White House that he hopes to achieve the largest deal ever made. The president also teased a possible summit meeting with the Chinese leader at Mar-a-Lago if more progress is made.

[06:20:10] A big deadline today for Paul Manafort's legal team to respond to Robert Mueller's scathing sentencing memo. The Mueller team called the former Trump campaign chair "a bold criminal who brazenly bloke the law."

CNN's Kara Scannell live in Washington with the latest -- Kara.

KARA SCANNELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, John, that's right.

So we're waiting today for Paul Manafort's attorneys to respond to that blistering memo by the special counsel's office. They said that Paul Manafort had, was bold in his criminal acts. He brazenly and repeatedly broke the law. They also, in this memo, said they were not asking for a specific sentence, but they wanted one that would have strong deterrence.

They also said that Manafort's crimes continued for over a decade, during the campaign, and well after. And specifically, in the memo they said that "Manafort's conduct after he pleaded guilty is pertinent to sentencing. It reflects a hardened adherence to committing crimes and lack of remorse."

And that's really the key to what the special counsel's office is saying there, that Paul Manafort has been a criminal for a decade, and he continued to be a criminal, even after he pleaded guilty.

And we were all looking in this memo for some more detail about what Paul Manafort was doing during the campaign, about his contacts with Russians. And unfortunately, John, that was the disappointment. We didn't learn any new information. But make no mistake: Mueller's team is looking for serious prison time for Paul Manafort.

BERMAN: So Kara, between the pending sentence and Manafort's other case, he is facing decades in prison. Realistically, what can his legal team do to keep him from spending the rest of his life in jail?

SCANNELL: John, it's going to be an uphill battle. I mean, this memo today, they're going to make their best case for Paul Manafort. They're going to try to humanize him, state that there are other mitigating circumstances here that the judge should consider when sentencing Manafort.

They'll point to the health, the decline in his health as he's exhibited since he's been imprisoned during -- for the past, like, eight months or so. So they're really just going to try to humanize him. These letters often have letters from family members and friends, talking about people's generosity, their charity.

So they'll try to put -- make him more than the criminal that he has pleaded guilty to and was convicted of and hope that the judge sees that and offers some empathy in laying out the sentence.

BERMAN: All right. Kara Scannell, thank you very much. Great to see you this morning -- Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: OK, John. The House is set to vote to block President Trump's national emergency tomorrow. Will members of the GOP support the president's declaration? We talk to a Republican congressman, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:26:50] CAMEROTA: The House plans to vote tomorrow to block President Trump's emergency declaration to get money to build his border wall. But there is no opposition to the wall this morning.

Let's discuss with Republican Congressman Sean Duffy of Wisconsin. Great to have you here.

REP. SEAN DUFFY (R), WISCONSIN: Hey, thanks for having me, Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: Let's talk about the new developments. So 58 national -- former national security officials have written a letter. They feel that they -- that this is so important that they have banded together to write a letter to talk about the national emergency aspect of this.

So let me read you a portion of this. It will be released today.

DUFFY: Sure.

CAMEROTA: "Under no plausible assessment of the evidence is there a national emergency today that entitles the president to tap into funds appropriated for other purposes to build a wall at the southern border." This is Madeleine Albright. This is Thomas Pickering. This is Chuck Hagel. I could go on. Fifty-eight people. Does that change your opinion on the national emergency status?

DUFFY: Listen, it doesn't. We have tens -- hundreds of thousands of people coming to our southern border, entering the country unlawfully. In Wisconsin where I'm from, we have people who are dying from meth and heroin overdoses. They're destroying families.

You look at the devastation of the people who are coming from central America, little girls who are being raped. A third of women are sexually assaulted on this trip. So I think it is a national emergency.

But listen, we have a difference of opinion. So here's what's going to hatch. The House is probably going to pass this resolution. Democrats control it. The real question is what happens in the Senate? Can Democrats get four Republican senators to pass it in the Senate?

CAMEROTA: And can they?

DUFFY: They might. They actually might. Because I mean, there was -- that was an internal struggle between the executive and the Congress, and usually Republicans and Democrats stick together and try to retain some of our authority.

But regardless, the president's going to veto it. So it doesn't really matter. If he does, it's going to go to the courts.

CAMEROTA: Yes.

DUFFY: They're going to decide what the guardrails are. But the Congress in 1976, Alisyn, gave incredible authority to the president under this act.

CAMEROTA: But not necessarily to appropriate funds. I mean, you know this is the president. What he's doing is breaking a precedent. So from 1976, he -- the funds are what's at issue, that he is going to use funds that have been appropriated for other things. He's going to dip into those pots.

DUFFY: For national emergencies, it always costs money, right? So I mean, the fact that you -- the president can declare martial law under this act, he can take land under this act. There's incredible power. And so if the Congress doesn't like the act, they should change the act.

CAMEROTA: I hear you. But when you say that you just have a difference of opinion from these national security officials, do you respect Madeleine Albright?

DUFFY: Yes, I do, actually.

CAMEROTA: I mean, do you respect Chuck Hagel? Do you respect Thomas Pickering? In other words, these are national security officials. Do you give them any more credence than just their opinion?

DUFFY: But I would say, do they -- do they come to my community and see what illegal immigration does to our country, Alisyn? I mean, the fact that our -- my counties in rural Wisconsin, they run out of money because of all of the out-of-home placements for kids that don't have parents now. Ninety percent of the drugs --

CAMEROTA: But you're talking about the drugs.

DUFFY: -- coming across. So I am talking about the drugs.

CAMEROTA: Yes, but they come through the legal ports of entry. How is a national emergency to build a couple hundred miles of fence going to solve your drug problem in Wisconsin?

DUFFY: They come through all parts of the border, Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: Ninety percent, according to the Customs and Border Protection.

DUFFY: Ninety percent comes across the southern border.

CAMEROTA: They come through legal ports of entry. The national security is to build a wall, not the legal ports of entry.

DUFFY: So the president's talked about not just building additional barriers.