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Trump Declares National Emergency; Pelosi and Schumer React to Declaration; GOP Divided on Declaration. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired February 15, 2019 - 12:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:00:17] PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome to INSIDE POLITICS. I'm Phil Mattingly. John King is off today.

The president has declared a national emergency. And now a crucial test of executive power. The president just forced the reallocation of $8 billion to fund his border wall. A declaration that could fundamentally change the balance between the presidency and Congress. Seated in the front row, a group of angel moms, women who lost loved ones to crimes committed by undocumented immigrants.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We're going to be signing today and registering national emergency. And it's a great thing to do because we have an invasion of drugs, invasion of gangs, invasion of people and it's unacceptable.

It's very simple, we want to stop drugs from coming into our country. We want to stop criminals and gangs.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: So the big question, where does this $8 billion actually come from? $1.3 billion is actually included in the government funding bill that was just passed yesterday, but the president can't use any of that money for a concrete wall. Now, it can be used for things like fencing, (INAUDIBLE) fencing, steel slates, but no concrete. $2.5 billion will be reallocated from the Pentagon's drug interdiction program. $600 million will come from the Treasury's forfeiture funds. The largest check, $3.6 billion comes from the Defense Department's military construction budget.

Now, Democratic leadership, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer say, quote, Congress cannot let the president shred the Constitution. They, and many of their colleagues, vow to fight this. And in today's announcement, the president made it pretty clear he expects some legal challenges.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: And we will have a national emergency. And we will then be sued. And they will sue us in the Ninth Circuit, even though it shouldn't be there. And we will possibly get a bad ruling. And then we'll get another bad ruling and then we'll end up in the Supreme Court and hopefully we'll get a fair shake and we'll win in the Supreme Court. Just like the ban. They sued us in the Ninth Circuit and we lost, and then we lost in the appellate division and then we went to the Supreme Court and we won.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: And joining me now to talk about this more -- look, it was funny.

All right, CNN's -- but, seriously, we're joined by CNN's Supreme Court reporter Ariane de Vogue.

And, OK, it was funny, but the hypothetical process going forward the president laid out, Ariane, you've been talking to a lot of legal experts on this, a lot of lawyers on this, is that realistic? Is that kind of how you see this happening in the weeks and months ahead?

ARIANE DE VOGUE, CNN SUPREME COURT REPORTER: Well, it is. And, Phil, I've learned that already one lawsuit is in the works. It could be several hours away. But they are starting, these liberal lawyers, they have been on the phone, burning the phone lines from last night. Keep in mind, they are veterans of the Trump administration and these policies. They've been through the travel ban, the asylum ban, the effort to push back DACA. They are ready to go.

And there's -- there's a broad variety of people who can try to bring suits. For instance, states, counties, cities. We've already seen El Paso talking about maybe that they would push forward.

Then there's the House, Nancy Pelosi. She -- her lawyers have been working around the clock on this. There are contractors. People who thought they were going to get these funds maybe and they didn't get them. And then there's these property owners, who may have a legal argument.

But I have to say, what the biggest fear for the conservatives are going into this is this new -- relatively new judicial phenomenon which is nationwide injunctions. And they were fearful if the court -- if the Trump administration moved this way, they would get slammed immediately in a favorable court ruling that would stop the policy in its tracks. So that's what they are going to be looking for. They fear that it's going to happen.

And as you saw it, the president laid it out there. He said he sees it going through the courts. He sees probably it going to California, that Ninth Circuit that he so criticizes. And that's where we -- that could be the next step. And that's where we think we could see one of these injunctions.

MATTINGLY: Yes, I think you're going to be busy over the course of the next couple of months, Ariane. No, it's a really great point, there's kind of a road map that's been laid out that a lot of these lawyers can almost subscribe to in the coming months and maybe even years.

Ariane de Vogue, thank you very much.

All right, here with me now to share their reporting and insights, CNN's Kaitlan Collins, Jonathan Martin of "The New York Times," Franco Ordonez is with "McClatchy," and Margaret Talev with "Bloomberg."

