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Obama Talks Immigration Today In Texas; No Plans To Visit Border; Texas Dem: Hope It's Not Obama's "Katrina" Moment; Hearing Today From Marine Jailed In Mexico

Aired July 09, 2014 - 10:00   ET

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

LAURA RUTLIDGE, CNN SPORTS: But as you mentioned before, I mean, Brazil's defense was Swiss cheese. There were so many holes there, so many opportunities. The score actually should have been higher than 7-1. They should have been able to score more goals, the Germans because really they just put an absolute spanking on Brazil so very embarrassing for Brazil.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: You have to feel for them being the host country and all. Laura Rutlidge, thank you. The next hour of CNN NEWSROOM begins now.

Good morning. I'm Brianna Keilar in for Carol Costello. Thank you for joining me. Happening now on Capitol Hill, the finger pointing in the border crisis blame game is about to begin. This is a live picture that you're looking at here from the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee room where members are about to demand answers.

They want to know why thousands of immigrants, mostly women and children are suddenly flooding over the border. You're looking at live pictures here from the border as well. Both at border crossing facilities and places like this here along the Rio Grande, testimony from government agency heads, it's expected to be pretty fiery as you can imagine, as well, there will be questions coming from key lawmakers.

Meanwhile, President Obama will address the crisis later today, taking a break from fund raising to talk to one of his most vocal critics, Texas Governor, Rick Perry. That meeting is going to take place in Dallas, but it's hundreds of miles from the U.S.-Mexico border, a place that the president will not be visiting on this trip.

All eyes are on this meeting to see if the two can come up with any workable solution to this crisis. Earlier this morning, Democratic Texas Representative Henry Cuellar said that the president needs to travel and see this crisis for himself.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REPRESENTATIVE HENRY CUELLAR (D), TEXAS: Look, if he's afraid if he goes down to the border and he's going to own the situation, let me tell you, he can't hide from this because he can do this long distance the way he's doing it, he's still going to own the situation. And like I said, a leaders going to be defined by how he or she handles a situation, a crisis, and this is certainly a humanitarian crisis that we're facing down at the border.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: We are covering the story as only CNN can from Washington all the way to Texas. Chief congressional correspondent, Dana Bash, has more on the show down meeting between President Obama and his one-time presidential opponent, Texas Governor Rick Perry.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): To be a fly on the wall, President Obama will meet with GOP Texas Governor Rick Perry, Obama's chief antagonist on the crisis at Perry's border.

GOV. RICK PERRY (R), TEXAS: My message to President Obama is to secure this border, Mr. President. Finally address this issue and secure this border.

BASH: What Perry really wanted was not a private meeting, but a public trip, together, to the boarder to give the president a firsthand look at the effects of thousands of children flooding to the U.S. illegally. Obama will be in Texas in part for a pair of political fundraisers. Meeting with Perry is a compromise of sorts. Following public sparring including the president's spokesman mocking the governor's message from the White House podium.

JOSH EARNEST, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: The truth is it's hard to take seriously Governor Perry's concerns.

BASH: Perry has been so outspoken against the immigration policies, he even floated conspiracy theories.

KERRY: I have to believe that when you do not respond in any way, that you are either inept or you have some ulterior motive of which you are functioning from.

BASH: He never expanded on what that Obama ulterior motive would be. With all eyes focussed on his state, Perry is seeing the political stars align, taking on the president on an issue, immigration that sources close to Perry tell CNN caused him the most political damage during his last run for president.

PERRY: I don't think you have a heart.

BASH: Defending state funded tuition for illegal immigrants turned off GOP primary voters, and allowed the eventual GOP nominee to take a devastating shot at Perry.

MITT ROMNEY, REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: You say you have the experience, it's a bit like saying, you know, the college coach that's lost 40 games in a row has the experience to go to the NFL.

BASH: Who can forget one of the most memorable gaffes in modern political history?

PERRY: Commerce, and let's see, I can't, the third one, I can't, sorry. Oops.

BASH: Perry told "THE LEAD" earlier this year, back surgery and pain medication were to blame for his catastrophic campaign.

PERRY: Anyone who watched that campaign knows a very humbling time for me.

BASH: This is the new Rick Perry, openly trying to redeem himself as a smart, capable politician.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BASH: And Perry have open that he's considering another presidential run in 2016. He realizes a big problem four years ago is that he wasn't prepared on a policy level. Not only does the border crisis and the state allow him to get on the right side of his GOP base on immigration, Brianna, he also is working hard to bone up on other issues. Sources I've talked to close to Perry say that he's multiple believes, you name it trying to be as prepared to take the job of the man who he's going to meet with today and that is the president. He wants to be ready just in case.

