Transcripts For CNNW Situation Room With Wolf Blitzer 20190124

Commerce secretary wilbur ross downplays the hardships for unpaid federal workers saying they should just go out and take out a loan, while President Trumps daughterinlaw dismisses their difficulties as good for the country. And tunnel to freedom. New testimony in the highprofile trial of drug lord el chapo. Was his prison escape through a milelong tunnel aided by his beauty queen wife . Im wolf blitzer. Youre in the situation room. Breaking news, two competing proposals to reopen the government are voted down in the senate with republicans and democrats deadlocked over how to end the longest shutdown in u. S. History. That comes after President Trump backed down to the state of the Union Showdown with the speaker, nancy pelosi, but senators are now looking for a bipartisan way forward as the white house says the president would consider a deal with a, quote, large down payment on a wall. Also tonight, President Trumps former lawyer, Michael Cohen, has been subpoenaed by the Senate Intelligence committee a day after he postponed testimony before a house panel, citing threats to his family from President Trump and his current lawyer, rudy giuliani. House Committee Chairmen say they may also order cohen to appear. Ill speak to ted liu of the joushry committee. And our correspondents are standing by with full coverage. Lets begin with efforts to end the Government Shutdown. Two competing bills were both voted down in the senate but there are now some urgent bip t bipartisan efforts to try to forge a compromise. Will the white house go along . Lets go to White House Correspondent kaitlan collins, shes standing by. First, Phil Mattingly is up on capitol hill. Whats the very latest, phil . Reporter the failure of those two proposals have sparked a flurry on capitol hill. Taking to the senate floor, saying their proposal is a threemonth continuing resolution sorry, three weeks as negotiations over Border Security could commence. Senate Majority Leader Mitch Mcconnell calling Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer to his office to have a discussion about next steps forward but all these talks making clear one thing at the moment. The white house remains the wild ca card. Wolf, take a look at those two bills that failed on the senate floor, the president s proposal got fewer votes than the Senate Democratic proposal, leading one democratic aide to tell me that the president has leverage at all after that vote on the floor, quote, is not in touch with reality. In those votes, Senate Democratic proposal brought six republicans to the democratic side. One of those republicans, senator mitt romney. Why did he vote with the democrats . Take a listen. When the vote for the president s proposal failed, we went to see the second alternative. I voted for that as well. Again, because i want to see government get open and government workers get paid. That proposal also failed. Now its going to be up to Republican Leadership, democrat leadership to come together and begin to negotiate. Reporter wolf, those negotiations are, in fact, happening. What everybody on capitol hill is waiting for is where the white house is going to come down. Senator Lindsey Graham spoke with President Trump a short while ago, put out a statement saying he believes that the president could support a threeweek continuing resolution so long as there is a down payment for the wall. Thats remained a baseline nono for democrats over the 34 days. Where that ends up, the dynamic remains the same. For democrats, reopen the government. Then they can talk about Border Security. The president has made clear he will not reoip the government without a large Border Security package. That has been the holdup, up to this point. That question still hasnt been answered and how this turns out over the next couple of hours, over the course of the proposals being traded on capitol hill will decide whether or not the shutdown continues for 35, 36, 37th day or whether there might be week of action. He says a threeweek temporary proposal to keep the government open for three weeks, in lynndindh Lindsey Grahams s as long as theres down payment for a wall. Thats a little different than what Sarah Sanders at the white house said. Theres got to be a large down payment on the wall. So there seems to be some inconsistencies between what Lindsey Graham, strong supporter of the president , is saying as opposed to the white house. One of the Big Questions on capitol hill im sure kaitlan has more insight in it than i do. What do they mean by a large down payment for the wall . Thats where republicans are as these conversations continue to commence. Not necessarily what the number is going to be but whether the white house will back down entirely. I cant stress enough, when you talk to democrats in the wake of those failed votes they continually point to the fact that the president s plan got fewer votes than the democratic plan. The president s prerogatives dont carry water in the senate. According thaides at this pointn time feel like they have no incentive to give right now. Talks are ongoing. The idea that democrats will give on a bearrier, whether a large down payment or as senator graham discussed seems unlikely right now. As i said, talks are happening. Whether they result in anything remains open right now and that largely sits in the president s lap. He called in the White House Press pool, making some statements. So far, were told, he hasnt yet spoken about the negotiations to try to end this shutdown. But well have that fairly soon. I want to bring in our White House Correspondent kaitlan collins. Reporters now are listening to what the president had to say. First of all, what are you hearing . Wolf, thats going to be the first question those reporters have for the president , is what his thinking is in on all of this as phil noted the president and the white house have been the wild card in all of these negotiations. Now the statement coming from Sarah Sanders after both of those proposals failed this afternoon in the senate, saying that they would support a shortterm spending bill for three weeks if there was a, quote first she said if there was a down payment on the wall. Then she said, wolf, if there was a large down payment on the wall. Many people in capitol hill are going to be wondering what that large down payment is. So far the white house and the president have not put a specific dollar amount on t but, wolf, you can draw logical conclusions that the white house has been asking for 5. 