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Don Lemon Tonight

Partial Government Shutdown Underway. Aired 12-1a ET

Aired December 22, 2018 - 00:00   ET

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

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN Breaking News.

DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: This is CNN tonight, I am Don Lemon. As you can see it is midnight here on the East Coast. Our breaking news, the federal government now officially, partially shutdown. Congress was unable to reach an agreement with President Trump to temporarily fund the government; the president insisting that any deal would have to include $5 billion for a border wall. Here is what he said in the oval office last week.

(BEGIN VIDEO)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: You want to put that on...

SENATOR CHUCK SCHUMER, (D) NEW YORK: You said it.

TRUMP: I will take it.

SCHUMER: OK, good.

TRUMP: You know what I will say? Yes, if we don't get what we want one way or the other whether it is through you, thorough military, through anything you want to call, I will shut down the government.

SCHUMER: OK, fair enough. We disagree.

TRUMP: And I am proud...

SCHUMER: We disagree.

TRUMP: I am proud to shut down the government for border security, Chuck. I will take the mantle. I will be the one to shut it down. I am not going to blame you for it.

(END VIDEO)

LEMON: He got his wish. The government, as of this moment now partially shut down before Christmas. Both the House and the Senate adjourned late Friday night but will return on Saturday. I want to go to go right to CNN's Brian Stelter, Phil Mattingly, Kaitlan Collins and Elaina Plott. Hello to both - to all of you I should say, excuse me. That sound that you hear which is crickets in Washington, Phil. That's the government now shutdown for the third time this year. How long do we expect this one to go on? PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I don't think

anybody has the answer to that question. It's funny Don, I was talking to a republican official who has been a veteran of all of these over the course of not just this year but the last couple of years and he made what I thought was a rather (inaudible) point. Both parties have managed to bumble their way in to shut downs over the course of the last couple of years but the reality is there's no elegant way out. There's no way that every party involved can claim a win and the reality of the matter is somebody is essentially going to be bludgeoned and have to cry mercy.

I think the big question right now going into this and as we now are in a partial shutdown at this moment, is anybody willing to cry mercy? Most notably is the president willing to blink? When you look at the dynamics as they've sat for really the last couple of weeks, the president wants $5 billion for his border wall. Negotiations tonight said that they're willing to come down a little bit of that.

Democrats have made clear they are not budging off what their offers have been for the last number of days and if nobody is ready to blink, there is no resolution in the near future. Now Don you know as well as anybody, if Congress wants to make something work and the president is willing to sign, things can often come together rather quickly. The problem right now when you talk with both republicans and democrats on Capitol Hill, is they believe one key ingredient of that equation does not exist - the president's willingness to sign anything less than what he's looking for and therein lies the possibility that this is not just an hours long shutdown or a couple day's long shutdown but one that might actually last weeks at a time.

LEMON: Kaitlan, did you get special dispensation to stay on the White House lawn because usually by 10:15, we're like we've got to get her off the lawn. This is the curfew....

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Just for you Don.

LEMON: So ten days ago, Kaitlan, President Trump told democrat leaders that he proudly owned this shutdown, now, he's blaming the democrats. Do we know what he would sign to reopen the government?

COLLINS: No and no one will go as far as to say what exactly it is and that's the frustration of many Senate republicans, even those who visited the White House earlier today, such a last minute meeting that some of them couldn't even get through secret service when they first arrived. That has been the million dollar question here, what is the president going to support because earlier this week we started out with House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell believing the president was going to sign that short term spending bill and they were feeling pretty confident about it with Mitch McConnell telling reporters there was not going to be a shut down. Of course, here we are at midnight and we are now in a partial government shut down.

Now so far tonight the president sent his vice president, Mike Pence, his incoming Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, and even his senior advisor and son-in-law, Jared Kushner up to Capitol Hill for about five hours today where Phil and everyone was chasing them around. And of course they're working on these negotiations and talking about what they want saying they want more than $1.6 billion for the border wall but not going as far to say they need $5 billion but of course they can negotiate all they want and it all comes down to whether or not the president is going to support something. That's what House republicans will be watching the next few days.

LEMON: Brian, are we here because conservative host revolted and got under Trump's skin?

