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Trump Signals He May Accept Border Deal to Avoid Shutdown. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired February 13, 2019 - 06:00   ET

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

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The president has to review the bill, but I think that we're off to a good start.

[05:59:25] UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's not enough. We ought to force these people back into the room to do their job.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The president clearly is not a winner out of this. He should sign it and look for other places to get his wall construction.

SEN. RICHARD BURR (R-NC), CHAIRMAN, INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE: We have no factual evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's really disingenuous when you've got the Mueller probe with all of the criminal charges.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I disagree strongly with the chairman. There is still a lot of heavy lifting to do.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: We want to welcome our viewers in the United States and around the world. This is NEW DAY. It is Wednesday, February 13, 6 a.m. here in New York. One day till Valentine's Day.

BERMAN: I was wearing red in advance. I didn't want to miss it, so I put the red on today.

CAMEROTA: Well done.

BERMAN: Thank you very much.

CAMEROTA: This morning, President Trump is saying that he may accept that bipartisan border deal to avoid another government shutdown. The president is not exactly embracing the deal that only gives him a fraction of the $5.7 billion he wanted for his border wall.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I have to study it. I'm not happy about it. It's not doing the trick. But I'm adding things to it. It's very simple: we're building a wall.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: All right. There are just two days to go until a deal must be reached before the government shuts down again. As the president struggles to fulfill his signature campaign promise, he's vowing to find, quote, "other methods" to finance his border wall. The White House says taking executive action is is not off the table.

BERMAN: At this point, a White House official tells CNN the president will likely sign the deal, but aides caution nothing is final, because it's President Trump.

The biggest hint that he may sign it came from Sean Hannity, who indicated that Hannity, he would not exercise his personal veto power over the agreement.

Meanwhile, there's a new cloud of strangeness surrounding various aspects of the Russia investigation. Why does Michael Cohen keep dodging congressional testimony? Why are Senate leaders fighting over whether there's evidence of collusion? Why are there new stories floating that Mueller might never issue a public report at all? Something smells funny here, and we will get to that.

I want to bring in Tiffany Cross, cofounder and managing editor of The Beat D.C.; Scott Jennings, former special assistant to President George W. Bush, also worked for Mitch McConnell; and Joe Lockhart, he was White House press secretary for President Clinton. I'm going to make a bold statement.

CAMEROTA: Go.

BERMAN: This thing is over. The president's going to sign this. I think the president basically told us last night on Twitter when he said he had a nice conversation with Richard Shelby and was going to find other money.

CAMEROTA: He also said the wall is already being built, which is good news.

BERMAN: He is declaring victory.

CAMEROTA: Since he --

BERMAN: It's great news. It's not true.

CAMEROTA: -- didn't need the money, I guess, apparently.

BERMAN: It's not true.

CAMEROTA: It's not true. But he -- he believes it, or he's touting it and so that's a win for him, I guess. BERMAN: Let's put exactly what the facts are here in terms of what

has been built. There's 1,900 miles between the U.S./Mexico, the board there. There's 654 miles of barrier that already existed.

But when the you look down to new barriers that have been built during this administration, zero. Zero. There have been replacement barriers built or worked on, about 40 miles worth. There are about 14 new miles that are about to be built and then 55. But you know what? If he wants to say they're being built to keep the government from shutting down --

CAMEROTA: If he's good with it, then I guess we're good. I guess. Argument over.

BERMAN: And the other thing, and Scott, I just want to play this so people know. I think it's actually a very big deal when Sean Hannity indicated that he wasn't going to go ballistic on the president if he signs this deal. Listen to what Hannity said last night.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEAN HANNITY, FOX NEWS HOST: I'm not as concerned as some other conservatives if the president signs the bill, but there's a couple of "ifs." And that would be the president would need to declare a national emergency. This is the time. That is a necessity.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: So Scott, I mean, if Hannity says he's no longer concerned, get the auto pen ready. This thing is as good as signed, correct?

SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes, think the president is going to sign it, and he's going to keep the government open. And he's going to get a lot of encouragement from the Senate Republican leadership and his allies on Capitol Hill for taking whatever further executive action he can to continue to build his wall, if that's what he's going to call it, border security, barriers, you know, whatever it happens to be.

So you're going to see a unified Republican front here. Keep the government open. The president moves on other planning, and this allows them politically to keep the focus where they want to keep it right now, which is for the president to continue to define the Democrats the way he wants to define them.

