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Kirstjen Nielsen, Department Of Homeland Security Secretary Has Resign Resigned. Aired 6-7p ET
Aired April 07, 2019 - 18:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[18:00:00] SAMANTHA VINOGRAD, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: -- very possible that the President may have chosen to fire her because she is not willing perhaps this time to publicly support things that he is doing. But that would be a change by her.
ANA CABRERA, CNN ANCHOR: And we do want to note she has not resigned as far as we know.
VINOGRAD: We don't know.
CABRERA: We don't know if the President has fired her.
It's 6:00 eastern. So I want to reset for everybody. You are live in the CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Ana Cabrera in New York.
And we are following breaking news this hour. I want to welcome my viewers from around the world and here in the U.S.
Here's the breaking news on CNN from the White House. The President and a key member of his cabinet, you see her there, Kirstjen Nielsen, the DHS secretary, are meeting right now. This meeting we are told was scheduled but sources tell CNN that the feeling in the administration is that the President is pushing for what they call personnel changes.
Let's get straight back to the White House and CNN's Boris Sanchez.
Boris, what more do we know about this meeting?
BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Hey there, Ana.
Yes. At last check sources told CNN that this meeting were still ongoing between Secretary Nielsen and President Trump. From what we understand, this meeting, the workings of this meeting, the beginnings of this meeting started in Calexico, California, on Friday, during a visit to the border that President Trump shared with the secretary.
The President apparently had many questions for her. And she decided to schedule this meeting to try to iron things out. Potential disagreements and to install a path forward, a vision for an issue that is central to this presidency.
According to sources Nielsen had no intention of resigning during this meeting with the President that was scheduled for 5:00 p.m. But she had to have been aware as were many within the administration that President Trump wanted to make changes within his administration. He was frustrated by policies that were being carried out when it came to asylum seekers. The President clearly wanted things to happen that were not possible under current law.
The President also blindsided Nielsen on two counts. First he pulled the nomination of Ron Vitiello, someone who had been nominated to lead immigration and customs enforcement, an agency that Nielsen would have overseen.
Further, he also pulled aid to three Central American nations, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. Just a couple hours, just about a day after Nielsen was in on Honduras talking to leaders about the importance of American aid to those countries and trying to curb the flow of undocumented immigrants entering the United States. Again, this is something that is supremely important to President Trump and it's possible that we may see a change coming within the next few minutes at the department of homeland security, Ana.
CABRERA: Again, when we talk about personnel changes, we know Ron Vitiello was nominee to be ICE director, Boris, as you point out. He withdrew his nomination this week. Our sources tell us he wanted a tougher nominee in place. What direction is the President looking to go, what does tougher look like?
SANCHEZ: Hey, Ana, I actually have news to break right now.
CABRERA: OK.
SANCHEZ: President Donald Trump just tweeted and announced secretary of homeland security Kirstjen Nielsen will be leaving her position and I would like to thank her for her service. He goes on to say, I am pleased to announce that Kevin McAleenan, the current U.S. customs and border protection commissioner, will become the acting secretary of the department of homeland security. I have great confidence that Kevin will do a great job.
So the President tweeting out this confirmation that secretary Kirstjen Nielsen is leaving as the secretary of the department of homeland security. Again, a major move for this administration and an issue that is central to President Trump's agenda -- Ana.
CABRERA: OK. Boris Sanchez, we are going to work on who Kevin McAleenan is. Thank you for breaking that news.
With us right now, CNN national security analyst Sam Vinograd. Also on the phone with us, CNN national security analyst Juliette Kayyem.
Ladies, we have the news now. Kirstjen Nielsen no longer DHS secretary. In fact, according to the President's tweet, it sounds like he already has an acting secretary ready to go in place. We are looking some of the video of Kirstjen Nielsen, I heard you say, Sam, should be an interesting confirmation hearing.
VINOGRAD: Well, I think that gets far. The President, again, his acting secretaries and acting staff in so many positions at this point that we don't know what this new acting secretary of homeland security's path will be toward a constitutionally required Senate confirmation process.
But if we think about what that confirmation hearing might look like and we think about what the news is every day that we turn on the television, border security dominates. And there are such divisions between Democrats and Republicans about the crisis at the border and how best to address it whether that's with the border wall, whether that's with more resources for the department of homeland security, cutting off aid to Central American countries.
And so I would imagine that if the acting, new acting secretary of homeland security makes it to that confirmation hearing, there are going to be really tough questions about his policies on asylum, a border wall, whether it's necessary or not or so many other controversial issues.
CABRERA: Juliette, our reporting was going into this meeting Kirstjen Nielsen did not intend to resign but wanted to discuss the path forward when it came to this issue with immigration and what's happening at the border. She described what was happening at the border as a freefall. She said the system was in a freefall. She talked about the crisis growing and now we have a tweet from the President confirming she is to longer the department of homeland security secretary. What's your reaction to how this went down?
[18:05:27] JULIETTE KAYYEM, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST (on the phone): So this -- this is so interesting. I think it is proof once again that you can't out-trump Trump. Nielsen did everything to be the secretary that Trump demanded including as I was saying in the earlier hour being the face and name of the immoral and cruel family separation policy. This will be a legacy that follows her to whatever her next career will be.
