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New Day Saturday
Government Reopens but for How Long? Roger Stone Charged; Chef Lewis Provides Meals Amid the Shutdown; Venezuela - Troubled State May have U.S. Military Intervention; Artic Air Back in the Forecast for the Midwest Along with Snow. Aired 6-7a ET
Aired January 26, 2019 - 06:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(BEGIN VIDEO)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I can tell you, it's not going to be open until we have a wall, a fence, whatever they'd like to call it. If you don't have that, then we just won't open it.
It won't be opening until it's solved. We think this is a much bigger problem.
I will sign a bill to open our government for three weeks until February 15th.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The president caves, ending the 35-day shutdown with a deal that has no money for the wall.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The investigation has been directly linked to the Trump Campaign.
ROGER STONE, TRUMP ADVISOR: There's still no evidence what so ever that I had advance knowledge of the topic, subject, with the source of the WikiLeaks disclosures. I never received.
There is no circumstance what so ever under which I will bear false witness against the president.
(END VIDEO)
Announcer: This is "New Day Weekend" with Victor Blackwell and Christi Paul.
CHRISTI PAUL, CNN HOST: Good morning to you for the first time in 35 days, we're all waking up to a shutdown-free country. A three-week stopgap measure has been signed and now the battle begins for the next budget deal.
VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN HOST: Yes, President Trump essentially signed the same deal he's been rejecting for weeks with no money for his border was as he attempted to calm his base. This was part of his tweet, "this is in no way a concession." He says if he doesn't have a deal with the wall included by February 5th, he will declare a national emergency.
PAUL: The president's long-time friend and advisor, Roger Stone meanwhile indicted and arrested by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, accused of seeking stolen emails from WikiLeaks and working with the Trump Campaign to damage their 2016 opponents.
BLACKWELL: Now the deal to end the shutdown follows pressure by republicans, the flight delays caused by the shortage of air traffic controllers. In polls, it shows the optics were only getting worse for the president.
PAUL: So the question is how it going to unfold over the next few weeks. CNN White House Correspondent Sarah Westwood is joining us live. Sarah, what are you hearing from the White House about how to proceed from this point?
SARAH WESTWOOD, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Christi, the White House is making it clear that President Trump is determined to pursue his wall if he's not able to get it legislatively over the next three weeks, President Trump himself said he reserved the right to declare a national emergency to try to access some pot of money that already exists in the federal government to try to build that wall.
And conservatives are not responding favorably to the president's decision to cave to democrats on Friday. One Trump adviser calling this a humiliating loss for the president. There's a sense that the president essentially wasted 35 days on a shutdown that dragged down his approval ratings, perhaps put a stain on the second part of his presidency and didn't get him any closer to funding a border wall.
The spin from Trump aids and allies is perhaps now democrats who all along have cited this shutdown as their reason for not negotiating on the wall could perhaps come to the table but Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said yesterday that democrats are still against the wall. That's the position they've maintained throughout this entire shutdown.
White House aides had begun to feel pressure from the chaos we have begun to see at airports across the country, as the effects of this shutdown were felt throughout all 50 states. This is something that had scared republicans into potentially breaking ranks. The White House had hoped that perhaps rank and file democrats would peel off from leadership under this pressure but was the republicans who showed signs of cracking first.
So on Thursday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell informed the president he wasn't sure how much longer the GOP could hold. And the president made that concession setting himself up for another three week budget battle. On February 15th, this CR will run dry but he is no closer at this moment despite the historic shutdown to getting his wall Victor and Christi.
PAUL: Sarah Westwood, we appreciate it so much. Thank you.
BLACKWELL: Joining us CNN Political Commentator Errol Louis, Political Anchor for "Spectrum News" as well. Errol, welcome back.
ERROL LOUIS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Good morning. BLACKWELL: All right. So the president held this victorious news
conference in the Rose Garden yesterday with members of his cabinet, members of his administration, and here's how he characterized what ended the shutdown. Watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO)
TRUMP: My fellow Americans, I am very proud to announce today that we have reached a deal to end the shutdown and reopen the federal government.
