Return to Transcripts main page

NEW DAY

President Trump Visits U.S. Troops in Iraq; Partial Government Shutdown Continues; President Trump to Possibly Meet with Chairman of Federal Reserve; Interview with Democratic Congressman Jimmy Panetta of California. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired December 27, 2018 - 08:00   ET

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

[08:00:00] 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, December 27th, 8:00 in New York. Alisyn is off. Erica Hill joins me. I think we're in the countdown to the New Year. Has it official begun yet?

ERICA HILL, CNN ANCHOR: We're officially in the countdown to the New Year. The question is, are we in the countdown to the end of the shutdown.

BERMAN: I'm going to go with no.

HILL: I'm right there with you.

BERMAN: I'm going with the New Year comes well before the end of the shutdown.

HILL: 2019, here we go.

BERMAN: The president and first lady, they are back at the White House after the surprise holiday visit to U.S. troops in Iraq. This is the president's first visit to a combat zone, and it comes days after a sudden decision to pull U.S. troops out of Syria. That's a decision that he is defending, despite a fair amount of criticism from both sides of the aisle. The president insists that the United States is no longer, quote, this is what we said, the suckers of the world.

HILL: The president's Iraq visit also turning political. President Trump went after Democrats in front of U.S. troops, blames Democrats for the government shutdown, the same one he promised to own. The president gave no timeframe to end the shutdown, saying he would do whatever it takes to get his wall.

Meantime, we are now in day six of that partial government shutdown, and while lawmakers are also back in Washington today along with the president, there is no sign of a deal to come. Joining us now, White House correspondent for the "New York Times" Maggie Haberman. Always good to have you with us. Maggie, as we look at this visit, when this came out, there was some speculation maybe on Thanksgiving it would happen. It didn't happen. So all of a sudden as we started to see these grumblings yesterday, it was fascinating to know the president was making this trip.

MAGGIE HABERMAN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: It's interesting. There's a lot of speculation that he did this basically while sitting watching television, and said fire up Air Force One. That is not how it works. These trips take several weeks to plan. They had been working on this for some time. I think they clearly were aware of the criticism he was receiving.

It is an important visit that he did this. He has been very heavily criticized for not doing such a visit. It is important to note when he did. It is also important to note that while he was there, he said a number of things to the troops that you are not used to seeing, one doesn't see, from a U.S. president. He made the same language -- he used the same language he uses in his political rallies. He told stories that inflated his own role in military spending and in pay raises, suggested that he had given the military members their first pay raise I think in a decade. That's not true. They receive raises every year. He suggested it was much bigger than it was. And all of those things undercut him.

But this was -- it is, at the end of the day, it is about members of the military, and the troops who were there in Iraq clearly seemed happy to see him.

BERMAN: You just summed up the entire visit, I think.

HABERMAN: Oh, I'm sorry.

(LAUGHTER)

BERMAN: No, you're done. Thank you, Maggie Haberman. No, but you're right. The troops, I think, welcome the visit to the commander in chief almost always. And it's good, we hear from military leaders, for the president to see U.S. troops in combat to see what they go through. So, yes, if that's the low bar, the president met that. It is terrific that he did it.

But you also pointed out some of the controversy here. Just one thing I do want to clear up, you said about the planning of this, we believe, everybody is going to believe this was in the planning well before James Mattis, secretary of defense, announced his resignation.

HABERMAN: It was, it was. There is no question that it was. Again, these trips do not -- we had been hearing for a while that he was looking at doing this. Other people had been as well. I think that the impetus became stronger once James Mattis left and once the president was making a declaration about troop withdrawal from Syria. I think the onus became all the more on him to do something, to show that he understood the sacrifice that American troops make and that he did not look like he was being capricious. But it is certainly true that people tend to look at everything through the lens of him reacting. I don't think this was just him reacting.

BERMAN: You can't pull off a trip like this in two days.

HABERMAN: Correct. BERMAN: It just doesn't work like that.

Another point you were making, the president making up facts, or lying depending on how you want to say it, about military pay raises. Let's play that sound so people can see it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The biggest pay raises you have ever received. You haven't gotten one in more than 10 years, more than 10 years. And we got you a big one. I got you a big one. I got you a big one.

