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New Day

Trump Presidency to Change with New, Divided Congress; Trump Claims He 'Essentially Fired' Mattis. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired January 03, 2019 - 07:00   ET

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

[07:00:04] UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This has been a long time coming, historically.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A government that looks like America, more women in leadership roles.

SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY), MINORITY LEADER: I said, give me one good reason why you should continue your shutdown? He could not.

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I think the people of the country think I'm right.

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I), VERMONT: We have 800,000 federal employees not getting paid.

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R), SOUTH CAROLINA: If he gives now, that's probably the end of his presidency.

TRUMP: What's he done for me?

President Obama fired him and essentially, so did I.

LT. GEN. MARK HERTLING (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: He was not fired. Jim Mattis put in his letter of resignation because he disagreed with the policies.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The president does badmouth folks, mostly when they badmouth him first. That's what General Mattis did.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY with Alisyn Camerota and John Berman.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning and welcome to your NEW DAY. A new day with a new Congress, an historic new Congress, with membership that we have never seen before.

A record number of women, records in terms of racial and ethnic diversity. Nancy Pelosi will become the speaker for the second time, the first person to regain the gavel since Sam Rayburn in the 1950s. This is just the fourth shift in power in the House in 60 years. That's a big deal in and of itself. And for the president, it's historic in the sense that this is the first time he'll face real congressional oversight. CAMEROTA: The new Congress facing an immediate challenge with the

government shutdown on day 13 now, it looks like President Trump and Democrats are both digging in for the long haul. Their meeting in the situation room yesterday essentially went nowhere. A source tells CNN the president said he would look foolish if he accepted the Democrats' proposal to end the shutdown.

And in a new interview, Nancy Pelosi says Democrats will give nothing for the wall. Eight hundred thousand federal workers are not getting paid this morning.

BERMAN: All right. Joining us now, Rachael Bade, congressional reporter for Politico; Seung Min Kim, reporter for "The Washington Post"; and Dana Bash, CNN chief political correspondent.

Dana, 102 women will be part of the 116th Congress in the House of Representatives. A hundred and two, about halfway there if you're going for true proportional representation among women in the House.

However, you know, the growth from when Nancy Pelosi first entered the House in 1987, there were, what, 23 women in the House in 1987. Now 102 as of noon today.

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right. And no women in leadership at all in either party back then.

Look, it is an historic day. And it is a day for people of all genders, of all ethnicity to celebrate that Congress is beginning to catch up with the country that it is supposed to be representing. And we can't forget that.

And I think even separate from that -- John Berman, I heard you say this earlier today -- I think that I am a fellow congressional dork, and I say that with pride. And it's a great -- it's always a great day to see the new Congress, because you see all of these members who worked hard to get to the place where they can represent their districts and their states, and they come with their families.

They have this tremendous feeling of sort of this fresh-faced, sometimes doey-eyed, but a zeal to get things done. And you just sort of want to bottle that and hope that that can kind of work its way up to the leadership in both parties.

CAMEROTA: And -- excuse me.

BERMAN: You are choked up over the doey-eyed members coming to the House.

CAMEROTA: Very choked up.

If it were to be bottled, perhaps it would last longer. But Rachael, I mean, as you point out, with this many disparate members, of course they're not all marching in lockstep. You're already seeing that even within the Democratic caucus, there's lots of differing opinions about how aggressive to be and what their attack should be? RACHAEL BADE, CONGRESSIONAL REPORTER, POLITICO: Yes, there are sort

of two battles going on here, right? You're going to have to watch House Democrats versus the president and sort of see what happens with divided government and can they get anything done on a bipartisan basis?

But yes, there's this question about this battle over the heart and soul of the Democratic Party that's going on right now. What does it mean to be a Democrat?

And we are already seeing that play out, even before the members have been sworn in, in the House. Newly-elected progressive superstar, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, yesterday went on Twitter and started blasting the sort of secure House rules package that Nancy Pelosi backed, saying that it will make it harder for progressives to have votes on things like Medicare for all.