BRIAN STELTER, CNN HOST AND CHIEF MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: That's a big factor. Right winged radio and TV hosts combined with the Freedom Caucus pressuring the president to fulfill the campaign promise. That campaign promise, of course, was rooted and misinformation. The promise that there had to be a wall because there's this invasion coming from the south, all that is rooted in a lot of misinformation.

But, the president believed it, he promoted it and here we are two years in his presidency, the third shutdown in less than a year. This is how the GOP is going to end eight years of control of the House and Senate. You know they control both chambers right now. This is how they're going to end it by shutting the government down. It is a sad day and I think no matter whether you're a republican or a democrat or don't care about politics, the country deserves better than this.

[00:05:00]

LEMON: Yes.

STELTER: Federal employees screwed over Christmas.

LEMON: Yes, Elena, was it a mistake for President Trump to say $5 billion for the wall given the votes don't exist in the Senate? Did he play this wrong?

ELAINA PLOTT, STAFF WRITER FOR "THE ATLANTIC": You know what Don, I think one point that keeps coming back to me over and over especially today as I have spoken to sources on the Hill and in the White House is that Donald Trump had two opportunities earlier this year to accept a deal for $25 billion for funding for his border wall over the course of several years in exchange for a pathway to citizenship for DACA recipients. That's something that republican leaders and Trump turn their backs to both times and republicans on the Hill and especially in the Senate will tell you today that it was likely a big mistake on their part to not take this deal.

And what I am hearing especially from people on the Trump campaign right now is that coupled with just the larger idea that Trump will very likely will not get the $5.7 billion he wants for this border wall. This puts him in a huge predicament ahead of 2020. How does he explain this to a base to that is already as Brian notes, unraveling in terms of their support for him?

LEMON: But I am wondering do you think that the one that they had, do you think that will still be on the table once democrats take over the House? PLOTT: No, absolutely not. As Dick Durbin put it I think to

Bloomberg earlier today, that deal is off the table entirely and Pelosi will say this to reporters as well. They don't trust the president anymore when it comes to negotiations over DACA. He has shown twice that while he's willing to signal that he wants to then turn to good faith talks about ensuring a pathway to citizenship, he ultimately doesn't follow through so they're not going to start on that road again.

LEMON: Interesting. Phil Mattingly, what are your republican sources telling you about the president, his shifting positions? Do they feel they have any guidance here?

MATTINGLY: No, they don't, I think Kaitlan hit on this and it really underscores what's happened over the course or what's transpired over the course of the last three days. Again Senate republicans had a deal. They passed something unanimously with democratic support to fund the government through February 8th with the understanding that they would continue this fight then when House democrats took over the majority and they were completely under cut.

They wouldn't have made that deal and they would not have put it on the Senate floor and voted on it if they did not think the president was going to support it in the end. That was their implicit and I'm told explicit understanding from their conversations with the White House. And there's something here that I think can't be over stated. It seems obvious but it is a crucial point.

Given that, given that Senate republicans and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell feel completely undercut by what occurred earlier this week and where House republicans stand especially heading into the minority; there is no separation between the president and where republicans are right now. Republicans have told me repeatedly over the course 24 hours, until the president tells us exactly what he wants; we are not willing to move something to the floor. They're not willing to undercut him, they are not willing to just go on faith or go on the word of the vice president or in coming chief of staff or a son-in-law. It will take the president to tell them what he wants in terms of a deal for them to move forward on anything and that has, to some degree, caused a state of paralysis as these negotiations go on behind the scenes.

LEMON: Let's talk more about that, Kaitlan, because he mentioned the son-in-law and Vice President Pence, even Mick Mulvaney who once said that the wall was simplistic. So there's Pence, there's Kushner, they're all - Mulvaney - all working behind the scenes earlier on Capitol Hill. What's the White House's next move?

COLLINS: They're kind of sitting back and waiting and watching. Now President Trump shelved his plans to go to Florida today where he's supposed to be there for a little over two weeks or so and he's still staying here at the White House. White House officials have said so far they believe he'll stay until a vote happens.

Right now they're hopeful something could come together. Of course they've got to give them 24 hours notice to get back to Washington to vote when they do feel they have an agreement so they don't think anything will happen until Sunday or so but they're waiting to see what's going to happen and as Phil says, they don't believe they're any closer to a deal right now so they're just kind of sitting back waiting to see what it is that's going to happen next because they do very well feel that a shut down could go on for several days.