For Mitch McConnell to move forward with the vote on the Green New Deal, which is something they are very happy about doing. They've been on offense, as they see it, politically; and keeping the government open and doing it this way keeps them on offense.

CAMEROTA: Tiffany, I just want to go back for a second to the psychological exercise, right?

Tiffany, that's happening here. Because the president tweeted last night, "the wall is already being built!" exclamation point. So as John just said, there are 40 miles of replacement wall that either are being built or have been approved.

So I just find it interesting to watch sort of the anatomy of a delusion and how far it extends. I mean, if it extends to the base and if the base goes, "OK, then we're good. Then we're all good."

TIFFANY CROSS, COFOUNDER AND MANAGING EDITOR OF THE BEAT D.C.: Yes.

CAMEROTA: So if 40 miles of replacement wall, after everything for the past three years, counting the campaign, if it's already being built and we're all good, then give me those three years back. But I guess that we're fine today.

CROSS: I'm going to steal that anatomy of delusion, I should tell you. But yes, this is -- you heard the president say this doesn't do the trick. That's because he's a one-trick pony at this point.

I mean, we can agree that the wall has become more of an idea than a practicality. And the fact that the copresident, Sean Hannity, is giving his sign of approval.

Can you imagine if Don Lemon were spoon-feeding President Barack Obama ideas and his approval on policy; it's kind of ridiculous.

[06:05:04] And I think the danger is he has a base. There are far too many people who treat his morning Twitter feed as we treat our morning newspaper feed. So you won't have people challenging him on this.

And I honestly think the deal is not so great. I mean, he should sign, it because it could give him some sort of credibility with the base that is, you know, somewhat fact averse, I would argue.

But I do think he's an unreliable negotiator who constantly moves the goal post. So I don't know what they really get out of budging. And I think it's going to -- this is something that could go on for the next two years, God forbid six years, with him constantly changing his mind and moving things in different ways.

Remember, a few weeks ago he was talking about shutting down the entire 2,000-mile border, never mind the logistics of that. Never mind that 1.7 billion of our goods cross that border or hundreds of thousands of legal citizens cross that border. So I'm not confident that the deal is going to satisfy him, but I do think he'll sign it.

BERMAN: One last point of the psychological warfare. The banner behind the president in El Paso the other night wasn't "Build the Wall." It was "Finish the Wall." Right?

CAMEROTA: This is the point. I mean, I can't believe that he's worked his way around. I just think that it's interesting to watch how the president closes a deal, which is he claims victory.

CROSS: Right.

CAMEROTA: And that is how he does it, even when he didn't get the money he wanted and the wall's not being built. BERMAN: The power of suggestion. And before we bring Joe into this

conversation, who's been waiting patiently, Scott, because of your knowledge of Mitch McConnell here. McConnell's basically told the president this is over also, correct? He's basically told the president, "This is the deal you're going to get. We're going to vote on it in the Senate. We're going to pass this, and you're just going to have to deal with that reality."

JENNINGS: Well, I think Senator McConnell quite likely told the president that there's no appetite among the Senate Republican Congress -- conference for another shutdown, that this is most likely the deal he can get out of divided government.

And finally, that politically, they would stand squarely behind the president if he chooses to take further executive action. So even if the president doesn't love the deal, I think the advice going up to the White House was, if you're going to take executive action anyway, there's no reason to not sign this or even veto it. Go ahead and do both. Keep the government open, and relieve yourself of that headache even as you do what you want to do anyway, which is take it a step further, using your own pen.

CAMEROTA: Joe, how do you see it?

JOE LOCKHART, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, to pick up on Scott's point, I think the Republican offense is about as potent as the Los Angeles Rams offense in the Super Bowl.

Let's -- let's take a step back. The Democrats and 100 percent of the Senate offered to give the president $1.6 billion for border security now two months ago.

Then the president shut the government down and, you know, in a fit of petulance. So we went through 35 days of the government shutdown. Then they all got back together, and in the art of the deal, the president's now getting less.

So if that's offense, you know, I'm Sean McVay and, as the Rams coach as the leader of the Senate.

You know, it's -- we're starting to deal, and it's really weird, in this uncomfortable alternative reality where -- where Trump says something that's patently not true, and we all react to it. And not just people sitting here on TV, the United States Senate, the Congress.

