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Congress Seeks Border Deal In Face Of Record Migrant Surge; Audio Reveals Plane Was Given Clearance To Land Before Crash; America's Debts Pile Up, Hitting $34 Trillion For First Time; Teen Darts Sensation Heads To The World Finals. Aired 2:30-3p ET

Aired January 03, 2024 - 14:30   ET

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

[14:30:00]

REP. HENRY CUELLAR (D-TX): We treat the migrants with respect and dignity. But right now, it's too easy for them to come in, and then get buzzed or flown into the interior. And we can put all the water buckets that we can have down here at the border. But if we don't turn off the water faucet, they are going to continue coming.

So, we need to raise the standard, give them a quick hearing and deported to their country of origin. Otherwise, it's not going to stop. And you're going to have City Council, folks all over the country passing their own rules about not letting buses from Texas and other places go to their particular areas.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: I do want to ask you about that patchwork of state and local laws versus federal oversight of immigration. But I wanted to get back to the original question, which was do you think that if the Senate moved forward with this deal, that limits asylum seekers, that expedited deportations, that the House would actually take it up? What's your sense of where your Republican colleagues are?

CUELLAR: Well, look, I have an idea of what the Senate is doing. But keep in mind, some of those senators are not even from the border with all due respect. Sinema is and certainly they need to make sure that the people that live on the border have an input on this. And we're just going to accept what the Senate does, I don't think so. If there is, you know, they got to make sure they communicate with the House because it's not a unicameral, it's a bicameral decision. So as long as we are talking to each other, as long as we keep the border communities in mind, we can address this.

But look, it all goes back to the pool factor, you can add more Border Patrol, you can talk about building a fence, which I don't support, you can talk about adding technology. But if you don't do something about the people coming in, and once they come in, they go into the interior, that's the pool factor. They go and they get processed, and they go into the interior and then wait four, five, six years for immigration hearing. If you know, and at the end of those, you know, four or five, six years, an immigration judge will reject about 87 percent.

So why are we allowing all these people to come in when at the end of the time before an immigration judge, 13 percent will be accepted and everybody else be rejected? It's -- we're not doing this right. We got to make sure that we put the resources and make the right policy and not just do things that feel good about the border.

SANCHEZ: Understood. On the question of who is negotiating this deal. You noted that it doesn't sound like you're getting the kind of input that you would like to see from leaders closer to the southern border. One of the senators negotiating this is the independent senator from Arizona, Kyrsten Sinema. We also have Chris Murphy and Lankford of Oklahoma, if you don't think that they should be negotiating this in the Senate who should?

CUELLAR: No, no, I did not say that. I did mention Sinema who is from Arizona. I did mention her. But again, a lot of it is very close lipped to what they're doing, and they can do whatever they want to. But keep in mind that the House is going to look at this. And we got to make sure that people on the border like Sinema, and other folks get the input to get this job. Tony Gonzales, myself and other folks, Vicente Gonzalez, there's so many people that should be involved in this negotiation.

So, we're going to wait to see what the Senate does, but I hope they don't think that they know it all. And the House is just going to accept what they send over to us.

SANCHEZ: Understood. Congressman, there is concern among Democrats that passing this would hurt President Biden among progressives and immigration advocates. You're an outlier in the Democratic Party, given your stance on this issue. Do you think a deal could potentially cost the White House going into President Biden's reelection effort?

CUELLAR: Well, I disagree with that. Because if you look at the polls, I think the polls show that Democrats, Independents and Republicans are not supporting what the President's doing. You know, if we just listen to the immigration advocates, that's one thing. But who's listening to the border communities or county judges the sheriff's, the mayor's from the border? Nobody's listening to them. And you got to understand, you know, when you look at the polls, I think I'm not the outlier, I think during the outliers, and we're the ones, at least according to the polls, and certainly to the constituents that I represent that people want to have law and order at the border. They believe in illegal migration. They don't like what's happening right now at the border. And I think poll after poll to show that the greatest weakness that the President has right now is border security.

So, he needs to make sure he does everything to work a deal out, because otherwise it will affect them, and it's going to affect other Democrats.

