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Congressional Leaders Prepare for Meeting; Romney's Op-Ed on Trump; RNC Chair Backs Trump; Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired January 02, 2019 - 12:00   ET

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

[12:00:00] ANA CABRERA, CNN ANCHOR: Dropping yet again to triple digits 116, now minus 120.

ALISON KOSIK, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Yes.

CABRERA: All right, we'll stay on top of this.

Thank you, Alison.

And thank you for joining me. "INSIDE POLITICS" with Phil Mattingly starts right now.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Welcome to INSIDE POLITICS. I'm Phil Mattingly. John King is off today.

President Trump huddled with his cabinet right now ahead of a face-to- face gathering with lawmakers on day 12 of the government shutdown. A substantive meeting or a political stunt?

Plus, tomorrow marks the first day of the 116th Congress, making Capitol Hill noticeably more diverse. We'll tell you which members to watch.

And, after Mitt Romney publishes a scathing critique of President Trump, a fellow freshman senator asks, can't we all just get along?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARSHA BLACKBURN (R), TENNESSEE SENATOR-ELECT: There is an acronym for the word "team," and it's something my mom used with me when we were growing up, "together everyone achieves more."

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: Just like every little league coach I've ever had.

All right, President Trump is meeting with his cabinet at this hour and we expect to hear from inside the room at any moment. We'll bring that to you as soon as we have it.

The other big meeting on the president's agenda today, an attempt to get past a stalemate over government funding. Democratic and Republican lawmakers from both the House and the Senate will join the president for their first sit-down since the government partially shut down 12 days ago. Now, sources say the meeting will include a briefing on border security from officials at the Department of Homeland Security.

Democratic leaders not exactly optimistic about today. One Hill source familiar with the meeting saying, it appears to be, quote, more of a White House stunt than a serious attempt to have a discussion. The president, however, striking a curious tone on Twitter, saying border security and the wall thing and shutdown is not where Nancy Pelosi wanted to start her tenure as speaker. Let's make a deal?

CNN is told the meeting will take place inside the Situation Room, which means likely there will be no cameras this time because that went so well last time.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D), MINORITY LEADER: You keep talking about it.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: No, no, no, no, no. The last time, Chuck, you shut it down.

SCHUMER: No, no, no. Twenty times --

TRUMP: And then you opened it up very quickly.

SCHUMER: Twenty times --

TRUMP: And I don't want to do what you did.

SCHUMER: Twenty times you have called for --

TRUMP: Chuck --

SCHUMER: I will shut down the government if I don't get my wall. None of us have said --

TRUMP: You want to know something --

SCHUMER: You've said it.

TRUMP: OK, you want to put that on my --

SCHUMER: You've said it.

TRUMP: I'll take it.

SCHUMER: OK, good.

TRUMP: You know what I'll say? Yes, if we don't get what we want, one way or the other, whether it's through you, through our military, through anything you want to call, I will shut down the government. Absolutely.

SCHUMER: OK, fair enough. We disagree.

TRUMP: And I am proud -- SCHUMER: We disagree.

TRUMP: And I'll tell you what --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: Kind of feels like six years ago at this point. Here's hoping today will go a little bit better than that.

CNN's Kaitlan Collins joins me from the White House.

And, Kaitlan, everybody's been kind of waiting to hear where the White House is on things. What are their expectations, at least what you're hearing, about what today's meeting will mean?

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Phil, they're realistic, which means they are basically low. They do not expect them to come out of this meeting with some grand solution to reopen the government because the problems that existed 12 days ago are still very much the problems that they have now. And they do not believe that they're going to get anywhere just this afternoon in that meeting.

Now, one thing in play here is the optics. There's a reason this is taking place in the Situation Room where typically is reserved for national security meetings and not anywhere else in the White House that could easily accommodate the president and these congressional leaders. The White House wants to send this message that they believe this is such a grave crisis, what's happening on the border, that it is worth keeping the government closed until they can find a more amenable solution with Democrats.

Now, the next question moving forward is, what does the president want and what is he willing to sign? And essentially what sources are saying is that the president isn't willing to sign something that only has $1.3 billion allotted for border security. And that's what he's telling aides. That's happening as Democrats are showing signs that they are not going to budge either. That is why they don't think there will be a lot of progress in this meeting today.

