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Trump Loses Bid to Reinstate Travel Ban; Arizona Mother Deported After Routine Immigration Check; White House Press Secretary's Tough Week. Aired 6:30-7a ET

Aired February 10, 2017 - 06:30   ET

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

KYUNG LAH, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): -- and 100,000 members spread across every congressional district.

[06:30:03] UNIDENTIFIED MALE: These are the things that we need to ask Jason Chaffetz.

LAH: It's organized. Donald Aguirre live-streaming an action plan to Indivisible Utah, 24 hours before Congressman Chaffetz' town hall.

(on camera): This is directly in response to the election.

DONALD AGUIRRE, MEMBER, INDIVISIBLE UTAH: One hundred percent, I would say so. From one Donald to another, I'm not going anywhere, and there are millions of people like me that are going nowhere. And for the next four years, we will be at everybody's doorsteps.

LAH (voice-over): The new administration is noticing. White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer dismissed these protesters as professionals.

SEAN SPICER, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: You know, the Tea Party was a very organic movement. This has become a very paid Astroturf type movement.

LAH (on camera): Are you a political operative?

COURTNEY MARDEN, FOUNDER, INDIVISIBLE UTAH: Absolutely not. I'm a nurse, I'm a mom.

LAH: Courtney Marden founded Indivisible Utah, once a registered Republican, and now a self declared anti-Trump progressive in the Chaffetz town hall crowd with Donald Aguirre, declaring victory. Congressman Chaffetz cutting off his town hall 45 minutes early.

Kyung Lah, CNN, Salt Lake City, Utah.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Wow. That puts a fine point on it. There has been all sorts of talk about when will they organize? There are all these desperate sort of angry feelings. That sounds as though they are beginning to coalesce.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: The idea that the re-election resolve things is a very undeveloped notion.

CAMEROTA: Yes.

All right. President Trump's travel ban is on hold today after another legal defeat. President Trump again insisting the nation's security at stake, though he offers no specific threats. Is this fear over facts? We debate next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:35:45] CUOMO: The Trump administration doing what it does best, vowing to fight in the face of adversity. The court came out and said this ban will not be reinstated. And the president has said he will see you in court. It will continue because the country has much to fear and fear has become a big part of the president's case to the people.

Let's discuss this controversial aspect. We have "Daily Beast" contributor and host of the Dean Obeidallah show on SiriusXM radio, Dean himself. And CNN political commentator and conservative contributor at "The Hill", Kayleigh McEnany.

So, let's forget about all the law for a second and just talk about what matters to people. The president comes out and says I've learned in the last two weeks the threat is more real than I ever knew. You have no idea how afraid you should be.

Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIPS)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: This American carnage stops right here, and stops right now.

The murder rate is at the highest it's been in, I guess from 45 to 47 years.

Believe me, I've learned a lot in the last two weeks, and terrorism is a far greater threat than the people of our country understand.

(END VIDEO CLIPS)

CUOMO: So the proposition is this.

DEAN OBEIDALLAH, "DAILY BEAST" CONTRIBUTOR: Sure.

CUOMO: Do you want to play with the technicalities of law or do you want to be safe?

OBEIDALLAH: I think you have to adhere to the law. I mean, yesterday, that decision is a great day for America, for this experiment called the United States of America. For those who believe in the Constitution and separation of powers. No one is above the law. This was a big part of this decision.

I think President Trump has to go back. We divide, we decide an executive decision. They can apply with the law when they get a more detailed decision from the district court.

But still, at the end of the day, Donald Trump is talking about this great fear of terrorism. There is a fear of terrorism. But President Obama didn't gin it up. He made us feel comfortable, confident as a country.

President Trump does the opposite. He wants to scare us and sadly, especially about Muslims this time with no regard to white supremacist terrorism. I mean, irony on this day he talked about a trial attack, a trial in Tennessee, a self professed Christian minster plotting to kill Muslims, using a machete, M4, explosive, that gets no coverage. It's in federal court right now as we sit here.

CAMEROTA: Kayleigh, you are the Harvard Law grad. So, do you think that's what the 9th Circuit Court was basing it on. They were basically saying, we understand that you are saying there is a fear and there's a threat, but give us specifics and you can't.

KAYLEIGH MCENANY, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: They were demanding that and, you know, frankly, the DOJ attorney didn't do a good job saying here is the cognizable threat. You know, my immediate answer would have been, the seven countries we targeted were the same seven Congress and the Obama administration looked at and denied the visa waiver program.

CAMEROTA: True. But we're just denying a ban.