7 billion for the next year for the president s border wall. It would essentially be three weeks worth of 5. 7 billion. Thats what theyre going to be looking for, judging by what Sarah Sanders has said so far in these statements. Now as phil noted, the question is whether or not democrats would support that. Yes, it would open up the government for three weeks but they would also have to get the president s funding for his border wall, something theyve been opposed to so far. The Million Dollar question after that would be what happens when those three weeks are up . Are we back where we started december 22nd that led us into this 34day shutdown and where do we go from there . Of course, the question ultimately will be if the president sticks by what he says. He will support because weve seen him change his mind over the last several weeks with his own white house officials, offering certain numbers. Hold on a moment, kaitlan. Nancy pelosi, the speaker, is on the house floor right now. Lets listen. Or their bills acted upon by Bipartisan Group in the house, our most recent contribution to send over to the senate and they have said no. And today, in the simplest the simplest of resolutions, we said please vote yes for 12 billion for disaster assistance. We all know that we have to do that and two weeks. Open up the government for two weeks in order to have a discussion of how best to protect our borders. And they said no. 12 billion for disaster assistance, two weeks of opening up government to allow the debate to continue while people who are can come to work and those who are working already, all of them can be paid. Americans like brenda for maine, whose family can no longer pay for fuel while temperatures remain below freezing. Or julie from rural oichltiowa, says families already hit hard by tariffs will feel the squeeze even harder now. Americans like sarah from colorado, whose new job at the va is on hold for wait times for veterans who need Health Care Service and veterans compose nearly a third of our federal workforce, 31 . Our veterans who have security clearances, who are at risk which are at risk when you can lose your security clearance if you lose your Credit Rating. And you can lose your Credit Rating if you cannot pay your bills on time, your mortgage, your rent, your car payment, your credit card bills and the rest. Credit rating goes down, the vulnerability of your security clearance goes down is increased. So, it is harmful to our veterans to be doing this. Its important for everyone to know how they are affected. Veterans have donned the uniform of our country to protect us and carry on their commitment to public service, in the Public Sector as federal employees in some ways still continuing to protect us. In other ways, meeting our needs in another way. All of them affected by the shutdown. Or like lily from georgia, who says food stamp recipients will go hungry. State and local services will be overwhelmed, trying to make up for the losses. As one woman, vivian, from maine asks, how is a wall more important than families . The senseless shutdown shows the american peoples safety and security is in peril. Fbi agents released a report warning of dire effects of the shutdown in nearly every aspect of their work. They write the fbi writes we dont need funds we dont have funds to get guns and drugs off the street and prosecute the violent gang and drug traffickers. We arent able to take Child Sexual Exploitation traffic cases to juries in order to get our most violent offenders arrested. The president , were told, has been speaking. We are about to get the tape. Kaitlan collins, youre over there at the white house. I assume he is going to describe his latest offer. He is demanding a large down payment for temporary relief of the shutdown. Yeah, wolf. The president is speaking to reporters, not anything related to the Government Shutdown but a trade event here at the white house. He was asked about what their latest proposal is and he is going to be asked how much money it is that they want since Sarah Sanders say they consider a threeweek shortterm spending bill but want a big down payment for the wall. Lets go to the white house right now. Thank you all very much. I appreciate it. Thank you. Well, one of the ideas suggested is that they open it, they pay a prorated down payment for the wall, which i think people would agree that you need. You need the wall. In fact, i see a lot of the democrats almost all of them are breaking saying walls are good. Walls are good. Big difference from what you had two or three weeks ago. And the vote we had the vote on our bill, which we won 5047. That was our bill. But we got one democrat. It was 5047. We need as you know, we have to get 60. We need democrat support. We didnt get democrat support other than actually from a wonderful man, senator manchin. Hes doing the right thing for west virginia, frankly. The other bill was 5244. And that included a lot of Hurricane Relief for a lot of different states. A lot of them voted for the Hurricane Relief. But you need 60 so that didnt go anywhere. We knew they both were not going to go