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Don Lemon Tonight
SC Gov. Haley Candidate for Secretary of State; Trump Officials Banned from Lobbying for Five Years; Trump Relies on Son-in-Law Jared Kushner; Los Angeles versus Trump Immigration Plan; Bill de Blasio: New Yorkers Will "Stand Up" for Immigrants; Trump Appoints Steve Bannon as Chief Strategist. Aired 11p-12a ET
Aired November 16, 2016 - 23:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[23:00:37] DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: Breaking news. The President-elect meeting tomorrow with South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley.
This is CNN TONIGHT. I'm Don Lemon.
A transition source telling CNN Governor Haley is under consideration for a number of key Cabinet positions.
So let's begin this hour, shall we, with CNN Political Reporter Sara Murray who can update us on all of this? So let's start out with the breaking news tonight, Sara, on the transition. What you can tell us?
SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICS REPORTER: Well, let's talk about Nikki Haley because she's going to be in New York tomorrow visiting Donald Trump at Trump Tower. And sources are saying that she is the kind of person that they believe could be a good fit as a potential Secretary of State in Donald Trump's administration.
Now, obviously, the person that we've really been talking about as the leader for a potential Secretary of State has been Rudy Giuliani. But the fact that you're seeing Donald Trump meet with Nikki Haley -- he has a full slate of meetings tomorrow, but I feel like Nikki Haley is really the headline here because she was really critical of him during the campaign, publicly critical, openly critical.
She ultimately said she was going to vote for Donald Trump. But if he were to be seriously considering Nikki Haley for Secretary of State as sources say, if he were to pick her, that would be a good indication that he is serious about trying to find people that he feels like will really flesh out his administration, will sort of bring some more experience, and that he's willing to forgive past grievances and look at people based on what he thinks their credentials are for the job.
Now, beyond that, one of the other big things that they announced this evening is that they're going to look to anyone who serves in the Donald Trump administration to then have sort of a five year ban on lobbying. Of course, we've seen a revolving door of people who go into the White House, they leave, they immediately go into lobbying. The Trump administration wants to change that. They do want this five-year ban. Unclear exactly how they plan to implement or enforce it, but that's what they're putting out there tonight. Don. LEMON: All right. Sara Murray, thank you. Stand by. I want to
bring in now investigative journalist Vicky Ward, a contributor to "Esquire" magazine, and also CNN political analyst Rebecca Berg, national political reporter for Real Clear Politics. Thank you both for joining us.
Vicky, you have written a big profile piece on Jared Kushner for "Esquire" magazine.
VICKY WARD, CONTRIBUTOR, ESQUIRE: Yes.
LEMON: We don't hear very much about him. What is he really like?
WARD: Well, Jared is a very, very shrewd tactician. When I wrote my piece in the summer, Kevin Ryan, the dot com entrepreneur said to me, you know, he's in it to win it. And indeed, it has proven so.
What's very interesting, Don, is that a lot of people in the New York real estate industry and sort of New York social circles, I think, sort of withdrew a bit from Jared during the campaign. But now that he is right there with the President-elect, they're all sort of saying, oh, thank goodness because Jared is so smart.
LEMON: Yes.
WARD: And I think that, you know, that's very interesting.
LEMON: Why did they withdraw, because they weren't so sure? They --
WARD: Well, because, I think, as we've seen in this election, New York was in one camp and Jared Kushner -- and I felt this when I was reporting the piece in the summer -- really sort of was strategizing and understood where Middle America was. And it turned out, you know what, his math and his understanding of social media, you know, his calculations were right. And he was very, very central in the Trump campaign and I'm sure Donald Trump feels that, which is why he wants him so close with him.
LEMON: Yes. It is said that he has been, you know, at the center of the transition team. And according to reports, that maybe he's, you know, part of the so-called turmoil that's happening there. And that's been disputed, they're saying there's no turmoil.
But, anyway, we know that his father -- he also is said to have gotten rid of Chris Christie. And his father, Charles Kushner, was sent to prison at the hands of Chris Christie. And in the article, here's what you write, you said, "Prison in Alabama in 2005, Jared was still working on a joint business and law degree at NYU. Since a convicted felon cannot, as a matter of practice, sign a contract as a fiduciary, he felt that he had no choice other than to take over the family business. In his interview with 'New York'" -- with "New York" meaning the "New York Magazine," that you're talking about?
WARD: Yes.
LEMON: -- "he acknowledged that his father had made a mistake while at the same time insisting that Charles had been unfairly punished for his crimes. He's made no secret of the fact that he sees his father, still, as an extraordinary man, and that he believes in his filial duty to put the Kushner name back at the top." So he is driven to restore the family name. Do you think that's part of what is guiding him now?
[23:05:03] WARD: I do. But I also think that Jared Kushner is -- you know, he is a very ambitious, smart tactician whose career, in some ways, almost eclipses that of his father-in-law. If you think that 12 years ago, he was, as I wrote, you know, in his early 20s, his father had been gone to jail, and instead of sort of changing his name and moving to California as a lot of people would do --
LEMON: And to call their business. Right.
WARD: --he doubled down. He bought the most expensive building at the time in New York. He crossed the river, rather like Donald Trump had done many years before him from Queens. And starts to rehabilitate the Trump -- I'm sorry, the Kushner name, buys a newspaper which is really sort of a marker, and then he's an Orthodox Jew and he marries the very prominent Ivanka Trump who converts to marry him.
