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Secret Service Head Ousted As DHS Shake-up Continues; Trump: Not Looking To Restart Child Separations; Mnuchin Faces His Own Grilling on Capitol Hill; Gov. Cuomo: Keep NY Law on Tax Returns "Broad". Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired April 09, 2019 - 12:30   ET

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

[12:32:15] JOHN KING, CNN ANCHOR: We should hear from the president any moment now. Reporters were recently in the Oval Office. Again, the president of Egypt is visiting with President Trump today. Reporters were brought in.

The president did take some questions, including about his purge at the Department of Homeland Security, a purge that is being cheered by his anti-immigration base but is causing alarm among Republican leaders in Congress. The scope of the upheaval is stunning. The DHS secretary and the Secret Service director both fired in the past 48 hours. At least two other top officials on a White House target list. The White House wants them to leave.

The choice to lead Immigration and Customs Enforcement abruptly pulled. And a new acting secretary is slated to begin work running this very complicated department tomorrow. The dizzying pace is alarming key members of the president's party, who see both policy and political peril. Texas Senator John Cornyn, for example, made a point of praising the outgoing secretary, Kirstjen Nielsen, and saying the problems at the border are not her fault.

As for the president's broader purge, Cornyn says this, quote, I don't know what his rationale is, but it is bound to create some more challenges. Adding this to the Washington Post from Iowa GOP senator, Chuck Grassley, "He is pulling the rug out from the very people that are trying to help him accomplish his goal."

Again, we're going hear from the president momentarily about this. But the concern on the Hill is, number one, this is a giant agency, not just responsible for the border, cybersecurity, Homeland Security, domestic terrorism. They're worried about all the turnover. And a lot of Republicans also see the kind of erratic behavior from the president that they think is the reason they got wiped out in the 2018 midterms.

ELIANA JOHNSON, WHITE HOUSE REPORTER, POLITICO: Yes, I think there are a couple of questions here. One is operational, and the other is sort of tactical, strategic.

The operational thing is, the president and Stephen Miller is sort of decapitating this department. These are a lot of senior leaders at an enormous agency, and I think there's a lot of concern on Capitol Hill that they are leaving this agency without senior leadership. How is this department going to run? I think the second question is what are the policy goals of President Trump and Stephen Miller, and how do they expect to accomplish them?

If it's a reinstatement of the child separation policy that didn't go particularly well last time not only because there was a bipartisan objection to it, but because there were a lot of practical difficulties to instating that policy. Beyond that, there are some legislative obstacles to the things that they want to do. And so I think there are a lot of questions on the Hill and among Republicans in general about how -- about what the goals are and number two, how they expect to carry them out.

KING: Right, you could -- and again, the president blames Secretary Nielsen for this, blames other people at the department, all of his enforcement people if you will, but not only legislative obstacles the courts weighed in on family separations. The court just yesterday weighed in on the president asylum policy saying no, you can't do that. You can't tell people, you know, they have to stay in Mexico.

[12:35:01] We have a law that if you present yourself at the border and say I want to apply for asylum, there's a process, like it or not, and the president doesn't like it. But he has this push that tells you, number one, he doesn't like the people who work for him and number two, he views this as his calling card going into 2020.

LISA LERER, NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER, THE NEW YORK TIMES: Right. I think the president and the White House feel that they need to show his base that they are doing things and it's the system, it's the courts, it's Congress that's preventing them from fulfilling these campaign promises which really was the central message of his 2016 campaign. Now if you're a Republican who's up for re-election, say in a state like Texas or Arizona or Colorado, this looks a lot different. And this looks like a decision that puts a lot of things on the table that frankly you don't want to deal, you don't want to talk about. Not only the immigration issue but also, as you point out, the president's leadership style, his management ability.

And, you know, there -- I think there has been a little bit of the flagging in this so-called resistance. There hasn't been as many protests, there hasn't been as much activity. This child separation policy really hits a chord with Democrats, particularly activist Democrats. So you could see this restarting that energy. And if you're running for re-election in one of those purple states, particularly a purple border state, that is not what you want to have happening right now at all.

KING: Energy from the left on family separations and asylum. And anxiety on the right about these constant threats to close down the border, and affect not only the trade relationship, the economic relationship, but also it hurt those individual states, Arizona and Texas. Let's listen to the president of the United States.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Not easily impressed, he was very impressed. So thank you very much.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mr. President --

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: (Jeff)?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You seem to be cleaning out at DHS. What would you like to achieve with the new leadership?

TRUMP: Well, I never said I'm cleaning house. I don't know who came up with that expression. We have a lot of great people over there. We have bad laws, we have a judge that just ruled incredibly that he doesn't want people staying in Mexico. Figure that one out.