(Applause)
(END VIDEO)
BLACKWELL: There were applause. There was a "whoo" there. What deal does the president see here? He says it's not a concession, it appears to be just that and nothing else.
LOUIS: Well yes, in fact let's start with the fact that applause and that cheering was coming from members of the president's cabinet and staff members of the White House so it's not as if this was some sort of cross-section of the public that was cheering his decision.
He did, I think in the end, Victor, what I frankly thought he was going to do maybe 10 days ago which is simply declare victory and reopen the government.
[06:05:00]
The stalemate is one that he's not been able to and I don't think he will be able to, you can give him another 20 days and maybe they'll try it, but I don't think this is something that they can solve. The numbers are really kind of unforgiving. The republican base very much wants and believes in the wall and will support the president and will condemn him, frankly, if he doesn't charge ahead with it.
And you have the exact opposite coming from the democratic side. One House of Congress is controlled by the democrats and the other by the republicans. And it's been a thorny issue for a generation what to do about border security. It's been very, very tough to figure out how to do it. The notion that the president was going to simply bowl his way through with a hostile party in charge of one house of Congress was always a little fanciful.
BLACKWELL: So Sarah Sanders tweeted out last night, "In 21 days President Trump is moving forward building the wall with or without the democrats." The only outstanding question is whether the democrats want something or nothing. Any indication this type of negotiating is going to, I guess, encourage democrats to give anything more than they have in the last five weeks?
LOUIS: It's really very curious, that bluff and that bluster, by the way, and perhaps that very tweet, Victor, I think may end up in court. It may come back to haunt the administration. We've started to see some reporting and analysis of how you declare a national emergency in such a way that would enable him to build a wall with or without help from Congress or the democrats. And everything that I've seen suggests that it has to be a genuine emergency. That it can't be a matter of not being able to round up the votes is you need to pass a favored policy.
That's a regular government; that's not an emergency. And by making clear that, they're going to wait until negotiations happen, and then decide, if we don't get what we want we'll declare an emergency. Well, that will be in court the very next day and they're going to have some ammunition that will be used against them -- the notion that they're trying in some desperate way to get by emergency means what they couldn't get through ordinary negotiation.
BLACKWELL: OK, so conservator commentators blasting the president. Some predict that his base is going to if not already abandon him. This is going to erode substantially. At the end of three weeks of negotiations, is it possible that the Senate republicans are going to support the government shutting down again?
LOUIS: I'm not clear on what the Republican Majority Leader, that's not the entire Senate...
BLACKWELL: Yes.
LOUIS: ... and that's not even the entire republican Congress. But Mitch McConnell who has seen some very weak numbers in his home state of Kentucky and is running for reelection in 2020, I can easily see him go back to his stance of simply doing whatever it is the White House wants him to do. That will put all of us in a very difficult situation that we just saw 35 days of.
You really have to sort of hand it to the republicans. They have really screwed up a situation that they could have handled before the democrats took control of the House of Representatives. And it was not a mystery that the dems were going to do very well. Sometime before last November, they really could and should have figured out what they were going to do on this particular issue.
BLACKWELL: Let's talk about the State of the Union. Of course, we know it was supposed to happen on Tuesday. Nancy Pelosi was asked in a news conference yesterday afternoon after the president spoke from the Rose Garden saying no, it's not going to happen Tuesday. What her offer from the president was that when the government opened again they could discuss a date to schedule the State of the Union. What role does that variable play potentially in what we'll see over the next three weeks?
LOUIS: I think it's going to be very much in the interest of the White House to get that speech done sometime in the next three weeks. It will be - the only or really the best time, the best opportunity for the president to make his case to the entire nation, one last time, one more time, of why he's got to have funding for the border wall, why Mexico is not paying for it, why the American taxpayers are supposed to come up with this money for this policy that the polls show are not sufficiently popular, that people want to dig into their pockets and pay for a wall. Substantively, I think every argument for and against the wall has
already been heard. But that forum is special, that State of the Union address. It's got the entire government there. It's got the eyes of the world there. I will anticipate the president will try to really, really push through something that we just saw he was not able to do by sort of back room negotiations.