So these are all actions of someone -- I mean, people talk about Jared as being low key. But, actually, if you look at the trajectory of his career, now there he is right by the President-elect, it's really an -- all of it adds up to an extraordinary statement really.
LEMON: Ivanka probably saw a lot of her father in him, yes.
WARD: I don't doubt it.
LEMON: So 35 years old, and maybe one of the most powerful people in the country. Are you surprised by that having met him and knowing him?
WARD: No, not at all. I saw sort of when I was reporting this piece in the summer just how determined he was, you know. And it's real for him. He really believes in Donald Trump. I think they do have this kinship. They do. Because they've both grown up around the real estate industry, they both understand how to pivot.
I think they both feel the same way, actually, about the media. One of the things I reported was that, you know, Jared was not well liked by his news men and that, you know what, he didn't care particularly.
LEMON: Yes. And he's a member of the media.
WARD: Well, but he --
LEMON: Was it --
WARD: But he --
LEMON: What I --
WARD: Well, he's an owner.
LEMON: Yes.
WARD: And I think that he sees that very clearly.
LEMON: Yes.
WARD: I think that he was in it to -- he owned the "New York Observer" because he was sort of interested to see if he could modernize it. And interestingly, in the last few the days, the "Observer" has just gone purely online.
LEMON: Yes. And I was telling you before, it was interesting because, you know, he talks at Donald Trump rallies against "The New York Times," but recently, maybe a couple weeks ago, maybe a month ago, I got a copy of the "Observer," which is a paper he owns, inside of my "New York Times" subscription at my front door. And I said, well, this is interesting, you know, that this is happening.
But I got to get Rebecca in. Rebecca, as a member of the Trump family, can Jared Kushner even get a job at the White House? Aren't there rules about that?
REBECCA BERG, NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER, REALCLEARPOLITICS.COM: There are nepotism laws, Don, that prevent family members, including in-laws, from taking salaried positions, but that wouldn't preclude Jared Kushner from taking an unsalaried position or acting as a sort of informal kitchen cabinet sort of advisor to Donald Trump as he has been doing throughout this campaign process.
And so that's why -- excuse me, that's why hearing these reports of Jared Kushner perhaps getting a security clearance. He's clearly very much still in the mix, very much a trusted advisor to Donald Trump in his team. And I would be surprised, actually, if we did not see him taking some sort of informal role in the Trump White House because he has been so instrumental throughout this campaign not only to shaping the direction of the campaign and the strategy, but really keeping this team together.
We talked so much throughout this campaign about all of the tumultuous turns in this campaign, all of the different leaders, from Corey Lewandowski to Paul Manafort to Steve Bannon, the different iterations of this campaign. Jared Kushner has been a thread throughout. He has been one of the things holding this campaign together. And I think we can expect that to continue as this campaign moves from campaign mode into the White House.
LEMON: Can we see him as part of the daily briefing every day even, as you said, if he takes on a voluntary role?
BERG: Well, we're seeing that in the transition now potentially. But when it gets to the White House, it gets to be a little bit murkier because if you're in an informal, unsalaried position, then this does raise questions of conflicts of interest. And, of course, there's this dynamic where the adult children, Ivanka, Eric, and Donald Jr., are going to be running the family business. It's part of a blind trust to try to create this wall of separation
between Donald Trump as President --
LEMON: It's not really blind trust. It's --
WARD: Yes.
BERG: It's not really, no. And so that's something we've been talking about throughout, like is this actually going to prevent conflicts of interest? Well, it's the set up that they have planned so far. But Jared Kushner, married to Ivanka Trump, that really starts to tear down this wall of separation even further. It raises more questions of conflicts of interest.
LEMON: Did you want to get in on this? Did you want to say something?
WARD: Well, no. But I think that what's -- well, yes. Because I think that, you know, to me, knowing -- you know I've also reported on Donald Trump for many years and knowing him. I mean, this is just how he operates. And, you know, as we know, he's happy to break with precedent. He wants to break with precedent.
[23:10:07] He likes to be surrounded by a very small group of people who he trusts. Jared Kushner, you know, is absolutely that person.
LEMON: Yes. Yes. You know, the Trump campaign is sort of -- you know, it's been seen as a fly by the seat of your pants, at least, from the outside in. Now, the transition seems to be in turmoil, as they said, with Kushner at the center of some of this, you know, so- called infighting. But they deny it. What do you --
WARD: Well, I --
LEMON: What's the larger picture here going on?
WARD: Well, just based on my reporting on Jared Kushner, I felt, in the summer, that there was this aura of calm around him and careful calculation, which seemed, I think, very few people in New York understood that. And I think it didn't bother him nobody in New York understood it. So just, you know, because how it looks to us may not necessarily be what is. You know, I think that Jared Kushner has proven that he is not to be under estimated.
LEMON: Yes. It's certainly interesting, what you said, here in New York. Go ahead, Rebecca.
BERG: I was just going to say, we should also mention that Jared Kushner is certainly not any sort of ideologue. He was a Democrat before this campaign, a Democratic contributor. His father was a major Democratic donor. Jared Kushner and Ivanka were very close friends with Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey. They raised money for them in their own home.
He is someone who is in this to win as an operator, not out of any sort of political ideology. He's not in this because these are necessarily his beliefs. This is all about family, all about loyalty.
LEMON: Yes.