[12:05:00] I -- so, look, one of the things when you talk to lawyers, when you talk to lawmakers, and I know you guys have all been talking to administration officials as well, is, there's a lot of ambiguity in kind of what a national emergency declaration means. Traditionally they're not this contentious. Traditionally, there's not an immediate backlash to one.

I want to play something that the president said about whether or not he actually needed to do this right now, which would seem to be the crux of declaring a national emergency. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I want to do it faster. I could do the wall over a longer period of time. I didn't need to do this. But I'd rather do it much faster.

I just want to get it done faster, that's all.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: That would seem to undercut, to some degree, Margaret --

(CROSS TALK)

MATTINGLY: Pick up on things, you know. Didn't go to law school at the disappointment of my parents, but I'm a little quick. But that would, you know, undercut the central premise or central legal theory at least of declaring a national emergency. You're talking to the White House. Is that -- what's the read or explanation for this?

MARGARET TALEV, SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, "BLOOMBERG": It was truly like the first of many gasp moments of that news conference.

MATTINGLY: Many.

TALEV: No, but that's absolutely right. And I think we don't know yet. We know that Mitch McConnell was very resistant to the president doing this. That behind the scenes he tried to talk him out of it. And that the president, you know, felt that, whether you want to say for policy reasons or for political reasons that he was committed to declaring an emergency. So the question is now, will it hold up.

And there was one point before he said, I didn't need to do this, where the president said, we have a chance at getting as much as $8 billion. A chance. And I found that very telling because it was the president sort of on the front end of this news conference saying, you know what, at least I can say I tried.

MATTINGLY: Kaitlan, I think that's -- that's -- and you take us behind the scenes better than month particularly here at CNN. Do administration officials feel like they've got $8 billion in the bank right now and they can go to work, or do they know that this could get held up, this might not ever come to fruition at all?

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: They feel like they've got about a billion dollars in easy money that they can get without some kind of a big legal fight. Mick Mulvaney was talking to reporters about that this morning, talking about how much money he could get.

What's interesting is what the president kept saying throughout those remarks in the Rose Garden was that he's going to get so much money through declaring a national emergency. And he said it's going to be so much money he doesn't know what to do with all of it, which raises the question of, why would they allocate funds if the president doesn't have a specific purpose for what he wants to use them for. And it's much higher than the $5.7 billion he demanded from Congress. And when he demanded that from Congress, he was citing numbers from CBP, from DHS saying, this is how much money they need to be able to secure the border, so why would they go for so much more money if they're declaring a national emergency.

TALEV: It's actually -- it's really interesting. And part of the reason why, we think, is that even if the courts allow him to move at this pace, that money is restricted. Even if you declare an emergency, that money is restricted in the ways that it can be used. So it might actually take closer to $8 billion to get 234 miles of fencing than it could if you just had a $5.7 billion appropriation from Congress.

MATTINGLY: One of the interesting things I think -- I picked up on Capitol Hill, I know Kaitlan's heard a lot about it too, is kind of the concern, particularly from conservatives, about precedent here.

And I want to play some sound from the president where he talks about the fact that, look, a national emergency has been declared by lots of people. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It's been signed by other presidents from 1977 or so. It gave the presidents the power. There's rarely been a problem. They sign it. Nobody cares. I guess they weren't very exciting. But nobody cares. They signed it for far less important things in some cases. In many cases.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: I mean they weren't very exciting because they were traditionally emergencies --

TALEV: Emergencies, right.

MATTINGLY: And people were reacting to that. And I was struck, a couple weeks ago, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who behind the scenes had been pretty opposed to this and had been warning the president about kind of the danger within the party of doing this, made clear publically, look, this will be very contentious, which is not normally how this is supposed to be. And I guess, Franco, my question to you is, is the administration's calculation here that the fight is worth it, right, the fight is worth it no matter what the end game is?