BLACKWELL: The president has not tweeted yet. His last tweet was about this not being a concession. We'll see if he follows that up this morning. Errol Louis, thanks so much.
LOUIS: Thank you.
[06:10:00]
PAUL: Well, six associates of President Trump have now been charged by Special Counsel Robert Mueller. The arrest and indictment of Roger Stone, the latest in the ongoing investigation. Where do we go from here?
BLACKWELL: Plus Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has called a special gathering of the U.N. Security Council. The topic, the ongoing presidential power struggle in Venezuela. Coming up, what's the lead-up to this violence across the country.
PAUL: And there's a temporary deal, of course, to reopen the government. Federal workers, they may still feel a little uncertain about this. We're going to talk with a Connecticut chef who ensuring the community doesn't go hungry until a permanent solution is put into place.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PAUL: Fourteen minutes past the hour this morning. Long-time Donald Trump associate Roger Stone will be arraigned in federal court on Tuesday. He was indicted on multiple counts yesterday including making false statements, obstruction, and witness tampering. Part of the indictment claims that he lied about his ties between the campaign and WikiLeaks. Stone calls the charges politically motivated and plans to plead not guilty.
As he left court he said quote, "The charges today relate in no way to Russian collusion, WikiLeaks collaboration or any other illegal act in connection with the 2016 campaign." His words there. Stone was arrested by FBI agents during an early-morning raid on his home in Ft. Lauderdale yesterday. He talked to CNN's Chris Cuomo about that last night.
(BEGIN VIDEO)
STONE: First of all I always said that there could be some process crime.
CHRIS CUOMO, CNN HOST: Yes.
STONE: There's still no evidence once or ever that I had advance knowledge of topic, the subject or the source of the WikiLeaks disclosures. I never received any of the WikiLeaks disclosures. I never communicated with Assange or Wikileaks other than the limited communication on Twitter or direct message which I gave to the House Intelligence Committee last September I guess it was.
(END VIDEO)
PAUL: So what does this mean for President Trump and the Russia investigation? CNN Legal Analyst Joey Jackson and retired FBI Supervisory Special Agent and CNN Law Enforcement Analyst Jim Gagliano. Gentlemen, good morning to you both.
JOEY JACKSON, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Good morning, Christi.
JIM GAGLIANO, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Good morning.
PAUL: Joey, I want to go to you first. You just heard from Roger Stone. Your reaction to what he's saying this morning?
JOEY JACKSON, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: My reaction is as follows. The collusion question is separate and apart. Certainly the investigation is proceeding as to that matter and whether or not there was any collusion. That's the central question; that's the shoe that everyone is waiting to drop for, that's what everyone is waiting with anticipation. At the same time, I'll also tell you Christi, that is irrelevant, I repeat, irrelevant as it relates to the charges and indictment he's facing.
It's not about collusion, it's about telling the truth. We have this thing in law talking about the speaking indictment. It speaks to the issues of what you're being indicted about, it tells the story. If you can think about the indictment that speaks as to the criminality, this is an indictment that sings. I don't know what happened. An indictment is merely an accusation. He's entitled to the presumption of innocence. But I did tell you this, after reading that indictment in the event that the federal government can prove their case and the allegations there are true, he's in a world of hurt.
Why? Because they accuse him of lying, right? Not of colluding, of lying. He was brought before a House committee and was asked a series of questions about documents he had, about relationships he had, about communications he had. And they have right there, right? Plain to see, what he said, versus what the reality is and so if that's true, the obstruction charge would stand. The five counts of lying would stand, and then the tampering as to Coursey, the conservative radio commentator, and his communications with him saying, "Hey, hold fast, plead the Fifth, stonewall them. It's right there." So in the event that that indictment is factually accurate, I see another conviction.