anywhere, we thought. And now mitch is negotiating with Chuck Schumer and well see what happens. They just had a meeting. Theyre going tout see their people but they just left. We had two bills. The republicans held, except for two, the republicans held. Two were not there. They werent able to be there. So, there were two nonvotes. Even with two nonvotes it would have been good votes for us. We need 60 votes because of the 60vote rule. And so i want to thank the republicans for holding. You need 60 votes so its a long way short. A lot of those votes were based on the fact that there was Hurricane Relief for certain states. Temporary spending without money for the wall . Just reopen . I wouldnt be happy with it. I wouldnt be happy. We have a lot of alternatives. Everybody look, for the most part, people agree when i say everybody, i would say almost everybody agrees, we have to have Border Security. We have to have a wall in order to have Border Security. You cannot have Border Security without a wall. We can play games and talk about technology. We can talk about drones flying around. You know, right now formed is an 8,000person caravan. The caravan is heading our way. Congratulations. We have another one. We stopped the first one. We stopped the second one. I wouldnt say that tijuana is too happy. Theyre happily living in tijuana right now and a lot of them have gone back. We stopped them. But its very tough f we didnt have a wall in those areas, it would have been very hard to stop them. We have the military and the Border Control thats done an incredible job and i. C. E. Has done an incredible job all over the country, frankly. Weve removed thousands of ms13 and others out of our country. If we had a wall we wouldnt have that problem. It would be great. We have a lot of alternatives. Im just honored that almost all of the republicans voted for our bill. Our bill is the one that we were really focused on. The end relt result was 5047. The democrats lost one that came over to our side. So, they pretty much held and we held. And again we were missing two republicans. They did not vote. They werent here. [ inaudible question ] after this meeting ill find out. Mitch mcconnell right now is meeting with Chuck Schumer and well see what happens. Theyre meeting to see if they can work out something, maybe on a temporary basis is where well start. We have a lot of alternatives. A lot of people want this to happen. Ill tell you who wants this to happen. The military wants this to happen. This is a virtual invasion of our country. Of drugs, of human traffickers, so many different things, of criminals. And by the way Border Patrol want this is to happen. They say all the droens up in the air, having a lot of fun flying drones dont mean a thing when they see thousands of people rushing our border. The only thing that works is a strong barrier or wall. [ inaudible question ] i have not. I havent spoken to nancy pelosi, but im here. I havent left, except for a beautiful evening in iraq. Ive been here for a long time. Mr. President , wilbur ross said he doesnt understand why federal workers need help getting food. Do you understand . I havent heard the statement. I do understand perhaps he should have said it differently. Local people know who they are, where they go for groceries and everything else. I think what wilbur was probably trying to say is that they will work along. I know banks are working along. If you have mortgages, mortgagees, the folks collecting the interest and all of those things, they work along. Thats what happens in time like this. They know the people. Theyve been dealing with them for years and they work along. The Grocery Store i think thats probably what wilbur ross meant. I havent seen his statement but he has done a great job, i will tell you that. Yes . I want to know, arent you worried about venezuela . That was the richest state in all of that area, a big beautiful area and by far the richest. Now its one of the poorest places in the world. Thats what socialism gets you. When they want to raise your taxes to 70 . Its interesting. Ive been watching our opponents, our future opponents talking about 70 . Number one, they cant do it for 70 . It has to be probably twice that number. But maybe more importantly, what happens is you really have to study, take a look at whats happened to venezuela. It is a very, very sad situation. So we have our eye very closely on venezuela. Very closely. Mitch mcconnell and Chuck Schumer come to some sort of agreement, will you support those results . Depends on what the agreement is, yeah. If they come to a reasonable agreement i would support it. Wall money . Look, look. I have other alternatives if i have to. Ill use those alternatives if i have to. We want to go through the system. We have to have a wall in this country. We have criminals pouring into our country. And im not talking about the southern border. They dont stay there. They permeate all throughout the country, including places like wisconsin. A lot of different places. And thats the problem. I say that we would cut our traffic you know, were doing very well compared to past years and past administrations. I think our crime rate would go way down and our drug rates whats happening, the drugs are pouring in. Yes, they come through the ports of entry, but the big trucks come through areas where you dont have a wall and you have wide open spaces. We have to have the wall. You would stop drugs. You could stop Human Trafficking. I mean, Human Trafficking where they tie up women and put duct tape on their mouths and put them in the backseat of a car or in a van, they dont come through a port of entry, because the people at the port of entry are going to see that. Thats not like hiding drugs in the engine or hub caps and incredible, ingenious ideas. Its so genius, if they were ever legit, they