FRANCO ORDONEZ, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, "MCCLATCHY": That is a big part of the calculation. Like, this is very much seen as a potential off-ramp to get this issue off their table. As Margaret was saying, to be able to say at least we tried.

And, look, I mean, there is some -- there is some truth to that maybe he can do that. I mean I -- we have reported about the more than 100 statutory powers that the president has. The sources that I've talked to tell me that Congress has given the president too much power to do these kind of things. And there's no question that the Ninth Circuit will most likely get it. I talked to sources who tell me the briefs are already being written and they will be submitted within days. And he will likely lose -- likely lose in other courts. And as he said, he won the travel ban at the end in the Supreme Court. He now has a more favorable Supreme Court there.

JONATHAN MARTIN, NATIONAL POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT, "THE NEW YORK TIMES": Well, when Trump won the nomination and the president in 2016, it was revealing in a lot of ways. And one of the major ways to feel -- it was revealing was, it proved that the base of the party didn't really care that much about matters of small government conservatism, right? That a handful of people did it in the sort of intelligency (ph) of the party, but really that's not a priority.

[12:10:04] And I think this once again demonstrates that. To him taking the PR hit for not getting his wall is far worse than offending whatever sort of small government purists exists on the right when it comes to, in their eyes, misusing a national emergency. And, look, and he may lose some votes from the right and the Congress, but I think most of them are more concerned about keeping their Trump-loving base happy than sticking to whatever, you know, pre-Trump you're a small government principles they purported to have. He was never invested in the movement, Trump himself, obviously. But what he has really revealed here is just how little a lot of the voters on the right care themselves about these principles of small governor conservatism.

COLLINS: And that's really been the thinking inside the White House for the last few weeks because this national emergency didn't come out of nowhere. They've been preparing for this since the president signed a short-term spending bill three weeks ago. They knew that they did not think that conference committee was going to get the president the money he wanted. So they have been preparing for this behind the scenes, preparing for the legal arguments on what they're going to say, and they know they're going to face legal battles over this and it could get tied up in court, but they don't care about that because all they can say is, well, Congress didn't get us the money, so the president had to declare a national emergency and here we are fighting for the wall. And they think that's enough for the president's supporters.

MATTINGLY: Yes, it's a great point. This isn't ad hawk. I know White House staff, White House legal operations has been working on developing -- COLLINS: Yes.

MATTINGLY: You've been reporting on a lot of that -- has been working on developing this for months, but it doesn't mean it's going to actually go through, but they have been working on this. This has been a very serious effort on that part.

All right, up next, there's more to this story. Congressional Democrats calling the president's emergency declaration a power grab. So, what will they do about it?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:15:45] MATTINGLY: Shredding the Constitution. That's how top Democrats are characterizing the president's declaration today. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer issuing a joint statement during the president's Rose Garden event, reading, quote, this is plainly a power grab by a disappointed president who's gone outside the bounds of the law to try to get what he failed to achieve in the constitutional legislative process. The Congress will defend our constitutional authorities in the Congress, in the courts and in the public using every remedy available.

Now, some lawmakers are already rolling out resolutions to block the president's action, but the House is actually in recess next week.

CNN's senior congressional correspondent Manu Raju joins me now.

And, Manu, I know you've been reporting on this. Take me behind the scenes. Where are Democrats right now on this action by the president?

MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, the House Democratic leaders and their key committee chairman, their staff, are discussing various legislative options. This is going to be their top priority when they return from next week's recess. Afterwards, they plan to try to move forward on a plan. They have not figured out exactly how that will be structured, but what it will be essentially is a joint resolution that will be offered first in the House to vote to disapprove of the president's action, declaring the national emergency.

And because of the special procedures granted to them by this process, the Senate is required to essentially take it up. There's nothing that Mitch McConnell, the majority leader in the Senate, can do to prevent a vote from happening, even though he supports what the president is doing here. That's what Mitch McConnell has feared all along, that this -- that he can't stop this vote from happening. And the question is, will Republicans join with Democrats to block this action in the Senate?