(APPLAUSE)

TRUMP: We had plenty of people that came up there and said, you know, we could make it smaller. We could make it three percent. He could make it two percent. We could make it four percent. I said, no, make it 10 percent, make it more than 10 percent, because it's been a long time. It's been more than 10 years.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: I do not know in his head where he's getting that from, because --

HABERMAN: He's getting it from his head. He just told this line about how, you know, it could have been three percent. It could have been two percent. But I said no. It was actually between two percent and three percent. It was 2.6 percent, and it was on par with raises the members of the military had received every year.

BERMAN: That's it. There has been a military pay raise every year practically for nearly the past 30 years. And you could argue whether it's enough. I would say I'd like to see them be much higher. But the point is, there have been raises every year in the last three years. They weren't 10 percent, even if you add them all up it's not 10 percent.

HABERMAN: A, he tends to talk as if numbers and dollars are the most important thing, and he talks about that in the context of everything he does. We have seen this over many years, number one.

[08:05:05] And number two, some people close to him used to say, well, the reason he says things like this, he makes these false statements, is those are the things he wants the media to focus on. This is not good for the media to be focusing on. This just undercuts his trip. This undercuts something that he did that was a clear positive, and while it was a conventional thing that he did, a trip to visit troops overseas, sometimes convention is good. This is a president who has decided the convention is generally bad. In this case it was good. It was good for the military. It was good for him. And there is no reason to undercut it with imaginary numbers.

HILL: Or even to undercut it with politics. A number of military analysts, retired generals, retired colonels, have said this is exactly what we have all said. This is great. This is what the troops needed. This is what the president needed to do, to go there and to see it. But General Mark Hertling telling us, normally when these visits happen, he's been there for when presidents visit a war zone, you pull whoever it is coming over, the lawmaker, and say just a reminder, this isn't a political event. Find your constituents, take a picture, but keep it above board.

The president and Air Force colonel telling us he believes he probably had that conversation, either ignored it or just didn't care, and went out there and directly attacked Democrats and went right for the jugular and made it more of a, to your point, campaign rally.

HABERMAN: He does this everywhere he goes. And you know this. Almost every setting that he is in, he turns it into some kind of up- down referendum on himself. And so that is what he did there, wall funding, the Democrats, Nancy Pelosi. I'm confident that someone told him this is not the place to do this, because people often tell him that he shouldn't do the things he does and he does them anyway. He will go and do what he wants to do. It shouldn't surprise anyone by now. It just doesn't make it appropriate to do it at this particular venue.

BERMAN: How much is this shutdown weighing on his head? What do we know about his current plan on this?

HABERMAN: His current plans are to stick, and he said it, and it's consistent with what he is saying privately to people, that he has dug in. He going to try to wait for the Democrats to cave. The problem with that -- so we're looking right now realistically at a shutdown that goes into next year, and it goes into the new Congress. The problem for the president is that Nancy Pelosi has a lot of cards to play right now, and why would she give in? This is a shutdown. You could have made the argument if you were the president had he not made this display in the Oval Office of saying I will be proud to own this shutdown. That video is what it is.

And so if you were Nancy Pelosi and you were coming in with a new majority and members who are hungry to now give Trump any sense of a victor, I think unless the pressure feels equality exerted for her and for her caucus and the president, then you will start to see some movement. But that's not where he is right now.

HILL: I think there is something fascinating, too, about that Oval Office meeting with the president and Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi, and that is that, and this is a completely non-political statement, but Nancy Pelosi was the grown up in that room with the other two men who were there. And she was very calm the entire time and very composed and tried to stay on message. And the reporting is she even asked them not to do it on camera. The president loves Nancy Pelosi at a foil because she is a great foil for Republicans. But I wonder if there was more to it, and if part of it doesn't come from that meeting as well.