This shows to me this is consistent with what happened to ICE head Vitiello and people that are emailing me about what's going on from inside the department telling me this is a -- this is a clean-out. That Vitiello who had shown some concerns about Donald Trump's closing of the border shall, you know, I don't even want to say threats, last week, and Nielsen could not sustain -- could not sustain the Trump's approval.
What this means for the next round, we don't know in terms of who would be next. Kevin is, you know, is fine. He is not -- I mean, fine in the sense that he will be a good -- making the trains run on time, so to speak, with what Trump wants. I don't anticipate that he will be the eventual nominee.
I would like to add one more thing, and maybe it's just important to say Secretary Nielsen also was one of Donald Trump's last remaining female cabinet secretaries. And just worth noting that for those of us who look at those pictures of what his safety and security team look like today, this is now an all-male sort of table. And it's just worth noting that in terms of what the President's choices are for who leads.
But this is, you know, just overall knowing the department, Nielsen could not be -- Nielsen tried to be what Trump believed a cabinet secretary and the head of homeland security could do, which is, you stop all migration. That is impossible to do. The whole point of having border enforcement is you try to curb it, allow asylum seekers to come in, you arrest others. You have all sorts of different tools.
President Trump believes that the border should not allow for any of this. Even though we have hundreds and thousands of people crossing the border lawfully every day. And there's no way Nielsen could be harsh enough against the reality of what our border looks like.
CABRERA: Well, like you said, if it's impossible to stop migration --
KAYYEM: Yes.
CABRERA: -- does that mean anybody who holds this role is doomed to fail in Trump's eyes?
KAYYEM: Yes. There's no question in my mind that Trump's view of what a border should look like, just think of the wall, is inconsistent with, you know, over -- you know, what, over 600,000, 700,000 lawful migrants crossing the U.S./Mexico border a day.
Look, the President threatened to close the borders with Mexico last week. None of us in the field believed him. I mean, you knew it was just a blast. But that's reflective of the President's frustration and sense of a solution.
The President has, you know, he believes that policy is either -- is an on/off switch rather than dealing with challenges through a variety of tools that try to minimize the risk at the border. You know, I don't believe this is a crisis in terms of what's happening at the border. It's a problem. We need to deal with it. But the President wants to find someone who is going to turn off the switch. I don't know who that person is. Because the reality is, you know, you're going to minimize unlawful crossings but not get it to zero.
CABRERA: Right.
KAYYEM: And so, you know, that's sort of the --
CABRERA: I hear you.
KAYYEM: -- takeaway right now in terms of Nielsen and we have in store next.
CABRERA: Stand by with me, Juliette. I want to get another perspective in here. Let me read this tweet to you, Matt Lewis, CNN political commentator. This is from the President making his announcement official on twitter just moments ago.
He writes, secretary of homeland security Kirstjen Nielsen will be leaving her position and I would like to thank her for her service I'm pleased to announce that Kevin McAleenan, excuse me, the current U.S. Customs and Border Protection commissioner will become acting secretary for DHS. I have confidence Kevin will do a great job.
Your thoughts, Matt. [18:10:15] MATT LEWIS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, I mean, OK,
one thing simply is another example of a big announcement like this really coming from Donald Trump using twitter, you know. I guess, we are used to it nowadays. But this is something that - this is a very important part of his administration. It is very much tied to his, you know, number one pledge when he ran for President having to do with the border. And here he is making an announcement.
I know it leaked out over the media. But really, the President making this announcement via twitter firing somebody, a cabinet secretary and naming at least temporary replacement via his twitter feed.
CABRERA: And now I'm looking at some reporting we are getting. It's official that she resigned according to our Jim Acosta reporting a White House official telling him that's how this went down. So again, the President's word is she is leaving. Now we are learning she actually resigned.
Sam, now we have an acting ICE chief. We have an acting DHS secretary. And there's supposed to be a national emergency happening at the border.
VINOGRAD: Well, and perhaps the problem is that President Trump really can't find people that are going to go to the mat and say that they agree with how he is choosing to define this national emergency. And the resources that he is trying to allocate to meet it whether it's a border wall or closing the border.
And Ana, I just have to ask myself, what was the straw that broke Secretary Nielsen's back? What really pushed her over the edge in terms of resigning from this position?
Juliette has been mentioning some of the very controversial policies that she was a public face of, none of that led to her resignation. So perhaps it was the events of the last week where she was publicly humiliated over Central American foreign assistance, where the ICE nominee's nomination was withdrawn. But I really just wonder what her tipping point was.
And at this point with acting secretaries in various posts and will mention that I believe the now acting secretary of homeland security began his tenure in 2014 under President Obama, so he is not a political appointee in the sense that someone like acting secretary of defense Shanahan is.
But if we have these acting secretaries, is President Trump just going to cycle them out as well if they are not willing to implement his policies on the border wall, on border security or in shutting down the border? It is entirely possible that we will see more personnel shifts if he can't get acting secretaries to really publicly agree with him and implement his orders even if they don't think that they are warranted or legal.
CABRERA: CNN correspondent Polo Sandoval is also with me.
