Return to Transcripts main page
Inside Politics
13 Senate Dems Push To Work With GOP On Border Security; Today Senate Plans Key Procedural Vote On Hegseth Nomination; Hegseth's Former Sister-In-Law Submitted Affidavit That Hegseth Was "Abusive" Toward Ex-Wife; Trump's Immigration Blitz Sets Stage For Rapid Deportations. Aired 12:30-1p ET
Aired January 23, 2025 - 12:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[12:33:17]
DANA BASH, CNN ANCHOR: Now to a rare push for bipartisanship. A group of moderate Senate Democrats is appealing to Republicans to work with them on immigration. In a letter to Majority Leader John Thune, they wrote in part, "There is much work to do to improve border security, protect Dreamers and farm workers and fix our immigration system to better reflect the needs of our country and our modern economy. We remain ready to work with you in good faith to craft legislation that can achieve bipartisan support, rather, and 60 votes in the Senate."
Joining me now is the leader of the 13 Democrats who signed onto that letter, Senator Mark Kelly, of Arizona. Thank you so much for being here. It's nice to see you in person.
I want to get to that letter in one second.
SEN. MARK KELLY (D), ARIZONA: Yes.
BASH: But I do want to start with what President Trump is already doing on this issue of immigration. He is ramping up deportation raids, suspending refugee resettlement that left thousands of migrants in limbo at the border, deploying now thousands of active duty troops at the border.
Now he says this is why millions of Americans voted for him, including in your home state, your border state of Arizona. Is he wrong?
KELLY: Well, I don't think it's the only reason why he won this election. And, you know, let's start by saying it was ultimately at the end of the day, when we count all the votes, it was a close election. But it was an issue we ran on.
And in my state in Arizona, border security is a very important issue. So possibly in the state of Arizona, it made a difference. And there are things we agree upon. There are also things that we don't. You know, mass deportations is just going to rip communities apart.
Ending birthright citizenship is not -- it's not who we are as a country. It's actually one of these things that I think makes us great as a country.
[12:35:09]
And I sent that letter and you say you want to get to it, because there is a lot of common ground that we can find on the issue of border security and immigration reform.
BASH: Again, I promise I'm going to get to it right after I just follow up with what you say, because of course, the economy -- if you look at what voters have said over the past year, the economy is the number one issue. There are lots of other issues --
KELLY: Right.
BASH: -- that people voted on. But when it comes to immigration, it's pretty high up there. And there were a lot of voters who want -- who heard what he said. And his rhetoric was very clear in the aggressive nature that he would use his power of the presidency on immigration. And this is what he's doing.
KELLY: He's following through with what he said, sure. And -- but on the -- if you care about costs, especially the cost of food, mass deportations, and ending, you know, certain immigration programs, are really bad ideas. It's contrary to what you -- might be the number one thing you care about. If you care about putting food on your table, we need farm workers.
There are many folks here that are undocumented. I get that. But to try to deport millions and millions of folks that are here without documentation, that's going to raise the cost of a lot of things. So it's counterproductive.
BASH: OK, let's talk about what should be productive, which is bipartisan approach to this issue, which has vexed lawmakers for decades. What you wrote in this letter was that you remain ready to work in good faith to craft legislation that can achieve bipartisan support and 60 votes in the Senate. There have been so many times, many of them well before you got to the Senate.
KELLY: Right.
BASH: I was up on Capitol Hill, following a lot of genuine, aggressive attempts at bipartisan legislation to fix the broken immigration system. And politics on both sides just ended up crushing it at various times. Why do you think now with Donald Trump in the White House, there's an opening?
KELLY: Well, I think because recently, there was a lot of support for legislation that was a border security bill. This was about six months ago, where we came together to provide some real solutions. And it's better than when Republicans or Democrats on any issue, it's better not to go it alone.
It results in more lasting change. And there's a lot of common ground here. When I talked to my Republican colleagues, I mean, many of them care about dreamers. They also care about a strong border and border security like I do, and hiring more Border Patrol agents and raising Border Patrol pay and building infrastructure and technology.
There's a lot of common ground on that. And you know, with farm workers, my Republican colleagues, a lot of them get that. And there are certain things you can do by yourself, but you can't do everything. So if they are willing to come together, and it seems that many of them are, we would then have the votes to pass a strong bill.
I get it, it hasn't worked in the past, but that's not the reason to just give up.
BASH: Yes. Oh, I mean, I --
KELLY: Yes.
BASH: -- hear you on that. Pete Hegseth --
KELLY: Yes.
BASH: -- the nominee for Defense Secretary, there could be a vote to advance his nomination even as soon as later today. There are even more allegations about alcohol abuse, his behavior in his second marriage, which allegedly is abusive. He denies this.
Do you think that there are four Republicans in the United States Senate, which is what would be needed mathematically to stop his nomination?
KELLY: Well, I'm at the vote counter, but this is a significant job. And I don't think there's a harder job in government, except maybe the president of the United States and Secretary of Defense. And the consequences of putting somebody who is not ready for this job are too high.
This guy is clearly not ready for this job. I haven't met with him privately, but when we had the committee hearing, he's got a lot of personal issues. He's just not prepared and ready to do this. He doesn't have the experience, the leadership experience or the management experience.
He doesn't have any experience with defense policy, implementing it or creating it or acquisition. He doesn't check. I have a hard time finding the box that he checks --
BASH: But he still could be confirmed.
KELLY: Possible. It's possible. There's more information that's been coming out every day about a lot of his personal issues.
BASH: Is that -- you're not a vote counter, but you do have conversations across the aisle. Is that giving some of your GOP colleagues pause?