They feel confident that if it only happens for a few days, they can master that messaging. They can say this is the president fighting for the border wall, that's why the government is shut down. They've also got a few days do buy themselves some time because it's over the weekend, not as many people are at work over the weekend so you don't see people who have to sit at home that typically would be going to the office.

However, if this stretches out to several days and several weeks going long after the holidays. that's going to be a problem for them because they know that by the minute, they are losing leverage because those newly-empowered House democrats are going to take over and things are going to be very different for them.

They're well aware of that and of course they're waiting to see what the president is going to say. They sent Pence, Kushner, Mulvaney up to the Hill today.

[00:10:00]

They came back, they discussed what their conversations were with Schumer, with Ryan, with everyone they spoke with -- with President Trump before leaving tonight and now it's essentially waiting to see where they go from here.

LEMON: Yes, I'm just looking at the weather forecast Brian in Palm Beach and it's 66 tomorrow, Saturday and sunny 72 - 73 --76 and 78...

STELTER: It's going to be a great weekend in Mar-A-Largo.

LEMON: ... and sunny all week. That's going to be ...

STELTER: Wow.

LEMON: ... wow. So listen Brian...

STELTER: It's pretty cold in Washington compared to that.

LEMON: ... even a president who likes chaos. I mean this week has really been over the top. This cannot be helping him.

STELTER: Even people who've tried to tune out the news and not pay attention to all the scandals and controversies could not ignore what's happening this week between the market melting down and between Mattis resigning in protest. It is a week that's different and I think now as we head into the weekend, what are the polls going to show? What's the sentiment going to show? Trump is going to try to call this a democrat shutdown. If history is any guide, that's not going to work. He'll only have 35 - 40 percent support. Most Americans see this as a Trump shutdown and the sound bites we talked about about Trump owning the shutdown, we've played over and over again.

LEMON: Yes.

STELTER: And in a few days from now, like it's Trump's fault and the GOP's fault that the government is shut down. If history is any guide, that's how this will play out, not that the shutdown will matter a month from now or a year from now; it won't.

Remember in January there was talk about, we're shutting down the government. How is this going to affect the midterms? It didn't. These things don't - t hey don't have long-term consequences but ...

LEMON: Well for the Congress it may have had some, but go on.

STELTER: Well now that's interesting. For Trump it didn't but for Congress it may have. This is the third time in a year and if history is any guide it's going to be blamed on Trump. So does he have the stomach for that as he sits at the White House and can't go to Mar-A- Largo. Does he have the stomach for that? He was planning on going to Mar-A-Largo for more than two weeks I think. He was going to have a nice long winter break down there. I'm sure he's missing his friends and family there right now.

LEMON: Yes, Elaina, I'll ask you that. Will the president be blamed for this shutdown?

PLOTT: Absolutely. I do want to push back a bit on Brian and say that I do actually think that this shutdown could have long-term consequences for Trump. It was the president himself who last week set out this moment as a huge inflection point for his presidency. He's on record several times in the Oval saying this is my last opportunity to get the wall funded and fulfill my promise to the American people.

I have little reason to believe based on my reporting right now that he is going to get all of the funding he wants and again, if he does not and the base revolts, that's based on a promise that Trump set up himself. I've already spoken to an administration official, Don, who was on the campaign who told me today he almost regrets supporting the president because so much of his desire to get involved in the administration, say about what you will, was based on his promise to secure the southern border. If that bleeds into his base and more republicans ahead of 2020, this could have really disastrous effects for the campaign.

LEMON: Intersting. Thank you all. I appreciate it Phil, and Kaitlan, get your sleep now. You are going to need it. Thank you both. Thank you all, I appreciate it.

PLOTT: Thanks.

LEMON: The federal government now partially shut down as of midnight Eastern. What does this mean and how are Americans affected? Well we're going to look at the numbers, that's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [00:15:00]

LEMON: For the third time this year, the federal government has partially shutdown. Hundreds of thousands of federal employees affected; many furloughed, others expected to work without pay. CNN's Tom Foreman has a closer look at the numbers.