PAUL: Yes and we wonder what else they have. We know that FBI officials are searching his New York duplex right now. You know, James, in terms of Michael Cohen, they raided his hotel room, his home, his office. Do you expect that the intensity is going to be there in terms of the search for Roger Stone as well? And what specifically are they looking for? GAGLIANO: Sure. And Christi, I think that, you know, there's a lot of
distance between the process crimes that Joey's just talking about and actual collusion. Look, this is an ugly look for the president because the folks he associated himself with, the people that were running his campaign, the people that he took campaign advice from, they've been arrested on a number of charges. Yes, they're process crimes, witness tampering, obstruction of justice and perjury. I see these folks more as grifters; that's kind of how I view Roger Stone in this.
Now if there is any there there, I think that's the next shoe that Joey was just alluding to because everybody in that circle whether it was General Michael Flynn or George Papadopoulos and moving forward to Paul Manafort and now to Roger Stone, it is closed in as close as you can possibly get to the president. It does not mean that anybody colluded with the Kremlin. But the look is not good and process crimes are still crimes.
PAUL: So, Joey I want to read something that Mueller writes in this indictment. He says, "After the July 22, 2016, release of stolen DNC e-mails by organization by a senior Trump Campaign official was directed to contact Stone about any additional releases and what other damaging information organization one had regarding the Clinton campaign."
Let's talk about that characterization of "senior Trump official." A lot of people think it's Manafort, maybe it's Rick Gates? What about Donald Trump, Jr.? What about Jared Kushner. When you're trying to decipher who that senior official is, it's got to be a narrow list, does it not?
JACKSON: It has to be again Christi to your point, a senior official, not a functionary, not as the campaign and Mr. President has said already, I guess a coffee boy or whatever they are suggesting. These are senior people and I think the indication and suggestion is that there was some coordination between what Mr. Stone knew, his relationship with Julian Assange of WikiLeaks, the hacked e-mails, the release of the e-mails, the actual when the emails would be released and the Trump campaign wanting to know what's going on and we have Stone saying the shoe's going to drop - the October surprise.
And so again, you know what? We'll hold fastest to the issue of collusion. We don't know. Make no assumptions, not jumping to any conclusions but when you're asked about things concerning what you did and you're in a select committee in the House and they directly ask you questions and you don't answer those questions truthfully and we have the documents which would suggest you answered the questions falsely, and we have radio interviews and television interviews and public statements that suggest that you're amiss. There's a problem here.
And so, he is in world, Stone, of hurt concerning what he said and the misleading nature of that, in terms what collusion or coordination - what went on, we'll wait and see. But it seems that Mueller is a pretty thorough guy.
PAUL: James, the theatric - that's how Stone is characterizing what happened yesterday at his home in terms of the FBI raid. To that you say what?
GAGLIANO: So it's been 24 hours now that we've listened to critics and detractors attack the FBI for the manner in which they executed the apprehension. Look, I think the viewers need to understand, the FBI doesn't make decisions as to how somebody is brought into custody. That's a decision made by the special prosecutor's office and the Department of Justice in that they felt that talks with Stone were breaking down and they were concerned about a potential flight risk, as well as the potential destruction of evidence.
Look, we have a rule of thumb in the FBI, if we're arresting one person, we bring ten. If we're arresting 10, we bring 100. When people weigh in and say it was not appropriate or theatrics, I can promise you, the FBI has never been concerned with optics. And when you're looking to arrest somebody or bring them into custody, it's a serious issue. You've got to be concerned about fight or flight. And you know what Christi? One of the things I think that people fail to understand in these situations, it's often not the mafiosa(ph). It's not the violent street gang member that's the most dangerous. It's the person that has the most to lose -- white collar criminals, people that are the corrupt politicians. Flks like that are the ones inclined to hurt themselves or people coming to take them into custody. I thought the way they handled it was appropriate.
PAUL: All right. Joey, you made the point, these are process crimes, this is not about collusion, necessarily, by any means but it's about WikiLeaks and any connection between the campaign and WikiLeaks. Let's listen to several statements the president made as Candidate Trump in October 2016 regarding WikiLeaks.
(BEGIN VIDEO)
TRUMP: This just came out, WikiLeaks, I love WikiLeaks.