would become very rich people. But what they do, they go through the ports of entry with small stuff. But the big stuff comes through areas where you have nobody watching. You have hundreds of miles of open space. You go out there and they load it up with drugs or have women in the backseat of the cars with duct tape all over the place. Its a disgrace. You dont catch them. You dont even know the difference between mexico and the United States. They make a left turn after they go out 20 miles, 40 miles, five miles in some cases and less. They milwaukee a leake a left t theyre in the United States. We need the wall. We can all play games and talk about technology. I know more about technology than anybody. You dont have a wall, the technology doesnt work. First of all, the wall is based on any Technology Works only with the wall. Its not going to work otherwise. You need the wall. In fact, a lot of technology is put on top of the wall. Thats how you see it, the cameras and everything else. They literally put the technology they fasten it to the wall. Then you have drone technology. And thats great in terms of what are you going to do . Are you going to follow the people . First of all once they step into the country, you know what happens, right . You know what they do. Its called what do they call it . You know . They put one foot in our country and we got them. Thats it. So the drones dont help us. We have to keep them out. We have no choice but to have a wall or a barrier. If we dont have that, its just not going to work. Its very important to me. One more question. Workers missing another paycheck this week, whats your message . I love them, respect them, appreciate the great job theyre doing. They many of those people that are not getting paid are totally in favor of what were doing because they know the future of this country is dependent on having a strong border, especially a strong southern border. We have tremendous drugs and Human Trafficking and ms13 gang members through that border. One of the people i blame is myself because the economy is so strong right now stronger than ever before. Today right now we have more people working in the United States than has ever worked before. Thats a great compliment. So i blame myself. Okay . But the fact is, people come up because our country is doing so well and they want to break through our borders. The fact is, we want them to come up. We took in more people last year legally than we have in a long time because we need them, because we have a lot of companies coming in to our country. So we need people coming in. I want people to come n but they have to come in legally and they have to come in through merit. They have to be able to help companies and if they dont help companies, if they dont help our country, we cant do that, folks. We just cant do that. Why did you decide to agree with nancy pelosi its her choice. I could have done it in a different place but that would have been very disrespectful. I could have gone to a big auditorium and gotten 20,000 people in one day. I thought that would be very disrespectful to the state of the union. What she said, i thought, was actually reasonable. Well have the state of the union when the shutdown is over. When do you think thats going to be . That, i cant tell you. That, i cant tell you. But we have a lot of alternatives, but we need Border Security. Thank you very much, everybody. Thank you. Thank you very much. There he is, the president now saying he would support some sort of temporary compromise if it included, during the next two or three weeks, what he now calls a prorated down payment for a border wall with mexico. Kaitlan, the president also says we have a lot of alternatives if they cant work out some sort of compromise. First of all, what does he mean by a prorated down payment . Wolf, the president didnt give a specific amount of what he would want in a prorated down payment as hes calling it, if they did sign a bill to reopen the government for the next three weeks. But we know that the president and the white house have been asking lawmakers for 5. 7 billion for the president s border wall. If you spread that out over a year and three weeks, it would be roughly 330 million, wolf. Thats what were assuming thats our own math here at cnn, not a number the white house has given us. That would be roughly three weeks of what theyve asked for so far would be. Whether or not democrats would support that is still an open question. You heard the president pointing several times there to that meeting between senator Chuck Schumer and senate Majority Leader Mitch Mcconnell. Theyve been meeting. They just broke up and ended that meeting. Were going to talk to them after that. When he was asked by a reporter in the room would he assign whatever kind of agreement that mcconnell and schumer came to, he said yes if it was a reasonable agreement. Now, wolf, what the president thinks is a reasonable agreement sometimes has been very different than whatnot only democrats but also republicans up on capitol hill have agreed to. That raises questions there, what exactly it is that theyre looking for. This is new, that the white house is offering a down payment on the wall in exchange to open the government for three weeks. Wolf, that raises the question of what happens when those three weeks are up . If democrats do give the president a couple hundred billion dollars for his border wall, will they then commit giving the rest of what they requested when they have to fund the government for the rest of the year . Of course, wolf, the big question of the year is asking for 5. 