Polo, you have done a lot of reporting from the border. And I mean, what is the very latest as far as the situation and what is happening? Because the White House is saying the migration and immigrants crossing the border is only becoming worse, not better despite the policies to crack down on illegal border crossings.
POLO SANDOVAL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Ana, it's certainly going to be important to keep an eye of reaction from the actual border itself.
Look, you have local, state, and federal agencies that work along the 2,000-mile border who I have been in contact with particular in the last few minutes who being caught by surprise. Some of them are. Many of them here wondering what will be the next step especially because Secretary Nielsen - now former secretary Nielsen took many trips to the region. For example, the Rio Grande Valley region which really leads the way when it comes to border patrol apprehensions of migrants along their sector.
They have had many visits from Nielsen in that region. And this is also really ground zero when it comes to this immigration debate. You have federal agencies and all the way down to the local level who have asked for resources and help. And have turned to Nielsen many times so they certainly will be now anxious to hear who this - or at least this replacement if they will be able to continue that kind of relationship and have that level of confidence that they will be able to get their message all the way to the White House thousands of miles away from the front lines of this effort to sew cure the secure the border.
CABRERA: Boris Sanchez, back to you at the White House. You have more information about sort of the backdrop of all this?
SANCHEZ: Yes, Ana. We are learning that secretary Nielsen in the past few days felt she was on thin ice with President Trump. Forgive me, I'm just in the process of sending text messages and emails to try to dig up more information.
According to a source who has spoken to my colleague Jeff Zeleny, Nielsen felt in limbo over the past week as she saw the President sort of take actions that she did not expect. Further, Nielsen had scheduled a trip overseas heading overseas to take part in a G7 and she quickly returned. She did not last throughout the meetings there.
She did several interviews according to sources trying to appease the President. We know that he loves watching television and that medium specifically sort of appeals to him and that he gauges the performance of some of his employees based on how well they defend his agenda on television.
Apparently, that had no effect on President Trump. He was not pleased with her performance in recent weeks. Despite the fact we had heard from sources that he would sort of warmed up to her during the shutdown because of her performance during negotiating sessions with Democrats over funding for the border wall. The President apparently wanted a clean house and have a fresh start. And that is why he installed who he did, the head of custom of border protection, Ana. [18:15:48] CABRERA: What is the impact, Juliette, of the White House
and their personnel, feeling like they are in limbo especially at a time when they are front and center, their leadership is needed in a situation like what's happening at the border? And Kirstjen Nielsen feeling like she was in limbo with her standing and the President.
KAYYEM: Right. And she was. I mean, as I said earlier, I really do think the firing of Vitiello, the guy who was supposed to head ICE and the firing as we understand it from CNN reporting due to Stephen Miller sort of breaking ranks with him and believing that he wasn't tough enough was the writing on the wall.
So whether Nielsen, you know, she saw the writing on the wall. This was not going to be sustainable for her. Ron was her guy. And she could not make it work. That is because the demands from the White House are so unrealistic when it comes to border security. So when you ask who can satisfy Trump's demands?
It's not going to be an operational person. It is not going to be someone who knows how to deal with border security. It is going be an ideologue, right? So - and that's what we are going to get. Right? I mean, and that's what you get with Stephen Miller and the White House.
I don't think he will be nominated. But someone akin to him who is not so focused on making it work but instead having the rhetoric of having the sort of absolute zero tolerance.
I tell you, Kevin who is running the department now, McAleenan, he is, you know, he is by the book. I think a long time ago he ran border operations. He knows the border. He was able to make the transition from Obama to Trump relatively easy. But I don't think that's a permanent placement. And I would anticipate we hear a name. And you know, the names that you heard before like a Kris Kobach or others may be the kinds of names that we are going to hear which is, you know, people who are less concerned with effective government and more concerned with ideology.
And Kirstjen Nielsen, ironically, you know, is, you know, despite being the face of almost some of the horrors you and I have and all of us have been talking about over the last couple years including with family separation will find herself without an agency to run, without an administration defending her and with a public and private sector that is not likely to take her back nicely. And she must have known that. But that's sort of where she finds herself tonight.
CABRERA: I'm looking on CBP's Web site and they say Commissioner Kevin McAleenan was sworn into his current role as commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection March 20th, 2018, so he comes obviously from within the system.
KAYYEM: Yes.
CABRERA: He has been serving as acting commissioner, prior to serve that he was serving in that position since January 2017.
So, boy, he has a big load on his shoulders now, Sam.
VINOGRAD: He does. And he is familiar with the building. I believe he first came to the department of homeland security under President Obama and he manages a large budget, several billions of dollars and tens of thousands of staff. That, of course, is a fraction of the overall management responsibilities he will have in his new role. But he's not an outsider which I think will provide some degree of continuity at a time when there's just so much instability within the department and within the senior ranks of the U.S. government.
And what we have to wait and see, Ana, is whether Secretary Nielsen provides any basis for why she resigned. We know that general Mattis wrote a letter that really said that he could not fulfill the responsibilities of this job as secretary of defense, and therefore, he resigned. And the department of homeland security has various missions that are not just related to securing our border. That's one of them. It is also has missions related to protecting us against terror, cyberspace and more.