TOM FOREMAN, CNN JOURNALIST: Don, here is what we know. Seventy-five percent of the government is already funded through next fall so that mitigates the impact of whatever is going to happen here. But, in theory this will or would have some impact. For example, big travel time right no now, Homeland Security, 55,000 TSA workers would be working - staying on their post but their pay would be delayed, that sort of thing; 55,000 customers and border protection agencies doing the same thing.

In transportation, even though you might have a shutdown, 24,000 air traffic controllers would stay on the job plus railroad inspectors. The State Department would still be issuing passports but with an asterisk here, if you're trying to get into a passport office in a building where they have a lot of people furloughed, you might find the building closed and you can't get one at that particular location.

If you're coming to the Capitol to see the Smithsonian, the museum at the Smithsonian, that could be a challenge. They have funding through the first of January but after that, in the case of a shutdown, we don't really know what would happen with them. The Justice Department would keep doing most of what it does. They'd stay open and operating. The Russia investigation, notably, would continue.

The Agriculture Department would continue food safety inspections but shut down some other services like research. The majority of the folks at NASA would be on a leave of absence without pay. The Interior Department, the National Parks, this is a mixed bag. Some services at some parks would close like restrooms and visitors centers; others would be open at least for the time being.

And, while we're on that subject, there are some holiday treats despite what's happening. For example Santa and his llamas will still visit Olympic Nationals Forest in Washington State on Christmas Eve no matter what happens and the Polar Express will continue to run near the Grand Canyon because it's operated by a third party, not by the government.

So even in the midst of all this turmoil, that's some idea of what could be affected. Don.

LEMON: Tom Foreman, thank you very much.

President Trump said he would be proudly to shut down the government - the federal government. He got his wish but will he get the blame? Now he's pointing a finger at democrats. Will that work? We're going to look at the politics behind the shutdown.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) LEMON: There's breaking news, the federal government now officially in a partial shutdown. President Trump said that he would proudly do it and he did. So let's talk about it now.

Alice Stewart is here, Bakari Sellers, Juliette Kayyem, and Scott Jennings. We are always here late for a shutdown or a late vote that's always down on the wire and it's always on Friday. But here we are. Listen. A lot of people would be affected by this. This little inconvenience is nothing. So Alice, this is what our colleague, Josh Campbell, just tweeted this. He says, "From a public relations perspective, shutting the government down is much better for the White House then continued coverage of the Defense Secretary who resigned because he believes the president threatens global stability. Does he have a point?

ALICE STEWART, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Sure, but from the president's standpoint, what we have here is short term pain for long term gain when it comes to his key campaign promise. Look I never thought when he was going to build a wall that Mexico would pay for it but a lot of his base did and when we realized Mexico is not paying for it, the president really does need to follow through on this. This was a key pillar of how he was elected president and how he has run this administration. He really needs to follow through. Look, he met earlier with key Senators and he told them - I spoke with some of them.

[00:25:00]

He said look, I wanted to go under $5 billion if we need to but right now I need to stand firm on that and show - and come from a position of strength because when the democrats take over he won't have quite the bargaining power but right now he's standing firm on that.

LEMON: Okay. All right. So you said short term paying for long-term gain.

STEWART: Right. Because he wants to have a negotiating chip to work with in order to get the funding that he wants. In the long-term he feels as though this will pay off from that standpoint.

LEMON: OK, but if they - so if the government shuts down until let's just January 3rd when the new Congress comes back, doesn't he have less bargaining power?

STEWART: Absolutely, that's why he's using it now and standing firm on this and so he will go back. You will give us $1.6 and I want $5 billion. Let's meet in the middle. In my view, I wish we would have done that this week and this didn't happen.

LEMON: I'm just trying to figure out though -- I am trying to figure out the in incentives for democrats to do anything when he's already shut the government down, and he's already said, "I own the shutdown." The government will be shut down for at least, I am saying if you are democrat, if your are negotiating -- a week and a half which is bearable and then you come back and you have more power, why is there any incentive for democrats to move on this and agree to anything or anybody, tell me.

BAKARI SELLERS, ATTORNEY, POLITICAL COMMENTATOR AND FORMER POLITICIAN: Well, let me - let me just say this.

LEMON: Honestly. Is there -- hold on -- I don't want to move on. What's the incentive, Scott?

SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: There is none. This is the thing here, there is no end game. All they have to do is bear it for a week and it is bearable.