This WikiLeaks stuff is unbelievable. It tellS you the inner heart. You got to read it.
It's been amazing what's coming out on WikiLeaks.
Another one came in today, this WikiLeaks is like to a treasure trove.
Getting off the plane, they were just announcing new WikiLeaks and I wanted to stay there but I didn't want to keep you waiting. Boy, I love those WikiLeaks.
(END VIDEO)
PAUL: Joey, can you see the president at all opening himself up to some vulnerability here with those statements, maybe incriminating himself?
JACKSON: I really do, Christi. Let me just say this again, not as a partisan, but as an objective trying to analyze the situation. You ask yourself at home, the president is out there, "WikiLeaks, I love WikiLeaks." You don't think somebody in his campaign is feeding information regarding WikiLeaks and regarding a contact they have that knows that information is going to continue to come out that is damaging. That the president knows nothing about any contact or any coordination between Mr. Stone or anyone else supplying him the information. Maybe he doesn't, okay?
But us attorneys when we're in the courtroom we tell ladies and gentlemen, use your common sense, use your good judgment. Is that what that sounds like to you? And so to the extent that this will be a political process as this involves the president that he can't be indicted by way of regulation. I know it's not set in stone and maybe that would change too. But the American public is going to have to ask themselves the question, how inoculated is the president? How ignorant is the president to what's going on? How does the president not know anything about what's happening yet he's stumping about WikiLeaks? Someone in that campaign is pumping him information. That's why he's talking about WikiLeaks. That's why I say, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, but you decide.
PAUL: All right, Joey Jackson, James Gagliano, always grateful to have you both here. Thank you gentlemen.
JACKSON: Thank you, Christi. Take care James.
GAGLIANO: Thank you.
BLACKWELL: Coming up, we'll talk to a Connecticut chef feeding federal workers during the government shutdown. Why he says that getting back on the job and receiving weeks of back pay will not make federal workers whole.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[06:25:00]
(BEGIN VIDEO)
TRUMP: We have reached a deal in the shutdown and will reopen the federal government.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's been more than three weeks.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Come on how long? Can we please go back to work?
(END VIDEO)
BLACKWELL: Those are tears of relief, at least, as President Trump announced the end of the partial government shutdown. But despite the president's claim of a deal, I mean, this is what Speaker Nancy Pelosi and some republicans really have urged for weeks. Open the government first. And then talk about the border security funding.
PAUL: Now, Monday, all federal workers are going to head back to work, hoping that there's going to be a paycheck soon. That's still in question as to how long it will take for them to get their back pay.
[06:30:00] There's a sense of uncertainty here as well and we must be honest. If the democrats stand firm against the wall, and the president continues to demand one. On February 15th there can be another shutdown.
BLACKWELL: Joining me now, Connecticut chef Jay Lewis, he's been feeding federal workers during this shutdown. He's also the author of "The Gentleman's Cookbook" and has a new book, "The Food Philosopher" that's going to be out in March. Chef Jay, thank you so much for being with us this morning. I first saw the pictures and your tweets when you used #shutdownhunger. I thank you for that.
CHEF JAY LEWIS, AUTHOR: Yes.
BLACKWELL: Why did you decide to start serving the federal workers these meals?
LEWIS: Well those federal workers are our neighbors. They're our neighbors; they're our family members, right. I mean we can't separate ourselves from them. Our federal government is us. How can we not feed our own family?
BLACKWELL: Let me ask you this, shutdown is over. At least for three weeks, the government is funded, everybody is getting back to work. So, what now? I mean, do you stop serving do you go back to the business that you have?
LEWIS: No, no, we don't stop searching at all. First of all, the families are still in need. From the way I look at it, as a father; I have two young boys. I look at this and I say, if I were in this situation, I only have guaranteed money to the 15, right? So there's still a whole bunch of uncertainty there. And these families still need American chefs to stay in the game and my company and of course my friends and family back at home are going to stay in the game as well.
BLACKWELL: You say America's chefs because you've been trying to enlist other chefs across the country to serve as well. How's that going?