Now, as far as the president's mindset, you can see what it is from his Twitter feed this morning tweeted about the wall saying that newly negotiated deal with Mexico and Canada, that trade deal, is going to pay for the wall. That's something that hasn't even passed Congress yet. And the president also said that there is construction happening on the wall, which is not true. No new construction has happened. That is coming as aides are squabbling over what the wall is going to look like with the outgoing Chief of Staff John Kelly, whose last day is technically today, saying that a concrete wall has long passed and is not happening.

Now, we'll see what happens in this meeting, but they are not expecting a lot of progress here at the White House.

MATTINGLY: Yes. At some point something has to give. We just don't know when or, frankly, what it's going to be. COLLINS: Exactly.

MATTINGLY: Kaitlan Collins, keep us posted. Thank you very much, over at the White House.

Now here with me to share their reporting and insights, Eliana Johnson of "Politico," Carl Hulse from "The New York Times," Seung Min Kim with "The Washington Post," and Catherine Lucey with "The Associated Press."

And I am very stoked with this group because I obsessively follow all of you to know what's happening in the world and on our respective beats.

I want to start with something from Congressman Hakeem Jeffries. He said this morning -- if you want to know just how entrenched everybody is right now, take a listen to what a new incoming member of leadership had to say on CNN.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. HAKEEM JEFFRIES (D), INCOMING CHAIRMAN, DEMOCRATIC CAUCUS: What we're unwilling to do is to pay a $5 billion ransom note for a medieval border wall that Trump wants to put forward that he initially said, as you know, John, that Mexico would pay for. Mexico has not paid for it. The great deal maker has failed.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[12:05:15] MATTINGLY: So it's a message we've heard a lot but medieval, immoral is what Nancy Pelosi continually calls it. I'm wondering, you know, where is the -- I'll start with you, Seung Min, you're on The Hill, you talk to Democrats, where is the space for anything right now or it basically capitulation or bust on this?

SEUNG MIN KIM, WHITE HOUSE REPORTER, "THE WASHINGTON POST": I think there is -- there is no sort of area for compromise at this point. And I think we can look at how well things are going on The Hill when we look at this meeting later this afternoon.

Now, I was asking a couple Democratic aides this morning, you know, what do you expect out of this meeting, what's going to go on, and they're like, it's not even a meeting, it's a briefing. We expect to hear a lot of non-factual information from the administration and come out of that afterwards. So, look, I mean, I think even -- for some members of the incoming House Democratic caucus, even the 1.3 that Pelosi and Schumer have pitched, would goes too far from their perspectives. So it remains to be see what would actually end this shutdown.

I mean I recall in the 2013 shutdown over funding for Obamacare there was kind of this forcing mechanism at the end of the shutdown because it was that debt limit deadline that really got everyone in line and forced everyone to make a deal. What's that foreseeing mechanism now? I don't see it. MATTINGLY: So you're saying we're going to have to wait until like August, September until -- that's a -- Eliana, I want to get to you, because I know you're super plugged over at the White House.

One of the issues I think Seung Min and I and Carl have heard a lot from The Hill is, they don't know what the president wants. He doesn't have a number necessarily. They're not sure where he stands. What's your sense of things right now?

ELIANA JOHNSON, WHITE HOUSE REPORTER, "POLITICO": You know, I think that Republican leaders, Mitch McConnell and Republicans in the House are telling Trump -- they told him before the shutdown happened and I think they're going to have to tell him now that he's eventually going to have to concede defeat on this. Now, that's not what we're going to hear him say publicly, but I think you saw that first stirrings of that a little bit today when he tweeted to Pelosi, let's make a deal. And he also said that Mexico was funding the wall.

That's a shift from what we heard him say five or six days ago when he said, we need to build the wall. Now he's saying large portions of the wall have already been built. And I think you can see a shift in his tone towards what he's going to say when he does fold on this if, in fact, he does, which is, well, we've got large portions of the wall built or we're refurbishing it and/or we can find the money in different agencies, we don't need to get it all from Congress.

MATTINGLY: Yes. Look, there are -- there are serious policy issues Democrats have with this, but there's also a lot of politics, too. Take a listen to what incoming Republican Congressman Dan Crenshaw had to say this morning, which he really hits at a point that a lot of Republicans have been making.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAN CRENSHAW (R), TEXAS CONGRESSMAN-ELECT: He made a campaign promise and they want to score points against him by destroying that campaign promise, but it's at the expense of our security. I mean we saw this migrant caravan coming in last night. You know what stopped them? A wall. And that wasn't even a very good wall.

