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President Trump Announces U.S. Troop Withdraw from Syria; Senate Passes Continuing Resolution to Fund Government into 2019; Interview with Incoming House Majority Leader, Democratic Congressman Steny Hoyer; Interview with Senator Angus King of Maine. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired December 20, 2018 - 8:00   ET

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


[08:00:00] ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Several senators sent a letter the president asking him to reconsider. One of them is his staunch ally, Republican Lindsey Graham, who called the decision, quote, a stain on the honor of the United States. The president claims that ISIS is defeated, but experts disagree, and they fear that he will create a power vacuum.

One person, though, who is happy with the decision this morning is Russian President Vladimir Putin. He just announced that he agrees with president trump.

JOHN AVLON, CNN ANCHOR: Meantime, the Senate passed a stopgap funding bill to avoid a partial government shutdown. It passed by the House and signed by the president and will keep the government funded through the holidays to February 8th. The Democrats ensured the measure does not include money for the president's border wall, so as they prepared to be in the House, have Democrats essentially preventing President Trump's signature campaign issue, the wall, from ever being built?

CAMEROTA: Joining us now to shed some light on what's going on inside that White House is White House correspondent for the "New York Times" and CNN political analyst Maggie Haberman. Maggie, great to have you here. It seems from the outside as though yesterday the president was flailing a bit in terms of not getting his border wall, and even after he had said that he was willing to shut down the government, but then Mitch McConnell going in a different direction. And then it seemed abrupt and sort of out of left field that he decided to make this announcement about Syria. In fact, his generals didn't know it. The Pentagon hadn't been briefed. So what was happening there?

MAGGIE HABERMAN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: I think you are correct to link these things. You had one instance which is the budget fight where the president was bending. He was caving, frankly, pretty clearly according to his most ardent supporters on Capitol Hill. He was abandoning, even if not permanently, at least at this moment, a campaign pledge to build a border wall that his supporters have believed he would do and I think were willing to give him a fair amount of latitude on for the first two years. But this was the best chance to get that through with a Republican held Congress. It is very unlikely to happen going forward. And then, what's the way to overshadow that? A way to overshadow

looking weak is to look, quote-unquote, strong by saying you are pulling out of Syria, which was another campaign promise. The problem is that pulling out of Syria is not really something that you can just do with the wave of a wand. It requires a plan. It requires answers on how this is going to take place. It requires a notification to Congress. It requires working with partners. And it requires at least an ability to make a coherent statement about why you are doing this and why this is in U.S. interests. These two things were related.

But what happened with Syria yesterday, and again, we still don't know what this is going to look like, but it was a major, major moment that, as you noted before, appeared to only clearly please one person, and that is Vladimir Putin.

AVLON: Yes. That's not a good look for this president or any American president. But of course, the problem with questions of war and peace by tweet, as you point out, is the Pentagon is taken unaware, Congress and the senators taken unaware, and a lot of the president's closest allies really turned on him, didn't think he was looking strong by withdrawing, in fact quite the opposite. Here's Lindsey Graham yesterday comparing him to President Obama.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM, (R) SOUTH CAROLINA: I know this. Obama had made this decision, Republicans would be all over him.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AVLON: And that is far from the only senator coming after him.

HABERMAN: Right. And it's striking considering, as you know, it's Lindsey graham who has been one of his staunchest defenders over the course of the last year. Look, this decision is reminiscent of what President Obama did in 2011 when he starting withdrawing troops from Iraq. That decision has been criticized as helping to provide a breeding ground for ISIS. You have allies and you have other members of the military saying despite what the president says that ISIS has been defeated, it has not been defeated. It still stubbornly controls -- it might be smaller, but it does stubbornly control an area along the Syria-Iraq border, and just saying that it's been defeated is not going to eradicate that. The fear is that there are not enough troops who are trained to replace U.S. forces that are on the ground, that you're going to have to rely on other people's military who are not equipped the same way.

