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House Halted by Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) Ouster, GOP Reps Vie for Speakership; Biden Administration Waives Federal Laws to Allow Wall Construction; Court Resumes for First Time Without Trump There. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired October 05, 2023 - 10:00   ET

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

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KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Working the phones, the strategy, the meetings and the appeal and pitch that the men running for speaker of the house are now making. New reporting coming in.

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: Building more border wall. President Biden vowed to never build another foot of southern border in 2020. Now, his administration is waiving more than a dozen federal laws to add miles to the wall.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All in on Iowa, Ron DeSantis restructuring his campaign, sending a third of the staff to the Hawkeye State. What does that say about the state of the race.

I'm John Berman with Kate Bolduan and Sara Sidner. This is CNN News Central.

BOLDUAN: Maybe it is phone tag. Maybe it is a very serious and consequential game of telephone or maybe we should call it speakerphone. The race of the gavel is now, in full force since Kevin McCarthy is out, and we just learned that one of the two top candidates emerge is staying in D.C. this weekend to work the phones.

We are told Jim Jordan is staying in Washington over the weekend. He's trying to lockdown some support to win over the gavel. But if either of these men, Jim Jordan or Steve Scalise, expect to win, they are going to have to do what seems almost impossible right now, which is to unite the divided Republican conference and reach 218 votes in support, and do it possibly in less than 15 rounds this time.

CNN's Manu Raju is joins us from Capitol Hill this morning. Manu, how does is the next speaker going to be able to pull off the impossible?

MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, it is really in a great question, Kate, because we don't quite know whether either these candidates can get to 218 votes to be elected speaker and be able bridge the very, very bitterly divided Republican conference.

The emotions are raw. A lot of Kevin McCarthy's allies are seeking retribution against those eight Republicans, including namely Matt Gaetz, who led the charge to push him out of the speakership, pushing for everything, from expelling Matt Gaetz, to stripping committee assignments, warnings of threatening of fundraising for some of those key members who are running for re-election, Congresswoman Nancy Mace is facing a threat of potential, even some fundraising from Republicans who are close to Kevin McCarthy. We'll see ultimately how that plays out.

But both Steve Scalise and Jim Jordan, as they are making their pitch to members, are trying to contend that they are the ones who can bring the party together. But it's unclear exactly how they will be able to do that. And talking to members, including one Congressman from Ohio, he made very clear to me that he believes all this chaos could undermine their ability to take back the House, and in particular, is concerned about the role of Congressman Matt Gaetz, open to the possibility of expelling him from the Republican conference.

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REP. MAX MILLER (R-OH): I am going to stand here and tell you about the actions that have taken place in the week, I am not hopeful to keep the majority, I'm not hopeful to win back the Senate. I spoke to President Trump three times yesterday and I explained to him that there could be a coalition government that would happen. And throughout that process, you know, we would lose in the House of Representatives.

RAJU: What did Trump say when you told him all this stuff?

MILLER: He is incredibly upset.

And this is why I'd love to get to my point, Manu, about Matt Gaetz using the MAGA cloak to go ahead and to post content on Twitter with no context to make it seem as if he has President Trump's support. And he paints it in the broad strokes possible, that's why he's so good at what he does is because he's a B.S. artist.

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RAJU: And that just shows you just echoes a lot of Republican concerns and criticism trudging up towards Matt Gaetz. But the problems confronting the next speaker and those two speaker candidates is that they need to get the votes from the members on the far right, like Matt Gaetz and the other seven candidates Republicans who oust Kevin McCarthy, as well as those more moderate members who are concerned about the tactics of the people who pushed out Congressman Gaetz, including calling for changing the rule to oust the sitting speaker, something that is dividing the conference at this moment.

So, Kate, so many issues that these two have to work towards as they look for a speaker's vote as early as the middle of next week. But can they get there, get the votes, still a major question. Kate?

BOLDUAN: Good luck to everyone. Manu, thank you so much. John?

BERMAN: Did you just call dialing for support speakerphone?

BOLDUAN: I did not come up with it. BERMAN: With me now who, no doubt, has been the recipient of some speakerphone is Congressman Dusty Johnson from South Dakota. Congressman, thank you very much for being with us.

Let me just lay it out there, cut to the chase, who are you with in the speaker battle?

REP. DUSTY JOHNSON (R-SD): I am not with anybody yet. I think that we have got a lot of questions we need these candidates to answer, in part, because if we don't change the foundational problems within our conference, it is just going to be the same stupid clown car with a different driver.