And it's ridiculous. This is the -- they lost leverage at the midterms, which was about immigration because of Trump. And now they're folding. And if they want to call it a victory, that's great, but if they also want to say the sun rose in the west this morning, that's great, too, and their people will believe it.

BERMAN: Tiffany, there's an interesting aspect of this also, because Kirsten Gillibrand, who was running for president, was pressed on this deal yesterday. And she wouldn't commit to voting "yes" on it.

Will there be Democratic presidential hopefuls who take your position, I think? You don't like the deal. You're not in the Senate.

CROSS: Right.

BERMAN: You don't get to vote on it, but do you think there will be Democrats who take a stand here and say, "We gave too much"?

CROSS: I think so and I hope so. I mean, look, when you look at the demographics of who's going to be deciding this presidential election in 2020, if they were smart, they would certainly speak out and talk about that the Democrats perhaps gave away too much.

Look, I mean, we have to be honest about what's behind this wall. This is about keeping brown people out of the country. This wall, that's why I said it's more of an idea than a practicality. This is something that's about reestablishing white dominance over America. And the base has used this as an excuse to consume false information.

Mike Pompeo, Kevin McCarthy, Kirstjen Nielsen, they've all said that they were catching 10 terrorists a day crossing the border. Well, I will quote the Parkland students and say, "I call B.S." That's just not true. You had members of Congress saying, "Well, where are these terrorists? Where did you put them?"

BERMAN: Can I just ask you?

CROSS: Sure.

BERMAN: And again, and I have heard those arguments before, but when Democrats were voting for fencing, when they have in the past, and when then were negotiating on border security in a big way, as they have in the past, were they just trying to keep brown people out of the country?

CROSS: I don't think so. I think the data just does not back up this argument. So over the years we've actually seen a legal border crossings go down significantly.

And this isn't my -- me opining on this. This is data from the Department of Homeland Security. Customs and Border Patrol said there is no national border crisis.

The people who legislate these districts, law enforcement, Will Hurd, we've talked -- you all talked about this on the morning show before. He has said there is no national border crisis in this town.

El Paso, Congresswoman Veronica Escobar, first Latino to represent Texas in Congress, she has said El Paso is not a dangerous city. So the data is just not there.

But the problem is, you have a base who's all too willing to consume this information, as though it's factual. And as long as you have that, you'll have Donald Trump continuing to put out this false information for people who are eager to consume it.

CAMEROTA: So Scott, you know, it's hard to know if the president thinks the wall is already been built and he's satisfied if he still wants more money today for a wall.

But if he does, there are various options. He can, you know, try to take money from different pots and some of them require declaring emergency, and some don't.

And we have a graphic about this. He can -- he would have to declare a national emergency. If he wants 3.6 billion, that would require military construction funds, but there's also getting the Army Corps of Engineers to do it. That's 3 billion. Then he could also take 700 million without an emergency declaration from the Pentagon's counter narcotics funds, which seems to be at cross purposes from what he says he wants to do, and 680 million.

So are you -- are Republicans comfortable with going to other places and him doing an end run around Congress?

JENNINGS: Well, the Republicans are going to basically make a deal with the president here. Stand with us on keeping the government open, and we'll stand with you on taking executive action.

I mean, essentially, what the president will argue is that "I'm the president, and it's my job to set national spending priorities within my legal purview." And that's what he's going to do.

If I may go back to a previous comment about this idea that border security is nothing more than keeping brown people out of the country, I think that is a terrible thing to say when, as you pointed out, John, Democrats have voted for barriers. The Border Patrol says they want barriers.

And the president in his State of the Union said that he wants more legal immigration, in fact, more legal immigration than we've ever had in this country had in this country. I think that kind of rhetoric drives this debate into the ground. We're going to have a government that remains open.

CROSS: Scott, you should listen to some of the comments at the MAGA rallies.

JENNINGS: We're going to have border security, and we're going to -- I'm sorry?

CROSS: You should listen to some of the comments at the MAGA rallies if you think this -- this is a topic that does not have anything to do with race. I would encourage you to watch some of the comments and the interviews that CNN alone has captured at some of the MAGA rallies.

JENNINGS: I know what the president said at the State of the Union. He wants more legal immigration than we've ever had in this country. And I take him at his word, and if that's his position, I think that's a great position to have.

So I'm happy the government's going to stay open; and I'm happy that under divided government, they found a way through even though the morass, even though it was painful to get there, to not go through shutdown No. 2.

This is not a day, I think, for people to snipe at each other. It's a day for people to say, "OK, great, these two sides actually did come together."