Nobody can believe these decisions we're getting from the Ninth Circuit. It's a disgrace. And so we -- we're fighting the bad laws, the bad things that are coming out of Congress. You have a Democrat Congress that's obstructing. You talk about obstruction, the greatest obstruction anyone's ever seen.

All they have to do is spend 20 minutes and they can fix this whole problem. We have the worst laws of any country anywhere in the world, whether it's catch and release or any one of them. I mean, I could name -- I could sit here and name them but if you get rid of catch and release, chain migration, visa lottery, you have to fix the asylum situation. It's ridiculous.

You have people coming in claiming asylum. They're all reading exactly what the lawyer gives them. They have a piece of paper. Read what that is and all of a sudden you're entitled to asylum. And some of these people are not people you want in our country.

So we are building a lot of walls, it's getting built. Some of you saw that last week when we went -- we had a great presentation of a new stretch, but we're building a lot of walls and we're being very strong on the border, but we're bucking a court system that never ever rules for us and we're bucking really bad things with Congress, with the Democrats in Congress not willing to act. They want to have open borders which means they want to have crime, they want to have drugs pouring into our country. They don't want to act.

We have to close up the borders. We're doing it, but we're doing it -- I could do it much faster if they would act.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mr. President --

TRUMP: So, it's a terrible thing, the Democrats in Congress, what they're doing and the obstruction. They don't want to fix it, and we have to fix it. They want open borders. They want to have millions of people pouring into our country.

We -- they don't even want to know who they are. These are people coming into our country with criminal records. We have murderers coming in, we have drug lords coming in. We have gangs coming in. And we're stopping them.

And if we don't stop them, ICE is throwing them the hell out. We're getting them out. But our job could be so much easier -- I think Kevin is going to do a fantastic job. He's acting, but I think he's going to do a fantastic job.

And we're not doing anything very big as far as what we need. Homeland Security, that's exactly what we want. There's no better term, there's no better name, we want Homeland Security, and that's what we're going to get.

Thank you all very much. Thank you.

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: Thank you. Thank you.

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: Thank you. Thank you.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE) starting the child separation again, Mr. President?

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: Thank you very much, everybody.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Guys, we're finished!

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you, guys, let's go.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Keep moving! Let's go!

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Press, let's go. Make your way out! We're done! Press, keep moving! Let's go!

TRUMP: Obama separated the children, by the way. Just so you understand, President Obama separated the children. Those cages that were shown, I think they were very inappropriate.

[12:40:00] They were built by President Obama's administration, not by Trump. President Obama had child separation.

Take a look, the press knows it, you know it, we all know it. I didn't have -- I'm the one that stopped it. President Obama had child separation.

Now, I'll tell you something. Once you don't have it, that's why you see many more people coming. They're coming like it's a picnic because let's go to Disneyland. President Obama separated children. They had child separation. I was the one that changed it, OK?

Thank you very much.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: All right, let's go!

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: Thank you very much.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Will you bring it back?

TRUMP: Thank you. We're not looking to do that, no.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You're not bringing it back?

TRUMP: We're not looking to do that, no. Thank you very much.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You're not looking to bring it back?

TRUMP: But it does make -- it brings a lot more people to the border. When you don't do it, it brings a lot more people to the border. We are not looking to do it.

But President Obama had the law. We changed the law, and I think the press should accurately report it, but of course, they won't. Thank you all very much. Thank you.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Come on, press! Let's go! We're moving.

TRUMP: Thank you very much.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Press! Let's go! Come on!

TRUMP: It's a great honor to be with the president. It's a great honor to be your president.

KING: Interesting comments from the president of the United States. Those crossed arms at the end. The body language telling you he wasn't happy with some of the tone at the end there.

We're going to need a backup generator for the fact check machine, for part of what the president said there including his bid about blaming the Democrats. He's right, the president -- the Democrats now control the House, the Democrats disagree with a lot of what he wants on immigration policy, but this president walked away from a deal when the Republicans controlled the Congress, that would have given him a lot more funding for his border wall than he has now, would have given some of the enforcement mechanisms that he wants now and could never get through a Democratic-controlled House.

So when he keeps blaming the Democrats, they have policy disagreements, but he walked away from a deal because he didn't want to give the Dreamers status that was just about done. That was one thing there. Yes, President Obama did have some family separation policies, and yes, some of those early images were from the Obama administration. But the Trump administration accelerated the family separation policy. He said I stopped it.

Interesting in the end, he said, we're not interested in reinstating it. The reporting in the last 24 hours has been that they are having serious conversations about this inside the White House. Are they doing this without the president's knowledge or is the president not telling the truth there?