And Max Miller had mentioned Matt Gaetz earlier in Manu's report. I am glad that he did. Because the reality is if Jim Jordan and Steve Scalise can't figure out how to deal with that saboteur, we're just going to have another blowup, whether it is two weeks or six weeks or eight weeks. Matt Gaetz and those hardliners, they are a real problem. And I don't think the pyromaniacs are going to be satisfied after they burned down one house. I think they are going to have an itching to go burn down a couple more.

BERMAN: So, just to be clear, you just called them pyromaniacs and saboteurs. Did I have that right?

JOHNSON: Yes. I mean, I guess I probably could have chosen my words a little more carefully, but it is not time for play talk. We have got a southern border that's in crisis, we're $33 trillion in debt and these guys, chaos artists, decided that we needed to take a couple of weeks off from governing country.

They have been playing silly D.C. parlor games about leadership rather than having actually get things done. And because they crave the attention, because they crave the chaos, it doesn't end here. We have got some real work to do if we are going to be a big boy, a big girl, grown up party to govern the House.

BERMAN: So, that is one wing of this caucus, this clown car caucus that you just described. Those were words also. The other side of that-- I am sorry. I can see why on Thursday of this week, you do have so much emotion about it. I am not trying to demean it at all. I fully understand it, but that is one side of the conference.

The other side of the moderates for whom largely gave you the majority in some ways in this Congress, Punchbowl put it this way when it comes to Jim Jordan in trying to appeal to those moderates. Punchbowl wrote, we can't tell you how many moderates say they simply can't vote for Jordan. He's easily demonizable and often just dishes out pro-Trump playing points. While that plays back home in red Ohio, it doesn't fly in swing districts. What do you think about that?

JOHNSON: I think that's been overreported. Jim Jordan and Steve Scalise are both very capable leaders. I think the way that Jim Jordan talks about issues is more nuanced than that one report would have one believe. And I am not a moderate. I am pretty right of center, but I talk to plenty of moderates, because I try to talk to everybody in our conference and in the House.

And I would say to the extent that there is any of that opposition to Jim Jordan nine months ago, it has absolutely softened.

BERMAN: I do want to ask you about something--

JOHNSON: And I do want to mention, when you talked about the eight hardliners being a wing of the conference, let's keep in mind, 96 percent of the conference who voted to keep Kevin McCarthy. Now, I don't know what the definition of a wing is, but 4 percent is a pretty tiny wing.

BERMAN: Understood. This morning, we are just getting word that 48 Ukrainians have been killed. We've got some video of the aftermath here. This is a Russian missile strike in Kupiansk. I believe it was on grocery store. You can see right now, 49 people killed. Kupiansk, this is a grocery store there. Presumably, these are civilians, innocent people, Ukrainians.

Jim Jordan, when asked by our Manu Raju yesterday, are you willing to move forward with an aid package for Ukraine if you're speaker, Jordan, I am against that.

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The Ukrainians being killed by this missile strike, Jim Jordan says he is against an aid package for him.

You've been supportive of aid to Ukraine. What is the reaction?

JOHNSON: I don't agree with any other member of Congress on everything, and I think Jim Jordan's answer was not as nuanced as we need it to be right now. I don't know when Republicans quit being interested in killing communists.

I mean, Vladimir Putin is a thug. This is an illegal war. Of course, I don't want American servicemen and women dying in Ukrainian battlefields. But in the same way that our country gave the United Kingdom ammunition and supplies to hold the line against the Nazis, we should be willing to provide some supplies to Ukraine to hold the line against Russia.

Now, that should not be a blank check, and we do need more accountability. And that's going to be one of the things that I've talked to Jim, obviously, in the last couple of days. I'm going to continue to talk to him. I think both Steve Scalise and Jim Jordan are going to need to understand that there's a way that we can make these investments in a way that keeps the strategic end in sight while also pushing toward more accountability.

BERMAN: We're just getting word that the former president of the United States, Donald Trump, says he's going to do whatever he can to help Republicans choose a speaker. I'm not sure what that means. What would you like to hear from the former president in terms of this speaker race?

JOHNSON: I think this is a decision that's really got to be made by the 221 people in the House. So often-- and I'm not criticizing any particular reporter, but I would say that citizens back home, they only know these two gentlemen, these two leaders, through how it's been reported. They haven't actually been in the rooms where these guys have had to make difficult decisions and then execute on them successfully.

And so rather than, you know, turning to somebody outside our conference, I think we as a conference really need to come together and figure out how do we make sure that we're in a position to drive toward more prosperity and more freedom.