Our border patrol can't handle that many people. You need some kind of physical barrier in certain areas.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: So while Republicans, Catherine, might be unsettled by kind of where things go -- are going, to Eliana's point, they also think that something has -- they have to get something out of this, even if they're not sure what it is. What's your sense, kind of the dynamic?

CATHERINE LUCEY, WHITE HOUSE REPORTER, "ASSOCIATED PRESS": Yes, and, you're right, this is both, you know, policy based but highly politically charged on both sides and we saw before Christmas the president appeared to be sort of heading towards a sort of place holder deal to come back in the new year and then faced such intense pushback from his base, from, you know, commentators that he really has felt that he's had to dig in on this fight. And if there was, I think, a little more give on both sides, it seems like it's, you know, an achievable thing to find some kind of common ground here. Some of this is semantics. Some of this is dollars, which you should be able to move. The White House has come down some.

But for both sides now, this is such a base issue. Democrats know that trying to block Trump on a signature promise is popular with their voters. Trump known that if he is seen as backing away from a wall is so critical to his support that it's hard to see -- I mean especially today -- how they're going to pull back from this.

MATTINGLY: Yes.

Carl, I want to go to -- since I know you're our resident psychologist here, Eliana made the point about what the president tweeted to Leader Pelosi, soon to be Speaker Pelosi, and there's a lot of question, like what is the dynamic between the two of them. You've covered Leader Pelosi for a very long time. What's your sense of things going into this new Congress?

CARL HULSE, CHIEF WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT, "THE NEW YORK TIMES": Right. I was going to say it's appropriate that it's -- the meeting's in the Situation Room today because this is quite a situation.

I think that -- I think Trump has respect for Pelosi and I think he wants to deal with her -- you know, they've been sort of back and forth this week of who's a better person to make a deal with, Nancy Pelosi or Chuck Schumer? I do think they're making a mistake in overestimating this idea that Pelosi doesn't want this disturbance at the beginning of her rein. This is the kind of thing she actually wants in a way. It's like, this is our chance to start out, one, facing down the president, two, looking like they're the ones who want to govern. They're going to pass this bill.

[12:10:15] I think that Trump and the president and the speaker can come up with some kind of agreement, but this is an unusual shutdown. Democrats like the government. They're usually in a big hurry -- remember how quickly they backed down on their last shutdown that they caused. But they're looking at this going, you know, why should we give? It's a new kind of Democratic Party now. They're under pressure from their left.

MATTINGLY: Yes.

LUCEY: One thing that could play into this going forward from today is that we've had sort of a holiday lull.

MATTINGLY: Right.

LUCEY: The public hasn't been tuned in. These -- the paycheck impact hasn't happened. Museums and parks have been open. We're now -- people are back to work. People are -- people --

MATTINGLY: Yes, it's showtime.

LUCEY: It's showtime now and so people -- I think that is going to put some pressure on both sides.

JOHNSON: I will say, Trump was the only politician really in Washington during that time and he missed an opportunity, I think, to get in front of the cameras. He could have gone outside the White House and said, I'm the only politician in this town. I'm here. I'm ready to work. Nancy Pelosi's in Hawaii. Why aren't these people here trying to find a solution with me? And we didn't see that. He did his normal thing on Twitter. He wasn't out in front of the cameras. And that seems to me like a missed opportunity for the White House, which is already being faulted for not spending the past six months selling the American public on the wall.

MATTINGLY: Yes. It's -- I think he's going to try and rectify that.

HULSE: But he had handcuffed -- he had handcuffed himself so badly with the statements that you showed earlier.

MATTINGLY: Yes.

HULSE: That this was always going to be his shutdown. And it's going to continue to be his shutdown.

MATTINGLY: Yes, now no -- we'll have to wait and see. We'll have to wait and see. A lot of messaging. We could talk about this all hour.

And as we spoke about this, Democratic -- Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer just tweeted, President real Donald Trump has dragged us into a Trump shutdown week two without offering any plan that can pass the House and Senate.

Everything's fine, guys.

All right, up next, Mitt Romney criticizes President Trump right before he's sworn in as Utah's junior senator. A shout out to "The Washington Post's" Karoun Demirjian who called it right here on yesterday's show.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: What's your sense right now of how this kind of plays out?