And it is unclear whether secretary Nielsen resign for personal reasons, because she thought she was on thin ice and didn't want to get fired or if she felt like she was not able to fulfill the responsibilities of her job because the President was, again, misallocating resources and demanding billions of dollars for a border wall and causing controversies with Congress that precluded her ability to pursue various portfolios. She has been really a yes woman for President Trump throughout her tenure in the administration. But what I will be keeping an eye on is what she has to say now that she's a private citizen.
[18:20:21] CABRERA: And because she has been a yes woman, she's never thrown, obviously, the President under the bus. She has never seemed to distance herself from his policies. Does it surprise you that she is gone?
VINOGRAD: It doesn't surprise me that she is gone if she was worried about being fired. I think that she is probably seen how President Trump has treated previous staff members that he has fired. Perhaps she wanted to avoid that and safeguard some part of her professional credibility or reputation which as Juliette just mentioned is going to be very hard to do when she leaves the administration and has to without the PR department of the U.S. government behind her explain why she was comfortable with the President's comments insulting our allies, insulting Mexico with his misstatements about basic immigration facts and criminal activity by migrants. That's going to be a lot harder for her to do when she's a member of the private sector.
So it doesn't surprise me she has been in the role for a relatively normal, if you will, amount of time. The question is, why she did it and, again, who on earth is going to want to replace her at this point based upon how the President treated her as well as other cabinet officials?
CABRERA: If you are just joining us, let me bring you up to speed. Right now, we have learned secretary of homeland security Kirstjen Nielsen has resigned. And an acting secretary of homeland security has been put into place. The President announcing this via twitter after a meeting with Secretary Nielsen at the White House this afternoon.
Let's listen in to the President when he was asked about his relationship with Secretary Nielsen in November, how he responded.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you think Secretary Nielsen is doing a good enough job?
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: She's in there trying. I tell you. It's a tough job. Yesterday she gets a ruling that things that we were doing, a judge that knows nothing about it decided to take law enforcement into its own hands and gives a ridiculous ruling. So we will appeal it. But it makes the job harder. We are still doing the job perfectly.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CABRERA: So, again, the border has been a contentious issue for both parties politically, but also for what's happening on the border. So towns on the border have also been really focused on what is the policy. And we are seeing migrants coming across the border at a higher rate this year compared to year's past and the past couple of years. Certainly since this administration took over.
Juliette, let me go back to you. We know the President was looking for tougher people to lead when it comes to his immigration policy. That was the word about why he chose to withdraw the nomination of Ron Vitiello from the ICE chief position, his nominee, and saying he wanted somebody who was tougher. What does a tougher immigration policy look like?
KAYYEM: So it looks -- it looks like a lot of threats, a lot of ideology, but probably not much different operationally. So if you think that Trump's strategy is all about optics, a wall, tougher people, right, so people -- so Nielsen was sort of the policy that wasn't working so he will get someone in who talks tougher, maybe looks tougher, that's why I keep bringing up gender. I do think Trump's natural inclination would be to, you know, get one of these guys that he always surrounds himself with to have a rhetoric and an ideology of tougher.
The problem as Trump realizes as anyone who has worked at the border like myself has realizes, our enforcement policies have almost nothing to do with why people come to this country. Right? And we see it. We did family separation for six or seven months last year. That doesn't stop the flow. People leave their countries for reasons that you and I can't even imagine the horror. And so our goal is you can minimize that horror so that they actually don't leave those countries? Do we have an asylum process that's fair and easy, doesn't separate families?
And then those who are truly here unlawfully, the ones that the President calls, you know, I think you know, whatever he calls them, right, the frauds and the phonies, those who come here without status or then put through a process and either returned home or go through a judicial process.
It's not rocket science. It's the same tools we have had forever. The President knows that there's no other tools, right. You can't close the border. He realized that this week. The Republicans wouldn't tolerate him closing the border. So this is a frustrated President, a frustrated Stephen Miller. The immigrants keep coming. You know, what are you going to do once you decide to do family separation? And instead of thinking about it rationally about what can we do to stop the flow, to make sure that we protect the bordering that we protect Americans but also those who can seek status, they fire everyone and they will put a new team in.
And that team, trust me, Ana, you and me and Sam and everyone will be talking six months from now. That team will face the same issues. Not because they are not trying but just because unlawful migration has been a problem in this country for hundreds of years. We can panic about it or we actually put tools if place that minimize it.
[18:25:40] CABRERA: OK.
KAYYEM: And that's the rational -- that's, you know, I'm not in crisis mode. I'm not, you know, this is the way rational people talk about public policy problems. This is all for show. And there will be a new nominee who looks the part that Trump likes. And Nielsen once again is without a party, without a cabinet, without an administration and public policy.
CABRERA: Juliette, I have to squeeze in a quick break here. Let me just interrupt for a moment because - everybody, stay with me. We are going to continue our discussion about this breaking news.
Kirstjen Nielsen, department of homeland security secretary has resign resigned. We are going to have much more on the other side of the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[18:30:34] ANA CABRERA, CNN ANCHOR: I want to welcome our viewers from the U.S. and around the world. Our breaking news here on CNN, from the White House. A key member of the President's cabinet, the Secretary of Homeland Security, Kirstjen Nielsen, has resigned. Let's get back to the White House and CNN's Boris Sanchez.