KELLY: I think it's a -- yes. Yes, it is. It is. I hope it makes a difference because he has been unable to answer questions. He says he has -- he's overcome personal challenges.
[12:40:09]
When we ask him about the personal challenges, he calls those anonymous smears. Many of those are not anonymous anymore, especially the things that I was asking about. I went through a list of very detailed, specific cases where he was abusing alcohol in a way you would not want a Secretary of Defense to do.
Maybe there are other jobs. But when you have to be woken up in the middle of the night and make serious decisions about our national security and be able to give the President of the United States the right information, there are certain kinds of people you do not want in that job. And I said, hey, is this true or false?
BASH: Yes.
KELLY: And he wouldn't say they were false. All he would say, they were anonymous smears. They're no longer anonymous, not all of them.
BASH: Real quick, Tulsi Gabbard, nominee to be the DNI, Director of National Intelligence. You're on the Intel Committee as well. There'll be a hearing next week. You did meet with her?
KELLY: I did.
BASH: Is she somebody you think is up for the job?
KELLY: No, and here's why. Edward Snowden, here's one example, committed crimes against our country, should be in prison. We are a less safe country today because of what he did years ago. The damage he has done still exists today.
She offered legislation to pardon him and people like him still would not admit that he committed crimes against the United States. He should be in jail. And she is a supporter of his -- I don't get that -- on FISA, which is the law that allows us to collect intelligence from foreigners when they're essentially on the phone in another country.
She recently made a 180 on this, but she is not a strong supporter of that authority that allows us to collect a lot of the intelligence that keeps us safe.
BASH: Senator, thank you so much.
KELLY: Thank you.
BASH: We'll be looking forward to seeing your questions in that hearing and appreciate you coming on.
KELLY: Thank you for having me on.
BASH: And up next, much more on Donald Trump's immigration agenda, including the first big challenge to his effort to end automatic birthright citizenship. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [12:46:58]
BASH: We've been talking about Donald Trump overhauling the U.S. immigration system with a stroke of his sharpie, but today his executive order challenging birthright citizenship will face its first legal test in court.
CNN's Priscilla Alvarez has been covering all of these immigration changes and will continue to do so extensively. Before we get to the birthright citizenship, a legal case, I do want to talk about some of what I discussed with Senator Mark Kelly, which is laying the groundwork for the promise for mass deportations. What are you hearing from your sources who are actually involved in this about what's going to happen and when?
PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: This is happening quietly. It's happening behind the scenes and it's happening in a lot of paperwork. Here's why all of this matters. Number one, there was a directive put out that immigration and customs enforcement can do arrests in a near sensitive areas.
That's a departure from longstanding policy. That means that they can go into churches and schools and hospitals at their discretion and using their common sense. That's according to the Department of Homeland Security.
Number two, a federal regulation. So again, something that just sort of happens by shuffling papers that widens the group of undocumented immigrants who can be removed quickly. They can be put in what is known as a fast track deportation procedure.
Then three, DOJ telling those legal service providers that get federal funds, you can no longer do the work that you have been doing in detention centers. That eliminates a really important recourse for immigrants in detention and also immigrants who aren't in detention that are trying to navigate what is a very tangled U.S. immigration system.
And then fourth, the troops along the U.S. southern border. We've seen that before. There have already been troops, but they're also using military aircraft to remove those recent border crossers. But they could eventually, though we don't know, use them for other deportations.
So if you take this in totality, you are starting to see this plan come together and come together quite quickly to then execute on what has been the president's plan of a larger scale deportation effort.
BASH: Yes. And this is just four days in. Talk about what's going to happen in a Seattle courtroom minutes from now.
ALVAREZ: Well, this is going to be a critical legal challenge, of course, to that executive order that kicks off the process of trying to end birthright citizenship. This can't just be done unilaterally.
Now, we know from the DOJ, which told the judge the following that executive order is an integral part of President Trump's actions pursuant to his significant authority in the immigration field, to address the nation's broken immigration system.
So this is a window into what the argument is going to be in court, by the way, with through a or via a loyalist attorney to the president. So this is all going to come together in the Seattle courtroom.
I want to note, Dana, oftentimes when we talk about legal challenges, it's a hurdle to getting the immigration agenda passed. In this case, I have talked to multiple sources who say this was the point. The point is for this to happen in court for birthright citizenship, maybe not to end right away, but to get it all the way up to the Supreme Court, a slow burn that could have massive ramifications depending on how ultimately, as expected, the Supreme Court would rule. Yes.
BASH: A constitutional right, but the constitutional is a living, breathing document, and that's why the Supreme Court exists.
[12:50:06]
Thank you so much. Appreciate it.
Don't go anywhere. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BASH: One click should take care of it. But some Instagram users, including a number of celebrities, are complaining they are unable to unfollow President Trump, Vice President Vance or the First Lady's accounts, even after multiple attempts.
Singer Gracie Abrams posted how curious had to block them in order to make sure I am nowhere near that.
Now, Instagram's parent company, Meta, insists it's a temporary technical issue, not a conservative conspiracy, and that no one is being forced to follow anyone.
[12:55:03]
Basically, the main issue, they say, is that accounts like at POTUS used to belong to Joe Biden and now belong to Donald Trump. A spokesman said, "People were not made to automatically follow any of the official Facebook or Instagram accounts for the president, vice president or first lady. Those accounts are managed by the White House so with a new administration. The content of those pages changes."
Of course, Meta's CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, has been cozying up to Donald Trump recently. He was one of several billionaire tech leaders to attend the inauguration with a very good seat.
Thank you so much for joining Inside Politics. CNN News Central will start after a quick break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)