KAROUN DEMIRJIAN, "THE WASHINGTON POST": I mean I think that Mitt Romney's in the best case to actually challenge it because he had a national platform before. He's a real low-level senator, right, but these people know his face and his name.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:16:22] (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MITT ROMNEY (R), UTAH SENATOR-ELECT (November 30, 2016): I've had a wonderful evening with President-Elect Trump. We had another discussion about affairs throughout the world. And these discussions I've had with him have been enlightening and interesting and engaging. I've enjoyed them very, very much. And he continues with a message of inclusion and bringing people

together and his vision is something which obviously connected with the American people in a very powerful way.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: Yes, so there are tapes. That was 2016 Mitt Romney. And this is now senator to be Mitt Romney just days before he is officially sworn in. The 2012 presidential candidate took aim at President Trump in a scathing "Washington Post" op-ed, writing, quote, Trump's conduct over the past two years, particularly his actions this month, is evidence that the president has not risen to the mantle of the office. With the nation so divided, resentful and angry, presidential leadership and qualities of character is indispensable and it is in this province where the incumbent's shortfall has been most glaring.

Now, as expected, the president fired back on Twitter this morning, saying, quote, here we go with Mitt Romney, but so fast. Question will be, is he a Flake? I hope not. Would much prefer that Mitt focus on border security and so many other things where he can be helpful. I won big, he didn't. He should be happy for all Republicans. Be a team player and win.

KIM: I actually --

MATTINGLY: So I want to -- I want to draw attention to something you tweeted last night, which you said, which is totally true for all of us on Capitol Hill.

KIM: Yes.

MATTINGLY: We have all been wondering what kind of posture is Senator Mitt Romney going to strike. OK, we have about a thousand word answer here. What's your kind of sense on that right now?

KIM: Well, I found it so interesting because there's this time-honored tradition for really high profile incoming senators to keep their head down once they're sworn in on Capitol Hill and be really focused on their state issues. I mean we remember Al Franken, when he first came into Congress, as well as Elizabeth Warren as well, they wanted to be Minnesota focused, Massachusetts focused. And Romney ran his campaign, you know, kind of dissociated from the national issues. He did run a Utah-focused campaign. And I kind of imagined that while he would weigh in once in a while, that that's the kind of tack he would want to take, at least for the first several months.

I was wrong. He's clearly engaging with the national press right away, making a splash, a showing that he does want to be this prominent voice in critiquing the president, even though he did say in his op-ed that he doesn't want to comment on every utterance or tweet or comment.

MATTINGLY: Good luck.

KIM: We will certainly be asking him in the Senate hallways. But he's definitely going to have a perch. I mean Republican officials

have told me that Romney is likely going to get a spot on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which would give him an obvious platform to talk about issues of Russia and North Korea and challenge the president on those issues. And I'll be interested in seeing on which areas he does kind of back away and decide not to engage. I think that's going to be the tug in -- the seesaw that we're going to be seeing for quite some time.

MATTINGLY: Yes, as you can expect, the president's allies were quickly out with their own thoughts. I want to play some sound from David Bossie, who is very close to the White House, has a lot of meetings at the White House. This is what he had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAVID BOSSIE, FORMER TRUMP DEPUTY CAMPAIGN MANAGER: This is a pathetic attempt by Mitt Romney for relevancy. This is a guy who comes to Washington and instead of trying to help this president, instead of trying to help the Republican Party, he wants to attack this president and really try to undo and be the center of attention.

Because he has his own political machine, his own media operation, and he's used to the national stage, he comes to Washington as somebody who looks like, to me, you know, the Flake/McCain/Corker, you know, all in one guy and he's going to be guy who's standing in the breach.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[12:20:06] MATTINGLY: All in one guy. That's impressive.

So, look, you expect Bossie, you expect (INAUDIBLE), campaign manager. What about a relative perhaps? Say the current RNC chair, who also happens to have Romney in her name, or used to have Romney in her name, who tweeted, POTUS is attacked and obstruct by the mainstream media and Democrat 24/7. For an incoming Republican freshman senator to attack Donald Trump on their first act feeds into what the Democrats and media want and is disappointing and unproductive. And she pinned that tweet, which I think (INAUDIBLE). But --

LUCEY: Well, it's a good thing the holidays are over because that would be an awkward family reunion.

MATTINGLY: But it is an interesting point because it does -- this becomes the story, right? This becomes what everybody's talking about and Mitt Romney's making a point. But one of the questions I heard repeatedly last night was, what's the broader strategy here? What's he trying to accomplish with this? Do you have any sense at all?

JOHNSON: Well, you know, a lot of people were asking when Senator McCain passed away, Jeff Flake retiring, Bob Corker retiring, were there going to be dissenting -- high profile dissenting voices in the Republican Senate conference, because many of the Republicans who were elected were far more pro-Trump than those who were retiring.