LEWIS: It's been going great. I think what is shining through here, that America is at its best when some of our -- when our family is being threatened, I guess. And right now, hunger is the biggest threat that our nation faces. I feel that personally as a chef. When I go to talk other chefs and other food service professionals, they're so engaged -- it's almost like they were waiting for my phone call.
You know, it's interesting because what I've said when you feed people, who for the first time are in a line for a meal, it's not just about feeding the belly, you have to make sure you feed that spirit, too because there's some defeated egos in many ways that are in line. How did you handle that element?
LEWIS: Well, look, I'm a black man in America, so, I know what it's like to kind of feel a little bit hesitant sometimes, when you're out there asking for help. I can tell you this much, when people come to you and they're hungry, there's no greater service. No matter what religion you're in, no matter if you're religious or not, in my mind there's no greater service. So when they came to me - when they come to a chef, when they come to any other public services or just people who are in a position to help. You really have to put a lot of other I would say superficial issues aside and say, I'm here to help you as a person, as a human being, as an American.
And that's how I handled that. I said, I'm going to help this person. That's why I love being a chef. I can just see a problem. And I can just go over there with a plate of food and help those people. I don't have to form a committee. I don't have to form a caucus. I don't have to form a blue ribbon anything. I can just walk across the street with a plate of food and help people.
BLACKWELL: You know there's one element in talking with my producers, you said in a conversation with people, and I'm paraphrasing here, you know getting back to work and the back pay is not going to make people whole, because they've given up, in some ways, tangible things to get by over the last five weeks.
LEWIS: Yeah, that's the crazy thing about it. You know, sometimes, we forget this, right? These families have gone what four or five weeks now without pay and even though they're going to get back pay, apparently, I'm not sure how the politics are going to work out. I can tell you one thing, back pay is never going to get that wedding ring you that had to sell. Back pay is never going to get back that family heirlooms that you had to sell to make it through because we're real people, we're people on the ground.
We don't have parents to call for money - some of us do; some of us don't. We don't have trust funds that last. So I know people that personally had to sell family heirlooms. They will never get those back and that's on top of the hunger. And I want to thank you personally. I mean thank you. You put a real spotlight on that and people were really responding to #shutdownhunger. It's a real thing.
BLACKWELL: Thank you for doing the work. I said the hash tag actually I got to give credit to Christi because we were sitting around trying to figure out a hash tag, and Christi shouted out at a meeting and I said that's what we're going to use. But Chef Lewis, thank you so much for feeding people when they need you most.
LEWIS: Thank you so much, a shout out to my hometown of Windsor, Connecticut, and all the people back there who really, really inspired me, Curtis Robinson (ph), Yvonne Davis(ph), and all of my friends and family. Chefs of America are going to stay in the game.
BLACKWELL: Thanks Chef.
PAUL: It does take a team.
BLACKWELL: Yes, it does. Thank you for that, Christi, Christi came up with the hash tag.
PAUL: Yeah, but you did the rest, kudos - big kudos to you. All right, the international community is picking sides as the struggle for power in Venezuela is escalating. BLACKWELL: Still ahead we look back at the years of turmoil and
instability that led up to this crisis.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PAUL: So glad to have you back with us here. American diplomats now have just a day to leave Venezuela after that country's embattled President Nicolas Maduro ordered them out.
[06:40:00]
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo refusing to recall embassy staff from Caracas and today, he's going to the U.N. hoping to build international support for the man the U.S. now recognizes as the country's rightful leader. CNN's Rafael Romo walks us through how we got here.
(BEGIN VIDEO)
(NICOLAS MADURO SPEAKING IN A FOREIGN LANGUAGE)
RAFAEL ROMO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: He shouted it at the top of his lungs. Embattled Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro broke political and diplomatic ties with the United States. His furious reaction happened only hours after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo recognized opposition leader Juan Guido as interim President of Venezuela.
(BEGIN VIDEO)
MIKE POMPEO, UNITED STATES SECRETARY OF STATE: The regime of former President Nicolas Maduro is illegitimate. His regime is morally bankrupt. It is economically incompetent.
