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New Day

World Leaders React to Trump Diplomacy; Trump Vows Mexico Will Reimburse U.S. for Wall; Sanctuary City Mayors Vow to Defy President Trump. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired January 26, 2017 - 07:00   ET

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

HAASS: ... that's going to take serious diplomacy, and again, pushing back against Russia, working with China. And again, I think we have to save things like NATO. We've got to save the European Union. Europe has been extraordinarily stable after a terrible first half of the 20th Century. I think we've got to calm things down there, as well.

[07:00:17] CUOMO: How big a deal is the Theresa May meeting with President Trump? People expected it to be a hug, you know, a kind of Brexit shared populism hug, but she's very strong on NATO. What's the chance that this could go the wrong way, this meeting?

HAASS: I think most of the symbolism will be about Brexit and E.U., and I think that's a little bit unfortunate, because it will send the signal that somehow we favor the dismantling, again, of this European system of relationships that has kept this part of the world so stable for three quarters of a century.

I think that he hears things about the importance of NATO is important. Alliances are an important foundation stone of world order. Again, we learned the hard way in the 20th Century, that when stability of Europe goes south, the United States pays an enormous price.

Again, nothing is local in the world. We live in a world that what happens anywhere is going to come back and affect us. To put it another way, there's no Las Vegas in the world. What happens anywhere doesn't stay there. It comes here. So we have got to be extraordinarily mindful of that.

CAMEROTA: The book, again, is "A World in Disarray." Richard Haass, thanks so much for being here. Great to talk to you.

HAASS: Thanks for having me.

CUOMO: All right. Thanks to all of you, our international viewers. You're going to be watching "CNN NEWSROOM" in just a few moments. For our U.S. viewers, NEW DAY continues right now.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The day is over when they can stay in our country.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Building a $28 billion wall is not an immigration policy.

TRUMP: That wall will cost us nothing.

CUOMO: Is Tuesday's meeting with Mexico's president in jeopardy?

MAYOR BILL DE BLASIO, NEW YORK CITY: We're going to defend all of our people, regardless of their documentation status.

TRUMP: I asked them the question, does torture work? And the answer was yes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The law of the land in America is you can't torture.

TRUMP: What's going on with voter fraud is horrible. There are millions of votes, in my opinion.

REP. ELIJAH CUMMINGS (D), MARYLAND: What we ought to be concerned about is all the people who are being denied the right to vote.

CAMEROTA: Remembering the iconic Mary Tyler Moore.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She opened the door for unbelievable comic women.

(MUSIC: "MARY TYLER MOORE THEME")

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY with Chris Cuomo and Alisyn Camerota.

CAMEROTA: The music makes me smile, just hearing that. We will talk about Mary Tyler Moore, coming up.

Good morning, everyone. Welcome to your NEW DAY.

Up first, President Trump's plan to build a wall along the Mexican border is shaking up relations between both countries. In his first major interview as president, Mr. Trump vows to begin building that wall within months, and he insists that Mexico will pay for it without giving any details.

CUOMO: Mexico's president slamming Mr. Trump's plan, saying they will not pay for a wall. Their face-to-face meeting next week at the White House may now be in jeopardy.

President Trump also discussing his plan to investigate voter fraud, saying waterboarding absolutely works. Lots to discuss in the first seven days of the Trump administration. Let's begin our coverage with CNN's Sara Murray live at the White House.

SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning. We already see they're growing tense relationships between the U.S. and Mexico. That's after President Trump made a point of signing an executive order, saying he is moving forward with this border wall.

Now, all this comes as he is raising alarm from members of both parties as he touts the values of torture.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TRUMP: We will be, in a form, reimbursed by Mexico.

DAVID MUIR, ABC NEWS: Mexico will pay us back?

TRUMP: Yes. Absolutely. One hundred percent.

MURRAY (voice-over): President Trump reiterating his promise that Mexico will pay for the border wall, but offering few details. Hours after signing an executive order directing federal funds toward building that wall.