BERG: And that ads another layer that some of the Trump's other advisors don't have. It might be a reason why that loyalty runs so much deeper with Kushner.
LEMON: Again, it sounds a lot like Donald Trump, who was a Democrat and a Democratic donor.
WARD: Well, and I was going to say, and actually the Kushners did give to Rudy Giuliani. So, you know, I mean, that's welcome to real estate. It's very common in that industry. You know, they butter both sides of the bread.
LEMON: Yes. Thank you, Vicky.
WARD: Thank you, Don.
LEMON: Thank you, Rebecca. I appreciate it.
BERG: Thank you.
LEMON: Just ahead, will Donald Trump get into a heated battle with mayors of cities around the country that are known as sanctuary cities? The mayor of Los Angeles joins me next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[23:15:51] LEMON: Los Angeles is a sanctuary city shielding more than 1 million undocumented immigrants from U.S. immigration enforcers. That could put the city on a collision course with the Trump administration. I want to talk about that now with Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti.
Thank you, Mayor, for joining us this evening.
MAYOR ERIC GARCETTI, LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: Great to be with you. Thanks, Don.
LEMON: Explain to our audience. What is a sanctuary city exactly?
GARCETTI: Well, I don't use the term "sanctuary city" since it has no definition, and it's primarily been used by anti-immigrant folks. But I will say that Los Angeles and other big cities have always been a place that are welcome to refugees, to asylum seeker, and to immigrants. Currently, 63 percent of our population are immigrants or the children of immigrants. And we've seen that to be a core part of our economy. We see it to be a core part of our security on our city streets.
And we'll continue to be a place of refuge, a place that immigrants can come to and where they can feel safe. No matter what the changes are that go into one administration or the next in the White House, we're going to continue to be a great American city that's filled with immigrants and very proud of that history and that present. LEMON: So it's fair to say that Los Angeles is not cooperating with
the federal government on its efforts to enforce immigration law?
GARCETTI: Well, we do all the time when there's a criminal and there is a court warrant that requires us to make sure that we hand folks over to immigration officials. We've done that consistently.
But the policy that we have in Los Angeles is from 1970 under a not a liberal police chief but, if you remember the name, Daryl Gates, a Republican, a conservative, in 1970 who recognized that's not the job of local police officers whose job is to establish trust with all residents, to make sure they can be witnesses to crimes, that they can talk to their police.
That's the responsibility of the federal government. And our chief, Charlie Beck, said we will continue to have that policy. We will concentrate on street crime and keeping Los Angeles safe. We don't believe it's the role or the place for local law enforcement to be asking people solely what their immigration status is and handing that over to the federal government. That's a federal responsibility.
LEMON: Let me tell you specifically what Charlie Beck said about enforcement. He says, "We are not going to work in conjunction with Homeland Security on deportation efforts. That is not our job nor will I make it our job." So are you in agreement with that position, Mayor?
GARCETTI: Absolutely. That's my chief and we talked about that and that is my policy as well as his. And it's been the policy for more than 40 years here in Los Angeles. Part of the reason we've been able to bring crime down to historic lows is we have trust in all of our communities, great relationships with our diverse immigrant populations. And that's a core part of keeping America safe. That trust is even more valuable than what we see coming from the other side.
And I would like to see assurances from the incoming administration that we're not going to see children ripped away from their parents in the middle of the night. We've seen that playbook before in other countries. We've even fought wars against that sort of action. We've seen dark chapters of our own nation's history where American citizens were deported in Operation Wetback from the American southwest, full American citizens that were taken across the border and families separated.
We can't afford that here in Los Angeles. We can't afford that in America. And we hope that this administration will not be engaging those sorts of efforts.
LEMON: Over the course of this campaign, we've heard so much, you know, about the things that have happened recently. Donald Trump is blaming sanctuary policy for many of the needless deaths, including the cases of Kate Steinle who was murdered in San Francisco. The accused is an undocumented immigrant and a repeat felon. How do you answer critics who point to this case and others, and they say sanctuary is a bad idea? GARCETTI: Well, you look at the overwhelming number of people who are
here undocumented, a million in Los Angeles County. And if you look at those numbers and even native-born who commit crime, that's something that happens with human beings. And we should always make sure, whether somebody is here as an undocumented immigrant or as a native-born American, that if they're committing crimes, then they need to be held accountable for. We need to make sure that the legal system works.
But the idea of massive sweeps and deportations, we're experiencing an economic boom here in Los Angeles. A big part of that has been that, under President Obama, many of these undocumented migrants have moved into legal status and seen their wages go up by 40 percent and lifted the wages up for all of us. To push them back into the shadows won't get rid of crime. To push them back in the shadows will depress the wages of our citizens here, as well as, of course, those individuals, and could risk the strength of our main street economies throughout the United States.
[23:20:09] Sixty percent of our local businesses are started by immigrants, some of them, they don't have documentation. And there's reason why 65 percent of Americans want a pathway towards citizenship for undocumented migrants. That seems to be the right solution forward.
LEMON: The President-elect, though, is threatening to withhold federal funds from cities shielding undocumented immigrants. That's potentially hundreds of millions of dollars from your bottom line. Could Los Angeles afford to lose that kind of money?
GARCETTI: Well, those are our tax dollars. We expect to continue to get those tax dollars back from Washington. We're patriots. We pay our taxes. We make sure that those come back. And nobody's ever defined, even in drafts of old legislation, what a, quote/unquote, "sanctuary city" is.