MCENANY: Correct, absolutely. But it's the same seven countries they saw having relation to terror.

But the irony here is if President Trump does what professor Dershowitz says, rejiggers the order, makes it comply with the Ninth Circuit, it actually ameliorates the national security threat out there rather than waiting for this to be repealed and leaning on the executive order deemed temporarily restrained by the 9th Circuit.

The irony is the president wants to keep us safe, reissue the order in a way that complies with the 9th Circuit.

CUOMO: Do you think that happens? Do you think the president has in him, from what we seen demonstrated, the ability to say, I was wrong on this one, let me do it a different way?

MCENANY: I don't know if it happens. I think it should happen. I think the worst thing that can be done is to repeal this up to the Supreme Court because they're going to --

CUOMO: As is?

MCENANY: Absolutely. They're going to lose at the level of the Supreme Court.

CUOMO: If they even take it.

MCENANY: If they even take it so. So I think the worse thing is to rehash this entire controversy just,

you know, a few weeks down the road and go through the same arguments that we had last night. You know, the best thing to do is to reissue it. I don't know if it happens.

OBEIDALLAH: I think to me, today one of the biggest concerns beyond this is Donald Trump saying yesterday, this is a political decision. This is reminiscent of his attack earlier in the week on a federal judge, saying so-called judge. If it's better terms, again, it's going at the separation of powers in our country, which is so important for a nation. It makes us exceptional, and saying it's a political decision make some of his followers go, you don't have to follow the political decisions.

[06:40:02] No, it's a decision of Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Four judges so far, two Republicans, two Democrats. All the same result.

Bipartisanship in a time with no bipartisanship. It concerns me, Donald Trump should accept it. I will go to court. That's the right answer, not --

MCENANY: But don't you agree? Because I understand him saying this is a political decision, in that if you look at the establishment clause arguments, they said, we believe the president had some sinister attempt to make this a Muslim ban, even though it was not on its face. When they could have easily said, actually, we think we want to make sure there aren't refugees infiltrating -- excuse me, terrorists infiltrating the refugee program the way we have been warned by the intelligence community John Brennan that they are trying to do.

OBEIDALLAH: I think all concerns should be addressed. There is an ISIS concern. We can't play that there's not.

There's also a concern, a man was sentenced in December to 30 years to life for what? Building a radioactive bomb to kill Muslims in New York state. In September, three men called the crusaders, as in Christian crusaders, plotting to kill Somali Muslim refugees in Kansas.

President Trump doesn't talk about any of that. There are people out there who want to kill me because I'm Muslim and my family and my community. Donald Trump does not tell us I'm there for you, I'm there for you. Instead, he just gins up --

(CROSSTALK)

CAMEROTA: And what about that? I mean, we have been hearing a lot about. That if you look at the numbers, if you look at the facts, the white extremists are certainly as big a threat, if not more. There is actually more cases than there are here of radical Islamic terrorists. So why do you think that the president isn't talking about that?

MCENANY: Well, first of all, I don't think it's right to demonize any faith. There is certainly violence everywhere. But when we look around the world, you do see there are Muslim terrorist attacks during Ramadan. There was one every 72 hours by Michael Weiss' account.

(CROSSTALK)

CAMEROTA: The world he is looking at. Not just the U.S., if you look at the U.S., it will be a different calculus.

MCENANY: Absolutely. He fears, many Republicans fear we become like Germany, like some of our European partners.

CUOMO: Again, there are the politics of feelings, and then there is fact. They're not always on the same page. We are seeing that play out right now. This is a good discussion.

Thanks to both of you.

MCENANY: Thank you.

CAMEROTA: All right. Who says cheer leading isn't a contact sport? A member of the --

CUOMO: Not me.

CAMEROTA: -- of UCLA's team taking a horrible fall. Oh, no, I don't want to see from the top of the pyramid during a routine, Chris says she's okay. I hope he is right, because you won't believe what happens next. This is the "Bleacher Report."

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:46:19] CAMEROTA: An Arizona mother convicted of identity theft years ago now deported. A routine immigration check leading to Guadalupe Garcia de Rayos being sent back to Mexico, leaving her daughters struggling.

CNN's Polo Sandoval is live in Phoenix with more.

What have you learned, Polo?

POLO SANDOVAL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Alisyn, good morning.

We have been speaking to Garcia's attorney, who tells me the chances of her returning to the U.S. at least any time soon are slim, it could be perhaps ten years before the U.S. government could consider a petition for her residency. So, we watched yesterday, it was a fairly emotional moment. Garcia's U.S.-born, U.S. citizen children, traveled to Sonora, Mexico, about three hours south of where we are in Phoenix to spend some time with their mother as they try to find out what will come next.