But guess what? There are House Democrats who don't want that to come to the floor at all this Congress, and they are concerned that, if they pass too far left of legislative priorities, that they're going to repel independents and could lose their majority in 2020, or it will hurt them as they try to take out the president in the next presidential cycle.

BERMAN: You know, it's all interesting. On the screen there, it says "New Era of Divided Government Begins in Washington," and it might as well, "First Time Actual Oversight of Trump Administration Begins Today." And that will be glaring for this White House, Seung Min.

And we're already seeing not just oversight, but in terms of opposition from the Democrats. Nancy Pelosi has made her case crystal clear in terms of this government shutdown. She sat down for an interview that aired just moments ago. Let me play you what she says about funding for the border wall.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ERICA HILL, CNN ANCHOR: Are you willing to come up and give him some of his money for the wall?

REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA), INCOMING SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: No.

HILL: Because apparently that's the sticking point.

PELOSI: No, nothing for the wall. We're talking about border security.

HILL: Nothing for the wall. But that means it's a nonstarter.

PELOSI: Well, we can go with this back and forth. No. And how many times can we say no? Nothing for the wall.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: No, you get nothing for the wall. That's where we begin the new Congress on day one, Seung Min. SEUNG MIN KIM, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Exactly. I mean, Dana talked

about this, you know, new -- the fun first day of Congress. It does feel like the first day of school. There's all this renewed hope and optimism, particularly from the newly-elected members.

But we're headed into this new Congress with the shadow of day 13 of a government shutdown that has no end in sight. Democrats have not budged from the $1.3 billion in border security that they've offered the president. They say that's what they're willing to do. They're not going to fund any extra for the wall.

The president likes the $5.6 billion for the wall that House Republicans were able to give him last year, but we're in a new Congress. That is a bill that will not pass this Congress -- this House led by Democrats.

And I don't see where the two sides are kind of, you know, where they're -- where they can come together right now. I mean, the briefing yesterday in the -- in the situation room at the White House yielded no progress, if you talk to everybody that came out of meeting.

Congressional leaders will go to the White House again tomorrow to try to break the impasse. But, I mean, we knew once the shutdown started that it would get harder and harder for the president to get more funding for his wall, once the Democrats took charge in the new Congress, and we see that happening already.

CAMEROTA: Dana, this is the craziest thing I've ever seen, honestly. I mean, I'm sorry that I keep beating the same drum.

BERMAN: Ever?

CAMEROTA: Ever. This is the craziest thing ever, Dana.

BASH: That's -- that's a statement for the Trump years, yes.

CAMEROTA: Yes. But stop calling it a wall, then. The president has.

BASH: Right.

CAMEROTA: I mean, the president has stopped calling it a wall. He's calling it all sorts of other different things. Nancy Pelosi won't fund the wall. OK, don't fund the wall. Fund the fence. Fund shoring up of steel slats. Fund border security so that we can just be done with this.

BASH: Right. I mean, you hit on the key issue, is that so much of this is semantics, is posturing, is politics. And the -- the incoming House speaker just said this morning, as she's said so many times, she sees absolutely no reason to give in to the president for -- for lots of reasons.

And the president feels the same way. And you heard Lindsey Graham say last night that he -- and he is clearly being told this -- he can't give in, because it would show weakness. Nancy Pelosi has said that she believes that the wall has become a

symbol for the president's manhood. Whether or not that's true just on the pure politics of it, each of them has only a political imperative to keep digging in at this point. And I think Seung Min is exactly right. As this started to get longer and longer and longer, it becomes harder and harder for each side to come out of their corner and dip a toe into the pool of compromise.

BERMAN: You know, our reporting that we said in the open there is the president told Chuck Schumer that he would look foolish --

CAMEROTA: Exactly.

BERMAN: The president's worried that he will look foolish if he backs down now. I'm not sure that that's a reason to not pay 800,000 federal workers. It's going to be hard to die on that hill over the next two weeks, the longer that goes on.