LEMON: There you go.

JENNINGS: And it is bearable. I'm sure they'll have some people screaming but it's bearable. And so they need to get to January 3rd. I am sure they will unless they decide to work on something this weekend here but I don't, if I were Chuck Schumer, I would turn my phone off and go sit by the pool somewhere and wait until January 3rd. That's what I'd do.

LEMON: Okay, that's all I am asking Scott. Thank you for your honesty. I'm sorry Bakari, what were you saying?

SELLERS: No. I think it is democrats. We had a deal made and I think that even McConnell, Leader McConnell had a deal made with this President of the United States but he was listening to the Ann Coulters, the Bill O'Reillys of the world. That's the facts. The Ann Coulters, the Bill O'Reillys, the Rush Limbaughs, they run --

LEMON: I don't Bill O'Reilly still has that much play but go on.

SELLERS: He does. He was just at the White House not that long ago for the Christmas party taking pictures with Don, Jr. and the president and Melania. So yes, but when they begin to weigh their influence into the White House, that's when you saw this trajectory change. That's why we this issue right now because there was a deal made to keep the government running and keep 800,000 people who work for us every single day. The irony is as Alice said, one Mexico is not paying for the wall. That's unfortunate that people actually believed that.

Number two, while we are in a shut down, we are actually taking people who are protecting our borders and not paying them for the work they are doing. And so I think that this all lands in the lap of the Republican Party but this is what happens when you have a republican leadership that can't govern. You have three shutdowns in one year; it is unprecedented.

LEMON: Did you want to say something Alice before I - I'm sorry Juliette because I want to ask a different question. Do you want to say something about this?

JULIETTE KAYYEM, CNN ANALYST: No, go ahead.

LEMON: OK. This is what Bloomberg is reporting tonight that President Trump discussed firing the Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell after this week's interest rate hike. How concerning is that to you, Juliette?

KAYYEM: I mean in the same way it's concerning what he did to the FBI Director, Comey, this is a man that does not take responsibility for the consequences of his policies. The stock market and the economy are as they are because of a ridiculous tax hike that we now know has not worked and there is no talk of a middle class tax relief and so you know Donald Trump and Donald Trump is in the first job he seems to have ever had in which he actually has to see the consequences of what he does.

And just getting to this point of where we are right now because this is the consequences of a president who has walked away from deals that republicans and democrats together had agreed upon and he throws his own party under the bus.

Right now and we are all talking about, can we wait a week or whatever, there are human beings known as federal employees who are going to be asked to work without pay or going to be told to stay home.

I was one of those employees once in the 1990s. It is not fun. The average TSA worker, the people that you are going to see at the airport tomorrow because you are going to go on your fancy trip, are getting paid between $30,000 and $32,000 a year. You tell me that they're not going to be impacted by a single week delay.

[00:30:00]

So this is - this is on Donald Trump. This is also quite personal to a lot of people around the country who are going to wake up on Christmas morning not actually having a paycheck, not being fired. How bizarre is that Donald Trump created for us during the holidays.

LEMON: I just want to get back to firing the Fed chair here.

KAYYEM: Yes.

LEMON: Can you roll it back, please? That's four times. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Bloomberg reported tonight, we are not reporting it , it's Bloomberg that President Trump discussed firing the Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell after this week's interest rate. Is that concerning to you, Scott?

JENNINGS: Well, I don't think he can fire the Fed chair, A. B, I guess it is concerning and except for I like it that the president is paying attention to the fact that the market is in free fall. I mean we've wiped out basically all the gains since he was elected. There's a number of factors that have gone into this. A lot of it has to with the instability of the trade war and just general jitters in the market because of the way things are going in the country right now.

It is not a good way to measure the health of the economy based on what's happening in the market but middle class people who live in the suburbs who he lost in the '18 election after winning in the '16 election are very sensitive to these things because of their 401Ks, their kids 529 accounts. If we have a jittery market for the next two years or a declining market for two years, even if the economy feels pretty good, it is going to feel very uncertain for those folks. So I guess in some weird backhanded way I'm glad he's paying enough attention to it to understand that it's a real threat to his reelection if he doesn't calm this market down.

LEMON: Didn't he appoint him in the beginning? Yes, OK.