Her 16-year-old son Angel Garcia promising to fight for the mother and several of the undocumented community. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANGEL GARCIA DE RAYOS, SON OF DEPORTED UNDOCUMENTED IMMIGRANT: Is this is the worst thing you can do? This is reality we are facing. We the people are fighting for what they want. We are in support of the community and my mother. We're gong to keep on fighting.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANDOVAL: And we did speak to members of the undocumented community in Phoenix yesterday of what was a quiet and peaceful demonstration. They say they are concerned about what this means to them.

What will happen when they come here to this ICE office in Phoenix to do a regular check-ins? Will it be their last day here in the United States, Chris? Because there is this common concern here that they feel that Donald Trump's executive action on immigration likely had something to do with it.

But, Chris, we did check in with ICE, they maintain they are taking a closer look and deporting officials with felony convictions like Guadalupe Garcia.

CUOMO: This case speaks to fears of a malintent whereby doing this, you're going to keep people from coming in to check, which will trigger people saying they're non-compliant, and this cycle gets more and more harsh.

Polo, thank you for the reporting.

So, athletic apparel giant Under Armour, you know them, right? They're responding to a backlash after their CEO made comments supporting President Trump? What did he say? What's the reaction?

Coy Wire has it in this morning's "Bleacher Report".

Good morning, my brother.

COY WIRE, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Chris.

A day after star Steph Curry, one of Under Armour's highest profile spokesmen publicly disagreed with the company's CEO Kevin Plank, who said that President Trump is an asset to the United States, Under Armour went into full damage control, trying to distance the company's brand from the CEO's political views, saying, quote, "We engage in policy, not politics. We have teammates from different religions, races, nationalities, genders and sexual orientations, different ages, life experiences and opinions. This is the core of our company."

The Rock" Dwayne Johnson has partnered with Under Armour and he, too, distanced himself from Plank's stance, posting, quote, "His words were divisive and lacking in perspective. Debate is healthy. But in a time of widespread disagreement, so is loyalty. I feel an obligation to stand with this diverse team", unquote.

All right. Video training this morning, a scary moment during a UCLA- Oregon game, a cheerleader falls, crashes to the court. And then, that's not it. As she's being carried off the guy carrying her falls and then body slams her to the court yet again.

And after that though, Alisyn, the funny thing is she was okay. She said, I'm done with you picking me up, she got up and walked off the court on her own under her own power. It is good to know that she is okay.

CAMEROTA: And I hope she carried him off the court after that.

WIRE: Kick him off the court.

CAMEROTA: Such a performance.

Wow, I'm glad she is OK. That is some scary video. Coy, thank you vey much.

CUOM: You can tell she was going to be okay from the way she took the fall.

[06:50:00] Her head didn't even snap back. They are strong. They are strong.

CAMEROTA: They are athletic.

All right. So, from the unforgettable "Saturday Fight Live" sketch to an extremely contentious briefing yesterday, Sean Spicer has had a tough week. We explore that, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEAN SPICER, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: You're quitting me addressing the nation here in a tweet? I mean that's the silliest thing I've ever we heard.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Is it?

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer clearly annoyed by that journalist's question during yesterday's press briefing. But there have been many contentious moments.

CUOMO: He looks angry here.

CAMEROTA: The week started with that viral "Saturday Night Life" spoof showing Sean Spicer's contentious style.

Let's discuss with CNN senior media correspondent and host of "RELIABLE SOURCES", Brian Stelter, and CNN media analyst, Bill Carter.

Bill --

BILL CARTER, CNN MEDIA ANALYST: Yes.

CAMEROTA: -- look, the press secretary often has an adversarial relationship with the press corps at the White House. Is this different than you've ever seen?

CARTER: Yes, because it's so fast. It has become really hostile and contentious. He does seem to be in a bunger sort of already. He is taking on questions that he should be able to handle in losing his cool, which you don't do that later I think. There is usually a honeymoon period.

But there's -- to be fair to him, there is new coming at him every day that he has to try to answer. And it's very hard for him to answer it. He can't really come up with an answer.

You know, it's now, he is being mocked further, if you saw this tape about him messing up words. He doesn't even speak very coherently a lot of times. He is getting too excited. He's too frazzled and it's not working.

CUOMO: Well, he's never dealt with anything like this before because I doubt he's ever rep anybody who comes out with as many inflammatory, often inaccurate, and hostile statements that are often directed at the press in a way we've never seen before.