And again, this, as we said before, there was no clear forethought that was articulated as this was announced by tweet. This is another one of these things, too, where you have seen some tension between the president and the defense secretary, Jim Mattis. We first started seeing this in 2017 when Jim Mattis had been slow-walking the president's demand that there be a ban on transgender members of the military. Things have devolved since there. And once again, you had Mattis imploring the president not to do this, saying that it would create chaos in its wake, saying that it could lead to all sorts of unknown instability in the region, and the president just went ahead and did it.

CAMEROTA: This morning, I've been joking, but not really, that I have been monitoring "FOX and Friends" because the president watches "FOX and Friends." And this morning our friend, Brian Kilmeade, is really taking the president to task over this, saying that it's a horrible idea. And it just makes me think, look, Maggie, you know the president sometimes doesn't stick with one position. Today he might switch his plan by pulling U.S. troops out of Syria.

[08:05:07] HABERMAN: Right, except that not everything, to your point -- he might, indeed. And not everything can be done as on oops, I'm just going to undo this. Even if he did that, it then creates such a sense of instability about the U.S. government with our allies, with people who are watching the U.S. to see what the U.S. will do, to see if the U.S. is going to stick to what is in its stated interests. Unlike the border wall, where he has been able to tweet and mask what he is actually doing with public rhetoric, withdrawing troops from Syria is not really something that you can claim that you are doing one thing and not do something else. Reality is catching up with this president who has done a great deal over two years to try to create his own version of reality. Objective reality is beginning to outweigh that.

AVLON: Back to our indeed stubborn things, is what you're saying, same theme, the president's stick-to-itiveness, but on the shutdown. So John Cornyn yesterday after the Senate passed the CR sounded very confident that the president would sign this. But he's been taking heat from members of the Freedom Caucus, taking heat among a lot of his allies in the conservative media environment. Do you think this is a done deal or could the president decide he's going to veto and let the chips fall where they may?

HABERMAN: I think that we will see all kinds of signals that he might not sign this up until the moment he signs this. And I think the reason he's going to sign it is at the end of the day, two things. Number one, shutdown, the president stated, and he really boxed himself in in that meeting with Chuck and Nancy, quote-unquote, a couple weeks ago in the Oval Office that he would proudly own a shutdown. But the reality is that nobody wants to own a shutdown. A shutdown is not good politics, despite everybody claiming there might be some net benefit after a period of time. A shutdown around Christmas is just not good. A shutdown ever is not good, but a shutdown on Christmas is going to look particularly bad.

Don't forget, the president himself wants to go away for Christmas. He wants to leave for Mar-a-Lago, his Palm Beach property, later this week. If there is a shutdown, he can't do that. And so I think that he is as eager to get out of Dodge as a lot of lawmakers are. But I think that, look, the criticism that he is receiving from his supporters, Ann Coulter, Mark Meadows, you name it, right, is not small and it's the first time we have seen it at this volume. So that might impact what he does over the last 24 hours. I don't think it impacts what he does ultimately. CAMEROTA: And of course, there is also a question about what this

would mean for the fate of his campaign promise on the border wall. Once Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats take control of the House, if that means that he would ever get his border wall. And so this morning something interesting is happening, Maggie. There is a rebranding a foot.

HABERMAN: I saw that.

CAMEROTA: There's a tweet. So what does the tweet say about the wall? It says that Democrats that -- here we go -- "The Democrats who know steel slats" --

AVLON: Paren, "(Wall)," it's now primarily steel slats, secondarily wall.

CAMEROTA: "-- are necessary for the border security are putting politics over country. What they are just beginning to realize is that I will not sign any of their legislation, including infrastructure, unless it has perfect border security. U.S.A. wins!"

AVLON: "U.S.A. wins!"

CAMEROTA: So now his new gambit is he won't sign any of their legislation. And I have never heard of border slats. So what's this about?

HABERMAN: The goalposts have moved, right. He realizes there is not going to be a concrete wall, so he has to start rebranding it for his followers to look like as if he was the one who created this and this was not foisted upon him. And again, that will work with some of his supporters. It will work with some of his base.

