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Government Shutdown Continues over Border Wall Funding; Reporting Indicates President may Declare National Emergency to Reopen Government; Interview with Democratic Congressman Henry Cuellar of Texas. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired January 10, 2019 - 08:00   ET

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

[08:00:00] ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: All right, shutdown, stalemate, what will happen today? We have the latest for you right now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHUCK SCHUMER, (D) SENATE MINORITY LEADER: We saw a temper tantrum. He walked out and said it was a waste of his time.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I have the absolute right to do a national emergency if I can't make a deal with people that are unreasonable.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I want to try to figure out a way that we're able to reopen quickly while meeting the president's priorities.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Border security isn't going to pay my mortgage. It's terrifying.

REP. NANCY PELOSI, (D) HOUSE MINORITY LEADER: The president thinks maybe they can just ask their father for money, but they can't.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They are gearing up to fight the Mueller report. Giuliani made that very clear.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Clearly what they are reacting to an abject fear. I think they are afraid of going to jail.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Bob Mueller should be allowed to turn over every rock and complete his work.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is NEW DAY with Alisyn Camerota on John Berman.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning and welcome to your NEW DAY. It is Thursday, January 10th, 8:00 in the east. And this morning the president heads to the southern border for what he called a pointless photo op according to the "New York Times." This is after he walked out of a meeting with congressional leaders saying bye-bye when they would not agree to funding for his border wall. CAMEROTA: Again?

BERMAN: How are you supposed to say it?

CAMEROTA: Bye-bye.

BERMAN: You today say tomato. The shutdown is now in day 20. The president is handing out candy to members of Congress and the Coast Guard is telling members that when they don't get paid tomorrow, they should consider babysitting to make extra cash. Tomorrow some 800,000 federal workers go without a paycheck in the shutdown that the president promised to own.

CAMEROTA: So a White House official says it's looking more likely the president could declare there's a national emergency on the border and then sign the spending bills to open the government. While it is not certain the president will make that declaration, the official says the White House likes being able to hold the card over Democrats, who they say have refused to compromise or negotiate. But maybe there is a glimmer of hope on Capitol Hill for breaking the impasse. A small group of Republican senators are working privately on a potential deal, but no idea if that's something the Democrats would agree to.

BERMAN: We are joined now by Dana Bash and Jeffrey Toobin. Our most recent reporting just minutes ago from our White House team, Kaitlan Collins, this, White House Counsel Pat Cipollone, he is riding on Air Force One. He's going down to the border with the president. Why? Because it is under serious consideration to declare this national emergency. Why? Because there is no other way out, and some 800,000 people will not get paid tomorrow. You have the Coast Guard telling its members -- and this list is amazing. This is what the Coast Guard support group put out yesterday. You need money, have a garage sale, sell things online, offer to watch children, walk pets, tutor students, become a mystery shopper.

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Turn your hobby into an income.

CAMEROTA: This is what they have to resort to.

BASH: It would be funny if it weren't so serious and so sad, that these are people who the American people, the government rely on for the safety of the seas, and they are not getting paid because there are no grown-ups in the room in Washington and they can't figure it out.

You said something last hour that made me think that it really wasn't that long ago when I was a reporter on Capitol Hill. The way it worked is there is a negotiation, you stand outside, you wait for they come out, you can get the drips and drabs of where they are going on the negotiation, and then finally there is a deal. You're not even getting to the point where you're standing in the hallway anymore. Obviously what happened at the White House yesterday is case in point.

And it is the president who is completely dug in on the wall, but it is also the Democrats who are completely dug in on not giving an inch on the wall. And that is why, again, as we talked about, the whole notion of a national emergency, declaring the national emergency is the president's political exit ramp. Legally, he said it's possible, but politically, it is the way he can open the government, say he stood firm on the wall, and see what happens in the courts.

CAMEROTA: And so it's interesting, Jeffrey, because last hour you said that you think legally that that will pass muster.

JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN CHIEF LEGAL ANALYST: I do. I think given the breadth of the statute that gives the president emergency powers, he could declare an emergency and start spending money on the wall. It would be without precedent in American history. There are many emergencies have been declared since the 1970s when this law came into effect, but never one where Congress explicitly refused to do what the president wanted and the president used these powers to do it anyway. That's what's different.

And it's very easy, and I do it, too, to talk about what's going on is this back and forth of politics today. But this would be something different in American history. This would be a first step towards a kind of authoritarian government where the power of the purse, which the framers of the Constitution set it up as one of the bedrock principles that belongs to the people's house, the House of Representatives and the Senate, and the president taking that away, the president saying, I am going to spend this money in defiance of what Congress does. That's different.

[08:05:14] BERMAN: It's a big deal. Can and should are two different things here. Can it get past the judges? After a long legal battle. It's not like they're going to start laying stone or steel slats tomorrow if he orders this. There will be a long legal battle. When it is all said and done, he might win, but it could change the institutions of the presidency and Congress in a way that makes a lot of Republicans, Constitutionalists like Ted Cruz, or at least Ted Cruz before yesterday, uncomfortable.

BASH: Exactly. And because of what Jeffrey was just saying, it is the precedent that has people on both sides very uncomfortable. You're laughing.

TOOBIN: What I'm laughing about is that Ted Cruz may be taking the Jeff Flake, Bob Corker role of expressing concern and then doing nothing about it. When Republicans have expressed concern about the president, they have never actually done anything to stop the president. And then here, it is true this is a major -- if it happens, would be a major departure from constitutional norms in this country. But whether any Republicans decide to take the president on on it, would be a very different question.

BASH: But Republicans are having meetings. They are working on a potential compromise.

CAMEROTA: And is that going to look like the old compromise?

BASH: No.

CAMEROTA: So it will never be $25 billion again?

BASH: I wouldn't say never, but certainly not now. That deal was left on the -- and when you say $25 billion, it was to pay for the wall, the whole wall. This is just $5 billion that he wants just for a down payment for the wall. The president left it on the table. There was a lot, as John was just talking about, a lot of pushback from conservatives because he was also giving legal status, even potential citizenship, to the Dreamers and so on and so forth. That's not happening because both sides are saying that's not happening right now.

What these Republican senators are talking about is some money for the wall, maybe half of what the president is asking for, $2.5 billion, and some what they call sweeteners for Democrats -- changes in the immigration laws short of help for the Dreamers. But the thing is -- let's just say they come up with something. You have the same problem. Will the president take anything less than the line in the sand that he has drawn? Will the Democratic leaders take anything more than the line in the sand they drew, which is nothing?

BERMAN: Stephen Miller said no on the sweeteners on immigration.

BASH: There you go.

BERMAN: And Ann Coulter, who you texted before and found out what she wants --

CAMEROTA: She said that she wants what Israel has and nothing less. That's an interesting analogy, because that's like 33 miles. Israel is much smaller than the United States, so we already have that.

BASH: Israel is also surrounded by countries who want to annihilate it.

CAMEROTA: Yes. Understood. The analogy doesn't -- it's not apples to apples.

TOOBIN: I would say that is a pretty good difference. Mexico is not Hezbollah.

CAMEROTA: Logically it's not apples to apples, but it's insight into that base and how they feel about if he would be caving.

BASH: And this is the one issue people who are his political advisers tell me that he believes, and they agree with him, he can't give up on, because this is the most well-known promise, so was Mexico paying for it, but chanting the wall was the most well-known promise that he can't give up on.

CAMEROTA: He's already moved away from it. Now, he's calling it a barrier. If he starts calls it a fence, why can't Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi agree to more fencing?

BASH: Well, that's a good question. That's a good question. That speaks to the whole -- CAMEROTA: The whole silliness of this. The whole silliness of this.