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: It's entirely possible that the president hasn't been part of those conversations that are happening in the White House about this. But it's -- it is important that he said that on the record today that they are not looking to do to reinstate this policy of separating children from their families. What he also said is really crucial, which is that he believes that not separating children from their parents causes more people to come into the United States. That is the opposite of what the administration continues to claim that this was not a deterrent policy.

It's clearly in the president's view is a deterrent. So I think that needs to be very clear that that's what they're saying here. And the president's also not correct about the idea that somehow this is just something he just continued from the Obama administration.

Bill Barr was on Capitol Hill today. He laid it out. He said the administration had a zero-tolerance policy that referred families to the DOJ for prosecution which caused children to be separated from their parents. That was a policy that was put in place last year by the president's attorney general. That was not the policy that existed prior to that.

KING: Right. The zero-tolerance policy by Jeff Sessions umped up significantly anything that were done before when it came to the issues of family separation. Again, it ended up in the courts. But you're right, interesting, the president there.

This is fascinating to me because every president has a team of advisers who talk about things. And when they get to a critical point, they bring it to the president. We shouldn't expect the CEO of any organization to be involved in every conversation about what might happen. It's only when you get to, OK, it's a decision point, you bring it to the boss.

It was all over town today yesterday, reported by a whole lot of people quoting a lot of senior administration officials saying the president, in his anger, and today he said he didn't want to call it cleaning house. I don't know what else to call it. You fire the secretary, you fire the Secret Service director, you probably going to have to fire the deputy director because the law says she should be boosted up.

The general counsel is -- the White House official says has to go because he's part of the Nielsen team. Another official they say is part of the Nielsen team, he has to go. I don't know what else to call that. Call it a purge, call it a cleaning house. But is the president not looped in on what his own advisers are trying to do?

JOHNSON: I don't think we know that at this point. What we do know is that I think there was a struggle within the White House over who was going to run immigration policy and the president has told Steven Miller that he is in charge of immigration policy. Miller had been running a sort of smaller group of immigration hawks and trying to, I think, hijack the immigration policy earlier on, but now he's officially in charge of immigration policy. And so, that's what the president is aware of, that we know the president is aware of.

On the deterrent point which I think is an important one on child separations, I think the administration hoped this would be a deterrent. I'm not sure the policy was in effect long enough to really know whether it was or it wasn't. But while the policy was briefly in effect, the numbers did not decrease.

[12:45:05] So the president is not right when he says that, and I think the current counter argument would just be, we didn't see it play out long enough to know whether, in fact, it would deter people from coming. But Trump certainly can't claim that right now.

KING: And when this -- if you have watched this, the Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, going to the floor to praise Kirstjen Nielsen. He didn't criticize the president but that's implicit. And you're going to the floor, you're the top Republican in the United States Senate, you go to the floor to say great things about the woman the president just fired. We heard earlier before we got to the president from Senator Cornyn from Texas on the ballot next year saying, whoa, what we are doing here, Mr. President, I don't know your rationale.

Chuck Grassley saying you're running out of the department the people who are trying to help you. What is the mood in the president's own party on Capitol Hill?

HEATHER CAYGLE, CONGRESSIONAL REPORTER, POLITICO: Yes. I think, you know, it's important here whether the president was totally looped in on what is being shopped around or not. We have seen senior Republicans raise alarm publicly, and in the past recently when they've kind of done that like with the healthcare, he, the president backs off a little bit. And so maybe that's kind of what we're seeing here today, too.

But yes, I mean, senior Republicans, Cornyn even yesterday called what's happening at DHS a mess, which is, you know, that's a pretty big deal coming from a senior member of Senate leadership who is an ally of the president, who is on the ballot next year. You know, I mean, they're not willing -- I mean, they're willing to criticize him a little bit here, in a, you know, kind of a roundabout way.

KING: They see the same behavior that they think got them killed in the suburbs last year. They think it cost them the House last year. The president's argument is, I wasn't on the ballot last year, I will be next year. This is all good, but a lot of Republicans are very skeptical about that. LERER: Right. I mean, we all remember the caravan and the president really pushed that messaging hard, that there was this caravan of migrants coming and they were going to storm the border. And when you talk to voters, some Republican voters would say, look, they're already here. I don't know what you're reporting but, you know, they really bought that messaging and it resonated with them.

But the problem is, in these suburban districts, these affluent suburban districts, concerns about the president's temperament, about his tone, about his style outweighed any fears people may have about immigration. And you know, a presidential race plays out differently. You can see why the president wants to energize his base at this moment, but, you know, those swing states and those swing voters are crucially important.

KING: And the question for the base is, will he follow through? And so we'll see. Very interesting today. We'll continue to track what's happening. There's a lot of questions about the White House policy at the moment.