The problem is that you can't constantly try to waive away your previous statements and assume nobody is watching. There is a weight to these. There is a certain collection over time. Again, his supporters, Mark Meadows, Ann Coulter, didn't do him any favors, because they didn't do him any favors because they know where his voters are. And they are reminding people that this really was the last chance. If he was serious about getting this wall, you don't sign this continuing resolution to keep the government funded through February 8th. They are reminding people that the president is going to blame Democrats when he takes over next year, this was in his control to some extent. He just made a choice that was easier, which is, by the way, what every president does. It's just that not every president speaks in the absolutes that this one does.

AVLON: That's right. And in fact, during the last budget season he swore he'd never do it again in very, very stark terms.

HABERMAN: Yes.

AVLON: So he's in a very tough place. Now in that tweet he's trying to pass the buck and say he'll deny infrastructure. But it's not clear he's going to have the leverage. HABERMAN: Right. What is clear right now is that Nancy Pelosi holds a lot of cards. And I think that you saw that reaction on Capitol Hill yesterday, that she is clearly winning this process right now. I think the takeaway that a lot of people have, myself included, after his meeting in the Oval Office with them a couple of weeks ago, with Senator Schumer and the speaker, the soon to be speaker Nancy Pelosi, was that each of them had gotten what they wanted, right.

[08:10:07] The president got to have this dramatic fireworks display, which I think was momentarily pleasing to him certainly and to some of his supporters. But Nancy Pelosi also got what she wanted, which was to lay down a marker that she is not going to be shoved around. And after this head to head over funding the government, she is the one that is going to look like she came out on top. That's a win for her as she is going into her new speakership.

CAMEROTA: And so didn't Senator Mitch McConnell also box the president in? He didn't have to get this passed in the Senate. He didn't have to bring this up.

HABERMAN: Well, he knows what the politics are for his caucus. Mitch McConnell is an institutionalist who cares about the Senate, and he cares about his members not having a problem. He did not consider, I suspect, a shutdown to be good politics for his caucus, and so he wanted this to go ahead and thinks that it is the president's problem. The Senate has made pretty clear, he didn't have to bring this up, but he kind of did, because they made very clear to the president, we are waiting on you to tell us what you want. And that has happened time and time again where the Republican-led Congress has said to the president, who is the leader of the Republican Party, tell us what your priorities are, and he doesn't. He tries to pick a menu of options where he chooses about three of them, sometimes in conflict with one another, and I think that McConnell was not going to take that chance again.

AVLON: And the result is chaos. One other thing that came up over the evening is a memo written by attorney general nominee Barr that really does layout a pretty breathtaking view of executive power, doing a brushback pitch to the Mueller probe, specifically as it relates to obstruction. Maggie, what are you hearing? It seems highly likely that this influenced the president's decision to pick him, not that he was an establishment consensus figure.

HABERMAN: It's not clear that the president knew this memo had been sent, but certainly I think this is a view that Barr had articulated to the president. The thing the president said to people in the White House over and over as he was searching for his new attorney general to replace Jeff Sessions was he was obsessed with the question of, will somebody have to recuse themselves from the Russia probe? He talked to aides about this constantly. Barr clearly would not have to because he wasn't part of the campaign and so that wouldn't even come up as a related question. But Barr had also made clear that he considered the key piece of this investigation that the president considers most odious, which is the question of obstruction of justice, that he considers that to be a misuse of power. And that, I suspect, was quite pleasing to the president. CAMEROTA: Maggie Haberman, great to get all of your reporting shared

with us. Thank you so much.

Up next, they take over the House in less than two weeks. So what is the top priority for Democrats? Incoming Majority Leader Steny Hoyer joins us next.

AVLON: And later, they ran towards the flames, pulled a man out of a burning car. And now the deputies who saved a life are telling us the story behind this incredible video.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:16:23] ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: So, overnight the Senate passed the stopgap spending bill in an effort to prevent that partial government shutdown at the end of the week. The bill is at the moment expected to pass the House today and then it must be signed by President Trump before it can take effect.

Let's get a status report on this and so much. Joining us now is incoming House Majority leader, Democratic Congressman Steny Hoyer.

Good morning, Congressman.