LAPD officers, just like in New York and Chicago and in any small town, shouldn't be immigration officials. That's the responsibility of the federal government. Just because we're not pulling people over by the way they look and asking for their papers doesn't mean that we're not participating with federal immigration authorities. We do that, though, in a lawful way, when a court gives us a warrant.
And we're not going to spread fear. We're not going to divide families. It's un-American and we won't stand for it here and we shouldn't stand for it in America.
LEMON: Mayor, are you seeing any more fear in immigrant communities in your cities since this election?
GARCETTI: Absolutely. I have talked with young children who are inconsolable, who are crying, not knowing whether their parents are going to be there when they wake up. People are having nightmares. People are worried whether or not, at the schools, their children will be grabbed, whether parents will be taken away, whether our local factories -- businessmen who are wondering whether our local factories, because there's too many Latinos or Asians there, will be raided.
This is bad for the economy. It's bad for our social fabric. It's bad for the security of our streets. We all want secure borders, we all want a pathway to citizenship, and there's a bipartisan consensus of that.
What we don't want to see, which is, frankly, un-American, is to these sorts of raids ripping families apart, these kind of accusations based on what you look or maybe how you worship or where you worship God. These things, we have to work hard in our cities to be the examples of love, of unity, of what America stands for. And I'm very proud of our city and my fellow mayors across this nation who are standing up for American values and challenging the administration to assure us we won't see those un-American images on our streets.
LEMON: Mayor Garcetti, thank you.
GARCETTI: Thank you.
LEMON: Up next, Mayor Bill de Blasio says that New Yorkers will stand up against President Trump, but at what cost to the city?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[23:26:25] LEMON: About 300 American cities and towns help shelter undocumented immigrants from federal enforcers. Here to talk about that is senior political contributor Maria Cardona, a Democratic strategist; political commentator Tara Setmayer, a Republican strategist; John DePetro, a talk show host on WPRO; and political commentator Angela Rye. Good to have all of you.
And, Angela, this one is for you. New York Mayor Bill de Blasio met today with the President-elect. And I want you to listen to what he had to say afterwards.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MAYOR BILL DE BLASIO, NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK: The New Yorkers will stand together. We're going to stand up for the needs of working people. We're going to stand up for our immigrant brothers and sisters. We're going to stand up for anyone who, because of any policy, is excluded or affronted, be they be members of the Muslim community or the Jewish community, members the LGBT community, women, anyone who feels policies are being undertaken that undermine them.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: I watched that entire press conference today. And I thought it was fascinating getting, you know, sort of the inside scoop of this meeting. Is the Mayor, Angela, setting up a conflict between his city and the Trump administration?
ANGELA RYE, FORMER EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, CONGRESSIONAL BLACK CAUCUS: No. I think he is setting up the incoming President of the United States to make good decisions that impact every day Americans. These people have children. These folks have been contributors to our society. And maybe they didn't always do everything right, but I think that there's something to be said for the meaning of a sanctuary city in this day and age.
So I think that the problem is the rhetoric that Donald Trump used on the campaign trail. They still have people chanting, "Build that wall." They chanted it at the RNC. They chanted it at Donald Trump rally after rally. And you had kids doing this in a middle school lunchroom just last week. And I think the reality of it is, these are far more complex issues than what you can get out in a four or five- word chant. We have to really understand what it means to break up and tear apart families.
LEMON: Both of the mayors, Mayor Garcetti who was on, Mayor Bill de Blasio who you heard there in the sound bite just a couple of seconds ago, they have hundreds of thousands of residents who could be targeted by Donald Trump's administration immigration policy. Can you blame them for trying to protect their people, Tara?
TARA SETMAYER, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, no. I mean, because, naturally, if they're mayors of these cities and they feel as though they want the United States to be welcoming, and I understand that.
LEMON: I feel a but coming on.
SETMAYER: Yes, there's but here. I worked in illegal immigration on Capitol Hill for seven year for a Southern California congressman, and I really got to see the devastating effects now. We need to talk about illegal immigration. You know, illegal immigration. We're not talking about legal immigration. And the devastating effects it's had particularly in California.
You know, you have the Los Angeles Mayor on there, and it reminds me of Jamiel Shaw, who was a case that I worked with them on, that came to my attention when I worked in Congress, of a 17-year-old young Black boy that was getting ready to go to college, promising football career, was murdered in front his house, shot in the head by an illegal alien gang member who had just been released from the L.A. County jail, who should've been deported, had a rap sheet a mile long, because of something called Special Rule 40, which doesn't allow law enforcement officers to act about illegal immigration status.
And it ties the hands of law and order in these cities. You know, I think that we failed a lot of these illegal immigrants that find safe haven in these cities because we've allowed this to go on for so long, and then we don't enforce the law and then we create this problem.
LEMON: I see --
SETMAYER: I don't think we should have a deportation force but we --
LEMON: I see Maria cringing too when you say illegal alien because people aren't aliens. They're undocumented immigrants.
SETMAYER: Well, that's the government term, is aliens. It's the official government term.
LEMON: But go ahead, Maria.
[23:30:08] MARIA CARDONA, CNN POLITICAL CONTRIBUTOR: So I worked at INS back when it was INS during the Clinton administration. This has been an issue that has been existing since the 1980s and let's look at what the history of it is, and what the reality of it is because a lot of people are throwing around these terms when in reality it is not a legal term.