Boris, what more do we know about what happened? We know the two met at the White House today. The President announced she is leaving.
BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Ana. According to a source, the meeting did not go well with President Trump. The meeting was put in place after Friday's trip to the border in Calexico, California. Secretary Nielsen was there with President Trump. And according to sources, President Trump had several questions for Secretary Nielsen that's why this meeting was scheduled. Sources indicate that she had no intention of resigning. However,
according to several people within the administration, it was clear that President Trump wanted to make some changes because he's unhappy with immigration policy in the United States, specifically when it comes to those migrants seeking asylum.
We understand, a source close to Secretary Nielsen indicates, that she expected to be fired at any moment. She believed that she was on thin ice with President Trump. She took a trip overseas to meet with some interior ministers of the G7 but quickly returned when she realized that things were so precarious.
Sources indicate that she did a number of T.V. interviews trying to appeal to President Trump. As you know, Ana, he loves watching television and he's really pleased when he sees people within his administration defending his policies. Apparently, that did not work because it appears that the meeting with her and President Trump did not go well.
We should point out sources have indicated that she was blindsided by some moves by the White House, notably the pulling of Ron Vitiello's nomination to lead Immigration and Customs Enforcement, an agency that Kirstjen Nielsen would have overseen as the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security.
She was also apparently blindsided by the White House deciding do pull aid from those three central triangle nations, Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala. Remember that it wasn't long before the White House announced that they were going to pull aid to those countries that she was in Honduras talking about how important aid to those countries is to preventing further waves of migrants heading to the United States.
Look, this is an issue that President Trump has been talking about since he rode down the escalator and announced that he was running for president. It is central to his presidency.
He's been frustrated time and time again with officials within his own administration; his former Attorney General, Jeff Sessions; with Congress because they don't give him money to build his border wall. So it appears that the President is swinging the revolving door yet again trying to install new people in his administration to carry out his bidding, Ana.
CABRERA: In fact, here is the President, just yesterday, reiterating his stance when it comes to the border and immigration.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: So Congress must end catch and release so that illegal border crossers can be quickly and safely returned to their home. Get out, sorry, get out. Sorry if you can't handle it.
(APPLAUSE)
TRUMP: And I told my people yesterday, our country's full. We're full. Our system is full. Our country's full. You can't come in, our country's full. What can we do? We can't handle it anymore. Our country is full. You can't come in, I'm sorry.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CABRERA: Matt Lewis, CNN political commentator, is with us now. The country is full, he says, Matt. He says he was telling his people this. I guess Nielsen didn't fit.
MATT LEWIS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes. Look, I think it's interesting. A couple of things, DHS is in charge of a lot of stuff, right? Cybersecurity, terrorism -- it was -- it started after 9/11 for terrorism, disasters, and yet Donald Trump is clearly so solely focused on immigration. And that's why I think this ax fell and it's why the Acting Secretary is coming from the border security area.
I think this is, like, the third wave of Donald Trump's sort of different secretaries, right? He started off with John Kelly. There weren't a lot of Trump loyalists, not a lot of people who had a Trump ideology, so he started off having people who were respected but they were also independent. You know, someone like a John Kelly. It's hard to push him around.
But eventually, that led to, I think, the Kirstjen Nielsens, the more -- the functionaries, people who were going to try to implement Trump's policies but they were more -- they were bureaucrats. They didn't buy into them to the degree that Trump wanted.
And I think what we're seeing now -- and you're seeing this in other areas like at the Fed, for example -- the ideological wave now where I -- it wouldn't surprise me if we end up with somebody at DHS who is now a Trump ideologue. And this is, I guess, the third wave, and I don't know where it goes from there.
[18:35:11] CABRERA: But I guess the question is, what can they do in terms of implementing the President's strategy that's going to make the difference that he so desires? Because it seems like as much as they're trying, the problem is getting worse in their eyes.
LEWIS: Yes, no, I think that's right. I think this is more symbolism over substance. I think this is about optics. I think it's about someone who drinks the Kool-Aid, who completely buys in. Not even just buys in on the Trump agenda but maybe like -- I don't think it's going to be Stephen Miller but somebody Stephen Miller-esque. Not just buys into the argument but somebody who is pushing the argument.
Very clearly, I don't think I'm breaking new ground here to say that Trump is obsessed with immigration and the border. I think it's a valid issue. Don't get me wrong, but like I was saying earlier, it's one of many things that DHS does. But for Donald Trump, I think being a border hawk, being anti-immigrant, anti-immigration, not just anti- illegal immigration, I think that is basically the criteria that you're going to have on your job resume when you apply for this.
CABRERA: Matt, we had heard that it was Stephen Miller who had suggested to Trump that Ron Vitiello wasn't the right fit because he wasn't tough enough. Is Stephen Miller the one pulling the strings on this?
LEWIS: Well, you know, I don't know for sure, but I'll tell you what. A lot of people, when these things happen, they -- maybe it's a conspiracy theory and he's the easy boogeyman or maybe it's really him, but Stephen Miller is the name that comes up time and time again. And it's really amazing, the outsized influence that he now has on this presidential administration.