TRUMP: All it is, is we'll be reimbursed at a later date from whatever transaction we make from Mexico. That wall will cost us nothing.

MURRAY: His rhetoric is ramping up pressure on Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto. The Mexican leader facing calls at home to cancel next Tuesday's meeting with Trump.

Pena Nieto defiantly responding to the U.S. president in a video address to the nation, saying Mexico does not believe in walls, and it won't pay for one.

President Trump also continuing to peddle the false claim that voter fraud cost him the popular vote.

TRUMP: You have people that are registered who are dead, or who are illegals, who are in two states. There are millions of votes, in my opinion.

MURRAY: Vowing to launch a major investigation, Trump erroneously cited a Pew study where the author found no evidence of voter fraud.

TRUMP: Then why did he write the report? The Pew report. Then he's -- then he's groveling again. You know, I always talk about the reporters that grovel when they want to write something that you want to hear but not necessarily millions of people want to hear, or have to hear.

MURRAY: But voting officials in both parties across the country say there's no truth to Trump's claims of widespread fraud.

[07:05:04] But there is evidence of outdated voter rolls. In fact, two members of the president's own team, treasury secretary nominee Steve Mnuchin, and the president's chief strategist, Steve Bannon, were each registered to vote in two states on election day.

"The Washington Post" reports that the president's daughter Tiffany was also registered in two states.

President Trump digging in on another controversial campaign promise: his pledge to bring back waterboarding. TRUMP: I want to do everything within the bounds of what you're

allowed to do legally. But do I feel it works? Absolutely, I feel it works.

MURRAY: Ultimately saying he'll let his CIA director and defense secretary decide whether to reinstate it.

TRUMP: When they're chopping off the heads of people because they happen to be a Christian in the Middle East, when ISIS is doing things that nobody has ever heard of since medieval times, would I feel strongly about waterboarding? As far as I'm concerned, we have to fight fire with fire.

MURRAY: Trump's tough talk extending to Chicago, as well, where he says he'll send the feds to combat violence.

TRUMP: It is carnage. It's horrible carnage. This is -- Afghanistan is not like what's happening in Chicago. People are being shot left and right. Thousands of people over a period -- over a short period of time. I don't want to have thousands of people shot in a city where, essentially, I'm the president.

So all I'm saying is to the mayor, who came up to my office recently, I say you have to smarten up and you have to toughen up. Because you can't let that happen. That's a war zone.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MURRAY: Now, Donald Trump has a busy day ahead of him. He'll be heading to the Republican retreat in Philadelphia later on today where he and his GOP allies can hash out their plans for his first 200 days in office.

Trump may also take more executive actions today to push forward this voter fraud investigation that he said he wants to pursue, and we are also expecting executive actions on trade.

Back to you guys.

CAMEROTA: OK, Sara, thank you very much for that.

So mayors of so-called sanctuary cities across the country are fighting back. They vow to defy President Trump's executive orders aimed at punishing the local governments that do not comply with federal authorities on immigration.

New York City is a sanctuary city, and Mayor Bill de Blasio joins us now.

Mayor, thanks so much for being here.

DE BLASIO: You're welcome, Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: What do you think of President Trump's crackdown on sanctuary cities? DE BLASIO: Well, it's going to make cities less safe. This is the

bottom line.

CAMEROTA: How so?

DE BLASIO: It's very important to understand this. Because I think in the terminology sanctuary cities, all that, we've lost the underlying meaning. And if you want to know what it means, ask a police chief or a police commissioner.

Our commissioner, Jimmy O'Neill, stood with me yesterday and said, "Look, NYPD has spent decades building relationships with communities, including immigrant communities." This is the kind of thing that will destroy that promise and make it impossible for the police to keep cities safe.