[06:55:09] That's a real recipe for stress.

What do you think the right way forward is for Sean Spicer?

BRIAN STELTER, CNN SENIOR MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: There are times when there may be a good answer to some of the questions he is being asked. He is trying to twist himself and contort himself into answers that aren't rationale and it's because of his boss, because of President Trump --

CAMEROTA: Yes.

CARTER: That's right.

STELTER: -- the situation he's being put into.

CAMEROTA: He has a constituency of one actually.

CARTER: He's being scrutinized by that guy so --

CAMEROTA: He knows that, in fact, Jim Acosta of CNN reported Mr. Trump has not been pleased with some of Sean Spicer's first forays. So, imagine the pressure, you go to the podium. You know your boss is scrutinizing everything, plus the press is yelling at you, as their job. Plus, the general public, plus "Saturday Night Live." You know, what's interesting, Bill, a lot of people here, reporters and anchors here used to deal with Sean Spicer in his previous life in and around Washington, D.C., you know, the they don't recognize this new Sean Spicer.

CARTER: No, I think they feel like the guy has changed because he's put under this kind of pressure.

CUOMO: Well, it's not just pressure, though, right? This is again, it's different. It's just not in substance, it's also in style.

STELTER: That's right.

CUOMO: They deal with adversity and criticism in a way that we have only seen in the schoolyard. If they say something that is wrong, they double down on it nine times out of ten and will blame you for asking.

CARTER: Yes.

CUOMO: OK?

If they are inaccurate, they often will push it to the extent of a lie. These are rules that matter in a game of truth. That's what they're playing.

CAMEROTA: We have an example. Yesterday, as you know, Judge Gorsuch was quoted as saying he found President Trump's attacks on the judiciary to be demoralizing and disheartening. And his own spokesperson said, in fact, he said that.

Here was Sean Spicer.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SPICER: The judge was very clear that he was not commenting on any specific matter. There is a big difference between commenting on the specific comments that have been made in the tweets and his general philosophy about the judiciary and his respect for his fellow judges.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: What?

STELTER: I got nothing for you on that. This is a twisting into knots, tying himself into knots, trying to address these questions. The better answer may be to say nothing in these cases.

CARTER: These cases, it was clear they had a strategy to have him look like he was going to be independent. And it was playing. You we heard the Republicans saying, look how independent he is. And they undercut it.

CUOMO: Not they. The president.

CARTER: The president undercut it because he was -- felt like he'd being criticized. So he sent Sean Spicer out there to say he misrepresented these.

CUOMO: We know these --

CARTER: No, maybe he's not independent.

CUOMO: We know this western at the center of it yesterday, the president decided to target us for our reporting on it. But it goes to the original formula, OK? This story was done the moment that Judge Gorsuch's comms guy came out and said, yes, he said these things to Blumenthal what the president had said. It was over.

The president made it about Blumenthal's veracity. He lied about hits military record. You are not asking him about that, which was untrue. But he refused to accept, said that Blumenthal misrepresented the comments that was demonstrably false. Now, where are they left?

STELTER: This is a clear example of the alternate reality received sometimes from this White House. This is supported by some conservative media outlets. It's supported by the alt right on Twitter, Twitter trolls and things like that.

What you get as a result is this alternative reality, two different narratives. One that is factually based, and I think you are trying to reaffirm and this other reality people can opt into. I have to say, a couple months ago, when Reince Priebus was named chief of staff, when Sean Spicer was named spokesman, I thought, OK, these are professionals. These are Washington veterans who know how to run an organization, who know how to run the executive branch.

CAMEROTA: Bill --

STELTER: We're not seeing that, though, the weeks in.

CAMEROTA: This just in, we learned that Kellyanne Conway, one of the president's top advisers and counselors, actually apologized to President Trump yesterday for what she had done on FOX, talking -- encouraging the viewers to go out and buy Ivanka's products. She had said last night on a news program, she did meet with the president, she said, "I hope the women all around the country have a boss basically as wonderful and as understanding."

CARTER: And supportive.

CAMEROTA: "as mine" and I bet that she feels that. I bet that Mr. Trump accepted her apology. I bet they did have a nice conversation about all of this.

But I don't know that that's still the right thing to have done on television.

CARTER: So that was the counseling. The president had done the same thing, basically. But it's his daughter and he's the president. He's not apparently subject to the same rules.

CAMEROTA: Which is strange.

CARTER: But also, I think few go on "Fox and Friends" in the morning, you think it's this goofy show, and she says this foolish thing and nobody on the show can say, you shouldn't be saying that, Kellyanne.