JENNINGS: But I don't think the president can fire the Fed chair once they are appointed, I think it -- I am not sure about that.

LEMON: Yes, I don't think they can either but I think that to point while we are talking about walls and the Fed chair, the only walls we need right now are between the President of the United States and the Fed chair and the President of the United States and the Department of Justice. It is amazing that he cannot see or does not have a basic understanding or grasp of the role of the President of the United States and what he can and cannot do.

And the bumper rails that we thought he had, General Mattis, John Kelly, et cetera, are all leaving so there are not even any bumper rails left which I think is the reason why finally you're having republicans who are peeling away from this. But the stock market is in a free for all. The economy that Barak Obama built is now slowly dissipating. People are going to start to feel this pain and this is all because of Donald Trump's doing and that's unfortunate because people, as said early, real people are suffering.

So Alice I want to ask you something because you have people who say they are upset because they didn't think the president was strong enough on getting the border wall. He had two years to do it with a republican Senate and a republican Congress and then you have other people who are saying that they're backing away and that they're done with him. And then you have other folks because of Mattis and because of the chaos.

I even have a friend who is a very strong Trump supporter and he said - he said I gave up on Trump. He is off the deep end now. I gave my resignation to him like Mattis is. He is off the deep end now and we have to stop him. What do you think the base is saying?

STEWART: The base is with him 80 percent and that's not going away. This has been a very tumultuous week by any standards, even by Trump standards but his base is there.

LEMON: But isn't Coulter - isn't Coulter - sorry to cut you off - but isn't Coulter, Limbaugh, Fox & Friends, who else? You mentioned O'Reilly.

STEWART: O'Reilly.

LEMON: All of those are Trump supporters and they are all criticizing him this week and saying what are you doing? You have basically abdicated? STEWART: That's exactly why he did such a stand firm on building this

wall and trying to make this happen at the expense of shutting the government down. All the names you mentioned, Laura Ingraham and the "Fox" primetime lineup, those represent the voice and the face of his base and flyover country and the (inaudible). Those are the people that got him elected and they're telling these voices that you mentioned, make sure the president understands why we voted for him and how we'll stand with him in 2020.

That's why he's doing that. There is a lot of others that are frustrated. As I said, certain of these issues, I knew he was never going to get accomplished but the key issue for me, Supreme Court justices, he followed through on that. Reducing federal government regulations, followed through on that. Israel, standing by our ally in Israel, he has followed through on that. A lot of people are looking at him.

[00:35:00]

He was certainly a much better pick than Hillary Clinton in my view and people are looking at what he has accomplished and not all the turmoil.

KAYYEM: Can I say...

LEMON: You've got to go quick though. If you want to say something Juliette.

KAYYEM: I mean we always talk about the wall. It is literally is about Trump's ego and not about national security. It's just of shocking at this stage. We have a president who needs to educate his base that the wall is not going to happen because it is not going to make us safer from a national security or Homeland Security perspective. It is just - this is - there is no discussion of the security implications of the wall verses other things. We are at a 25 percent decrease from last year of illegal crossings. We have hundreds of miles of wall already built. We have 21,000 CBP agents, a president who was strong would educate the American public why we are not doing a wall. We all know and Allison plies it, this is about ego. It is not about security.

LEMON: And it is about opinion rather than facts. Because none of those people I mentioned are a journalist, they're all opinionated people so they're not dealing with facts, they're dealing in feelings. So everybody stick around. The government shutdown for the third time this year. This has not happened since the 1970s. We're talk to Doug Brinkley about shutdown's past and how presidents have found a way out.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[00:40:00]

LEMON: We are just about 40 minutes into our third government shutdown this year. If that sounds like it's happened before that's because it has happened before. But it hasn't happened in over four decades and three times in one year. Joining me now the presidential historian Douglas Brinkley. So Douglas, it feels like we've been here because we have this year but it's historic because the third time, it hasn't happened in awhile. The third time in the past 40 years it hasn't happened. So what does this say about the level of dysfunction in Washington?