Why? New York City has half a million undocumented people. We want them to come forward and work with the police if they see a crime or they are a victim of the crime. If they believe, by talking to a police officer, they will get deported and be torn apart from their family, they're not going to work with police. And by the way, that policy in New York City of respecting that confidentiality goes back to the administration of Rudy Giuliani and Ed Koch.

CAMEROTA: That makes perfect sense for the law-abiding, undocumented immigrants. But there are some sanctioned cities, and maybe New York City is one of them that says that they will not work with ICE agents, even for people in their jails, even for people suspected of being undocumented immigrants in their jails.

Why not hand over the people who have committed these crimes to ICE agents?

DE BLASIO: Another misunderstanding about the so-called sanctuary cities. Here's a list so far of 170 offenses that, if someone is undocumented, they commit this offense, we will work with ICE; and they will be deported.

CAMEROTA: But are those low-level offenses or high-level offenses?

DE BLASIO: No. These are serious crimes, violent crimes. Even possession of a weapon, for example, of any kind. A hundred and 70 offenses that, if an undocumented person commits, that triggers by New York City law, cooperation with ICE for deportation.

CAMEROTA: How about theft?

DE BLASIO: Here's the example. Theft violence -- any theft involving a weapon, for example...

CAMEROTA: Not violence. Just a regular, low-level crime.

DE BLASIO: There are very low-level crimes. For example, small amounts of marijuana possession. Going through a stoplight that doesn't cause any damage to anyone. Those are areas where we will not work to see someone deported. Why? Because these are members of a family in our community. Say it's the

breadwinner in the family. So you deport the breadwinner, and the rest of the family, including the children, are left without anyone. You tear a family apart. That's not good government. That's not, in my view, moral. This is where the whole thing gets so confused, Alisyn.

This is about human beings, families that came here. I believe people should follow the law. I don't believe people should violate our borders, but let's face it. This has been, for hundreds of years, a challenge for this country. Right? You've got people here now. And what are we going to do with 11 or 12 million people in our midst?

If someone's truly a violent criminal, absolutely they should be deported. If they're a law-abiding person or they've done the very minor things that even people we know might have done, we can't see them deported and their families torn apart.

[06:10:05] CAMEROTA: Correct me if I'm wrong. It sounds like New York City gets $8.8 billion in federal funds, and there is something like $156 million at stake here if President Trump decides to pull federal funds from New York City. What would that do to you in New York City?

DE BLASIO: Well, here's the amazing thing about the executive order. First of all, we think it's very susceptible to legal challenge. There's some real contradictions and...

CAMEROTA: They can't pull that money from...

DE BLASIO: Again, if they make an attempt to pull that money, it would be from the NYPD. It would be from security funding for the NYPD to fight terrorism and to protect foreign leaders who come to New York City to go to the U.N.

If an attempt is made to do that, we will go to court immediately for an injunction to stop it. And we believe the executive order is vague and, in some ways, contradictory. The Supreme Court Justice Roberts in 2012 came in with a decision that said, it's inappropriate for the federal government to attempt to take federal funding, broad brush, away from a state or city because of broad policy matters.

Justice Roberts, our current chief justice of the Supreme Court, wrote this decision and said it has to be very narrowly drawn. In this case, according to the executive order, it would be homeland security and Justice Department. What do they fund in New York City? The NYPD.

CAMEROTA: So the fact that the seemingly future attorney general, Jeff Sessions, says that he is willing to sue sanctuary cities like New York City. How much cause of concern does that give you?

DE BLASIO: I believe that we are on very strong ground. Why? Because for decades in this city through Republican, Democratic and independent administrations locally, we have had a policy that said we're going to be careful with our immigrant populations not to create an environment where they can't work with police. That's the No. 1 core of what we've been doing. Right? So we've done that effectively. We're the safest big city in America. It's part of what made us safe.

If the attorney general is going to act on policy that will make cities less safe and police chiefs all over the country are saying, "Don't do that. Don't do that, it's actually going to hurt us," and he says, "No, I'm going to do it but I'm going to take away your money." Well, the money is going to take away -- it's a double jeopardy for our police departments. The money he will take away will actually be from police departments trying to stop terror and trying to stop crime.