HABERMAN: More to it meaning that he took it personally and that because of the way she behaved, or? HILL: Meaning that maybe the response that she got and the feedback

on her in that Oval Office meeting, I wonder if that, too, sort of just --

HABERMAN: I think it helps, it helps, but I have got to be honest. I have always thought that both she and the president got what they wanted in the very short term out of that meeting. She got to look good for her base. He got to display to his base, which was a base that was not happy with him at that moment because he had pushed through this criminal justice bill that was not a conservative base priority. It was a Koch brothers' priority. And so the way had been softened in a bipartisan fashion. But this is ultimately something that he was dealing with where he has his voters feeling a little restless.

That said, she got more for the long time than he did, because in the long term he is saying I'll happily own a shutdown. And they had a deal and he pulled back from the deal. So at the end of the day, I think what is going on for her is just the knowledge that she has a lot more power right now than she has had at any point in many years, and Democrats are not eager to hand something the president something where he can say, look, I got this done.

BERMAN: You said she has a lot of cards to play. It does appear she is already playing them, right? Yesterday I was struck by the comment she made upon the president's return, saying the wall keeps changing. And now it's beaded curtain, were Nancy Pelosi's words. She called it a beaded curtain, and as soon as I heard that from her, I'm like, wow, she is poking. That is more than poking.

HABERMAN: She has been trying to make him sound weak. Her language has been very specific on this since the day of the meeting where she questioned his manhood. And now she's talking about beaded curtains. She knows how to tweak him, and she is going for it. She is showing him that she is not going to be pushed down. This president is somebody who has bent people to his will over and over and over and she is, I think trying to demonstrate she is not going to be one of them.

[08:10:07] HILL: The other thing I think that was fascinating yesterday is president saying, listen, by whatever means necessary, we are going to get this wall done. He was then asked three times by a reporter whether he could see his way to $2 billion of funding versus $5 billion. And he very clearly avoided that question, didn't want to answer it. It sounds like $2 billion is not whatever it would take in his mind.

HABERMAN: I don't think it is whatever it would take, but I also think it is important to bear in mind that Donald Trump is very good at ripping up whatever is in front of him and telling you it actually looks like this, such as a pay raise that was not actually 10 percent, or what have you. And he will do -- he will characterize whatever -- the government will open ultimately, and whatever it is that he ends up agreeing to, he will characterize as a solid win. Nancy Pelosi is going to do everything she can to make it harder for him to see it that way. BERMAN: Do you think the president is going to stay in Washington? A

lot of people on social media --

HABERMAN: You mean long term or you mean right now?

BERMAN: I mean short term. He canceled his trip to Mar-a-Lago because of the shutdown.

HABERMAN: The first leg, sure. Yes, what I've heard from several people is he wants to go. At the same time, I don't think that going to Mar-a-Lago for these extended stays is as fun for him as it used to be. It used to be he could go down, and he was almost seen as this wizard and he could give people whatever they want. And now people ask these questions that he can't really give answers to, or people want something from the president that he can't necessarily do because discovered what the limits of executive power are. So I think it doesn't hold quite the same allure. I would be very surprised if he misses the New Year's party that he throws every year there. There is some other event down there that I think he wants to go to, some other ball a few days later.

I could see him going down for a short amount of time, and I think that the calculation is the trip for Iraq makes it a little easier for him to then take a vacation.

HILL: There's been a lot of talk obviously about the Fed chair as well, the president attacking him. But then we have reporting yesterday that he is willing to meet with the Fed chair, that this could happen in the next, I guess, week or two in early 2019. Was the message getting through to him? Is that the sense that he was finally understanding that attacking the Fed chair is certainly not helping the markets?

HABERMAN: No, I don't think it is a sign of that. I think it's a sign that people around the president are desperately trying to calm the markets and are saying things like that. I don't think it would change anything. And a meeting is lovely, but the president either stops tweeting or doesn't stop tweeting. And you'll notice that there was a correction upward yesterday in the Dow. And it was also coincided with a period where the president was on an airplane and not tweeting. So I think that what they are trying to do is show the president your actions directly affect things. And the president, it's not that he doesn't know that. He just sometimes can't help himself.

BERMAN: I will say this idea of this summit between the president of the United States and the chair of the Fed creates its own problems. They are meeting as if they are somehow rivals.

HABERMAN: Or as if are they sort of working together. The whole point of the Fed is it's supposed to be apolitical and independent. And there is just this idea that you are bringing together a boss and a worker. And that's not --

HILL: And it has happened before. But to your point, it is rare.