DOUGLAS BRINKLEY, CNN PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: Well it tells us why Congress has a 15 percent approval rating and why Donald Trump is one of the lowest ranked if not the lowest ranked president in polls in our lifetime. People are sick of Washington dysfunction. This is going to be known Don in history as the Trump Christmas Shutdown of 2018. The fact that it's the third matters. I mean he doesn't have the art of the shutdown pat. I mean we had a 7 percent drop in the Dow this week. There's all sorts of economic jitters. He's closing the government, furloughing federal employees, closing down parks and sacred memorials around the United States, on and on. It's not good for the Trump rpesidency because it shows you can't govern when you do these shutdowns. The big question is going to be this? Is it a five day shutdown or does it start moving into January and the stock market continues to go down and we have a national crisis.

LEMON: Is this what he promised though when he said he would shake up Washington?

BRINKLEY: Bad governance -- I don't think that's what he promised. I think he kept saying all we're going to is win. I don't see the Dow winning. He claimed the Dow and it's going down and these -- Bill Clinton, they were two during Clinton's presidency. One was a five- day shutdown in 1995. But in 1996, there was a 21-day shutdown and that's what I am worried about that Trump's going to say, look, Bill Clinton hung in there for 21 days and Congress capitulated in the end and then Clinton went on to win reelection over Bob Dole in 1996.

What if Trump says, forget January 2nd or the 10th or the 20th, I am not giving up my wall. Kind of Herman Melvile had Bartleby the Scrivener short story where the character said, "I prefer not to. I just prefer not to keep the government open." Anything like that could happen so let's hope that Chuck Schumer and Donald Trump do right by our country at Christmastime and make sure that our government employees, these incredible men and women that work for us all everyday are given a proper holiday and the paycheck they deserve.

LEMON: Absolutely. Do you sense that republicans are getting more fed up with this president? I mean when you look at this week, the entire period since the midterms, but the entire period since the midterms but this week has been just really crazy.

BRINKLEY: You know, Don, the other day I guess yesterday you put a list of republicans saying oh my gosh, look at what they have done in Syria and now Mattis is leaving. Republicans are terrified right now. Lindsey Graham is at war with this president and he had been very close to him for a long time. You are starting to see a real I think a corrosion in Trumpism and maybe 80 percent of the base is still be behind him as Alice just said but I think it's drifted down to about 70 percent. Trump is in trouble here because he was not able to deliver the wall.

He promised Mexico was going to pay for it. It did not happen. He had two years of republican congress and senate. He didn't happen to get a deal on his table a few weeks ago when he blew it and so he does own this as he said, "It's my mantle" and it looks like a president that nobody really likes. The world is angry at us. There is no peace with North Korea. The Middle East is in disarray. Our NATO allies are very furious at us. I don't think we're tired of winning. I'd like to see the United States get some kind of win here at the end of the holiday and a shutdown surely isn't that.

LEMON: Do you think deep down he understands how perilous his political position is right now?

BRINKLEY: I don't because he's so attracted as you've been saying to Fox News, O'Reilly, Ruxh Limbaugh, and Ann Coulter and the others that he's listening to that and there's an echo chamber. What he's - he's a survivalist. What he did in his business career is keep going. Everybody thinks Donald Trump is gone or bankrupt or about to go to prison and he escapes apprehension if you like.

[00:45:00]

He thinks that at all costs, he can't give up that he's building the wall. If Pelosi comes in and democrats don't give him these billions, he may try to demonize democrats and see if that works for him but he should have skated past the week. But you know what? I think he'd rather us right now Don, you and I, be talking about government shutdown and the border wall than he would with the Mueller report and what happened with General Flynn this week and Mattis' really harsh letter towards him that embarrassed the president. It has been a week of horrible stories comparing to the rest of them and as long as we're talking about the border wall, he thinks he keeps his base in place.

LEMON: Doug Brinkley. Thank you.

BRINKLEY: Thanks Don, Merry Christmas.

LEMON: You too, you as well, Merry Christmas. We'll be right back.

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[00:50:00]

LEMON: For the third time this year the federal government has partially shut down and it's anyone's guess for just how long. Back with me, Alice Stewart, Bakari Sellers Juliette Kayyem and Scott Jennings. They were so good we had to bring them back; we didn't let them go home. Bakari let me read this. This is from Bret Sephens of the "New York Times." He wrote a letter to the anonymous high-level Trump official who wrote the infamous "Times" op-ed in September and he writes this.