CAMEROTA: Speaking of you being the safest big city in America, you know, the president has been talking a lot about Chicago. He said that there's carnage in the streets there. He's called it a war zone. Their crime rate has gone up. What should Mayor Rahm Emanuel be saying in response to this? If President Trump were talking about New York City in those terms, what would the response be?

DE BLASIO: The situation in Chicago is tragic, and I feel for the people of Chicago. Some of us, New York among them, have had the opposite reality. Crime has continued to go down in New York City, and the relationship between police and community is getting closer. That is the way forward. It is about binding police and community together. It's about neighborhood policing...

CAMEROTA: Are they not doing that in Chicago?

DE BLASIO: I'm not familiar enough with the details of Chicago, but I can say this much. What President Trump has said, for example, is that we should reinstitute the policy of Stop and Frisk, which is one of the things that divided police and community here in New York City. We have reduced Stop and Frisk steadily; and crime has continued to go down steadily.

So I think the bottom line for Chicago and everywhere is we need to continue to heal the wounds of the past, show communities that police are on their side, and show police that communities can be on their side as partners. It takes real hard work. It means more police. We just added 2,000 more police officers here in New York City over the last two years so we could do neighborhood policing.

I think if President Trump wants to help the people of Chicago, then provide Mayor Emanuel with support to add police officers and implement neighborhood policing. Don't go back to a broken policy of Stop and Frisk.

CAMEROTA: I want to ask you about what President Trump has said about the so-called DREAMers, the children, the undocumented children who were brought here through no choice of their own. Let me play for you what he just said last night.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: They shouldn't be very worried. They are here illegally. They shouldn't be very worried. I do have a big heart. We're going to take care of everybody.

We're going to have a very strong border. We're going to have a very solid border. Where you have great people that are here that have done a great job, they should be far less worried. We'll be coming out with policy on that over the next period of four weeks.

MUIR: But Mr. President, will they be allowed to stay?

TRUMP: I'm going to tell you over the next four weeks.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: So they shouldn't be worried. What does that say to you?

DE BLASIO: Well, I think we've learned with the president to be careful about his choice of words. Because he changes his mind. He changes his words quite a bit.

Look, it's a good sign of what he's saying is that the DREAMers, the young people who came here through no choice of their own and really have grown up as Americans, if he's going to take a more positive view towards them, and that's millions of people, that's a good sign.

And when I met with him shortly after the election, this is one of the things we talked about. I said you have to understand in the city of New York and cities all over the country, these people are contributing to our economy. They are talented young people who have a lot that they can give to America, and they've known no other country. He did seem to acknowledge that reality.

But I think we have to be careful here. This is a man who told us just a few days ago that millions of illegal aliens, in his view, undocumented people, had voted in the election. There's no proof whatsoever. So I think we should be very careful about his words, wait to see action.

[07:15:12] But I would urge him to acknowledge what I think most Americans understand. If a young person came here as a child, no choice of their own, and grew up as an American, only knows America, it would be immoral to send them to a country they really have no connection to at this point.

CAMEROTA: Plus, the first lady is living here in New York, obviously, even though President Trump is in the White House. And she's staying here for Barron, their son, to finish school. What's that like for the police? What's the protection like for the first lady and the son living here, which has never happened before?

DE BLASIO: It's never happened before. It's unprecedented. It's put a huge strain on the NYPD to protect not only the first family and the staff that's been working there at Trump Tower but Trump Tower itself, which is a very centrally located and very vulnerable building.

We've pulled out the stops to make sure they are protected and to make sure the building is protected. It's now a symbol of the national administration, so it has to be well protected. It's costing us about half a million dollars a day to secure a building that is exposed on three sides and has a public atrium. We're going to keep doing that. It's the right thing to do.