The other issue here, and you said that the president doesn't say wall. There's a tweet, you know, this morning, overnight: "Sadly, there can be no real border security without the wall."

CAMEROTA: Yesterday, he called it "the wall thing."

BERMAN: The problem is he -- he says all sorts of things, which is the problem. He undercuts Mike Pence, who offered $2.5 billion, and the president now says that's not good enough.

He undercuts Mike Pence and Mitch McConnell when he doesn't take the C.R. deal two weeks ago. There's a moving target here to negotiate with, Rachael. And I don't get the sense that congressional leaders on either side know where the president really stands.

BADE: Yes, I was talking to several allies of the House -- incoming House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, and that was exactly their comment. They don't trust the president. They -- they can't negotiate with even Mike Pence, because the president goes and undercuts him, you know, a couple of weeks later. And they don't know what to take as truth or whether he's going to change his mind.

I will say that this government shutdown, you know, it really has the potential not only to screw up what Trump is doing in terms of trying to message his own accomplishments, but Democrats going forward, they wanted to work with the president in the first few months of this Congress to get something done on transportation, on lowering prescription drug prices. And there really was a willingness and is a willingness to work with the president, even though their base obviously despises him.

[07:10:14] But the longer the shutdown drags out, the harder it's going to be to actually get something done, because there's a very short window.

As soon as Robert Mueller's report comes out in the next few weeks, next few months, everything is going to turn to oversight. And that's even assuming that House Democratic chairmen don't already start sending subpoenas in a couple of weeks. Because as soon as that oversight kicks in, Trump is not going to want to make any deals.

And so this could really hurt both sides in terms of trying to get those bipartisan legislative accomplishments that, frankly, Trump wants and Nancy Pelosi wants.

CAMEROTA: Great point. I mean, it really trips up, in fact, the momentum, Seung Min, of this new Democratic class. So all of this hope, all of the optics that we're going to see this morning, and you know, it's hard to know just how intractable their root is going to be.

Here's what the president said in terms of how long this shutdown is going to last, in his mind. Let's listen to what he said yesterday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How long do you think the government is going to stay partially shut down?

TRUMP: Could be a long time, or it could be quickly. Could be a long time. It's too important a subject to walk away from.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: That narrows it down, yes.

CAMEROTA: Hope that answers it for you. It could be a long time, or it could be quickly -- Seung Min.

KIM: I would bet on it going a little bit longer, I mean, because precisely the two sides are so dug in.

And I'm curious as to what changes the dynamics, particularly among Republicans on Capitol Hill. Because if you recall during the 2013 shutdown over funding for Obamacare, there was actually a deadline that Congress -- members of Congress were way too afraid to broach. They were able to come to a deal to resolve that issue and to resolve the shutdown.

But I'm wondering, I think it could be a breaking point once, you know, some of the more -- I call them the members of the pragmatic caucus, particularly in the Senate. Republicans such as Susan Collins, Lamar Alexander, at how fed up they get over the shutdown to see if they can try to pressure their own leadership to come to a deal.

Remember that we're in a new cycle for Senate races, as well, where it's -- we talk so much about red-state Democrats last cycle. Now we're going to be talking about blue-state Republicans up for re- election, such as Cory Gardner of Colorado and Thom Tillis of North Carolina. Do they feel the heat over the shutdown and start pressuring their own leadership? That could be something to watch.

BASH: But you have to go back to what John Berman, what you said, which is it's a moving target what the president will accept. He is an equation in this that he wasn't in in the last shutdown. And that is this is his issue. This is his main promise that he thinks that he gave, even though he said Mexico would pay for it, and the fact that he undercut his own vice president and a potential deal that he offered tells you a lot about how difficult it is for both sides on Capitol Hill to find the sweet spot.

BERMAN: And he did it on the TV --

BASH: He did.

BERMAN: -- surrounded by his cabinet, or should I say --

CAMEROTA: Acting.

BERMAN: -- acting cabinet. You know, sitting around that table yesterday, the acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney; the acting defense secretary, Pat Shanahan; the acting attorney general, Matt Whitaker; acting interior secretary; OMB director; EPA administrator, they are all acting.