7 billion for the rest of the year. Thats not all the money they want for the border wall. Thats what they want in this years budget for right now. If this is essentially what theyre asking for, a down payment, this would be a down payment on the down payment for the border wall. You have to assume next year in the next spending bill theyre going to want more money for the border wall. Lot of things to consider here, wolf. Doesnt sound like weve got anything concrete coming from the white house. It does sound like at least theyre offering to sign some sort of threeweek cr. Whether or not democrats on capitol hill will agree to that is a whole separate question. I do want to point out the president was asked about his commerce secretarys remarks getting a lot of backlash from critics because they said they were tone deaf to the 800,000 federal workers who were not getting paid. The president has not seen wilbur ross remarks but does think that perhaps he could have phrased what he said differently. For those viewers who didnt see what he said, wilbur ross said he didnt understand why federal workers were going to food banks instead of just taking out loans and then did admit that they may have to pay interest on get the. Wolf . The president repeatedly said, kaitlan, we have a lot of alternatives and i will do those alternatives if there is no compromise deal. I assume hes talking about declaring a National Emergency and coming up with building a wall on his own or some sort of executive order to do so. Is that your understanding . Reporter that was my understanding, wolf. That is an idea weve seen floating around in the west wing and other agencies during this shutdown because for a while, the president wouldnt rule out the idea of declaring a National Emergency to build his border wall if congress wouldnt fund it. Publicly he said that was not his first option but did not rule it out and take it off the table. Now cnn has this exclusive new reporting that there has been a draft, that has been drafted inside the white house that would essentially find a way for the president to be able to build his border wall without going through congress to fund it. That seemed to be what the president was alluding to there, saying if they cant come to some agreement where hes going to get his border wall money, where does he go from there . This is all raising questions after you saw those two proposals fail on capitol hill because the white house knew they were both going to fail but they were watching to see which one was more popular. Now the president said there that they won the republican plan he put forward won. Of course, wolf, it failed and did not have those ten votes it needed to get 60 votes to pass and it ended up being that the democratic proposal was more popular and got more yes votes than the president s proposal, which would show you that law marks are getting frustrated and want to find a realistic way to open the government soon. Youre working your sources over there. Well get back to you. Phil mattingly is up on capitol hill. You heard the president say if mulch mcconnell and Chuck Schumer could come up with a reasonable agreement, he would support t definition of a reasonable agreement, though, remains outstanding. Doing a lot of work there. One of the key issue bes weve seen the last four or five weeks is that both parties, regardless, democrat or republican, having a difficult time trying to pin down exactly what the president is for or whether or not the president is willing to move off his 5. 7 billion top line funding for the wall. Over the course of those comments i was texting back and forth with democratic sources in the house and the senate, about a prorated wall down payment over the course of the threeweek cr, continued resolution and unanimously democrats are expouresponding t no. Democrats both in the house and senate have been for the entirety of this shutdown. The idea that the president would get anything, let alone border wall funding for a shutdown the democrats very clearly state he was the one who led to the shutdown. Its something thats been a nonstarter for them from the beginning. One of the key aspects you have to remember is its not just what happens with this shutdown or what happens over the course of the next couple of weeks but the entirety of the next two years with House Democrats in power. They dont want to set a standard where the president on funding deadlines or debt limit deadlines can hold something hostage, in their words, and get policy wins out of democrats that theyre opposed to. Thats why theyve held the line to the point that they have, as much as a pain overall for the 800 workers missing a second paycheck tomorrow and 75 of the government thats should shutte. Theyre all for the idea of reopening the government for three weeks and having Border Security negotiations. The idea that they would give any money for a wall in the near term and, to be fair, the idea that they would give money for a wall in the long term is not something anybody is willing to agree with at this moment. There are absolutely talks going on, both at the highest levels, Mitch Mcconnell and Chuck Schumer meeting, and lower level on rank and files, trading ideas back and forth, continuing discussions, though they havent been fruitful up to this point. On the top line, the reality is that the democrats, not only do they hold that position of not giving in on any policy concessions at this point, they also believe they hold the stronger hand here. Theyre seeing the poll numbers and kaitlan was talking about the president s view. Both proposals failed. Im hearing it repeatedly from democrats, ours got more votes. The one the president pitched as a compromise that he thought could pull democrats over only pulled one democrat and fell ten votes short. Clean reopening of the government until february 8th pulled six republican over, who made clear theyre frustrated with whats going on, who have been in negotiations on a bipartisan basds, trying to find a way out. Democrats would concede on a policy matter, seems