SANCHEZ: I didn't -- just to be clear, I didn't mean outlier as a pejorative it just that your position on immigration historically has been different from most Democrats. I do want to get your thoughts on S.B. 4. Because the Department of Justice gave Texas a deadline of today to notify federal authorities whether that law will be enforced. That's the one that makes it essentially a crime in Texas for migrants to cross the border from Mexico. It gives local law enforcement, the ability to arrest people who they believe are undocumented. [14:35:19]

How do you expect Gov. Greg Abbott is going to respond to the DOJ's demand?

CUELLAR: Yes, he's not going to listen to them at all. He's going to continue doing that the legislature passed that. We got to keep in mind, I understand the frustration that the Governor and other folks in Texas have, I understand that. But this type of action doesn't solve the problem. I think the Supreme Court has been very clear about this and the Arizona case 2010, 2012. They said that no matter how bad the frustration is, immigration belongs to the federal government and not to the local government, and not to the military, not to the local officials. It belongs to the federal government.

And I think if the Supreme Court does do and follow their own precedent that they said some years ago, they're going to say no matter how big the frustration is, immigration enforcement belongs to the federal government.

By the way, a lot of those local law enforcement officials don't have the training. And I worry about mistakes being done when they're not given the training, as Border Patrol is given under the immigration laws.

SANCHEZ: Yes, as we saw play out repeatedly in Arizona, you mentioned about a decade ago. Congressman Henry Cuellar, appreciate your perspective. Please come back anytime.

CUELLAR: Anytime. Thank you so much.

SANCHEZ: Of course.

Still ahead on "CNN News Central," new details about that deadly plane crash on a runway in Tokyo. Reporting now reveals warning lights meant to stop planes are entering a runway we're not working. We're also digging into just released air traffic control transcripts that reveal more details about what went wrong.

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[14:41:04]

SANCHEZ: We have new details about that plane collision in Tokyo that left five Japanese Coast Guard crew members dead. We're now learning about warning lights that are designed to stop pilots from erroneously taxiing onto the runway had been out of service for days.

ALEX MARQUARDT, CNN HOST: And that news comes as CNN gets his hands on just released air traffic control, a transcript pointing to a potential error that that the Coast Guard -- excuse me, a potential error by that Coast Guard crew in that plane.

CNN's Pete Muntean joins us now with the latest. So, Pete this transcript what are we learning from it? PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: Well, really, we are getting more and more clues about how the holes in the Swiss cheese lined up that day, more links in the accident chain that led to this fatal accident at Haneda Airport in Tokyo. First, the air traffic control transcript that shows that the Coast Guard plane was not told to get onto the runway. And second that runway warning lights were not in use. They were broken at the time of this incident. That is the air traffic control transcript they're handed out by Japanese Airport -- Airline and Aviation Authorities that essentially lays out this tick tock where the tower at Haneda told the Japanese Coast Guard flight to hold short of the runway, but not go on to the runway and then two minutes and nine seconds later impact.

I want to read you part of this transcript now where the tower told the plane Juliett Alpha 722, alpha that's the tail number. Good evening. Number one taxi to holding point C5. That short of the runway. And then the Coast Guard playing replied, taxi to holding point C5, number one. Thank you.

So clearly, there was some confusion there. The Japanese airliner was already cleared to land.

But I want to show you one more really telling image and we're getting daylight images here of the scene at Haneda airport that shows where the impact was of these two airplanes. You can see sort of at the 11 o'clock position there. That is the ground scar, that is where the Japanese Coast Guard plane was at the bottom of the screen that six o'clock position. That is where the Japanese A350 came to rest, sort of running like a runaway freight train down the runway.

The other thing here is that that Japanese Coast Guard plane was told to hold short of the runway and there are typically warning lights there that make it so that the crew could see that the runway was in use. There are red lights that are embedded in the pavement. They're called runway stop bar lights. And it turns out according to publicly available notices to airmen that these lights were not in service, they were out of service and broken for six days prior to this incident, including the day of this crash.

That could have been one potential way that this crew could have noticed that they were erroneously taxing onto the runway. They're used relatively en masse at major airports in the U.S. They're internationally recognized these lights essentially warn pilots, the runway is in use, there could be an airplane taking off or landing, there could be an airplane, still clearing the runway. And this is especially pertinent because this incident took place at night. So just one more factor in the chain of errors that took place here.

MARQUARDT: That took five lives as well. Pete Muntean, thank you so much for breaking all that down for us.