There are plenty of folks in the Senate and the House that have very different political views than I do. So, I'd like to make sure that my side has our act together.

BERMAN: Congressman, I got to let you run here, but have you heard from either Congressman Jordan or Leader Scalia's in the last 24 hours?

JOHNSON: Oh, yes, for sure. Yes. I had lengthy conversations with them both. I'm going to be talking to them both again in the next 24 hours, I'm sure. I'm the chairman of the 75-member Republican Main Street Caucus. We're the pragmatic conservatives on the Hill. And we're certainly going to be a voting bloc or a group that is going to be very involved in this race.

BERMAN: Well, keep your phone close by over the weekend, Congressman Dusty Johnson, I really do appreciate you being with us, having this frank discussion with us this morning. Please come back next week and tell us where things stand. Be well.

JOHNSON: I'm happy to do so.

BERMAN: Sara?

SIDNER: President Biden will build a section of the border wall after all. In 2020, though, he said he wouldn't add another foot to the southern border wall, saying it's just not a serious policy solution. But the Biden administration is now announcing it will waive 26 federal laws to build about 20 miles of additional border barriers in the Rio Grande Valley along the U.S.-Mexico border. The administration citing high illegal entry for that move.

CNN's Priscilla Alvarez is joining us now from the White House. Priscilla, why is this happening now? I mean, obviously, we're seeing what is going on at the border and we're hearing pleas from many cities saying they can't handle the influx of people.

PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: That's right, Sara. Now, the reality the administration faced in this case is that they had appropriated funds from Congress dating back to 2019. And the source tells me this morning that the administration had to either choose to use them or to lose them. So, they chose to use these funds for border barriers, which is what they were Congressionally appropriated to use. And they are focusing these border barriers on the Rio Grande Valley sector. It's a sector we often talk about because it is highly trafficked by migrants. In fact, from last October to August, there was nearly 300,000 encounters.

And in this notice to the Federal Register, the Homeland Security secretary cited the, quote, high illegal entry.

So, these are border barriers that are going to include what you would imagine, physical barriers, but also access roads, lights, gates, so a lot more than just a physical barrier going up here. And this is something that the Customs and Border Protection had talked to the community about, through public input, that's something that they often seek when they are setting up barriers.

Now, to your point, Sara, there are an uptick of border crossings right now.

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This is a politically precarious issue for this White House, one that President Biden has grappled with since the start of his administration. And there has been political pressure from Democrats and Republicans, Republicans who want to see him do more and Democrats who say that this is a humanitarian crisis playing out. And it is one that is also playing out in interior cities among Democratic allies.

So, all of this really coming to a head today with the news that this wall will go forward in the Rio Grande Valley.

SIDNER: All right. Priscilla Alvarez, thank you for explaining that just perfectly so we understand where the money came from and when and why it had to be used now. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Kate?

BOLDUAN: And today, Secretary of State Tony Blinken and other top cabinet members are sitting down for a series of high-profile, high- level talks with the Mexican government. The focus, the crisis that we're just hearing about from Priscilla, the influx of migrants that we continue to see crossing into the United States, but also broader security concerns, like the smuggling of drugs, like fentanyl, being trafficked through Mexico into the United States.

CNN's Alex Marquardt has much more on this, has fresh reporting for us, he's joining us now. Alex, what are you hearing about these meetings today, what the Biden administration is hoping can come from this?

ALEX MARQUARDT, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kate, it will be a series of meetings throughout the course of the day with the Mexican president and other top level Mexican officials, a number of high-level cabinet officials from the Biden administration, Secretary Blinken, who you mentioned, the secretary of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas, the attorney general, Merrick Garland, as well as the White House's top Homeland Security adviser. Kate, it is very rare to see so many top level officials from the cabinet going on a single trip like this outside of bigger international conferences, and it really does highlight the unique relationship, the unique challenges from Mexico, of course, our immediate neighbor to the south, the U.S.'s biggest trading partner, but also where two of the biggest issues that the United States is facing, those issues are directly emanating from. That is the crisis with fentanyl and this surge in migration.

We have heard U.S. officials in recent days, and really for quite some time, emphasizing how dire the crisis is with fentanyl. 110,000 Americans killed last year from drug overdoses, two-thirds of those from synthetic opioids. It is the biggest killer of American adults, 18 to 49 years old.

The Biden administration has taken direct aim at the Mexican Sinaloa Cartel, sanctioning members, extraditing the son of the infamous drug kingpin, El Chapo.