CAMEROTA: Thespians.

BERMAN: Well, that makes this the master thespian cabinet, right? And what are we talking about? Let's play it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN LITHGOW, ACTOR: Have I hurt you?

JON LOVITZ, COMEDIAN/ACTOR: Don't be silly.

Acting!

LITHGOW: Brilliant!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Acting!

BASH: I love that, because that was going through my mind, John Berman. It is a scary thing for me that I can get into your mind now.

BERMAN: Yes, I apologize.

CAMEROTA: Yes, scary place.

BERMAN: I apologize for that.

BASH: I almost did "Acting," and then I -- thought different of it.

CAMEROTA: Because you're a thespian.

BASH: I am -- I am in my mind, Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: Got it.

BERMAN: Genius. Thank you.

All right, Dana Bash, Seung Min Kim, Rachael Bade, thank you very much.

Former defense secretary James Mattis, who gave way to acting defense secretary Patrick Shanahan. He quit. He resigned, but that's not the president's version of it. We'll tell you the president's story and also the president's version of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the ahistoric version there, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:18:12] BERMAN: Former defense secretary James Mattis quit. He resigned. He resigned from the cabinet. Resigned as defense secretary over the president's policy in Syria. He resigned.

However, the president now claims otherwise. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: What's he done for me? How has he done in Afghanistan? Not too good. Not too good. I'm not happy with what he's done in Afghanistan, and I shouldn't be happy. But he was very happy. He was very thankful when I got him $700 billion. And then the following year, $716 billion. So I mean, I wish him well. I hope he does well. But as you know, President Obama fired him and essentially, so did I. I want results.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Again, essentially, he did not. Essentially, James Mattis resigned.

Joining us now to discuss, retired Major General James "Spider" Marks and retired Rear Admiral John Kirby. He was the Pentagon and State Department spokesperson.

Spider, I want to start with you. James Mattis quit. The president is trying to re-write history before our very eyes.

MAJ. GEN. JAMES "SPIDER" MARKS, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Secretary Mattis determined that he was not being successful with the president. His voice was not being heard. And every obligation that -- that we have is subordinance, and we're part of this large hierarchy called the Defense Department.

And to make that determination, if it's not working, it's not working. So it was his obligation to make the determination that it was his time, and he did. There's a military term for that. And it's called stealing a march. Jim Mattis took the initiative. He stole the march on the president and said, "Boss, this isn't working. I offer my resignation."

BERMAN: Trying to re-write history, or lie, as we're all watching about how James Mattis left, is one thing. Admiral Kirby, it's another thing to run him down, which is what the president did there in front of his largely acting cabinet in front of the American people. What's the impact there?

[07:20:04] REAR ADMIRAL JOHN KIRBY (RET.), CNN MILITARY AND DIPLOMATIC ANALYST: Yes, it was -- that was very disappointing to see. Very ungentlemanly, in my view.

I think all of this, this entire episode and, you know, the former admirals and generals that will come out and speaking -- speaking out against the president, all of this, I think, is doing nothing to improve and make for healthy civil military relations.

The president, by the way he runs down formers or even acting generals and admirals who disagree with him or who seem to express policy differences. He makes it very hard, I think, for the military and the civil -- civilian control of the military to go on in a healthy way. And I'm really worried about the precedency setting for future presidents and future commander-in-chiefs, who might come to think that this is OK.

BERMAN: And it's really interesting, because a lot has been written about that, really, over the last 24 hours. What precedent does this set? What does it mean for the civilian military relationship in general? What does it mean for senior officers going forward who are active duty? Might they be less inclined to criticize the president? Or might they be more inclined to be obsequious when they are still in service so as not to incur his wrath before or after.

Likewise, you know, is there a bad effect to having formers so openly critical of a current administration?

MARKS: The last thing, John, we need in senior leadership in the military is anyone of those individuals being obsequious to the chain of command, to the commander in chief and everybody that is -- is below the president of the United States.