KEILAR: It's just clear how many political forces there are at play here, Dana, you're spelling it out there. Stick around, we're going to bring in senior White House correspondent, Jim Acosta, right now. Our Ed Lavandera who is in Dallas. We have Alina Machado.

We have so many folks I can't even really keep up, the camera can't keep up with me. She is in Mission, Texas along the border as well we have Todd Gillman, he is Washington bureau chief with the Dallas morning news and we also have CNN political commentator, Maria Cardona.

Jim, I want to start with you, President Obama, he is asking for $3.7 billion to handle this crisis, but then, you know, saying that kids who are coming across the border, they can't stay if the money isn't going to really deal with them. Well, some of it is being used. What are the other things that we see this funding request, what would it be used for?

JIM ACOSTA, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, almost half of that $3.7 billion, Brianna, would go for caring for those unaccompanied minors. They need a place to stay and the administration at this point cannot say, definitively how long they will be staying in this country because as you know, Brianna, the law is different when you talk about migrants coming from Mexico, the law basically says they can be turned around and sent home immediately.

But if they come from Central America or non-contiguous countries, they can be allowed to stay and entered into the refugee system in this country and White House countries, they can be allowed to stay and entered into the refugee system in this country. So that takes a little bit longer and that's where a lot of these kids from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala are really in right now.

Now, the administration is also talking about devoting some resources to its stepped up border security, and even some surveillance. They want to fly some more unmanned drones over the Rio Grande Valley there and across the south western border where all these folks are pouring in. So there is a lot of money being thrown at this problem, but quite honestly, and Danica talked to this as well, it's pretty shocking to see the president unveil this proposal.

And within hours, Republicans up on Capitol Hill are saying, high profile Republicans are saying this is not going to happen. They're not going to give a blank check as they're calling it to this White House to deal with this issue. And so the president is in a very, very big fix beyond just this question of whether or not he should go to the border.

KEILAR: All right, and Ed, let's talk about this. Right now the president says he's not going to show up at these border facilities. What is the sense there in Texas of whether he should?

ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You know, it's a good question. I don't, I think people who live down in the border would very much like to see that you've heard several congressman from that region who've expressed that over the last few days. But I think, you know, by and large, people are much more focussed on how does this crisis come to an end now?

And if that requires the president, you know, traveling to the border region and going through some of those detention centers, then that's what needs to be done. But I think people are much more focussed and concerned about where we go from here. KEILAR: Maybe they're not getting hung up on all the "is he going to

the border, is he not going to the border?" Alina, that's where you are, you're along the Rio Grande in Mission, Texas, immigrants risking their lives to cross over into the U.S. there You know, talk about the kids in this situation. The president says

they can't stay, but obviously they stay for a while before having a deportation hearing. What's that process like of sending an unaccompanied, say 5-year-old back to their country?

ALINA MACHADO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You know, Brianna, it is a complex process and I think that's why everybody is talking about it. Nobody really knows how this process is going to work. How these children are going to be sent back or, you know, if they're going to be sent back or anything like that. What I can tell you, though, is that here in the border it is the talk of the town, everybody's talking about the situation.

We are seeing a lot of border patrol activity here. The presence is very heightened here. We're on the river, and we've seen a number of border patrol boats and also helicopters pretty much all morning long just going through, looking to see if anybody is trying to cross. And it's, it's really non-stop here -- Brianna.

KEILAR: All right, Alina, and Dana, let's bring you back in here to talk about this. The president wants $3.7 billion for this problem. That's what he's proposing to Congress, but he's not just having problems with Republicans, he's having with Democrats like Congressman Cuellar, who I spoke with earlier. Here's part of what he said. All right, I guess we don't, I guess, we do not have the sound there, but basically it struck me what the congressman said because he was saying the president needs to come down and he needs to lead and come down to the border. We have the sound now, let's go ahead and roll that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CUELLAR: I've been very straightforward on this, I as appropriator, I want to review what he's going to give us. We can't trust the president and say we're going to give you every penny you want to, but do I want to support him? Yes, of course I want to support the president of the United States, but we have a right as Congress to review the proposal that he's given us. Because keep in mind, this didn't happen last night. This is something that's been happening over a year, and therefore, we want to review exactly what he's talking about.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: So Dana, I mean, talk about this, you see him there saying he wants to support the president, but even a Democrat is having misgivings about the fine print here in the president's proposal.