slim. That being said if you compare right now to where weve been the past 32, 33, 34 days it feels different because people are talking. Will it result in anything . Will all of these conversations produce some kind of end game, whatever that may look like . Kaitlan made a Crucial Point early on. The president is the key to everything. The president will dictate whether or not republicans move off position and move toward democrats or the president will dictate if nothing gets solved that the point in time. To your initial question, how one defines reasonable here in the president s words, that is the key to whether or not this ends in the near term. Lets see if these leaders, democrat and Republican Leaders in the senate could come up with a reasonable, reasonable compromise. Well get back to you, phil. Thanks very much. Lets discuss all of this with democratic congressman ted liu, judicial committee. Thanks for joining us. Both government funding bills up for consideration in the senate failed this afternoon. Now the president says he would support a temporary reopening of the federal government if there was a prorated down payment for a wall. Whats your reaction . Thank you for your question, wolf. First of all im pleased that the democratic proposal with no Strings Attached got more votes than Donald Trumps own proposal. Very pleased that six republican senators broke ranks with the president , including mitt romney. Im glad hes showing hes not a flake and that mitt romney is putting country above party. Im hopeful this will lead to talks to reopen government. Democratic position has always been consistent and reasonable. Reopen government, mr. President. Negotiate a deal. Would you, as a member of the house, vote for some sort of temporary spending bill that would reopen the government for the next two or three weeks if it included a few hundred Million Dollars for a border wall . Absolutely not. The principle at stake is that we cannot allow donald trump to use the harm of a Government Shutdown as a negotiating tactic. We cannot allow any party or any person to take our federal government as a hostage and extract a ransom. We will not pay that. Oneeighth funding for a wall. This is about principle. You cant put peoples suffering and use that as negotiating tactic. The president , you heard him, repeatedly said if theres no deal he has other alternatives. He said we have a lot of alternatives. I think hes referring to declaring a National Emergency Security Threat and doing it on his own, finding funds from the pentagon or elsewhere to build a wall or some sort of executive order to do so. What would you do if he decides to take those unilateral steps without congressional legislation . I think donald trump should reopen government and then if he wants to do that, thats up to him. We can fight it out in the courts. But the democrats in the senate and in the house are not going to cave to Donald Trumps demands in the middle of a Government Shutdown. Now, donald trump reopens government, then everything is on the table and im happy to consider the call in the context of a large Immigration Reform bill that would provide a pathway to citizenship as well as daca recipients. Everything is on the table. Trump and mcconnell just have to open government first. He says the u. S. Is now the military has told him, is facing what he calls a virtual invasion of our country because of drugs and criminals trying to come in and he says the only thing that will work is a strong barrier or a wall. Whats your reaction to that . Today is thursday, wolf. That means donald trump is lying again. He told some whoppers. With the invasion if you look at the Department Homeland securitys own data, border crossings are at an approximate 20year low. If you look at the fbis latest data, Violent Crime is down and study after study shows immigrants, both documented and undocumented, commit less crime. In terms of drugs, approximately 90 prs of it goes through ports of entry, not through places where theres not a wall. So a wall wouldnt even stop that. Thats why its important that we agree on basic facts and six republican senators seem to have done that today. As you know in your district out in california, all over the country, a lot of americans right now are suffering because of this Government Shutdown, the longest in u. S. History. Why not accept at least some compromise to allow them to go back, not only work but get paid for their work under the old theory dont let the perfect be the enemy of the good . Because donald trump three weeks later will shut the government down again. If we cave in for his demand for a wall the first time he will keep shutting down the government every time we dont Fund Additional parts of the wall. Thats why democrats have held firm and will continue to hold firm. Its not about the wall anymore. Its simply about not allowing the american president to use the opening of government as a concession. Think of how perverse that is. No american president should ever be doing that. Congressman ted liu, thank you for joining us. Thank you, wolf. A lot of breaking news unfolding right now. Well be right back. Has been excellent. They really appreciate the military family and it really shows. With all that usaa offers why go with anybody else . We know their rates are good, we know that theyre always going to take care of us. It was an instant savings and i should have changed a long time ago. It was funny because when we would call another insurance company, hey would say oh we cant beat usaa were the webber family. Were the tenneys were the hayles, and were usaa members for life. Get your usaa Auto Insurance quote today. Not long ago, ronda started here. And then, more jobs began to appear. These techs in a lab. This builder in a hardhat. The welders and electricians who do all of that. The diner