HABERMAN: And under these circumstances, it's not ideal.

BERMAN: Maggie Haberman, great to have you. Thanks so much.

President Trump now back from his first visit to the warzone. We're going to get reaction from a Democratic congressman who served in Afghanistan. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:16:22] JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: President Trump is back at the White House after his surprise visit to U.S. troops in Iraq. The president thanked the service members there for their service, but could not resist the urge to wade into politics, blaming Democrats for the government shutdown in front of U.S. troops.

Joining us now is Democratic Congressman Jimmy Panetta. He is an Afghanistan war veteran, a member of the Armed Services Committee.

Congressman, thank you so much for being with us. The president visiting a war zone. You, of course, served overseas. A positive thing, correct?

REP. JIMMY PANETTA (D), CALIFORNIA: Of course, of course. Thank you, John, for having me and giving me this opportunity to be here with you.

BERMAN: I appreciate that. It is a low bar. You can come on any time. If you are going to be that appreciative, we'll have you on even more, I could use the adulation for that.

What did you make of the president's trip overseas? Again, it is something that people felt was long overdue, but he did it and it is undoubtedly good for a president to visit troops in the warzone.

PANETTA: Of course. I mean, you have to get give where credit is due. And it was great to see the president actually getting out of the White House, getting out of Mar-a-Lago and going into a war zone. And what you would hope, though, is that this is an opportunity for him to listen, to learn and not just lecture and not just have a political rally.

But, unfortunately, this president, as you heard your last guest on your show, this president is kind of a one speed president. He only knows one thing, and that's basically holding these types of political rallies. And, unfortunately, that's what we saw yesterday there in Iraq.

BERMAN: You did not feel it was appropriate to say what the president did about the government shutdown?

PANETTA: Look, like I said, I think the president as commander in chief has an obligation when he shows up in a war zone and when he's out talking with our troops. I think he needs to listen and learn. When I was stationed in Afghanistan back in '07/'08, we did not have anybody as high as the commander in chief coming to visit us. But I can tell you, when Admiral Fallon, a CentCom general came, when the secretary of the navy came, it is a real shot in the arm.

I think you saw that yesterday. You saw these troops take to the president yesterday. They were excited that he's there. They loved that he was there on the ground with them.

And I believe that the president actually felt that, and I guarantee you, he's probably be back in a war zone after this sooner rather than later.

BERMAN: Good. Let's hope because I do think it is good for the troops. It is good for any president to see the sacrifices that are made and have been made by the likes of you, sir.

I do want to ask about something he said that was very interesting in terms of policy. He was talking about the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria, which he has ordered and which led to the resignation of Secretary James Mattis. He says he intends to leave U.S. troops in Iraq. He thinks the troops in Iraq can fill the void left by the U.S. forces in Syria.

Operationally, do you think that's optimal?

PANETTA: Yes. I do not. The keyword you use is optimal. No, it is not optimal. Is it possible for them to conduct operations from a neighboring country? The answer is yes.

But will it be successful? The answer is no. The success they had really started to grow once they had troops in Syria actually developing the intelligence necessary to have the type of targeted strikes that those special operators that were there in country actually used.

And, so, I think, you know, sure you have certain assets, aerial assets, SIGNT and so forth that could be used outside of the country. But when it comes to human, when it comes to developing that raw intelligence, nothing beats having boots on the grounds in the country. I think we have shown that it can help by the success we have had in Syria going after ISIS and actually basically isolating them.

The problem is, ISIS is not over. ISIS is not dead. There are reports of 20,000 to 30,000 troops, 20,000 to 30,000 ISIS fighters I should say there in Syria, possibly in Iraq. We need to be aware of that. We need to continue this fight. And it helps that we have troops in Syria to do that.

BERMAN: I do want to ask you about one thing the president said there about the mission in Syria. And I think this translates to Afghanistan as well. He said the men and women who serve are entitled to clear objectives and incompetence when those objectives are met that they can come home and be with their families.

Do you agree with that sentiment?

PANETTA: Sure.

BERMAN: You agree that he is projecting what the objectives are?