I think Mayor Garsetti was right on point when he said he doesn't even call us a sanctuary city because there's really no legality behind it. It started in the 1980s when immigrants were coming from Central America, seeking asylum from the wars that were -- that were going on there. And they would go into religious institutions, into churches, in order to be protected from being deported. Then that turned into cities, also making sure that a lot of these immigrants whose only fault was coming here without papers but they were all seeking asylum.
What is happening now is that a lot of these cities are telling their law enforcement, and by the way the majority of law enforcement agree with this, that they don't have to do -- should not have to do the job of federal immigration services because if they do, then what happens is in a lot of these communities, a lot of these immigrant communities will stop cooperating with the police.
If you are in a domestic abuse situation, for example, and you are an undocumented immigrant or even if you are here legally but you live in a mixed status family and you get into a case where your husband or your wife or whoever in your family is attacking you, you're not going to report it to the police. That is a big deal.
SETMAYER: That happens --
LEMON: John, I'll get you in. I promise. I want Tara to respond.
SETMAYER: But unfortunately that is a crutch because you -- I've talked to plenty of law enforcement officers particularly ICE agents who are handcuffed and can't do their jobs because you have places like Los Angeles and others where they openly will not cooperate with federal law enforcement officers in order to enforce the law.
The Obama administration got rid of the 287-g program which basically helped to train --
CARDONA: Because it wasn't working.
SETMAYER: That's not -- that's not true.
CARDONA: No. It wasn't working.
SETMAYER: They got rid of that -- the 287 program helped trained local law enforcement officers to find out whether when they detained someone for a crime if they're legal immigrants or not. And they got rid of that because the Obama administration did not want --
CARDONA: No.
SETMAYER: Did not want people deported. And that became a huge problem.
CARDONA: They got rid of it because it constrained the local law enforcement.
RYE: But that's not why. It's a --
CARDONA: Local law enforcement said I don't want to do this because then I will not be able to do community policing.
LEMON: So, John -- I need to get John. John, even your own mayor in Providence also supports the sanctuary city movement. What's wrong with protecting people who aren't criminals and who are just trying to live their lives?
JOHN DEPETRO, WPRO TALK SHOW HOST: Yes. It's a disgrace, Don. And de Blasio and the mayor of Los Angeles, if they're not going to enforce the law, they should either be arrested or resigned. You don't have politicians star to pick and choose which laws they're going to enforce. This was the core issue of the Trump campaign was build the wall. This isn't about families. They're not even supposed to be here.
RYE: Oh my god.
DEPETRO: They don't pay taxes. They clog the schools.
RYE: That's not true.
CARDONA: They do pay taxes.
RYE: That's not true, sir.
DEPETRO: They clog the hospitals.
LEMON: Let him finish.
DEPETRO: This is -- it is absolutely, and as far as de Blasio, look at the conditions in New York City? It is a wreck right now. Listen, they're going to have to enforce the law. You don't just pick which laws you're going to enforce. You go back to the civil war, states that wanted slavery.
CARDONA: Have you been to New York?
DEPETRO: You go back to the '60, you had states that would not have -- yes, I have lived in New York for nine years, and right now it is wreck with people moving out and the number of homeless.
CARDONA: Wow.
LEMON: Yes.
DEPETRO: They took an oath to enforce the law. If they're not going to enforce it, they should be arrested or they should resign. But you can't just start to choose.
This is fake outrage, Don, because they want votes.
(CROSSTALK)
CARDONA: It's not fake.
LEMON: John -- John, hold on. Hold on. I do have to say that New York City is thriving right now, but anyway, go ahead.
CARDONA: Thank you. It is not fake outrage when you have --
DEPETRO: The "Wall Street Journal" says high -- these people are moving out.
CARDONA: It is not fake outrage when you have families, when you have children that are afraid for their lives.
DEPETRO: What about American families?
CARDONA: Because they believe that because of --
RYE: Why --
DEPETRO: They shouldn't be here in the first place.
CARDONA: Because of some collusion between their own community police officer is going to essentially turn them in when they've done nothing wrong except for be here without documents that. That is not a criminal felony.
SETMAYER: But here's --
DEPETRO: You can't have open borders.
SETMAYER: Here's the proem with that. Most people are not going to go around looking for -- you know, who are the families and the kids and yank them out of school. That's an extremist position and I -- you know, I agree with Donald Trump on some of --
(CROSSTALK)
CARDONA: Welcome to Trump administration.
RYE: Sound like the Trump -- yes.
SETMAYER: I agree with him on some of his policies but not all of them. A deportation force is a bit much. But as far as, you know, border security and we should know who is coming in and out of this country, there is nothing wrong with that.
RYE: We do have that.
SETMAYER: Interior enforcements not really. As far as interior enforcement it's down 40 percent under Barack Obama for interior enforcement.
DEPETRO: You can't have mayors pick and choose which laws they're going to enforce.
SETMAYER: You have -- you have people coming across this border by -- in the droves in the thousands, since 2014 from unaccompanied minors.
(CROSSTALK)
[23:35:01] RYE: The numbers are down, Tara.
SETMAYER: Yes, absolutely. And --
LEMON: Let her respond.
DEPETRO: They are not American citizens.
SETMAYER: People coming from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador is up. The numbers from Mexico are down because there's a different set of rules.
LEMON: OK. Let Angela respond.
SETMAYER: But that's the problem, they're using the asylum status.
LEMON: Go ahead, Angela.