Up next, another member of the Trump cabinet facing tough questions up on Capitol Hill.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. MATT CARTWRIGHT (D-PA): Just down the hall, we have Attorney General William Barr. Did you guys take the same cab over?

STEVE MNUCHIN, TREASURY SECRETARY: We did not. But as I referenced before, I'm sure his is even more interesting.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:50:58] KING: The Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin today frustrating House Democrats by not answering two of their big questions. Will the IRS meet a Wednesday deadline, that's tomorrow, to turn over the president's taxes, and will Secretary Mnuchin be involved in that decision?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MNUCHIN: I want to acknowledge that we did receive the request and as I've said in the past when we received the request, it would be reviewed by our legal department and it is our intent to follow the law, and that is in the process of being reviewed.

REP. MIKE QUIGLEY (D-IL): Are they reviewing whether or not you should make that decision, as well, sir?

MNUCHIN: It would be premature for me to comment specifically what they are reviewing on or what they're not reviewing on.

(END VIDEO CLIP) KING: Learned a lot there, didn't you? Democrats also pressed Secretary Mnuchin on whether the White House is involved in deciding how Treasury and the IRS decide what to do.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

QUIGLEY: Have you spoken to the White House chief of staff or the president about this decision?

MNUCHIN: I have not spoken to the White House chief of staff or the president about this decision.

Our legal department has had conversations prior to receiving the letter with the White House general counsel.

QUIGLEY: And did they brief you as to the contents of that communication?

MNUCHIN: They have not briefed me to the contents of that communication. I believe that was purely informational.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: He did say that Congress will get an answer, is likely to get an answer by its deadline tomorrow. That's the House Ways and Means Committee.

Anybody want to bet against me that the answer is going to be, no, we're not giving you the president's taxes, see you in court? But to the question about, does Secretary Mnuchin make that call, a political appointee, or does the IRS commissioner make that call, also a political appointee but more departmentalized there. He wouldn't say what he's been told.

CAYGLE: Yes. I would say Democrats have been preparing on the Hill for weeks knowing that they're going to -- the White House or Treasury is going to say no tomorrow, they're going to send another letter and then they'll have to issue a subpoena next month and then they're going to go to court. Like that's the case that they are making.

From talking to lawmakers on the Hill, their understanding is that Mnuchin is very involved in day-to-day decisions, not only on this issue but a lot of things involving the IRS. So they think even if he's not publicly playing a role, he is very, you know, hands-on, behind the scenes. And so his answers today don't really tell the whole story to them.

PHILLIP: I think this reporting in the last week that the White House was keenly interested in the IRS general counsel position, trying to make sure that they have an appointee in that role as soon as possible, tells us a lot about how they are laying the infrastructure, even within the department to have a sort of favorable determination of how this should all go. The fact that -- I think that's probably the most important thing that we've learned. If they're going to make a decision by tomorrow, it probably means we're not going to see the president's tax returns and it's going to kick off this series of other events that will lead to a court fight.

LERER: But, you know, for Democrats, this is a good political issue, if it keeps going on through the courts, they're pushing for something. They can make the case that the president is hiding something because, in fact, he is hiding something. He's hiding his tax returns which nominees for decades and decades released. I mean, Mitt Romney, as we all know didn't want to do it either but he did it in the end.

So that's a good argument for them as they head into, you know, this re-election cycle. And the fact that the president is so resistant to releasing them really bolsters their case.

KING: Right. And the president's team makes the argument he won the election last time and Hillary Clinton tried to make it an issue, Democrats tried to make an issue, oh he did lose the popular vote, he just -- you know, he did win the Electoral College. The interesting thing, it's a New York state law too trying to get at the president's state taxes. Listen here, Andrew Cuomo is not saying I'm siding with the president here but listen to the governor of New York telling his own party, be careful.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANDREW CUOMO, GOVERNOR OF NEW YORK: The question is going to be the legality because there's going to be a lawsuit in 11 seconds. So -- and putting on my old AG hat, if it looks politically targeted, the courts will be more likely to strike it down.

[12:55:06] So as broad as you can do it, the better.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: They're not always on the same page, but Andrew Cuomo sounds closer to the president there than he does to some of the Democrats.

JOHNSON: Yes. Look, tax returns are some of the most sensitive documents in our political system and courts have really, really protected them. One of the issues that House Democrats are going to face is even if they do get these, they cannot discuss what is in them. And that's really tricky. So it may -- they may go in for a bloody political fight with not all that much return.

KING: Good luck in this town keeping secrets. Thanks for joining us today in the INSIDE POLITICS. See you back at this time tomorrow we hope. Brianna Keilar is up next after a quick break. Have a good afternoon.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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