(CROWD CHANTS)
ROMO: (voiceover) Venezuela has seen violence and instability for years. The country is bankrupt and shortages of basic necessities such as medicine for children and food are widespread, as we have reported for years.
There's no rice, rice should be here or milk. Or baby products and everything is empty. Now, you can find some other nonessential products like, for example, this is a sweetener for milk. The problem is, even if you buy it, there's no milk. The U.N. says more than 3 million people have fled Venezuela since at least 2014.
SEN. MARCO RUBIO, (R) FLORIDA: You may not just have a humanitarian catastrophe in Venezuela. We may soon have a growing economic catastrophe in Brazil, in Peru, in Equador and in Colombia.
ROMO: In 2017, President Trump said he wouldn't rule out military intervention to help restore democracy to the country and he doubled down last week.
UNKNOWN MALE: Are you considering a military option for Venezuela?
TRUMP: We're not considering anything but all options are on the table.
ROMO: A warning to Russia was swift.
SERGEY RYABKOV, RUSSIAN FOREIGN MINISTER: The resort to military power would be catastrophic. We face now a scenario that may lead to further bloodshed in Venezuela.
ROMO: Russia and China are siding with Maduro; both have invested billions of dollars in Venezuela which has some of the largest oil reserves in the world. And like other totalitarian regimes, its government has squashed the opposition, silenced critics and censored the press. When we investigated an alleged fraudulent sale of passports getting reaction took months.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (speaking foreign language)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (speaking foreign language)
ROMO: And now Venezuela is a country with two men calling themselves president. Opposition leader Juan Guaido who swore himself on Wednesday and Nicolas Maduro who is beginning a second six-year term after a May election many in the international community call a farce because the opposition was not allowed to participate. Meanwhile, people have come out to the streets again.
(CROWD CHANTS)
Clashes between security forces and protesters left more than 120 dead in 2017, and many fear history may repeat again. Rafael Romo, CNN.
BLACKWELL: Roger Stone is downplaying his indictment by the special counsel. He claims the charges show no collusion with WikiLeaks or the Russian government.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BLACKWELL: Longtime Trump associate Roger Stone says, and this is a quote, "When you don't have evidence, you use theatrics." He was speaking about the FBI's early morning raid on his Ft. Lauderdale home on Friday. Stone made his case during an interview with CNN's Chris Cuomo on Friday.
(BEGIN VIDEO)
CHRIS CUOMO, CNN HOST: When you say they have no proof, Roger, to be honest with you, I have not seen an indictment connected to this probe that has more proof than this one does of communication that you have had that prove that you didn't tell the truth to the Congress, the Congressional panel you were before?
STONE: False. Every one of those things is out of context. If you go to my website, "Stone Cold Truth" or watch any of my interviews I have actually refuted virtually everything in there. Then there are a bunch of things in there, frankly, I don't believe are true. No senior campaign official told me to find out anything about WikiLeaks. That doesn't mean Mr. Mueller can't induce somebody to say that but there's no corroboration for it.
No other person in the campaign who was a junior official inquired of what happened. Now, what I did hear from Steve Bannon, the day after Assange got a press event on October 1st, as to what he said, I responded with two matters of public record. Politico had already reported that he said there would be releases every week for the next following weeks. And that all the U.S.-related campaign or election- related material would be released in the weeks before the election. I also told them that Assange...
CUOMO: So the only communication you had with the campaign...
STONE: Assange had security...
CUOMO: Just to be clear, Roger, to allow you to respond directly to what's in the indictment if you're comfortable of doing so, you're saying the only communication you ever had with anybody related to the campaign was this one communication that you're talking about with Steve Bannon that you're saying is already public information.
STONE: There - it was published by "The Times" and I responded to it in great written detail.
CUOMO: So that's a yes?
STONE: My response to him is entirely public - public information.
CUOMO: And that was the only communication you ever...
STONE: That's the only one that I recall and the only one that I can find in my emails.