He's a very young guy. Of course, he was a staffer for Jeff Sessions when he was a senator, and now he ends up being almost like a Svengali when it comes to immigration issues. This guy is a true believer. He has an ideology, and he is committed to pushing it.
CABRERA: Matt, stand by. Let me bring in Priscilla Alvarez. She's joining us on the phone. She's a CNN immigration reporter.
Priscilla, tell us about this individual who's going to replace Nielsen, Kevin McAleenan.
PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN REPORTER (via telephone): Yes. Trump announced this afternoon that CBP Commissioner Kevin McAleenan will be taking the spot of Secretary Nielsen -- or former Secretary Nielsen for now. We should note that McAleenan is an Obama holdover, and he was sworn in to be commissioner of CBP in March of 2018.
Right now, at this moment, with the surge of migrants at the border, he has been very involved, was involved directly under his jurisdiction. Late last month, he was in El Paso, Texas where he talked about the influx of migrants at the border, in fact saying that in March alone, the U.S. was on pain (ph) to encounter almost 400,000 -- or sorry, 100,000 migrants.
And so he has been on the front lines of this debate in discussing and sounding the alarm over what has been happening at the border, not only the number of migrants that have come up to the border but also the shift in demographics.
And so, tomorrow, he was actually scheduled to have a presser in which he was going to talk about the latest apprehension numbers that sort of indicates just how sudden this news is.
CABRERA: Juliette Kayyem, I know you've worked for Homeland Security. You don't think Kevin McAleenan is long for this position, do you?
JULIETTE KAYYEM, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST (via telephone): No. No, no, no, no. I mean, Kevin is fine, I mean, in the sense that he sort of came up the ranks of CBP. I think he was sort of head of Border Operations before he became the acting head of CBP.
This is -- see, what people forget is that this is typical in public safety, in particular, Homeland Security, for people to serve multiple administrations. So the fact that he came in under Trump is, like, sort of neither -- I mean, under Obama, is sort of neither here nor there. That is normal, you know, that you have people who are sort of committed to a cause and able to succeed in the agency. So it'll be short-lived because he is an operational person. Just back to the point that, you know, Trump's immigration policy has
failed miserably. He didn't get what he wanted, the wall. The Mexicans didn't pay. He is -- he hasn't been able to deal with the migrant issue coming in from South America in an effective way, and so he's frustrated. So the next appointment is you're frustrated appointment. It is a person who is going to make Donald Trump feel better but not the border be managed better.
You know, I often like to say, you know, a crisis -- you know, we have public policy problems in the United States across the board. That's nothing that we should lose our head over. We should learn to address them with the tools we have.
[18:40:04] Migration -- unlawful migration has always been a problem, but it had been going down, as we all know, over the last two decades. Only the President decided to call it a crisis, and now he is frustrated. So we'll have the -- we'll have an appointee that's all ideology, no operations.
And to everyone's point, remember, the Department of Homeland Security has a lot of other things besides the border.
CABRERA: Right.
KAYYEM (via telephone): And hurricane season is five weeks away, so.
CABRERA: Right. Juliette, what does this mean, though, for the people who are also working below that person, their leader?
KAYYEM (via telephone): Yes.
CABRERA: At DHS.
KAYYEM (via telephone): So it's interesting. So you have -- the way the department works is you have a secretary with the sort of policy side and then you have six operational components. Those include the secret service, customs and border protection, ICE, FEMA, and other agencies.
And so those operational components used to work sort of -- I don't want to say irrespective of the secretary but sort of irrelevant of politics. And what Nielsen did is she basically turned what we called the muscle of DHS. All those bodies, right? There's only about a hundred political appointees, but nearly 200,000 operational employees at the border, the Coast Guard, TSA, everywhere else.
She turned them into a border -- a political border entity, and I think a lot of them are holding on and keeping their heads down and being impacted by the shutdown. But, you know, the next secretary is going to have to deal with the reality of the border as well. And I don't think it will change much, but it's not a happy time for the department.
Just very quickly, I got something from FEMA yesterday. FEMA is being asked to move bodies over to the border to help with President Trump's so-called crisis, and I just want to remind people it is almost hurricane season.
And we may have a crisis at the border according to the President. I know we have a crisis when it comes to climate change and hurricane response, so it's not a good time. It's not a good time for Homeland Security, I'll tell you that.
CABRERA: Juliette, stand by. I want everyone to listen to Nielsen last June. This is her in the White House briefing room arguing the child separations were not a policy of the Trump administration. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KIRSTJEN NIELSEN, FORMER SECRETARY OF HOMELAND SECURITY: This administration did not create a policy of separating families at the border. We have a statutory responsibility that we take seriously to protect alien children from human smuggling, trafficking, and other criminal actions while enforcing our immigration laws.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CABRERA: Sam, just yesterday, we learned that the Trump administration may need two more years to track down the families that were separated under this zero-tolerance policy to be able to reunite them.