BERMAN: I will say the issue of legal immigration is we don't know if that's the president's position, because in the past, he has proposed things, his White House had proposed things to limit and curtail legal immigration in some cases, as well. And it's unclear whether or not that was a slip or an ad-lib in the State of the Union.

Scott, Tiffany, Joe, thank you very much.

A rare public clash between the two leaders of the Senate Intelligence Committee over collusion. What's going on here?

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[06:17:04] BURR: I'm not sure how I could have been clearer than I said before. We have no factual evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: All right. So yesterday we saw this rare split between the two leaders of the Senate Intelligence Committee. That was chairman Richard Burr, and you just heard that he said his committee has now no collusion.

However, the ranking Democrat on the committee, Senator Mark Warner, says, quote, "Respectfully, I disagree. I'm not going to get into any conclusions I've reached, because my basis of this has been that I'm not going to reach any conclusion until we finish the investigation. And we still have a number of key witnesses to come back."

All right. Let's bring in Laura Coates. She's a former federal prosecutor. We also have Anne Milgram. She's a former New Jersey attorney general. And Joe Lockhart to try to figure out what's going on here with the Russia investigation.

Anne, let me start with you. Can't both of these things be true? Can't it be true that Senator Burr has not yet found any evidence of collusion? And can't it be true that Senator Warner says they're not done yet?

ANNE MILGRAM, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Yes, absolutely. Both things can be true.

I think it's also important to remember that there is a question of how they're defining collusion and what that actually means. And so it's possible that there will be factual evidence that they just disagree on or play politics on, you know. There's a number of ways that could turn out. But, yes, the investigation is also still going. And what's important

is a lot of the folks that are still supposed to be there, like Cohen, you know, haven't shown up and haven't testified. And so there could be a lot more. And I, you know, I think Burr is prejudging something that isn't done.

BERMAN: What was interesting is that they've worked so hard, these two senators, to be on the same page. And this is the first real split. I think that's what jumped out at people.

But I think you're right. Both things can be true, and they're both probably applying different standards here, because what Chairman Burr is saying is there's no factual evidence, a direct smoking gun on collusion. And what Warner might be thinking, as well. We've seen all these meetings. We've seen Donald Trump Jr. being willing to get dirty secrets from the Russians on Hillary Clinton. Isn't that evidence enough?

And, Laura, neither of these things, because we're talking about the Senate Intelligence Committee, get at all to what's going on in the Mueller investigation.

LAURA COATES, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: That's true. Remember the congressional oversight role is really a parallel investigation. It's not to supplement; it's not really to contribute or collaborate with Mueller.

However, they can rely, as their congressional oversight function, they can look at evidence that is out there in the public record, including public filings, including for example, the inadvertent disclosure that Manafort was feeding polling data to somebody linked to the Kremlin. They can look at that information and say, "Well, that can contribute to our own investigation."

So it's pretty disingenuous, in my opinion, for Burr to draw the conclusion that there is no direct evidence when there are still forthcoming interviews, when there is things out in the public that tells the people, actually, hasn't there been more than one instance at this point in time where you can draw some conclusion about their being involvement?

Perhaps he was trying to hedge, or it would have been more prudent to hedge, but instead, as Anne talked about, he drew a conclusion, as opposed to saying what Warner said, which is, "Listen, I have more investigation to do. I can't say there is nothing yet. I also can't tell you exactly what it is. But to conclude nothing is an error."

CAMEROTA: But not only that, Joe, I think that if people are fixated on collusion, that word and whatever that means, that maybe they will be either disappointed or underwhelmed by, maybe, Robert Mueller or the Senate investigation.

But there's been lots of evidence of wrongdoing, and people have pled guilty and been convicted of that already. So why is there still just this fixation on only collusion? LOCKHART: Well, first off, I think we should give both Senator Burr

and Senator Warner credit for getting this far into this before there's a split.

But ultimately, at the end of the day, they're both politicians; and they both have political motives, even if they can marry them with some policy. And I think, you know, Senator Burr is -- has made -- has made some of his colleagues uncomfortable with how bipartisan he's been.

But I think, you know, it is a strategic point that I think the -- the Trump people are rather smart and the Republicans to say, which is if you focus on the highest, most heinous crime, then if you can't prove that, all of the misdemeanors and felonies you commit before that don't matter from a political standpoint.