REP. STENY HOYER (D-MD), INCOMING HOUSE MAJORITY LEADER: Good morning, Alisyn. Good to be with you.

CAMEROTA: Good to have you.

So, has a government shutdown been averted or will some of your conservative colleagues in the House scuttle this?

HOYER: No, I'm hopeful that we will pass the bill that's coming over from the Senate. It is unfortunate, however, that we are kicking the can down the road, as opposed to resolving this issue, which I think was certainly within our reach.

There are seven appropriations bills which are pending and have not been passed or signed by the president. Six of those have bipartisan agreement and very frankly the seventh, homeland security, has overwhelming agreement save for the wall. What we offered and what we would have thought a better policy was to pass the six on which we have agreement and fund those agencies through the fiscal year and then do a C.R., which is a continuing resolution, which gives authority to spend money to homeland security for the balance of the year.

Therefore, we would be stable and people would know what resources they had for the coming year. Now we have until February 8th, a short time, and we're going to have possibly another crisis where we fight about the wall. And that simply doesn't make sense. It is not economically responsible.

CAMEROTA: Right.

HOYER: We ought to get on to our agenda, which deals with health care, which deals with education, which deals with wages and jobs and reforms. That's what we ought to be doing.

CAMEROTA: Well, look, listen, I think that Americans have gotten used to Congress kicking the can down the road in terms of funding. I understand what you're saying you should do.

But here's what -- here's what I want to get your take on. You know, some of the president's most ardent supporters, some of his conservative base are saying that he's caving. That if he signs this, he is caving because he drew that line in the sand that he wasn't going to bend unless he got all of his money for the border wall.

So, do you think there is a chance he doesn't sign it?

HOYER: Alisyn, my belief is we're going to have a majority of the Republicans vote for this bill today. They're going to vote for this bill because they think it's the responsible thing to do. It may not be perfect, but as I have said, the overwhelming majority of the spending in this -- in the bill has been agreed to by Republicans and by Democrats, so that just punting -- yes, they become used to kicking the can down the road, and the public ought to get better than that from their Congress, in my opinion. We all have -- if we agree on 95 percent of a bill, we ought to pass it.

CAMEROTA: Yes, as you sit there today, you believe the president will sign this?

HOYER: I hope he will sign it, and my expectation is he will sign it, yes.

CAMEROTA: OK. Why do you think the president announced yesterday -- tell me about the timing and what you think of his announcement that the U.S. -- he's going to pull U.S. troops out of Syria?

HOYER: I thought it was impulsive, irresponsible and dangerous. And I would hope that the president would reconsider. The only people happy today about this decision, in my opinion, are the Syrians, the Iranians, the Russians and ISIS and its allies.

It was a terrible decision that puts our country in a bad spot, but more importantly puts some of our allies like the Kurds in a very terrible spot, who have been helpful to us. And it encourages ISIS. It doesn't defeat ISIS.

[08:20:00] The fact that the president says we have won is -- as Senator Graham said earlier today -- is fake news.

We haven't won. And all of his advisers, all the president's advisers have indicated that we ought to be staying there to keep things as stable as possible and not to create a vacuum which Russia and ISIS and the Iranians are going to fill. It is a very dangerous and ill- advised decision in my view. And I think the majority of Congress will share that view.

CAMEROTA: It's been reported that the president had a phone conversation with the Turkish President Erdogan before he made that announcement. Do you think that that's connected? Do you think that he took some sort of cue from Erdogan?

HOYER: I hope it's not. I hope it's not because Erdogan is going to do I think some -- or has proposed or planned some very dangerous activity, vis-a-vis our Kurdish allies and friends. And I think if the president has made a deal with Erdogan in any way, it is not good for the United States, it's not for the Middle East and certainly not good for our position vis-a-vis ISIS, and Syria, Russia and Iran.

CAMEROTA: Here's what the president says. He campaigned on this. Voters voted for him because they don't want U.S. troops to be the policemen of the world. I think I'm paraphrasing his position.

And so, doesn't he have a point that Americans are ready for troops to come home from Syria?