And still ahead on "CNN News Central," not the milestone that we want to hit. The U.S. national debt has just hit a record $34 trillion. That means, ahead. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [14:48:38]

MARQUARDT: The U.S. Treasury Department says that America's national debt has now clocked in for the first time at $34 trillion. Now for context during the pandemic, the federal government spent heavily to try to stabilize the economy. And that came right after massive tax cuts that shrank American coffers.

SANCHEZ: Yes, this all comes as Congress is about to start debating spending again.

Joining us now is reporter Matt Egan. Matt, we're supposed to see a strong economy right now. And yet the U.S. is still racking up debt.

MATT EGAN, CNN REPORTER: Yes, Boris. This is another bleak milestone for America's finances at $34 trillion. It's kind of unthinkable, especially when you think about the fact that just three months ago, it was at $33 trillion. You can see from this chart that the mountain of debt just continues to grow in spite during the 2008 financial crisis, despite again during COVID. And it's still going up now. And the timing is noteworthy, because normally borrowing goes up when the economy's doing poorly, right when unemployment is high because they have to pay for unemployment benefits and bailouts. Here the debt is going up and deficits are high at a time when unemployment is low, and GDP is high.

And we should also note, that it's no longer free for Uncle Sam to borrow. For years there was near zero interest rates not anymore. That means it's more expensive to finance U.S. debt. The government spending $2 billion a day on interest.

[14:50:06]

Now as you would imagine, this is provoking a lot of finger pointing in Washington, Republicans blaming the White House, the White House blaming Trump era tax cuts. Experts say there's more than enough blame to go around against Republicans and Democrats over many years.

Now, a lot of people were wondering, you know, just how worried should we be? And I don't want to be alarmist here. But look at what Mark Goldwyn from the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget said, he said if we're adding this much to debt in good times, things may get really awful in bad times, and we can't grow our debt faster than our economy forever.

It's worth noting, though, that investors they're not freaking out about this. The ratings companies are starting to sound more concerned. Remember, Fitch Ratings downgraded the United States last year, Moody's has warned that it could do the same. Ultimately, everyone agrees that this fiscal situation is unsustainable. But it's going to take Republicans and Democrats to come together on a broader solution. And in today's highly politicized world, that of course, is not going to be easy.

SANCHEZ: Yes. Good luck with that. Matt Egan, thanks so much for the update. MARQUARDT: There's a lot of digits there.

SANCHEZ: Yes.

MARQUARDT: Now coming up, a 16-year-old is shaking up the world of darts. And the World Dart Championship is happening right now. We'll have more on that 16-year-old pre match ritual and how he's doing in that final.

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[14:55:27]

MARQUARDT: Now as we speak, there is a young 16-year-old who prepares fuels himself with a daily omelet, followed by a pizza, competing fiercely in the World Darts Championship.

SANCHEZ: Yes, the peak of athleticism, omelet, followed by pizza. Luke Littler is the youngest finalist in the history of the competition. I -- maybe not the youngest looking though, right.

Don Riddell joins us now live with more. Don, walk us through what Littler said ahead of today's final. And also, if we confirmed on his birth certificate that he's 16.

MARQUARDT: What do they require if they ask for in terms of documentation?

DON RIDDELL, CNN WORLD SPORT: Yes. A lot of people think that he's a lot older than 16. He will be 17 in just a couple of weeks' time. But I mean, it's just extraordinary what he's been doing. He has come out of absolutely nowhere making his debut at the World Championships and he's just taken the whole thing by storm. He's already knocked out a couple of former World Champions. He is young is fun, he is fearless. He is audacious with the way he plays and everybody has just fallen in love with this young kid. He can't even drive in England yet, he can't even drink legally in England yet. He's already one quarter of a million dollars.

If he wins the final today, he will leave town with over 600 grand which is just absolutely incredible. And you have remarked on his diet and his routine as you say ham and cheese, omelet, pizza. If he wins tonight, he'll be celebrating with a kebab, which he would have been having anyway, I suspect win or lose. But it's just an incredible story. And so many people are rooting for him to go all the way today.

SANCHEZ: Good for him.

MARQUARDT: That crowd.

SANCHEZ: A lot of omelets and pizzas if he winds up winning. Just that stoic face he's -- he's a champ.

MARQUARDT: I wish I had that facial hair you see.

SANCHEZ: Me too. Now I wish (INAUDIBLE). Don Riddell, thank you so much.

We'll be right back.

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