SAMANTHA VINOGRAD, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Kirstjen Nielsen is the brand ambassador for this policy and for how poorly it was implemented. Kirstjen Nielsen, as Secretary of Homeland Security, was in her role when the President increased this practice and at a time when the Department of Homeland Security was not equipped. They had not gone through the basic planning to figure out how to treat these children in a humane way.
You just mentioned the latest indication of that, the fact that it may take up to two years to unite these children with their families. But, Ana, I work with several nongovernmental organizations -- UNICEF and others -- who have been very public about the conditions that these children faced when they arrived in this country. The ways that they were sleeping, the cages that they were in.
Secretary Nielsen stayed in her role. She did not resign then -- let's be very clear -- when all of that was very publicly unfolding. So as much as she may be resigning now, as much as she may try to distance herself from any of this, when she leaves, her legacy as a brand ambassador of these policies is really cemented in stone.
CABRERA: Sam, you were mentioning earlier you'll be curious to hear her reasons for leaving. She did put out a letter announcing her resignation, and I'm just going to read a couple little pieces to you.
I'm just told -- stand by. I'm going to go to Boris before I do that. Boris, you have the letter, so go for it.
SANCHEZ: Right. Hey, Ana, yes. As we're hearing from sources on this who have a clear picture of Secretary Nielsen's feelings about all of this, it's clear that there was frustration mounting on both sides, not only on her side but also here at the White House.
I heard from a source a short while ago who told me it's about time. She was someone who was brought in to the Department of Homeland Security by the former Chief of Staff John Kelly. A strong recommendation from him is what got her hired.
But I'm told that President Trump was never really fully happy with her performance. She was apparently aware of that. I want you to listen to this portion of her resignation letter.
She writes, quote, despite our progress in reforming Homeland Security for a new age, I have determined that it is the right time for me to step aside. Listen to this bit, I hope that the next secretary will have the support of Congress and the courts in fixing the laws which have impeded our ability to fully secure America's borders and which have contributed to discord in our nation's discourse.
[18:45:11] Our country and the men and women of DHS deserve to have all the tools and resources they need to execute the mission entrusted to them. I can say with confidence our homeland is safer today than when I joined the administration.
One thing stands out there, Ana, and it is the fact that this letter was clearly well crafted. This was not something she wrote in the last, you know, half hour or so as this meeting wrapped up here at the White House and she left.
We know that Nielsen was anticipating leaving the administration. A source telling us that she did not expect to be fired or to have to resign but that she was prepared for it. And this letter makes that clear, Ana.
CABRERA: And, Boris, you're there at the White House. What are we learning about Trump's state of mind?
SANCHEZ: Well, at this point, all we have is the President's tweet confirming that Secretary Nielsen is no longer with the administration and that he intends to name Kevin McAleenan the acting director of the Department of Homeland Security.
But just from what we've seen the past couple of days, there's obviously frustration in this White House, specifically from President Trump, on the issue of asylum seekers. You've heard what he said about them. Just yesterday, I was in an event in Las Vegas, and he was saying that these asylum seekers were perpetrating a scam on the American people.
And he was saying that many of them looked like UFC fighters. Again, reverting to this image of these migrants and refugees looking for help from the United States as invaders or as people looking to cause harm.
Part of that is campaign rhetoric. Obviously, the President has his eyes on 2020. But it's clear that this White House has a sense that the immigration system is out of control, and the President is looking for any way to try to rein it in. And this, apparently, was one of those ways, Ana.
CABRERA: Boris, thank you. Stand by. Jeff Zeleny is joining us on the phone, CNN's senior Washington correspondent.
Jeff, you have color, I understand, on just what kind of a week this has been for Nielsen, concluding with today's resignation.
JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT (via telephone): Ana, I do, indeed. People close to Secretary Nielsen said that she has felt, quote, in limbo for the last week largely because of the President's increasing anger at the border situation.
We've been told by multiple sources throughout the White House and the administration that the President has become, you know, increasingly angry at the situation there and is lashing out and, indeed, blaming others. So as Boris was just saying, the White House is saying that, you know, some White House officials are essentially blaming Secretary Nielsen. A different picture from some others inside DHS, including those close to her.
We had heard about a week or so ago that she was on, quote, thin ice, according to one official. And for the last week, she's been trying to appease the President, trying to, you know, respond to some of his demands.
She, of course, traveled last weekend over to a meeting in Europe. She cut that short and flew back to the U.S. to try and be on the front lines of this. But it's clear, it has been clear over the last seven days or so, that she has been on a borrowed time here.
So the question of if she, you know, was going into the meeting tonight at the White House preparing to resign, I am told by one person who's close to the situation that she did not fight or grovel for her job. She tried to present the facts as they were, and she, of course, had this resignation letter in her back pocket. We're not sure how long that letter has been written, but certainly, it's something that she did not draft immediately.
So, Ana, this is really ending a chapter of, you know, just one more episode. There's not been much turnover in the last few months or so, but this is more reminiscent of those early days in the first year, a year-and-a-half of the administration, where the President becomes increasingly angry at one of his cabinet officials and then an abrupt resignation which you can, by all intents, consider it a firing, happens.
CABRERA: Right, right. Well, and according to our reporting, she resigned, but obviously the President was not happy with her. Jeff, thank you for that reporting.