We do expect there will likely be enough support in the House. What will happen in the Senate still remains a question. But, of course, the president can veto this and that would require a veto-proof majority in the House and the Senate to override the president and insure that it is -- executive action cannot move forward. That is the big question, whether or not there will be enough to revolt. But, Phil, one item that will undoubtedly generate a lot of concern on

both sides of the aisle is where they're getting the money from, including $3.6 billion from military construction projects. And, as you know, those are the kind of things that members guard feverishly here on Capitol Hill. So a lot has to be done from the White House to sell his party to fall in line.

Phil.

MATTINGLY: Yes, everything sounds great until it's coming from your district.

Manu Raju up in the Capitol. Thanks very much.

Look, Manu hits on a key point here, we kind of know where the Democrats are going to go with this. The biggest question right now, and this has been the question that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has been raising to the White House over the course of the last couple of weeks, privately by phone, also saying some things publically, is the Republican conference, particularly in the United States Senate.

Take a listen. There's a clear divide, but there is a divide. Take a listen to what they were saying yesterday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. SUSAN COLLINS (R), MAINE: This approach does set a very bad precedent for future presidents, whether it's a Democrat or Republican, to feel that they can get around Congress' constitutional role to allocate funding. It's very serious and troubling to me.

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R), SOUTH CAROLINA: Consider this a down payment. And find the difference between 1.375 and 5.7 through executive action. He has all the legal authority in the world to do this.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: Now, Senator Lindsey Graham, a close ally of the president, has been urging the president to do this because he didn't think they would find a legislative solution. They found a legislative solution. Still wants him to do this.

Look, it's a procedural nerds dream to go through what could be happening next. And I'm going to spare everyone that. But I think the big question now is, for Republicans, for Senate Republicans, they've got 53. This is a real problem.

TALEV: Yes. And, fundamentally, assuming the House goes forward with this and passes it, the Senate's going to have to take it up and Republicans are going to have to go on the board about where they stand on this.

Now, the procedural nerd part comes in when you say, what if the Senate passes it, and it goes to the president, and he vetoes it, and do the votes exist to override it. But does the president really want to get into that kind of a conflict?

So what I think is the real question is, is -- are -- is Mitch McConnell going to try to attempt to convince Republicans not to do what he actually believes is the right thing to do, which is to check on the president, other efforts to do this. In other words, will Republican leadership be making the argument, we're not going to win this anyway, why embarrass the president, or will they put a line in the sand so that this and future presidents don't just run right over them.

[12:20:09] I mean, if nothing else, putting the Constitution aside for a second, it's absolutely a matter of political preservation. What is the point of being in Congress if you don't have the -- some power? And appropriation has always been the most important kind of clear power.

MARTIN: Article One, yes.

ORDONEZ: I think the equation to that is, if you're not in power, then you don't have that strength. And I think that is a political equation that McConnell is making. He's running for re-election next year. He needs President Trump's support. He knows he needs President Trump's support with Republicans for new Senate candidates.

MARTIN: Right.

ORDONEZ: You know, he's got a lot of close races. Take Kansas, for example. And President Trump still has great support among Republican base, almost 90 percent.

MARTIN: Yes.

ORDONEZ: These are serious --

MARTIN: It's a fascinating -- that role call will be a fascinating test, Phil, for the Senators who are in cycle, as they say on Capitol Hill, in 2020 and what their priority is, winning their primary or winning the general election. And you just saw there -- a preview of that, playing the Collins and the Graham clips back to back. Both of them up in '20. Collins, certainly more concerned about a general election in Maine. Graham more concerned about a primary in South Carolina. This will be a test of who cares about which challenge in '20, their primary or the general election.

COLLINS: Well, and you made a great point yesterday, McConnell coming out and supporting the president, declaring a national emergency, shows just how much he was worried the president was going to reject this bill. We know they had several phone calls yesterday. We could see today that the president was not excited about doing this because when he came out to make the remarks, he started out by talking about China trade talks, North Korea and Syria before he even got to declaring a national emergency.