HOYER: I also knew -- remember, he criticized President Obama for withdrawing troops precipitously and creating a vacuum which then ISIS could fill, so that I think this is contradictory, not consistent with. Yes, the Americans would like their troops home, but to create the vacuum that we have created in my view is going to create a more dangerous situation.

And as you recall, we had to put more troops into Iraq to stabilize the situation, and ISIS grew, and that cost us a great deal of money and treasure and lives. So that I think that the president ought to reconsider this decision.

I think General Mattis, Secretary of Defense Mattis believes he should. I think his national security adviser said we were going to stay there for some period of time.

It appears that this was the president's decision. It was impulsive as so many of his decisions are, announced on a Twitter feed. This is simply not how we ought to conduct our foreign policy, and in this instance, I would hope sincerely that the president would reconsider this decision and understand that our presence is absolutely essential if he wants to, as he has said, confront Iran, stabilize Syria, defeat ISIS and not leave a vacuum.

I'm sure about this because, of course, his friend, Mr. Putin, is very happy about this decision because, of course, it leaves the field open to the Russians in Syria.

CAMEROTA: Congressman Steny Hoyer, we really appreciate you coming on NEW DAY and sharing your perspective with us.

HOYER: Thank you very much.

CAMEROTA: Thank you.

John?

JOHN AVLON, CNN ANCHOR: It's a bipartisan group of senators calling on President Trump to reconsider pulling troops out of Syria. One of those senators tells us his concerns, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:27:16] AVLON: A bipartisan group of senators are asking the president to reconsider pulling U.S. troops out of Syria. Senators say the decision emboldens remaining ISIS militants. It amounts to U.S. ceding influence in the region to Iran, Russia, and the Bashar al-Assad regime.

Now, joining us now is one of those letter's authors, independent Maine Senator Angus King. He serves on the Senate Intelligence and Armed Services Committee.

Senator, thank you for joining us on NEW DAY.

SEN. ANGUS KING (I), MAINE: John, always a pleasure.

AVLON: Well, what I want to ask you is, you know, the response to this has been deafening. You joined with your other senators. And our own Jake Tapper was told by a senior administration official that this was a mistake of colossal proportions.

So, when you heard this information, what was the reaction behind the scenes in the Senate?

KING: Well, the reaction I think you can -- usually, it takes a week to put together a letter like that, and it took about an hour. You have people like myself and Jeanne Shaheen, Tom Cotton, Joni Ernst, Lindsey Graham, Marco Rubio -- I mean, it was a bipartisan. It was instantaneous.

And, you know, near as I can tell, it may be 98 to one or two. I heard Rand Paul thinks this is a good idea, but I haven't found anybody who thinks this is a good idea.

There are really two problems, John. The first is the process. As near as we can tell, there was no consultation with allies, no consultation with people in Washington and particularly within the administration who deal in foreign policy and foreign affairs, who worked on the Middle East for years. It just came out of the blue on a tweet yesterday morning, and what really scares me is this might happen again and in some very dangerous situation.

You want your decisions made in a systemic way with all points of views considered. Apparently that didn't happen. So, process is very worrisome here.

But the other is the substance. I mean, the worst thing about this, from my mind is that we're basically abandoning the Kurds. And the Kurds have been fighting for us. They have been working with us, they've been our key ally against ISIS in northern Iraq and Syria.

And we're just walking away and leaving them to the tender mercy of the Turks, which -- this could be a really, really bad. And, of course, it also hands a victory to ISIS now. This is a recruiting tool. We defeated America. We sent them home.

And they're going to be recruiting around the world based on this. Iran likes the decision. Russia likes the decision.

Our allies don't like the decision. Israel doesn't like the decision. And it's just -- it is stunning. It is hard to believe that a decision of this consequence would be made, as I said at the beginning with as near as we can tell without any serious consultation or discussion.

AVLON: So given that litany of benefits, Russia, Iran, Assad, why do you --

KING: Don't forget ISIS. ISIS benefits, too.

AVLON: And ISIS.

KING: Yes.

AVLON: Why do you think the president made this decision and do you think he can be convinced to change his mind?