staffed up cause they all needed lunch. Teachers. Doctors. Jobs grew a bunch. What started with one job spread all around. Because each job in energy creates many more in this town. Energy lives here. Following multiple breaking stories, including President Trump telling reporters at the white house he wants what he calls a prorated down payment on a border wall on any temporary deal to end the Government Shutdown for two or three weeks. Lawmakers are working on some sort of compromised plan after dueling bills backed by democ t democrats and republicans failed this afternoon in the u. S. Senate. Lets ask our political and legal experts about what should happen next. Dana, the president was pretty firm. He said if they dont work out some sort of deal, he has got a lot of other alternatives ready to go, which he didnt describe but has a lot of other alternatives. Thats right, and cnn has exclusive reporting that one of the things that he has done already is prepared a draft executive action proposal for Emergency Declaration of sorts. Just a draft. It may be a potential but that is one of the options, clearly, that the president is looking at. It is note worthy after we saw, as expected, these two senate votes, showboats. No one thought they were going to pass, taken up on the senate floor and failed again. We knew that was going to happen. Not for a deal but at least conversation, which is something, compared to what we saw the past two weeks. The president trying to sound like hes reaching out. Same goes for nancy pelosi, but more importantly were hearing and seeing the fact that the democratic leader in the senate, the republican leader, and majority leader, Mitch Mcconnell, are talking, trying to find a way out of this. And in addition to that, House Democrats are formally going to unveil as soon as tomorrow a proposal of sorts, which has a pretty high number for them, 5 billion for Border Security. Not the wall but Border Security. Not what the president wants but at least a potential negotiating starting point right now. Its interesting, chris. The White House Press secretary, Sarah Sanders, originally said the president will accept a temporary threeweek deal if there is what she called a large down payment on the wall. The president then said he needs a prorated down payment. Explain whats going on. I dont think he knows whats going on. I dont know what prorated down payment means. And backstep, i also dont know i know what the word large and down payment mean but what does large down payment mean . Half, quarter, 15 . I think the truth of the matter here is that donald trump doesnt know and doesnt necessarily care all that much. Rememb remember, he views himself as a deal maker. Hes going to go in, not going to be stuck at a number. Though i would argue for the last 34 days a big part of it is because hes stuck on a number about the wall. But not stuck at a number. I thought his comments there that you played earlier in the hour, he left it open. Yes, hes not going to say hey, ill take whatever they give me but he did say if its reasonable, ill accept it. Well see what they say. He wasnt saying look, they can talk but ultimately if we dont have the money for the wall its over which is, to danas point, both sides talking, him not ruling things out, its not a lot of progress but it comes as some progress. Our producer in the house got this quote from nancy pelosi off the house floor about that potential down payment. She said that is not a reasonable agreement between the senators. David axelrod you see any movement or are we back at square one . I dont know that were at square one but were barely to square two. I mean, i think were better off today than we were yesterday for the reasons that dana suggested, but look, i thought the president s tone was interesting there because he clearly was trying to strike a more concilliatory note. He needs a way out of this. This is a political disaster for him. Youve got members of the administration out there, kind of competing for the Marie Antoinette award by saying callous things about people who are clearly suffering out there, federal workers who are clearly suffering out there. His poll numbers, we know how much the president cares about ratings. Hes not unaware of the fact that he has been in a steady slide since this whole controversy began. And he needs a way out where he can plausibly or close to plausibly claim that he got something. But he needs to get out of this. I think what you saw today was a beginning, potentially, of that process. And maybe Mitch Mcconnell, always wiley, and Chuck Schumer can put their Heads Together with pelosi and come up with some formula that will allow the president an escape path here. You know, joey, cnn is now reporting ill read to you specifically what were reporting. The white house is preparing a draft proclamation for President Donald Trump to declare a National Emergency along the southern border and has identified more than 7 billion in potential funds for his signature border wall. Should he go that route, according to internal documents reviewed by cnn . If he were to do so, either an executive order or declaring a National Emergency, this would wind up in the courts very quickly. How do you see that unfolding . Such an executive order, wolf, would not be worth the paper its written on. Lets be clear about a couple of things. The first thing is about leadership. The reality is that some things as a leader, a leader should recognize are bigger than you. The president , to save face, is having almost 1 million federal employees miss paychecks. The economy tumbled down based on the fact it has ripple effects, people not spending money. What does he say . The federal workers sport me because they know this is about a larger issue. Its horrific. The horrific nature of this is that sometimes leadership