And I think it was interesting that he went without a teleprompter. He had remarks in front of him, but the president typically has a teleprompter for events like this because the White House wants to keep certainly something like this, where they're going to be in court about it making an legal argument, but the president was largely off script the entire time he was speaking in the Rose Garden.

And I think we should not that also the president hasn't actually signed this bill yet to keep the government funded.

MATTINGLY: You stop. You stop it right now.

COLLINS: So I'm not saying that he's not going to, but I just think yesterday he came perilously close to not signing this bill and people were having flashbacks to the last time he came perilously close to not signing and bill and he still hasn't signed it yet.

TALEV: But the idea that this only has implications for the Trump presidency is just not serious. I mean if -- if Republicans feel that they have to try to support him in doing this in order to save themselves in cycle, it will certainly have implications on the way future presidents of both parties can behave. And the White House -- we had a briefing from some White House officials this morning who tried to argue the point that that wasn't true, that this didn't mean it would be open season on gun control end (ph) arounds (ph), or climate change end (ph) arounds (ph). But I think whether or not that's true is a much more complicated legal and political question if Republicans in the Senate help President Trump to do this.

MATTINGLY: Yes. And just to Kaitlan's point, don't -- don't -- you can't overstate how much McConnell just wanted to end this. This needed to end.

MARTIN: He hates shutdowns.

MATTINGLY: He hates shutdowns. He's got judicial nominations he's already cueing up.

MARTIN: Right.

MATTINGLY: He has an agenda. This needed to end and this was the way to end it.

All right, up next, William Weld is running for president in 2020 as a Republican. His big rational why.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

QUESTION: Why you, Mr. Weld?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why you?

WILLIAM WELD: Well, I've got a boy's regular hair cut to start with. We're still working on our letterman top ten.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:28:06] MATTINGLY: It's a long shot, and I want to reiterate that point, it is a long shot, but President Trump may have some competition for the Republican nomination in 2020. Former Massachusetts GOP Governor William Weld announcing his presidential aspirations this morning in New Hampshire. Weld, who ran for vice president as a libertarian in 2016, says he wants to restore the, quote, party of Lincoln, claiming too many Republicans are showing symptoms of Stockholm syndrome, identifying with their captor.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WILLIAM WELD (R), LAUNCHED 2020 PRESIDENTIAL EXPLORATORY COMMITTEE: They say the president has captured the Republican Party in Washington. As he himself might tweet, sad. I have established an exploratory committee to pursue the possibility of my running for the presidency of the United States as a Republican in the 2020 election.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: All right, J. Mart., connoisseur of all things politics.

MARTIN: Yes.

MATTINGLY: What I was struck by actually -- and he had an interview --

MARTIN: Big red, Bill Weld.

MATTINGLY: Track back through. You know, former governor of Massachusetts.

MARTIN: Right.

MATTINGLY: Lost bids for the Senate to John Kerry.

MARTIN: Yes.

MATTINGLY: Ran for governor of New York.

MARTIN: (INAUDIBLE) race '96, yes.

MATTINGLY: But the interesting thing was, he acknowledged in his interview with "The Washington Post" that, you know, look, if I get to play spoiler, that might be just good enough as well.

What's your read on any of this, I guess?

MARTIN: He won't be the last person to get in the primary against President Trump. I think we'll have more individuals run and sort of like deem themselves the sort of representative of the real pre-Trump GOP.

MATTINGLY: Name names, J. Mart.

MARTIN: I think you're going to see other former members of Congress perhaps get in. We'll see. There's still plenty of time left.

[12:29:44] But this does get at a challenge that the president's going to have, which is -- that, you know, a 20 percent plus, as of right now, of his own party's uneasy with him. And that might not be enough to beat him in a primary, but it could create a Buchanan-like nuisance, speaking of New Hampshire, in the same fashion that Bush 41 had in '92. And if you talk to the Trump campaign people, they are so conscious of that '92 scenario.

END