Our Jake Tapper also getting some reporting for us. Let me just read this real fast.
A senior administration official tells CNN that President Trump actually told border agents when he was in California on Friday that he wanted them to stop letting people cross the border. Despite the fact that Central American asylum seekers are allowed by law to cross the border and seek asylum. Not that they will be granted it necessarily, but that is a legal right. That's the way this country operates.
I see you, Samantha, shaking your head about this.
VINOGRAD: I do that way too much when talking about this topic, but President Trump's broadcasting of ignorance of U.S. law is nothing new. He's done this on the campaign finance violation. He knows what asylum laws say. He has to have been briefed on this by White House Counsel. And so what he said is not surprising to me, it's really part of a pattern.
[18:50:07] But, Ana, I'm just thinking to myself, at what point is the President going to take a step back -- and I think this is unusual -- and just say maybe it's me, maybe it's not them?
He has blamed everybody else, Secretary Nielsen reportedly, Mexico, Central America, Democrats. He's blamed so many other people for the fact that he has not been able to secure our border, and he has not been able to be president and to witness a decrease in illegal immigration numbers at our border.
Hardly a day goes by where he doesn't find another scapegoat for increasing numbers of migrants at certain times, as well as the drug flows across our border. Any responsible president would probably take a step back and say, I need to reassess my policies here, the numbers aren't going down. Instead, he is doubling down.
Based upon the reporting that we just heard, he was unhappy with Secretary Nielsen. He was thinking of firing her. Finding a new Secretary of Homeland Security isn't going to change the fact that his policies are misconceived. And so he's putting perhaps a Band-Aid on that very issue while he searches for someone else.
CABRERA: So what do you think this means for the border battle as we move forward?
VINOGRAD: Well, what it means from the President's perspective, he is likely to do what he does in any of these situations, which is double down and continue to blame other people for what's happening at our border.
The outstanding question is really whether the acting secretary of Homeland Security is more successful in convincing Congress or the courts perhaps that laws need to be changed as Secretary Nielsen mentioned. More money needs to be appropriated to fund things that the President wants.
I don't think that that is likely based upon the fact that it's going to be an acting secretary. What we should be cognizant of, however, is that even though this acting secretary comes from within the building, there is going to be a disruption.
There will be a changeover in staff between outgoing Secretary Nielsen, the acting secretary. The acting secretary is going to have to make relationships all around the world with Secretary Nielsen's counterparts. So this is not an insignificant personnel shift from that standpoint.
CABRERA: You were curious to hear what Kirstjen Nielsen would say about all of this. What do you make of her letter and her response?
VINOGRAD: I guess I was hoping that maybe, finally, she would speak out about the abhorrent policies that she's presided over or the horrible things that President Trump has said. We haven't even talked about what happened when there were wildfires in California, and he threatened to cut off FEMA funding because we've been focused on the immigration issues.
I was hoping that, finally, maybe she got a conscience and got a spine and said something about that. Instead, in her letter, she issues a parting shot at Congress and at the U.S. courts for not bending to President Trump's latest whims with regard to border security.
And so this is her official letter. General Mattis wrote a letter, as well. We'll have to see what she says in coming days and if she changes her tune in any way.
CABRERA: Matt Lewis, I think back to when family separations happened. It seemed like, suddenly, that was an issue that was bipartisan, and there was outcry on both sides of the aisle. Will there be a divide amongst Republicans, do you think, on Trump's aggressive border policy and as it continues and as it develops going forward?
LEWIS: No. Look, I think the family separation was uniquely bad, like from -- from a policy standpoint and from an optics standpoint. I mean, it's very difficult to sustain images of children being separated from their families, and then have the debacle over not being able to find parents and return children to their parents. So that was like a uniquely bad situation.
And I don't think this is quite as bad from an optics standpoint. But, look, I think that, you know, if you're -- if you have a right to claim asylum, if you're a refugee, and this -- what Donald Trump is trying to do is basically shut off something that is part of the law.
So I think it's bad policy. I don't know how he's actually going to implement it. I don't see any positive scenario for Donald Trump here. I just don't think it's nearly as bad, from an optics or political standpoint, as the family separation story which was really, you know, horrific on so many levels.
CABRERA: Do you think, Matt, his base is cheering him on right now, or are they like, what is going on? What does he want? Where is this going?
LEWIS: I think there was a really interesting point earlier which is that Donald Trump ran for president as a border hawk, talking about how he was going to fix this problem, how he was going to make Mexico pay for it, and he was going to build the wall. And he hasn't done it. And even if you're really concerned -- like Ann Coulter is the only
person in the world who, I think, is simultaneously really concerned about immigration and blames Donald Trump, but the vast majority of people are just happy that -- the vast majority of Republicans, of Trump supporters, are just happy that he's mad.
They're just happy that he is -- that he is upset about it, and they're not looking at his lack of results and holding him accountable for that. They're just happy that somebody's finally upset about it because maybe that will lead to something. But, you know, there's no results.
[18:55:10] All right. Matt Lewis, thank you. Everyone, stay with me. Much more on our breaking news in just a moment. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[18:59:51] CABRERA: You are live in the CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Ana Cabrera in New York. Breaking news.