means you have to be an adult and recognize that this is significant and important. To the core issue of a National Emergency drafting an executive resolution, the fact is that a National Emergency, the president has authority, of course, to declare such instances where there is an emergency. National emergencies or executive orders are not prepared to get you out of a negotiation, to find an alternate route to invent a National Emergency where there is not one, to talk about people pouring into borders and criminals running amuck when the fact is that theyre at alltime lows its a check on the president s authority and the check of the president s reality. Unless he gets with reality, i think were going to be in a very bad place. Quickly, its interesting. I looked at the clips and what we were covering. January 10, january 11, not that long ago, everything from Lindsey Graham recommending he declare a state of emergency to trump essentially saying im going to do it, im probably going do it, and then suddenly no. And then from about january 12 until today, until our reporting tonight, we didnt hear that much about it. What i would wonder is, what changed his mind, if anything . Like dana said, this is a draft. When he floats things like i have lots of other alternatives if the Senate Agreement if schumer and mcconnell cant come to an agreement, that would qualify. What changed between i can tell you from back then, because we did think it was potentially going to happen right around that time, when the president was talking about it, Lindsey Graham supported it. My understanding in talking to trump sources is the president was convinced very aggressively that that is a bad move by the senior most people in and around him. Bad, bad move. So he let it go for a little while. Now it looks like that is something that again he is holding out there but not necessarily pulling the trigger on. Stick around. Theres more news. We will have more on the efforts to try to reopen the federal government. Theres so much at stake right now. Were keeping our eyes on a very dangerous situation. Protests rock venezuela where nichol nicholas moolas maduro is locket the United States. Reporter the u. S. Is in the middle of a violent flashpoint. A 35yearold declared himself a president and swore himself in this week. President trump quickly acknowledging him as the new leader of venezuela. Prompting president Nicolas Maduro to order all u. S. Embassy personnel, including marines, out of the country. The u. S. Digging in and ignoring the order. Our personnel are still there. They have been invited to stay by the legitimate government and consistent with their safety, thats our intention. Were working really around the clock here to do what we can to strength the new government. Reporter secretary of state mike pompeo urged other people to proclaim the maduro regime illegitimate. Its economically incompetent. Its profoundly corrupt. Reporter the u. S. Pledging 20 million in humanitarian assistance. But the next step may be up to the venezuelan military, a crucial power center. Translator we proclaim loyalty and absolute subordination to Nicolas Maduro. Reporter for the u. S. , the main job in the coming hours will be keeping Embassy Workers and families safe if maduro musters military support to threaten them. If maduro doesnt step down, what will happen next . Its risky for our diplomats. However, we have a lot of security at the embassy. I dont think maduro would mess with our diplomats. But i think it was a bold move by the administration, by the oes, by several latin america countries, a majority to say were not recognizing maduro anymore. Reporter in 2017, President Trump threatened military action. We have many options for v venezue venezuela, including a possible military option if necessary. Reporter if the president decided to use military power to either protect the embassy or remove maduro, the challenges are significant. Venezuelan forces could fight back. It could require u. S. Ground forces. Logistics and supply capabilities would have to be placed in the region. For now, the administration wants essential u. S. Diplomats to stay put. I dont think we should back down from this challenge. If the threat gets too high, we will have do that. We have to recognize that maduro has the military power in his hands. I think in this case the Trump Administration made the right decision. Reporter we have word that the state department ordered nonessential employees out of the embassy. They try to get them out by commercial aircraft. We will see. A dangerous situation. Barbara starr at the pentagon, thanks. Coming up, after dueling bills to reopen the government, they both fail. Is the white house willing ini compromise . President trumps former fixer, Michael Cohen, is ordered to appear before a senate panel. Will he show up . One hour pickup order . Got it. Ran out of ink and i have a big meeting today and 2 boxes of twizzlers. Yeah, uh. For the team. The team . Gooo team. Order online pickup in an hour. Hurry in and save on tax software. 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Theres a new push tonight to find a way to reopen the government temporarily to pave the way for a longer Term Solution to the shutdown. Will the president s demand for a down payment on his border wall be a barrier for democrats . Cohen subpoenaed. Lawmakers take action to force the president s longtime lawyer to testify. After he backed out of a planned hearing, blaming mr. Trumps threats against his family. Will Michael Cohen make it to the hill before he is sent to prison . Dogged by mueller. Roger stone posts a bizarre video of canines declaring his innocence as he braces for possible indictment. New grand jury testimony could be a sign that Something Big is about to happen. Out of touch. In an exclusive interview with cnn, the