RYE: So, first of all, to say that law enforcement officers in towns and cities around the country are picking and choosing which laws they're going to enforce is preposterous. Maria made a very good and strong and clear and honest --
DEPETRO: Politicians.
RYE: I'm -- she's not a politician. She actually is a political commentator on this air just like me.
DEPETRO: The mayor of Los Angeles --
LEMON: Let her finish, John.
RYE: I can't hear you while you're pointing. What did you say? OK. So what I was saying was --
DEPETRO: I said the mayor of New York and the mayor of Los Angeles, the mayor of Providence. You can't decide which laws you're going to enforce --
(CROSSTALK)
RYE: I submit to you --
DEPETRO: The law of the land --
LEMON: Angela, Angela. Hold your thought. Hold your thought. So let's stop it right there and then on the other side of the break Angela will get the first word. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) LEMON: All right. Back now with my panel. Angela, I think you were making a point on the trust between communities and police?
[23:40:01] RYE: I was actually making a point about the difference between federal, state, and local law, and I think that what I found often throughout this election cycle and now on the other side of it is people don't understand how that works. There is a difference in obligation between what a state and local law enforcement officer is supposed to do versus what the feds do, and I think that that is the point that Maria was trying to make earlier on, and it must have been missed but --
DEPETRO: Enforce the law.
RYE: I give up. Maria, your turn.
CARDONA: OK.
LEMON: Let her finish. Your point is --
DEPETRO: Do you want some more cheese with that wine?
LEMON: Hold on. John, John, let her finish.
RYE: No, I'm finished, Don. I just feel like it's not absorbed --
DEPETRO: This is more of the same.
LEMON: Go ahead, John. Let John finish. Go ahead.
DEPETRO: This is about make America great again, not South America great again.
RYE: Wow.
(CROSSTALK)
CARDONA: That's awful.
DEPETRO: And you're going to start to bring back the country.
LEMON: Tara?
SETMAYER: I'm sorry.
DEPETRO: I'm not going to pick and choose which laws they want to enforce.
SETMAYER: As a conservative Republican --
DEPETRO: Period.
SETMAYER: -- who has worked on the illegal immigration issue for many years, and I'm pretty tough on that issue, I don't think that it's helpful if we're going to try to move forward because it's very complicated and it's multilayered from the law enforcement aspect. DEPETRO: It is not complicated.
CARDONA: It is.
SETMAYER: It is actually.
DEPETRO: You're wrong.
SETMAYER: No, it's not. OK. I worked on this, John.
DEPETRO: Donald Trump is --
SETMAYER: And I've come from a law enforcement family. It's multilayered.
DEPETRO: It's not (INAUDIBLE).
SETMAYER: It is. So just going out there and state make America great again --
DEPETRO: It's not multilayered.
SETMAYER: -- we're going to throw everybody out --
CARDONA: It's totally multilayered.
SETMAYER: -- is not a solution.
DEPETRO: It's not throwing everyone out.
SETMAYER: How about we come with a solution like we can enforce the border.
DEPETRO: Right.
SETMAYER: We can enforce the laws, we can deport the criminals.
DEPETRO: Yes.
SETMAYER: And then we can come up with those solutions.
DEPETRO: And then the mayor should fight for that.
(CROSSTALK)
SETMAYER: Instead of throwing bombs and talk about maybe guest worker program.
DEPETRO: You would agree you can't just make up the law as you go along.
SETMAYER: Or interior enforcement. But that kind of language, which is why people -- see, that's the kind of message that Trump campaign is purveying and it's created the division that we have in this country. That does not move us forward.
CARDONA: John. John -- John is --
DEPETRO: That's why he won the election.
CARDONA: John is trying to pretend that immigration and this issue of, quote-unquote, sanctuary cities is simple. I think completely --
DEPETRO: It is simple.
CARDONA: -- betrays his ignorance of this issue, period.
DEPETRO: No, just because we disagree.
CARDONA: Because this is an issue --
(CROSSTALK)
LEMON: Let her finish. Let her finish. I'll let you respond, John. Go ahead.
CARDONA: This is an issue that is so incredibly complicated, multilayered. There's a reason why we have not been able to get to --
DEPETRO: I can hear the violins from here.
CARDONA: -- comprehensive immigration reform.
RYE: Can you stop?
CARDONA: When you actually have bipartisan people who have been working on this for years and who understand that there are certain pieces that absolutely need to be contained in a bill, but what happened is then it gets thrown into the political arena and people like John cheapen the debate.
SETMAYER: Yes.
LEMON: So, John -- so, John, give us a policy solution then rather than a slogan.
DEPETRO: You know what -- you know what, Don, it's simple. If the mayors feel that way they need to fight it out and they need to put forth the legislation that's going to change the law. But --
RYE: That's not their role.
DEPETRO: We can have -- you can't have politicians just announcing what laws they're going to enforce. What laws they're not going to enforce. So start to say, you don't have -- it's fake outrage and you watch.
CARDONA: You know what, John?
DEPETRO: That was a great move also, by the way, Steve Bannon going to the White House. He's the man.
LEMON: But I hear all of these people who are here and who have worked on it, and who know the law saying that's actually how the law works. And --
RYE: Right.
LEMON: Yes. And you're saying it's not, but that's -- legally, that's how it works. One doesn't have --
RYE: Don, can I just give you one example?
LEMON: Yes, go ahead.
RYE: Well, here's one example --
DEPETRO: Well, I just want to finish --
RYE: John -- no. John. John. John.