BASH: Not just that, Brianna, the fact that he said to you we can't just trust the president. This is a Democrat saying we can't just trust the Democratic president. Boy, if that doesn't sum up what's going on and the things that the president is up against on Capitol Hill, nothing does. Look, part of the reason why this is so complicated is because the president is asking for this money and both sides are wanting policy changes to go along with that.

The Republicans want policy changes that are traditional on their credo when it comes to immigration. Be more robust on border security and so forth. Democrats, many of them are concerned that the policy right now that Jim Acosta was talking about that allows kids or anybody who come illegally from Mexico or Canada to go right back, but those who come from Central America to have a hearing, many Democrats are concerned about that policy changing.

They don't want the kids from Central America to be able to, as one told me, just go through a revolving door and be sent right back. That's why you have all of these forces that are really contradictory that the president is going to have to navigate. But one of the things I should say you see up there this hearing that we were talking about that's beginning right now.

Tom Coburn who is the ranking Republican on this committee who said on "CROSSFIRE" last night that this is so much money that if you look at it the, it's $60,000 a kid, he said we could spend money on first class tickets to fly them all back to their homes and it would cost half as much. Not even half as much. That gives you a sense of where some of the Republicans are with regard to just the actual money.

KEILAR: Can you fact check that for me real quick, Dana, because when I look at the president's proposal, I'm sure that's a lot of money, but, when you look at that, some of it has to do with, you know, tamping down the misinformation that smugglers are giving people, deterring smugglers, cracking down on them, it's not really fair to say it's $60,000 a kid, right?

BASH: That's right. I mean, like Jim was saying, the money is going towards some of it, is going towards dealing with the refugee crisis and dealing with the children who are already in this country illegally, but a lot of it is, is aimed at going for border security at going for bringing them back to their countries, helping to get them re-emerged and re-emerged in their countries and so forth.

So you're exactly right, but the reason why I brought that up is because it really illustrates and speaks to the very, very deep divide over, not just the policy, but also the money that the president wants.

KEILAR: Yes, no doubt, it is a lot of money when you're asking for almost $4 billion. Hang tight guys, we're going to continue this conversation. Right now as we speak, the Senate Homeland Security Committee wants answers on the border crisis testifying at the hearing will be the heads of federal emergency, FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, border patrol, several very ranking members, high ranking members of the Homeland Security and Health and Human Services Departments. We will be monitoring this hearing all morning, and we'll be back in adjust moment with some of it.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEILAR: All right, this is what we are monitoring right now, happening on Capitol Hill. This is the Senate hearing on the border crisis. We are just beginning to watch the opening testimony here. We're monitoring this, and we will bring you what should be a fiery, certainly very interesting hearing. We'll bring you some of that.

Now I want to get back to our discussion on the border crisis. Let's bring in Todd Gilman, he's the Washington bureau chief with the "Dallas Morning News." Todd, you are pretty familiar with this topic because of the outlet that you work for. This is not an overnight crisis. Do you think the government should have seen this coming?

TODD GILMAN, WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF, "THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS": Well, they absolutely have seen much of this coming and the White House has been trying to spin this for the past week or so since it really erupted as we did see this coming and that's why we've been pushing reform and that's why in their version of the finger pointing, they've been pointing at the Republicans and trying to shift some of the heat on to the Republicans for having blocked comprehensive reform.

You haven't played the clip just now, but Josh Earnest has said a few times if Rick Perry would be a lot more useful instead of complaining about the president not going to the border, if you would pick up the phone and put some pressure on Texas Republicans in the House who have helped block comprehensive reform. Now you know there's finger pointing in both ways, this specific crisis was not really anticipated, but if we had more resources on the border, maybe some of this could have been mitigated earlier.

On the other hand, there's an argument to be made that we are nabbing all of these people coming across the border, doesn't that mean that the border security itself is in place. Maybe there's a more systemic problem going on in Central America and we haven't been doing now diplomatically or in terms of economic development down there.

KEILAR: And Maria, one of the things that President Obama is dealing with today is, and it's clear the White House realizes they have a problem with the visuals. He's in Texas, he's not going to the border, what, there is a calculation being made here. What does he have to lose by going to the border?

MARIA CARDONA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, I think the focus right now for the White House, Brianna, is on actually trying to solve the problem at hand to try to take politics out of it which is nearly almost impossible to do, but also to make sure that the resources that are being put at the border to focus on this problem continue to focus on this problem.