He says, "Until now you may have convinced yourself that real honor lay in putting up with it. With the craziness of our boss and the disdain of your neighbors because the good of the country, as you see it, demanded it and until now, you had Mattis to serve as our role model. But Mattis is going and the argument can no longer be sustained. You must know by now that you are no longer keeping a bad thing from getting worse. All you're doing is disguising how bad it is, thereby helping it to become worse." Wow. Disguising how bad it is and helping it become worse. Is that how you see it?

SELLERS: I don't have a lot of faith in a lot of people right now. I don't have a lot of faith in the Republican Party. With all due respect to my friends Scott and Alice, I don't have a lot of faith in the people in the White House.

LEMON: Say that again. I think that's a very important point. That you don't have a lot faith in a lot of people right now and that includes like people like you look to ... SELLERS: Yes, I think most Americans are at a point where we had an election. We were vested. We wanted Hillary Clinton to win. She lost. And then everyone was waiting on the pivot. Everybody wanted Donald Trump to be something that he hasn't been for 70 years on this earth. Now we're at a point now where we're not talking about xenophobia. We're not talking about bigotry. We're not talking about his words. We're talking about the fact that the country is taking a nose dive.

It's taking a nose dive on every single level. Mattis left this week. We know that North Korea is not denuclearizing. We know that we pulled out of Syria on a whim because he woke up and felt like that. We look at the stock market. Every indicator we have not just at home but abroad shows that we're having fundamental issues and the problem is that there is not a republican who is willing to stand up. Everyone is like okay, we'll get a justice. Or OK, well this will happen or we'll have these tax breaks but what we're in the paying attention to is what's good for the country. Sometimes people have to stand up for what's right. I wish there were more republicans willing to do that.

LEMON: All right. I want to get everybody in we have a very short time. So Juliette, with Mattis gone, is there anyone in the Trump Administration who you trust to question the president's impulses?

KAYYEM: No. No. I'm fine with that. At this stage I'm with Bret Stephens which is tear the band aid off. The idea of the adult in the room was a mythology that all of us wanted to believe to make us feel better that Trump in some way was a suitable President of the United States. I will to Bakari's worrisomeness, I do want to just give some hints that things are changing between Khashoggi, Syria, Mattis and even the shut down.

You are starting to see sort of dents in the republican wall and it may continue. In other words this may be -- this is a very bad week for Trump and I do think that as he and his supporters and enablers and people who say well I want to take the good, he does two good things but 100,000 bad things but I really like the two bad things. Just so -- history will be written. And whether this president was a suitable President of the United States of America the greatest country on the earth is something everyone -- what side were you on? And I think this week raised that question for a lot of people. LEMON: All right, final thoughts please. Scott.

JENNINGS: You know there's a flip side to argument to this. People out in the middle of the country who supported the president in 2016, who are still standing with him, they wanted a president who was non- traditional and make different decisions. They are not particularly fond of interventionist policies around the world. They don't mind the shutdown. They're not in hysterics over the shutdown. I think depending on your point of view and the prism though which you look at these things, you may be getting exactly what you wanted which is someone who is going to make everybody you hate in Washington mad. Now that's not say all the choices he's made this week is good. I tend to agree the Syria decision was bad; I don't like walking into a fight for which you have no strategic endgame either. But there are people there who don't mind it when he's pissing off Washington, D.C.

LEMON: OK. Alice?

STEWART: Don I think a lot of people - the biggest frustration a lot of people have and where we've gotten to such a crazy week is the tone and tenor of this president which has caused people like Mattis to say I'm done with this. But as I've said, his base stands behind him because of the policy and not the way he performs. The real elephant in the room and I think we can acknowledge that is Robert Mueller. What happens with the Mueller probe and how will that impact the presidency. It could go one way or the other and depending on that goes and whether or not this president hands out pardons as a result, That will be a big influence on how his base stands behind him.

LEMON: Thank you, all. Merry Christmas to you.

KAYYEM: Merry Christmas Don.

JENNINGS: Merry Christmas.

SELLERS: Merry Christmas.

LEMON: So I began the show by saying that it is the darkest day of the year. Winter officially arrived but tomorrow we'll all wake up hopefully to a brighter day. The holidays are upon us and we have a new year to look forward to. I'll be enjoying time with my family and I hope you can spend time with yours. Thank you for watching; our coverage continues.

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