DEPETRO: But what they need -- they need to wait is for --
RYE: John, Don just gave me the floor, John. John.
(CROSSTALK)
RYE: Don just gave me the floor.
DEPETRO: President Trump, legislation that's going to come out --
LEMON: John, please --
DEPETRO: -- before you start -- I will but before they start to announce they're not going to follow it.
LEMON: OK. Go ahead.
RYE: OK. So here's the thing. And it's just one example of what I mean when I say I don't think it's fundamentally understand how government works. You just suggested that mayors should put forth legislation, and I stand -- I sit before you today.
DEPETRO: No. Support legislation. Support legislation.
CARDONA: You know what, they do. It's called comprehensive immigration reform. If that is something that we can get to a lot of these will be fixed.
RYE: I just want to roll the tape back because that's what I was saying.
CARDONA: Because a lot of these immigrants will be legal.
DEPETRO: And Garsetti --
CARDONA: They have no criminal record behind them.
DEPETRO: Then Garsetti and de Blasio can work through their representatives for the type of legislation they want. But again I don't want to be a broken record. You can't just start to announce that your city is going to welcome people --
(CROSSTALK)
SETMAYER: OK. That's fair enough.
CARDONA: Actually they can.
SETMAYER: For those mayors and those cities that say that they're not going to cooperate or they're not going to hand over the -- you know --
DEPETRO: Should be arrested.
RYE: They shouldn't be arrested.
SETMAYER: -- criminal aliens, which they have not done, which is what happened in San Francisco.
RYE: Yes.
SETMAYER: That's what happened with Kate Steinle, that's how she ended up being killed because the person who killed was deported seven times and came back, and he was not handed over to ICE. There's a bureaucratic nightmare going on with detainers and local law enforcement in counties, and ICE and whether who gets deported and how. It needs to be overhauled and it needs to change.
CARDONA: Yes.
SETMAYER: But there has to be more cooperation.
DEPETRO: But, Don, here's the thing.
SETMAYER: And for those kind of sanctuary cities there's a way that you can make them comply and that's with federal funding.
CARDONA: But there's --
RYE: Exactly.
SETMAYER: And if they don't comply then that's up to Congress.
CARDONA: But there's also a way -- but there's also a way --
DEPETRO: But, Angela, you would agree you can't have politicians deciding who stays and who leaves.
RYE: That was Tara. That was Tara who was just talking to you. That wasn't me.
CARDONA: There's also a way to get these cities and a lot of the mayors of these cities actually do comply with a lot of these detainers and actually do work with ICE after the person has served their sentence or after the court has said what needs to be done with this person. [23:45:08] They do turn them over to ICE because they have an
agreement with ICE that they will do that only when there is a detainer or a court order. That's very different from asking community officers, community policing officers to go around asking people for their immigration papers.
RYE: That's right.
CARDONA: And that is what a lot of Republicans want.
DEPETRO: No one is asking for papers. That's talking points.
CARDONA: And hat is what so many people --
(CROSSTALK)
LEMON: OK. Stand by, we'll be back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LEMON: Back now with my panel. This is for Maria Cardona. Before Steve Bannon went to work for Donald Trump he interviewed Trump for Breitbart Radio and in one conversation Donald Trump defended the idea that we should give priority to highly educated immigrants.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT-ELECT: You know, we have to keep our talented people in this country. I think you agree with that. Do you agree with that?
STEVE BANNON, TRUMP CHIEF STRATEGIST: Well, I get tougher -- you know, when 2/3 or 3/4 of the CEOs in Silicon Valley are from South Asia or from Asia, I think --
TRUMP: Well, that's --
BANNON: My point is, a country is more like a sessions. A country is more than an economy. We're a civic society.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: OK. So by the way that number doesn't really check out because Bannon seriously exaggerated the number of Asian executives.
[23:50:03] So what do you think when you hear that exchange?
CARDONA: Well, I think exactly what the criticism has been of Steve Bannon all along, which is he delves into this language that can be -- can be communicated to all of these communities of color as nothing but bigoted and racist. And that's why you have so many people who are out on the streets, so many people who are afraid of their own future, and the future of their communities when you have somebody like Steve Bannon who has normalized this kind of bigotry and hatred and racism and misogyny being in the White House. That literally means misogyny now has a seat at the table at the White
House. Racism has the ear of the president. And you have seen Donald Trump already taking that kind of advice from the very first day that he announced his campaign calling Mexican immigrants rapists and criminals.
LEMON: John. John, you disagree with that?
DEPETRO: I do. I mean, Steve Bannon is brilliant. He's the Karl Rove of this generation. He and Kellyanne Conway won the election because they're plugged in with the American people. And Don, no one -- who can justify right now that we're going to have open borders or this business of breaking up families? No, the entire family should return to their country of origin. And it's not asking too much that American citizens start to rebuild this nation.
RYE: Wow.
DEPETRO: But these attacks on Steve Bannon are totally unfair. President-elect Trump has the right to select the type of people that are going to be around him. And as far as -- you know, all of this outrage about him, what about the late '90s with President Clinton? I didn't hear people saying it was OK that the president was greenlighting that type of activity in the Oval Office, suddenly they're going after Bannon and Trump on this.