Brianna, you know better than anybody what it takes when the president travels. The president goes to the border right now, it's going to be incredibly disruptive, there's going to be resources that are going to be pulled from the problem at hand to make sure that this trip will be able to happen. That's not what the White House wants right now, they want to focus on the solutions.

I think hit does need to go, I think he will go, but right now, he wants to focus on the solutions at hand, and Republicans need to work with him to make sure that the, the 3.7 billion in resources that he's asking for is given in its totality, or at least close to its totality and you know Republicans can't have it both ways.

They can't scream about the house being on fire, and then cut off the water supply to try to put that fire out. So they need to work with this president to make sure that solutions are happening.

KEILAR: Yes, Washington certainly does need to get something done, but I will say the outlook is not good here. Todd Gillman, Maria, thank you so much to both of you.

Still to come, a hearing set for today for a U.S. Marine held since March in a Mexican jail. Sergeant Andrew Tahmooressi spoke about the hearing and what he says was the accident that led to his arrest.

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KEILAR: Let's check our top stories now. Four people are dead in Syracuse, New York, after the area there after a storm destroyed four homes. Fierce winds knocked down trees and power lines and as of this morning, more than a quarter million people in New York and Pennsylvania are without power. A storm is also being blamed for killing a boy at a summer camp in Maryland.

As a Middle East air war heats up, Israel is preparing on a ground push into Gaza. Israel says its air strikes hit about 160 targets in early today. That its iron dome defense system intercepted 56 of 255 rockets fired out of Gaza in recent days. Scientists at the national institutes of health discovered vials of

smallpox as they were preparing to move a laboratory. The forgotten vials apparently date all the way back to the 1950. The CDC says there's no evidence that the vials were breached nor were lab workers exposed to the virus.

Family members of a Marine jailed in Mexico for over three months are hopeful that he will be released soon. A hearing is set for today for Sergeant Andrew Tahmooressi, arrested in March for crossing the border with firearms in his vehicle. He has a permit for the three guns, which are legal in the U.S. and says that he crossed into Mexico by accident. He spoke yesterday with CNN's Jake Tapper.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANDREW TAHMOORESI, U.S. MARINE JAILED IN MEXICO (via telephone): Basically what's going to happen is I'm going to give my statement to the judge and then two of the border patrol officers that were supposedly there that night with me are going to give their statement as well. And hopefully the judge will see that my story is probably, you know, maybe like 99 percent accurate or 100 percent accurate and their stories are maybe like 15 or 20 percent accurate.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: CNN's Nick Parker joining me now from Tijuana with more on the story, Nick, will the court show leniency do you think and release this man?

NICK PARKER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Brianna, what we understand from his defense team who spoke to you last night, this is just a very preliminary evidentiary hearing, and at this stage, they do not expect him to be released today. The proceedings are expected to begin in about four hours from now in the federal courthouse just behind me. We're expecting Andrew Tahmooressi to be brought in from his prison.

In a prison van, where he'll come through this gate here, enter and then be transferred to the courthouse. Now this is his first real opportunity to the actually present his side of the story about what happened on that night of March 31st. And his defense team says that his initial address will begin the hearings.

His defense team is now allowed to ask him a question or two, and the prosecution is also allowed to cross examine him, the defense team do expects him to plead Mexico's version of the Fifth Amendment and not incriminate himself. Certainly his defense team are going to be focussing on that night, and they're going to be on the one hand mounting a traditional defense in that he did not intend to bring through these three guns and ammunition.

There was a lack of intent in the act, but also be looking at the issue of a possible botched arrest and refocusing very specifically on the time he spent with customs agents at the border. This is what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) FERNANDO BENITEZ, SGT. ANDREW TAHMOORESSI'S ATTORNEY: How will you justify keeping somebody there for seven plus hours for what purpose? If he was under arrest, he should have been delivered to the Federal Prosecutor's Office immediately under Article 16 of the Mexican constitution.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PARKER: Now Mexican authorities do maintain that they had very clear warnings and that he was not allowed to bring in guns into Mexico and that ignorance of the law does not excuse responsibility -- Brianna.

KEILAR: All right, Nick Parker in Tijuana, thank you for that.

Now still to come, the battle to reform the nation's immigration laws. It's bringing together people of faith from all backgrounds. I'll talk with one of them about why this issue has resonated across religious lines.

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