And the reason I saw is just because we interviewed these two furloughed workers the last hour, one of whom has seven daughters, one of whom just bought a house last month, will not be able to make her mortgage payment. And so they don't care what you call it. They don't care what you call all this political wrangling from where they sit sounds silly. They want Washington to fix it now.

BASH: And the other part of the issue is in order to solve a problem you have to agree on the problem to get to the solution, even if you disagree on the solution. They don't even agree on the problems. The Republicans say it's a crisis, Democrats say, we don't believe you.

TOOBIN: And there are facts is this issue. And illegal immigration, the problem by any standard over the past 10 years has gotten better. John, I believe you have a chart.

BERMAN: He has copyrighted this. He has actually copyrighted and trademark.

BERMAN: Look, all this does show is over the last 10 years illegal border crossings, arrests at the border are actually at or near a historic low. You were mentioning before you think if the president signs a national emergency declaration, declare a national emergency, it could be a political win for him.

[08:10:02] The problem that he has, the problem he's had since December, is he owned the shutdown. He declared this is my shutdown. So what's happening this week is when people aren't going to be paid, they are not going to be paid because he made the decision not to have them paid.

CAMEROTA: So now if he does an emergency move, doesn't that solve the problem?

BERMAN: They are not getting paid today. It's his fault they didn't get paid this week. He owns the crisis that existed, the political crisis that existed in Washington this month.

CAMEROTA: OK, that's one way to look at it. I'm not sure that all Americans see it that way. But if today he resorts to doing an emergency measure, then he fixes the self-imposed crisis.

TOOBIN: I'm sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt.

CAMEROTA: Please.

TOOBIN: This reminds me of the debate that we've had so many times, is how will this affect President Trump's fortunes? Whether it's the press conference in Helsinki --

CAMEROTA: And we're always wrong.

TOOBIN: And it never changes. His poll numbers fluctuate within a tiny area. It's 38, 42 --

BASH: Except there is a Democratic majority in the House now and 40 Democrats won seats. That is a ramification.

TOOBIN: That was the midterm elections. But you're talking about his popularity.

BASH: Yes.

TOOBIN: His popularity doesn't seem to change.

BERMAN: A midterm election, by the way, that was largely in his making over border security and the wall. So it's not like Americans didn't have a chance to vote on it.

CAMEROTA: OK, but one thing that has changed is how Donald Trump feels about the impenetrability of a wall. We're going to get in the way-back machine and go to 2004. He was giving a commencement address at Wagner University, and he brought up a wall.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Never, ever give up. Don't give up. Don't allow it to happen. If there's a concrete wall in front of you, go through it, go over it, go around it, but get to the other side of that wall.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: You can't get through walls. There's no way to get through walls.

CAMEROTA: Back then he understood the shortcomings of a wall.

BASH: That was very Churchillian.

CAMEROTA: Wasn't it? Do you like everything we've dug up?

TOOBIN: I never saw that before.

CAMEROTA: You're welcome.

TOOBIN: Here at CNN we work with such talented people who find stuff like that.

CAMEROTA: I so agree. The producers have been really getting in the time machine today. OK, Mr. BlackBerry.

(LAUGHTER)

CAMEROTA: No one loves time travel more than I, back to the '80s. Speaking of which, in the 90s --

TOOBIN: Think of eight-track machines.

CAMEROTA: I hear a musical cue. Should we end on what we feel -- it's summed up by this song.

BERMAN: You're calling for a song. CAMEROTA: I am.

BERMAN: What song?

CAMEROTA: "Three Amigos," when they didn't have the music, they had to sing the song. So sing me the song.

CAMEROTA: Bye, bye, bye.

(LAUGHTER)

BASH: We need the boy bands to come in here.

CAMEROTA: The boy band, NSYNC. I was going full "Bye, Bye, Bye."

TOOBIN: Justin Timberlake.

BERMAN: Dana Bash, Jeffrey Toobin, thanks for being here.

CAMEROTA: He's made something of himself.

BERMAN: Dana, thank you for the Golden Globes, also.

BASH: You're welcome.