And the last one I want to say is, you know, politicians shouldn't be in the business of prosecuting. They should be in the business of providing oversight to see what policy changes should be made, because they're politicians.

So they haven't seen what Mueller's seen. At the end of the day, Mueller may come out and say Senator Burr was right. At the end of the day, Mueller may come out and say Senator Warner was right.

BERMAN: All right. The other big question this morning is what the heck is going on with Michael Cohen?

CAMEROTA: Sure.

BERMAN: Honestly. he ducked out of closed-door testimony at the Senate Intelligence Committee. This is after ducking out of testimony to House Oversight, and he upset Senator Burr. Listen to what he had to say.

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BURR: He's already stiffed us on being in Washington today because of an illness. Yet on Twitter, a reporter reported he was having a wild night Saturday night, eating out in New York with five buddies. Didn't seem to have any physical limitations. And he was out with his wife last night.

Well, I would prefer to get him before he goes to prison. But, you know, the way he's positioning himself not coming to the committee, we may help him go to prison.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: We have a picture of what Senator Burr was talking about there. A reporter did tweet out "Had a lovely dinner last night at L'Avenue. Wait, who's that there? Why, it's Michael Cohen, greeting tables as he leaves a three-hour dinner with friends."

CAMEROTA: I can't tell if he has shoulder pain there. BERMAN: But he's out eating dinner. If you're out at dinner with

your family, meeting people at all, perhaps you should, you know, honor your commitment to testify. Unless there's something going on here, Anne, which is honestly, it's hard for me to imagine there's not something else going on. For him to continue to duck this testimony?

MILGRAM: Yes. He does not want to testify. And I mean, if you're going to -- it's like if you call in sick, you shouldn't, you know, have a picture of you out at a party. Right? I mean, it sort of is like one of those primary rules.

The one thing I will say is that Burr going out and saying there's no collusion felt to me like he was prejudging the end of the investigation. And Michael Cohen is supposed to go back before his committee.

And so, you know, it is a little bit strange to say, "Come back and testify, but I've already decided there's nothing here."

That being said, Cohen is going to testify, whether it's by subpoena or otherwise. And he's just, I think, pushing off the inevitable.

CAMEROTA: It's supposed to be March 6 now, Laura. And so again, I mean, the reason I was sort of joking about shoulder pain is because he says that he has shoulder surgery, and that he's on painkillers and doesn't want to testify if he's, you know, cloudy-headed, which I think, on some level, makes sense.

But then you shouldn't, maybe, be drinking at a restaurant for hours with your buddies. But isn't it -- couldn't it also be as easy as he doesn't want to -- before he goes to prison, he doesn't want to be seen as a cooperator?

COATES: Well, that could be part of the case. Now, he's allowed to eat, of course, and he's allowed to try to, through his attorney, suggest that this was a pain medication, that maybe he didn't want to have a truth serum effect of all these sorts of things.

But in reality, the kind of prison he's going to is not really the one we're talking about where shanks are involved and Oz is part of it. The idea of being a cooperator, a snitch would really, really harm you in the end.

However -- however, you make a very good point, Alisyn, about the notion of why he does not want to cooperate with the congressional committee.

Remember, he's really beholden to the people who can put him in prison, and that is the criminal probe, SDNY and Robert Mueller's team. And so it may be that there is a conflict between the cooperation he is giving to them and giving information, and not wanting to be seen as just trying to shaft the actual Congress. Because there is some indication that his cooperation in another way, a more nonpublic way, is far more harmful to him in the long done.

[06:25:07] BERMAN: It feels to me like there's some kind of pressure for him not to show up right now for some reason.

LOCKHART: Yes. The one person we didn't talk about reacting to Burr is Mueller. Mueller can't appreciate the Senate Intel Committee chairman saying, "I've got it. I've figured this all out. There's no collusion." So I -- and he doesn't want to come out and interfere with legitimate congressional oversight.

So my guess is he's quietly saying to Cohen, "Put this off as long as you can. It's in your interest."

BERMAN: And it may just be weeks, because we don't know what's happened in the next few weeks. And when Barr gets confirmed as attorney general tomorrow or the next day, that could open the flood gates for activity here. I'd watch that very carefully.

CAMEROTA: All right. Anne, Laura, Joe, thank you very much.

Unimaginable human suffering impacting children as this crisis in Venezuela deepens. So CNN goes inside a pediatric hospital where access to key supplies and food is dwindling. We have a live report for you from Venezuela next.

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