CUOMO: Would you entertain cutting a deal, or anything short of going to trial, on these charges?
STONE: Again, you're asking me to answer a hypothetical question without knowing any of the facts. I know that I'm innocent. My intention is to plead not guilty and to fight the charges and I've had no discussion with anyone regarding a pardon.
(END VIDEO)
PAUL: Well, the president signed the deal to reopen the government after a record shutdown. A lot of people wondering, was this deal any different from what he's been offered for weeks and where do we go from here to avoid shut down .2.
BLACKWELL: Plus, look at this, this mess in the Northeast and the Midwest. They're all waiting for this bitter cold that's coming. It could break records. We're tracking this cold front from the CNN weather center.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[06:55:00] PAUL: So, there's this stretch of brutal cold winter weather heading across the Midwest and the northeast. Sorry if you're in the middle of it, we're talking about 65 million of you who are going to see temperatures fall below zero next week.
BLACKWELL: Yes. More than a few cities are going to potentially break record lows. CNN Meteorologist Allison Chinchar is following all this cold front mess from the CNN Weather Center. Allison, where is it and where is it going?
ALLISON CHINCHAR, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Right, so right now at least for today, it's mainly focused into the Midwest but it's really going to start to spread once we get into next week. So here's a look. If you're waking up this morning say Green Bay, International Falls, your wind chills this morning are about -30 to as cold as -45. Here's a look. Current wind chills minus 20 in Green Bay, minus 25 in Duluth. Chicago not much better at minus 13. That's what it feels like at this moment.
Now the other thing is we have this clipper system coming in. That's going to bring us a really quick dose of snow. The thing is, even though it's going to be fast, it has the potential to drop a significant amount in that short period of time. This purple area, about 8 to 12 inches. The pink, now you're talking 12 to 18 inches of snow. That would be for areas say around Milwaukee. But even Chicago getting potentially 8 inches of snow out of this system. But it's what happens behind that system because once that clipper moves through, you have that arctic air, that polar vortex, as we know that air, that air is to set things back in.
To put some things in perspective here. This is a look at Chicago. High temperature today about 13. Their average, they should normally be in the 30's for a high temperature. Look at this, by Wednesday, the high temperature is minus 11. Not the low. The high temperature is minus 11. Also, four out of the next five days this week, Chicago is actually going to be colder Fairbanks, Alaska. The one exception will actually be Monday when they're getting the snow.
Victor and Christi the one thing to point out too, you mentioned about the 65 million people looking at temperatures at or below zero, next week you're looking at a total of over 200 million people with temperatures at or below freezing. For some perspective, that's three quarters of the nation's population.
BLACKWELL: So Allison, let me ask you this while you've got Chicago up there, is that with the wind chill or without, that minus 11?
CHINCHAR: No, that is the actual temperature.
BLACKWELL: Oh, my gosh.
PAUL: No.
CHINCHAR: So it will feel much colder than that when the wind comes in, yes. And I want to make the point too, yes Chicago is cold. But it's not like Fairbanks is having an impressive heat wave and that's why they're so much warmer. I mean this really isn't that far off from their average. It's just that the Midwest is going to take the brunt of that extremely cold weather Tuesday through Thursday of next week.
PAUL: Listen, Chicago is one of my favorite cities.
CHINCHAR: Not this time of year.
PAUL: Y'all have fun with that, that's all I'm saying. Oh my goodness. Allison, thank you so much.
BLACKWELL: Thank you Allison.
CHINCHAR: Thanks.
(BEGIN VIDEO)
TRUMP: I can tell you, it's not going to be open until we have a wall, a fence, whatever they'd like to call it. If you don't have that, then we just won't open it.
We won't be opening until it's solved. We think this is a much bigger problem.
I will sign a bill to open our government for three weeks until February 15th.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The president caves, ending the 35-day shutdown with a deal that has no money for the wall.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The central crime that launched the investigation has now been directly linked to the Trump campaign.
STONE: There's still no evidence whatsoever that I had add advance knowledge of the topic, subject or the source of the WikiLeaks disclosure.