LEMON: I want Tara --
(CROSSTALK)
SETMAYER: Don't come at me with me that because I've been one of the people who's come out and said for all my fellow conservatives that went after Bill Clinton justifiably for his behavior in the White House and what he did to turn around and then make excuses for Donald Trump's behavior, and his, you know, comments about grabbing women by the genitals and all, all of a sudden they excuse out a way, are hypocrites. So don't come at me and say that I didn't have anything to say about that but I was very active on the front lines of conservatism all through the '90s. Now as far as --
(CROSSTALK)
LEMON: All right.
DEPETRO: I mean Angela, though.
RYE: We're interchangeable tonight.
LEMON: Tara --
RYE: We're interchangeable, Tara is Angela, Angela is Tara. I have a question for John.
LEMON: Hold on. Hold on, Angela, before you get to your question. I want to ask Tara because Tara is a conservative Republican and we -- the topic was Steve Bannon. How do you feel about that? DEPETRO: Right.
SETMAYER: No. I think that putting Steve Bannon in that position -- you can be smart, you can be a genius and you can be an evil genius. I don't think that having someone with the background that he has and the comments that he's made bragging about Breitbart being the platform for the alt-right, bragging about with Leninism and his affinity for that, bragging about bringing down the system and allowing some of the ilk that's been on that Web site under his leadership, that does not send a message of unity that Donald Trump needs to put forth in our country that so divided.
His inflammatory language and we would -- as conservatives would never stand for it. I use the example of how we went after Van Jones, Cat Sustein (PH), Anita Dunn for her affinity for Mao and Cat Sustein in his, you know, leftist views, and then Van Jones, you know, who I have come to know well and who I think is a very nice guy and a great commentator, but he was excoriated when he was appointed the green jobs czar for his leftist views. But nowhere close to what Bannon is doing.
LEMON: So why aren't conservatives doing that with Bannon then?
SETMAYER: Because I think the people -- the moral compass of my party has gone haywire and that they've normalized and rationalized.
DEPETRO: He should have been named chief of staff.
SETMAYER: And rationalized things that we would never accept on the other side. I can't explain why they are doing this but it's not a good message and they need to stop it.
CARDONA: Can you imagine if President Obama had appointed or brought into White House Reverend Jeremiah Wright?
SETMAYER: Right.
CARDONA: When he became president? That is the exact analogy.
DEPETRO: Pretty close.
CARDONA: That is the exact analogy.
LEMON: OK. Go ahead, Angela.
RYE: So my question is simple. You talked about needing to rebuild this country. I think it's important to note how this country was started to begin with. I'm just interested to know who do you think built it to begin with, John?
DEPETRO: Well, right now, I mean, my family came from Italy and they didn't go and cost 19,000 per pupil in the schools. They didn't clog hospital emergency rooms.
RYE: I just wanted to know who you thought built the country. DEPETRO: As far as paying taxes -- well, the fact of the matter is
you can't just say who built the country. Right now illegal immigration is a huge cost to cities.
RYE: But I'm asking you who built the country because there were forced immigrants.
LEMON: I think what her point is that immigrants built the country and at some point --
(CROSSTALK)
RYE: Also forced immigrants.
LEMON: All of the people who came over were illegal at some point.
CARDONA: You know what is ironic, John?
RYE: And forced immigrants. I'm also talking about --
(CROSSTALK)
DEPETRO: That's not true. My family, they were barbers. They didn't get free --
CARDONA: You know what is so ironic? You know what is so ironic in this whole thing?
DEPETRO: They didn't get welfare and they weren't cost (INAUDIBLE) for people. And they learned how to speak English.
(CROSSTALK)
CARDONA: Your president-elect has paid zero in federal taxes for at least the last 20 years.
[23:55:05] Undocumented immigrants paid thousands and thousands of more dollars in federal taxes than your president-elect.
DEPETRO: They do not pay taxes.
RYE: Yes, they do pay taxes.
CARDONA: Yes, they do.
DEPETRO: They don't pay taxes. And that's not true.
(CROSSTALK)
CARDONA: To say they don't underscores just how little you know about this issue.
DEPETRO: I do know a lot about it.
RYE: You don't.
CARDONA: You don't know anything about it.
DEPETRO: The fact of the matter is people need to --
CARDONA: No.
DEPETRO: They don't file state tax returns. They don't file federal tax returns.
SETMAYER: Well, some do but --
(CROSSTALK)
RYE: You have no idea.
DEPETRO: You just said a minute ago they were hiding in the shadows. How could they be hiding in the shadows and pay taxes?
(CROSSTALK)
LEMON: John, John --
DEPETRO: Hiding in the shadows and marching in the streets of Los Angeles.
LEMON: I think you're outnumbered --
DEPETRO: What shadow?
LEMON: On this particular --
RYE: Not only is he outnumbered, he's wrong.
DEPETRO: Doesn't mean I'm wrong, though, Don Lemon.
RYE: You're absolutely wrong.
(CROSSTALK)
DEPETRO: Hiding in the shadows?
RYE: You're dead wrong.
DEPETRO: There is a school --
LEMON: You probably should study up a little on it. But I appreciate you coming in.
RYE: That is -- read a book.
LEMON: Thank you all.
CARDONA: Study up, John.
LEMON: Thank you, guys.
DEPETRO: Read a book. LEMON: That's it for us tonight.
RYE: Yes. Read several.
DEPETRO: Yay to Steve Bannon.
LEMON: I'll see you right back here tomorrow.
DEPETRO: Breitbart rules.
LEMON: It's always, always something. Good night.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