But we do expect the Congress to reimburse the people of New York City and the NYPD so we can continue to do the work of safety all over this city.

CAMEROTA: Mr. Mayor, thanks so much for coming in to NEW DAY. Always great to talk to you.

DE BLASIO: A pleasure -- Chris.

CUOMO: All right. When it comes to the wall, signing an executive order was the easy part. How would our new president pay for this wall? You need Congress for that. And all that money. Would it be going toward the real problem with immigration? One Republican senator gives us his take. It will surprise you. Next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:20:44] CUOMO: President Donald Trump's wall along the Mexican border promise is causing a big rift with the leaders of both countries. But Mexico's president says again he's not going to pay for the wall. In an address to the nation last night, that's what he said to his Mexican constituents.

The president of the United States is saying something very different. Are we going to get stuck with this bill as a result of this conflict?

Joining us now is Republican Senator Cory Gardner of Colorado. Senator, thank you for being here. Let me play for you what the president of the United States said last night.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MUIR: The American taxpayer will pay for the wall at first?

TRUMP: All it is, is we're going to be reimbursed at a later date from whatever transaction we make from Mexico.

MUIR: Mexico's president said in recent days that Mexico absolutely will not pay, adding that it goes against our dignity as a country and our dignity as Mexicans. He says we simply aren't paying.

TRUMP: I think he has to say that. He has to say that. But I'm just telling you, there will be a payment. It will be in a form, perhaps a complicated form, and you have to understand, what I'm doing is good for the United States. It's also going to be good for Mexico. We want to have a very stable, very solid Mexico.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: It seems pretty clear, Senator -- correct me if I'm wrong -- that the president doesn't know how he's going to get Mexico to pay for this wall. The idea of monitoring remittances that come from the United States and go into Mexico would be a real legal and ethical thicket. So what's your take?

SEN. CORY GARDNER (R), COLORADO: Well, again, I haven't heard a plan from the president on exactly how this is going to work, and I certainly don't speak for the president.

But I do know this, Chris. That if you look at anybody's basic plan for immigration -- a Democrat, Republican, nonpartisan, bipartisan plans-- it does include a component of border security. And I think it's important that this country have a conversation about border security.

So as far as how it's going to be paid, I would imagine at this point, as it was alluded to in the interview, that somehow Congress is going to be asked to come up with the dollars right now. Anything else beyond that, I don't know how it works; and that's something the White House will have to answer for.

CUOMO: So there are two points of fact. The first one is, yes, you want to secure a border, but that assumes that that should be the focus of your analysis, because that is the tip of the spear of your problem. The data suggests otherwise.

As you well know, Senator Gardner is one of the well-schooled senators on the issues of the facts of what's going on with immigration. You now have a now negative flow with illegal immigrants, as they're called by the president, undocumented people.

There are more leaving than coming. So you want to spend somewhere between 8 and 38, are the estimates. A billion dollars, not including maintenance, to build a wall that would not address the main part of the problem? Does that make sense to you?

GARDNER: No, and again, I think this is an issue of trust with the American people. Going back to the plans that the bipartisan, the comprehensive plan that was put forward several years ago in the Senate, they talked about border security. They spent money on additional measures to put in place border security.

And so what I think we have to do in this country is recognize that, yes, that's a component of it, and we have to build trust with the American people that we are enforcing the laws, the existing laws, and that we're fixing laws that are broken.

And that's, I think, where we need to go in this country. So let's talk about border security. It's already the law of the land in this country that we have a fence on the border.

But we need to look at the East Coast, the West Coast, our ports, north, south, to make sure that we're secure. That's one component. That's a starting point.

Data is good, but we also have the trust of the American people that we need to earn and restore when it comes to immigration. So then recognizing that immigrants are a valuable part of this country, that they are -- we are a nation of immigrants. My family is an immigrant family from over a century ago. Look, this is something that we can do. We can get this right. I

believe we can bring Democrats and Republicans together on a solution that fixes our broken entry/exit system, our visa system. The fact that we have a number of undocumented people in this country today, many of them came through legal channels.