I think Mitt Romney made clear that he will be one of those high profile dissenting voice with this op-ed. I mean he's 71 years old. He's clearly not going -- maybe he will spend the rest of his life in the Senate, but he doesn't have time to lose. He's not 40 years old. He probably will not have another job after this. And I think he made it clear he's going to use his time in the Senate and probably making a splash.

And I would take -- I don't think David Bossie is wrong except that I would take issue with it perhaps not being pathetic but he clearly does want to focus attention around himself and use his new platform. And he's not just a freshman senator. He was formerly the putative leader of the Republican Party as its presidential nominee.

MATTINGLY: Yes, I get the feeling we have to --

LUCEY: But I think the question then -- I'm sorry, the question then just becomes, what can he do with this, because what you've seen over the last two years is it's Trump's party now and folks who have tried to push back and have tried (INAUDIBLE) have not had a ton of success in other areas.

JOHNSON: Well, I think you're seeing some of that now with concern about whether Trump will be challenged in a 2020 primary. And the next question becomes, will there be a challenger to Trump? Will Mitt Romney get behind that effort?

LUCEY: That's right.

JOHNSON: And, perhaps, will Mitt Romney challenge Trump?

MATTINGLY: Yes. No, I think we're going to probably have to do a lot of panels on this one. Maybe a column or nine from Carl Hulse over there.

All right, and you will see Mitt Romney live today on "THE LEAD." He'll sit down with our own Jake Tapper for his first interview since that op-ed. That's today at 4:00 p.m. right here on CNN.

Up next, Congress gets a makeover. The fresh faces and what's on the Dems' agenda as they take control of the U.S. House.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:27:38] MATTINGLY: The 116th Congress will be sworn in tomorrow and Democrats will take control over the House. But it isn't just the balance of power that's changing. It's the actual makeup of the new -- of how the new class looks, a lot different from the previous one.

Let's go ahead and take a look at some of the changes here. And I wanted to start top line. You look at now how the majorities are actually set up with that major win in November for House Democrats, they now have 235 seats to 199 seats. That's a lot of space for soon to be Speaker Nancy Pelosi to work with on her agenda. The Democrat -- Republicans picked up seats. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell remains Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. That's 53-47.

This is probably the most interesting as we start this new Congress, the diversity changes. You have 40 new women, 20 new veterans, 10 Hispanic or Latino members, nine new African-American members, three new LGBTQ members. You're talking about a place that has become far more diverse, far more reflective, frankly, of America to some degree.

One of the key issues you always want to go into in a new Congress are, who are the new players to keep an eye on. And you first look to leadership. And you look at Democratic leadership, there's two that I think really stand out, Hakeem Jeffries, a new Democratic caucus chair, a member that a lot of people see as a rising star, potentially a speaker in the years ahead.

Also next to him, Cheri Bustos. She actually comes from a Trump district that she won by more than 20 points. She'll be running the DCCC. How she operates with a lot of the new, more progressive members in that caucus is going to be really interesting. Liz Cheney, obviously the daughter of Vice President Cheney, and somebody who's really kind of kept a low profile her first couple years in Congress, now will be taking more of a major role, particularly on the messaging side of things in the House. Keep an eye on that.

In the Senate, you have Joni Ernst, who's cared out more of a name for herself, an Iowa Republican, new GOP conference chair. Todd Young will be responsible for defending a lot of Republican seats in 2020. And John Thune bumping up to the number two slot for John Cornyn. Keep an eye on him. We'll see him a lot in the weeks and months ahead.

Here are some members, though, that I think you should keep an eye on. People might differ with me on this one, but these are four that I'm keeping my eye on right now. Ben Ray Lujan. He's now been moved up to the assistant Democratic leader. He was the DCCC chair. The recruitment guy. Everything that basically had to do with the campaign in 2018. He considers himself the liaison to the new freshman class. He's also someone people view as a potential speaker. Keep an eye on him throughout this Congress.

Richie Neal, he not new. He's been around a long time. But he will now be running the very powerful Ways and Means Committee. Obviously a lot of people are thinking about what that that means for President Trump's taxes, but it's also what that means for tax policy, what that means for the president's new trade deal. Richie Neal is going to play a huge role on that.

[12:30:02] Lindsey Graham, obviously another individual who has been around a long time but has a new chairmanship. And at the Judiciary Committee, his immigration views diverge pretty sharply.