PANETT: Well, look, I think it's -- obviously, the troops are there to fight, obviously to succeed for the mission. And obviously the mission for our troops in Syria was to defeat ISIS. But at the same time, it's also doing what Bolton said, John Bolton said, ensuring that Iran does not become an ever lasting presence there and pushing back on that. That is something that we're basically advocating when we're taking troops out of Syria to do that.

Now, when it comes to Afghanistan, I think it is time that we have a strategy set out. I appreciate the strategy. What are the conditions? As a member of the House Armed Services, we have been waiting to hear that ever since that change in strategy was announced. What conditions are they looking for?

BERMAN: Right.

PANETTA: And we're still waiting to hear that. If you are sitting there saying, oh, we're going to pull out half of the troops that are there, what is the strategy? And that's what I would hope that this administration comes up to Capitol Hill, tells members of the House Armed Services like myself, but also tells the American public.

Considering it's been the longest war in our history, we deserve that. And I hope that this administration understands that, and I hope the president understands that in setting out a long-term strategy for Afghanistan and for Iraq as well.

BERMAN: All right. Congressman, let's play let's make a deal. Let's solve the government shutdown right now. I'm going to come to the table and I'm going to say, we'll accept, if I'm the White House, we'll accept $2 billion for border security, which might include some improvements to the fences and whatnot already there. Would you take that as a Democrat?

PANETTA: OK. I think what it comes down to is that when you are talking about border security, inevitably you talk about comprehensive immigration reform. And that's where the conversation should start. It shouldn't start from the bottom up. It should start from the top down, comprehensive immigration going down to border security.

BERMAN: Congressman, you and I both know that's not where it is right now. We have had those discussions in the past. Last February, that all fell apart. In the last administration, they tried and fell apart.

We're just trying to keep the government open until February. So, I'm merely asking is if in the short-term, you would accept $2 billion in funding for, again, that would include border security and also perhaps some improvements to the fencing.

PANETTA: And my response to that is when we start talking about border security, we need to start talking about immigration reform as well, especially where I come from on the central coast of California. That type of immigration reform, saving our Dreamers, making sure there is an earned pathway to citizenship is there. But let me tell you, we are concerned with border security as well.

But they go hand in hand, and I can't stress that enough that I believe that if the president came to the table and actually started talking about the elements of border security and not just talking about a cement wall, but actually talk about the technological aspects of it that are necessary for border security, along our 2,000 mile border, southern border, then we could have a conversation.

When we starts talking about an earned pathway to citizen, for people who deserved it, be it Dreamers, be the TPS recipients, then we can actually have a real conversation with this administration about what type of comprehensive immigration reform, what type of border security we can get to. And then I think deals can be made.

I realize that your pessimism when it comes to those types of discussions, let me tell you, we have to be optimistic in this job especially when it comes to immigration reform.

BERMAN: I am an eternal optimist, but also a realist. Congressman Jimmy Panetta, Democrat of California, thank you very much for joining us. Please come back. Appreciate having you on NEW DAY.

PANETTA: Thank you, John. Happy holidays.

BERMAN: You, too.

Erica?

ERICA HILL, CNN ANCHOR: President Trump says the American people want his border wall. Is that true? We'll take a look, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:28:59] HILL: President Trump shows no signs of backing down over funding for his border wall demand, insisting yesterday in Iraq, the American people want it. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Look, the American people public is demanding a wall. Nancy is calling the shots, and they all know, look, politically speaking, I'm going to do it for politics. I'm doing nothing for politics. But politically speaking, people want border security.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HILL: Joining us now to discuss, CNN political commentator, Symone Sanders. She, of course, is the former press secretary for Bernie Sanders' 2016 campaign. Also, CNN political commentator Steve Cortes, the former head of President Trump's Hispanic advisory council.

Great to have both of you with us this morning.

The president saying there people want border security. That is true. American people, the American people, do want border security. What they don't want, based on our most recent polling from a couple of weeks ago is they don't want the wall. In fact, 57 percent of Americans oppose building a wall along the entire border with Mexico. That number actually increases if you ask how they feel about the wall if the U.S. pays, Steve.

STEVE CORTES, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, Eric, as you know with polls.