BERMAN: Classing up the joint.

BASH: My pleasure.

BERMAN: The president will visit his district today. Does one congressman think there is a national emergency affecting his constituents? We'll ask him next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:16:58] JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: President Trump heads to the southern border to make his pitch for a wall. There is a total breakdown in shutdown talks. The president will travel to McAllen, Texas, this afternoon and speak with border security officials today.

Joining us is Democratic Congressman Henry Cuellar of Texas. He represents the district where the president will be visiting. In fact, this district includes 290 miles of the southern border, hold eight points of entry between the United States and Mexico.

Congressman, thanks so much for being with us.

The president is visiting your district. Is there a crisis there?

REP. HENRY CUELLAR (D), TEXAS: No, there is not. Every day we get $1.3 billion of trade between the U.S. and Mexico. So, it's a booming economy that we have at the border. If you look at the latest FBI statistics, you will see that McAllen is very different when it comes to murder rates, assaults, violent crime when compared to Washington, D.C. In fact, Washington, D.C. is about two or three times higher in the

crime rate than McAllen. So, the safest place that the president will be at today is going to be McAllen and not here in Washington, D.C.

BERMAN: Would a wall make the 290 miles of border in the district more safe?

CUELLAR: No. Look, we've got to understand, if you want to stop drugs, keep in mind most of the drugs will come through the ports of entry. So, we need to put emphasis on the ports of entry. We need personnel and technology. If you want to stop people from coming in, keep in mind that in the year 2000, we had border patrol stop about 1.6 million individuals. Last year, they stopped 396,000 individuals. So, it's almost a quarter of the amount that came in.

By the way, 40 percent of the undocumented people that we have came in through a legal permit or visa. So, a wall isn't going to stop those folks, because they are either fly or driving through a bridge.

And keep in mind, most of the overstays or large amount of them are Canadians. So, maybe we are looking at the wrong border.

BERMAN: I do want to say this, though -- there are people who have been involved with border security who say a wall would help -- some, including Mark Morgan, who was the border patrol chief under President Obama. He said in some places, a barrier would be helpful. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARK MORGAN, FORMER OBAMA BORDER PATROL CHIEF: The president is talking to the leadership of CBP and the border patrol and the rank and file. And those are the experts and they're saying the wall works. It doesn't work everywhere. It's not the end all to be all but it works.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Would it work in some places?

CUELLAR: Well, of course. If you look at maybe some of the areas away from Texas, Texas we have -- in West Texas we have those large cliffs, we have the rivers. So, you have natural boundaries. So that's one type of defense we have.

In other places, other parts of the country, there is nothing that divides Mexico and the U.S. and we've already got miles of fencing and President Bush said give us 700 miles. I think we are up to 654. That will secure it. So, we can't keep moving the goal post over and over.

[08:20:03] And, by the way, the same experts -- and I have asked the border patrol chiefs from Bush, from the Obama administration and even Trump's border patrol chiefs, when I asked them the question, how much time does a wall offense buy you, all of them said the same thing. I want you to listen to this answer. Quote, a few minutes or a few seconds. So, we're going to spend billions of dollars for a wall or a fence

when I can buy a $100 ladder and take care of the issue. People are going to either climb in, go under. What we need to do is secure the border through technology, border patrol.

They are losing more border patrol than they are hiring border patrol at this time. The ports of entry are important. What about the coast guard? They also bring you drugs through the water (ph).

BERMAN: You bring up the Coast Guard because now the Coast Guard is telling its members to have yard sales, babysit and walk dogs because we are in day 20 of the shutdown and they are not getting paid.

This is a shutdown the president promised to own. He said this is my shutdown. I will shut down the government over border security.

However, not but, but and, in these negotiations yesterday, Mike Pence reportedly did ask the Democratic congressional leadership, what's your offer here for how to get out of the shutdown? And he said they didn't offer anything.

Well, should Democrats at this point, day 20 of the shutdown, be offering something?