You have to be able to speak your voice. You have to be able to push back. You provide counsel to your leadership.

You know, the chairman of the joint chiefs works directly for the president, the National Security Council, Homeland Security, and the Sec Def. That's the single voice that can go directly to the president. That individual, General Dunford, is now in a -- not a precarious situation at all. He knows what the odds are. He knows what the challenges are.

What he doesn't have around him is the support staff, the support team -- I'm sorry, that was in place before with Secretary Mattis and with chief of staff John Kelly, because those three folks were very, very close over an arc of their life, a career together.

So the chairman now has to be able to step up. The point that John is making, in terms of the civility between the relationships that exist, between the military and civilian control, is absolutely crucial. Military folks understand that.

BERMAN: So not only is the president rewriting recent history, but also going several decades with some astounding comments, historians will tell you, about the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: The reason Russia was in -- in Afghanistan was because terrorists were going into Russia. They were right to be there.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Right, there's two parts to that. One, the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, Admiral, to prop up a communist government there. That's one thing. That's just getting history wrong. The second part of it, though, is the one that's astounding, when a president of the United States says that the former Soviet Union has right to be in Afghanistan.

KIRBY: Yes.

BERMAN: What would Ronald Reagan say about that?

KIRBY: I mean, yes, I mean, I was going to say, a Republican president at that, John. I mean, yes, Ronald Reagan was very vocal at the time, as you might recall, about how this violated not only international norms but international law, and of course, the United States worked, covertly and overtly, to resist and to hamper Russia's invasion of Afghanistan over many, many years.

Look, just -- just read the book "Charlie Wilson's War," and it lays it all pretty well out there.

This does show -- I think we got a glimpse yesterday, John, of how difficult it is for some of the president's national security advisers to really advise him on policy when it doesn't appear like he has the intellectual curiosity to really understand the context, the historical context with which these struggles are ongoing.

I mean, we are in Afghanistan to prevent it from becoming a safe haven for another attack like 9/11, pure and simple. And the missions that our troops are doing there are twofold: counterterrorism, and advise and training Afghan national security forces. And it doesn't appear as if the president fully understands the strategy that he, himself, signed. This is the other problem I had yesterday, was blaming Secretary Mattis for what he didn't think was results in Afghanistan. It is the president's strategy that Secretary Mattis was executing, and I don't think the president fully grasps his own responsibility here as commander in chief.

BERMAN: And right. I'm not trying to be the history police here. I'm not trying to say, "Uh-oh, you got that answer wrong on the test --

KIRBY: Right.

BERMAN: "-- about the Soviet Union in Afghanistan." But General, it does show how the president thinks about national

security, or how seriously he thinks about national security, and, again, this happens in the wake of the defense secretary resigning.

MARKS: You know, the challenge, truly, is how serious -- to your point, John, how seriously does he take this? Because what we're seeing with this president, clearly -- and let's assume for a second there's a level of curiosity. Just give me that just for a sec in this president.

[07:25:06] But he's an incredibly impetuous individual who runs off of his instincts. And when you -- if you were to have the conflict between this -- a level of curiosity and instinctual decision making, that, the instinctual decision making, is going to override and really kind of suppress the -- what I would call a deliberate or a thoughtful decision-making process. That's what concerns me. That's what concerns me most greatly.

BERMAN: General, Admiral, it is an honor to get to speak to you both. Thanks so much for being with us this morning.

KIRBY: Thank you.

MARKS: Thank you, John.

BERMAN: Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: All right, John. Democrats take over the House today and are set to pass a new set of rules. One Republican says he is ready to support them. He's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAMEROTA: In just hours, the new Congress will be sworn in, and when the Democratic-led House gets to work, at least one Republican is set to cross the aisle and make a public showing of bipartisanship. He plans to vote for the new set of rules, House rules drafted by the new Democratic majority. That congressman is New York's Tom Reed, and he joins us now.

Good morning, Congressman.

REP. TOM REED (R), NEW YORK: Good morning there. Great to be with you, Alisyn.