I want to play a little bit of what the attorney general, Merrick Garland, had to say about the fentanyl crisis this week ahead of this trip to Mexico. Take a listen.

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MERRICK GARLAND, ATTORNEY GENERAL: We know who is responsible for poisoning the American people with fentanyl. We know who is responsible for shattering families and communities across the United States with drug poisonings and overdoses. We know that behind the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans is a cartel-driven fentanyl trafficking network that spans countries and continents.

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MARQUARDT: So, Kate, fentanyl and the surge of migration at the top of the agenda among several very pressing issues between these very senior Biden administration officials and their Mexican counterparts in these conversations today. Kate?

BOLDUAN: Alex, thank you so much for bringing us that. John?

BERMAN: All right. Brand new polls from key states showing the state of the Republican race, new fundraising numbers, too. Iowa or bust, the big new move for Florida Governor Ron DeSantis to try to revive his presidential campaign.

And canine controversy, Commander booted from the White House, more biting incidents than we thought.

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SIDNER: Donald Trump's civil fraud trial is now back under way in New York City. And for the first time since it started, Trump did not show up today, instead went home to Mar-a-Lago. But all week, he's been on the attack against the judge, clerk and attorney general. The attorney general is also responding to his attacks.

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DONALD TRUMP, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: I'm stuck here because I am a corrupt attorney general that communicates with the DOJ in Washington to keep me nice and busy.

LETITIA JAMES, NEW YORK ATTORNEY GENERAL: And I will not sit idly by and allow anyone to subvert the law. And, lastly, I will not be bullied.

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SIDNER: Former Trump White House Lawyer Jim Schultz is joining us now. I do want to clear something up because we've heard this over and over again that Trump says he's stuck there. He has to be there and it's affecting his ability to be on the campaign trail. But he doesn't have to be there, does he, for this whole trial? It's a civil trial.

JIM SCHULTZ, FORMER TRUMP WHITE HOUSE LAWYER: No, he doesn't necessarily have to be there, but he does have a need to defend his interests. And to a certain extent, right, he's on the biggest stage in the world. So, you know, this is all this is all being covered when he comes out of the courtroom. He's able to make statements. He's able to make the comments about he believes this to be a witch hunt, all the other things we've heard about all the other investigations. He takes shots at the prosecution, take shot at the judges and everyone else that this is some big Democratic conspiracy.

SIDNER: All right. I do want to ask you about that because Trump's legal team has now filed an actual motion to dismiss criminal charges relating to another case, that hush money case that New York brought. And part of the argument is that he was indicted to interfere in the 2024 presidential election cycle, that this was just mere interference in that cycle to keep him from being able to run. Is this a legal strategy or is it a political one?

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SCHULTZ: I think it serves both, right? I think it serves more the public-facing political narrative than it does any legal defense that he has, because I don't believe he's going to have any success, and it's a big hill to try to get a hurdle to climb, if you will, to get over that and to make those arguments. So, I do think it serves him more in the context of his public-facing political arguments than it will in the courtroom.

SIDNER: All right, I do want to ask you about him. He's really gone on the attack, and he's attacked everyone, including a clerk. He had a gag order put on him because of a post that he made about a clerk in the New York case. He has called for the New York judge to be disbarred. He has labeled the New York attorney general many things, including a monster and a racist. He's called Special Counsel Jack Smith, who is prosecuting Trump in the election subversion case and the classified documents case, deranged and a psycho and many other things. Look, he's already got a gag order in place now because of what he did with the clerk. Is this going to be a problem for him going forward? As prosecutors look for other cases where they might want to put gag orders in place and hope the judge agrees with them, they can look back at what he said, correct?

SCHULTZ: Sure, that's going to be part of the prosecution strategy in every one of these cases, and he's giving them a ton of fodder to file those types of motions. But at the same time, like we all know, he's not going to dial back what he says in the public realm. He never has. He's uncontrollable in that regard. You know, no way his lawyers are going to talk him out of doing it. No way his political advisers are going to talk him out of doing it. And if he believes it's in his interest to say it, he's going to say it publicly.

SIDNER: And you know that very well. You have dealt with him and gone through some of this. Jim Schultz, thank you so much for coming on and explaining all that to us. John?

BERMAN: All right. The big new move from Ron DeSantis, can it breathe new life into his run for the White House?

Plus, the Biden's German Shepherd was removed from the White House. Why things are getting rough, forgive me, for Commander.

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