CUELLAR: You know, there are so many offers that we can put out there. Let me give you a couple.

Do you remember the last shutdown we had? What did McConnell do? He told the Democrats I will put DACA -- I think there were four different bills. He put the four different bills for a vote. They said open it up and I promise you four votes. And they did have four votes.

Why don't we do the same thing? Why don't we tell our Republican friends, let's put the wall as a bill on the floor on the Senate side, on the House side. Put it for a vote and see if it passes. If it passes, move on.

That's what the Republicans did at the last shutdown. We ought to give them the same opportunity. Open the government, put it up for a vote and see if it passes. That's the will of the American people.

BERMAN: But in terms of what you would be willing to concede in negotiations, would you, Congressman, be willing to concede or would you advise house leadership to be willing to concede any new fencing, any additional spending on border security or additional spending on new fencing?

CUELLAR: Listen, if you take the premise that the wall is the only way to secure the border then that's the wrong premise to start off with. Personnel, technology, technology that's worked for the military has been very important to us. Why play defense on the one- yard line called the U.S. border where we spend over $18 billion a year? Let's help secure the Mexican border with Guatemala, let's work with our friends in Central America. And the last thing I want to say, yes, we did compromise under Bush.

The levee walls which is something we have in the border, this is something -- the levee wall myself, John Cornyn and a county judge came up with the idea so it protects against flooding and provides security. So, there are ways of being innovative.

In Laredo, we're willing to put maybe up to nine miles of bulkhead, which is a way of securing the border, but the problem is, Washington can't dictate the type of wall or fence. Let the locals be involved with the border patrol chiefs. And if we do, you would be surprised what can happen.

BERMAN: If the locals say they want a new wall, I guess the question is then, would you be supportive of giving them new money for it?

Last question, are you supportive of the way Speaker Pelosi has handled these negotiations?

CUELLAR: Absolutely. Absolutely. She understands that the wall is a 14th century solution to a 21st century problem. She understands we can add personnel, technology, ways of securing the border.

Look, the border patrol is 2,000 men and women short, 2,000. What did the administration do? They put out a $297 million contract to help them hire border patrol. They just finished spending $14.8 million to hire two border patrol agents.

Now, I don't know if one of them is Captain America. I don't understand. Why are we spending that much money? Give it as bonuses, retention bonuses to border patrol. We'll keep the border strong with the equipment and technology that they need.

BERMAN: Henry Cuellar, Democrat from Texas, the president will be visiting your district today. Thanks so much for being with us.

CUELLAR: Thank you so much.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: All right, John.

Rod Rosenstein is expected to leave the Justice Department as soon as a new attorney general is confirmed. What does that mean for the Mueller probe? We ask the head of the House Intel Committee, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:28:45] CAMEROTA: The accidental disclosure in the court filing by Paul Manafort's legal team that he shared internal polling data about the 2016 Trump campaign with a Russian-linked operative is obviously raising a lot of questions this morning. Is that collusion?

Joining us now to discuss this and so much more, we have Democratic Congressman Adam Schiff. He's the new chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and the co-chair of the bipartisan Congressional Freedom of the Press Caucus.

Good morning, Congressman. REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D-CA), CHAIRMAN, HOUSE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE: Good

morning. Good to be with you.

CAMEROTA: What did you think when you read the disclosure from Paul Manafort's own attorneys that he had passed this proprietary polling data to Russians?

SCHIFF: Well, it's pretty shocking. And you think you are not capable of being shocked anymore. We continue to learn things that take your breath away. And here we have the chairman of the Republican presidential candidate in private conversations with Russians, Russian-backed Ukrainians offering polling data -- inside polling data about his own campaign in an effort to, as he described it, to be made whole. Either to get money from the Ukrainians or to forgive debts he owed to Russian oligarchs like Oleg Deripaska.

What do the Russians want it for? That's the supreme question here. What do they want the polling data for at a time they are engaged in this surreptitious social media campaign as it related to that.