But the problem is our system wasn't built to address what happens when they do things like overstay visas. I believe we can have border security. Yes, we should start with that. That's everybody's plan. But then let's make sure that we do this together to come up with something that we can, as a nation, be proud of. A nation of laws but a nation of immigrants.

CUOMO: Well, so taking that as the position, would you be willing to give tens of billions of dollars to building more fence or more wall around the country right now? Would you want to put that much money into that part of the problem?

[07:25:16] GARDNER: Look, I haven't seen cost estimates. I don't know what exactly he's talking about. This is a -- whether it's a double layer, whether it's electronic, whether it's personnel. I think that is all going to be part of a discussion.

But Chris, the law of the land today is that we have border security. It's the law of the land today that we have...

CUOMO: Right, but it's about the money, Senator. I know the law that's there, but there's not the money allocated. That comes down to Congress. The president can write his executive orders and say he wants to do it. You're going to have to figure out how to pay for it, and I'm saying, will this be your priority? Because he wants it to be first. Is it your first priority?

GARDNER: I don't disagree with you that this is going to be something that Congress is going to be tasked with coming up. I certainly think, as we look to projects like building our infrastructure, nation's infrastructure, whether that's highway programs, airports, as the president has said, this becomes a difficult challenge.

But the American people expect the government, Congress, our Constitution to be carried out in a way that protects this country. This is something that I'm glad we're having this debate. Certainly, I think this is something both sides can agree to.

And I hope that, as we enter this new administration, that we do get back to that November 9 in the morning, that early morning or the hours after the election was declared a victory for Donald Trump, that we can talk about bringing this country together, to uniting this country, to making sure that the forgotten men and women of this country, who felt like they've been forgotten, have greater opportunities. That's what we can do, and that's what I hope will bring both Republicans, Democrats, anyone across this country together.

CUOMO: So when you go to the Philly retreat -- are you going to head over there? GARDNER: I'm here in Philadelphia today, yes.

CUOMO: So you're there for the retreat, party unity, figure out what to do in the first couple hundred days here.

The president has made one of his signature moves early on to investigate what he sees as widespread voter fraud that cost him the popular vote because of three to five million illegals, as he calls them, who voted against him. Do you support an investigation to show that three to five million illegals voted against Donald Trump?

GARDNER: I haven't seen evidence of that. I have had conversations with our secretary of state, both our current secretary of state in Colorado and our previous secretary of state in Colorado, who did make allegations of voter fraud. There were, I guess, a handful of people in Colorado who were found, or at least investigated. I think it's important that we have integrity in our election.

Look, access to our ballots, the electoral process is one of the most sacred things we have in this country. We went through a very divisive campaign. We've had a lot of questions about the impact the Russia hacks had or did not have throughout this process.

But the bottom line is we need an electoral process that stands up to the integrity test for the American people.

So I'll give you an example. In Colorado, a Republican was trying to gain access to the ballot. He was trying to gain access to run for senator, and there is a petition circulator who forged signatures. So in access to the ballot, there was fraud. That person was prosecuted. I think that process is taking place right now. And we should make sure that happens.

So this is an important issue to discuss. If there is evidence of this, then let the American people see it. I think that's very important.

CUOMO: Do you think that voter fraud was the difference in the popular vote?

GARDNER: Again, I haven't seen evidence of that, but I think if there's evidence of that, let's let the American people see, and that's important.

Like I said, in Colorado, speaking to the secretary of state, there have been a handful but no more than that, and they should be rooted out. But it's just been a handful.

CUOMO: Senator Gardner, thank you very much. Appreciate you being on NEW DAY.

GARDNER: Thanks for having me.

CUOMO: Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: Chris, President Trump defending his speech at the CIA headquarters and why he says he would give that speech all over again in front of the memorial wall of fallen heroes. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)