Transcripts For MSNBCW Kasie DC 20190107

For the second night in a row representative scott taylor told people to calm down as they shouted at him. So they get spilled out of the venue and filled up much of main street. Given the obstruction in d. C. , its remarkable what we have gotten done. I want a clear answer from scott taylor, will he vote to bring this to the floor and real obamacare . A vast majority of people are getting crushed with obamacare. Whats responsible is i believe dissecting it, having a discussion and finding the best solution. If i try to explain, right, the twoyear transition path and those kind of things, just hear the anxiety is real and people want Real Solutions so were going have to Pay Attention to that. Were in a posttrump election world where these people are engaged. Some people are clearly upset but there is a bit of professional protester, manufactured base in there. Manufactured . The two lawmakers you saw being confronted in those town halls have now been ejected from office, along with dozens more. One of them had said the women were in his grille everywhere he went. In their place is a fraction young group who host live instagram of themselves cooking and who also apparently like to dance. What remains to be seen is how this new dynamic works, especially amid a shutdown. Already one congressman announced hes filing articles of impeachment. And oh, yes, this hand. People love you and you win and when your son looks at you and says momma loves you, bullies dont win. I said baby, they dont, because were going to go in there and impeach the [ bleep ] that, of course, congresswoman Rashida Tlaib. But in reality it was the word that was not bleeped that could make for more political headaches than democrats. As for shutdown, throughout this weekend the Vice President who is meeting with hill aides to reopen the government but that is very far off as we come on the air tonight. The democratic aide tells me the meeting started 45 minutes late because the white house did not have the information democrats requested ready to go, and they didnt get the full budget justification they asked for. A republican aide tells our team the democrats were given what they asked for. In short, zero progress. At the same time nancy pelosi says this week democrats will start passing individual Appropriations Bills to reopen agencies like the treasury and the irs. The message shes trying to send, if theyre closed and you dont get a tax refund, its the president s fault. And with that i would like to welcome in my panel, former adviser to jeb bush and House Speaker john boehner, michael spiel. Cnbc editor at large, john harwood, former chief of staff and former director barbara shrek, and National Reporter for politico, laura barone lopez. Thank you all for being here, this is the third week of this shutdown. John harwood, lets look at the big picture for a second. I have now covered too many of these shutdowns quite frankly. Not as many as i have though. Thats true. Fair point. However, in the past there always seems to be an end game in some way. We knew it would drag on for a while but you can see the political pressure, incentives building on one side or the other and you could have a sense at least it was going to end at some point. I dont get that sense now at all. We certainly cant see it but i would think a couple things. First of all, there are some republican senators who are getting antsy and i think theyre not going to tolerate this for a long time. So Mitch Mcconnell is saying hes not going to bring up the bills pelosi wants to move on the floor, which are bills the Republican Senate has already passed, and i think theres a short half life to that refusal. The second thing is there was a way that was framed by an earlier agreement with democrats and republicans in the senate, a little bit more money than was in the bills that ultimately passed the house last week and passed before christmas. But i do think that nancy pelosi and the democrats have the high side of this argument and its a matter of time before President Trump has to back off. Michael steele, do you see what john harwood mentioned, that pressure on republican senators actually accomplishing anything . Im not convinced there are enough of those people. To really make a difference. No, i think two things, one, this is the easiest shutdown to resolve in recent years. The group sitting at this table could go over to the lounge, grab a cocktail napkin and figure this thing out pretty quickly. But the president suggested to senator mcconnell he would sign the previous agreement to keep the government functioning and then he changed his mind, he burned cocaine mitch. And senator mcconnell has zero incentive right now quoted, michael steele, burned cocaine mitch. I love it. Going to take the president , senator pelosi and senator schumer to come to some agreement and look senator mcconnell in the eye and tell them he will sign it. You have been bicoastal with many, many, many meetings with the now speaker of the house. What is your view how this is shaping up . With Mitch Mcconnell out of the room, does that affect it . He is out of the room but you have a President Trump that you really dont know what hes thinking from moment to moment. This mornings tweet before his staff went in to meet with the democrats through a wrench, once again, in the process. If you dont know the negotiating list and you dont know what their position is, how will you be able to come to a solution. Speaker pelosi, leader mcconnell, leader schumer and leader mccarther could come up with a solution. They basically already did. Exactly. They can do it again. And they did it when democrats were in the minority in the house. But this president doesnt know what he wants. The wall has become a symbol, it has become his fixation on getting a victory against democrats and he believes this is the only time. Its dragging out. Laura, what is your take on the political imperatives that will emerge from the country at large . We know most of the federal employees affected dont actually live in the d. C. Area, theyre scattered across the country. There are constituents of many different members of congress. This could ultimately impact most americans are not getting their refunds potentially soon enough. How will that pressure bubble up, if at all . I think it is bubbling up. We are seeing more reports that tax refunds may not be done on time, that people who work at the tsa are trying to work in second jobs so they could have money to make ends meet. And the more that pressure is applied on the lawmakers in washington and the president , i think we can see an Agreement Start to be formed, but, again, as nadine was saying theres really no way to know exactly what trump wants. Senator Lindsey Graham and trump and even Nick Mulvaney earlier today were trying to says it not exactly a wall, its not exactly a concrete barrier. We just want steel slats and thats what we wanted for a while. No, thats not true. It was a concrete wall during the 2016 campaign and it has been one up until now and now the president is trying to act as steel slates are something different. But its something heef hes come up with and theyre not. I do think that this Purported National emergency the president s talking about could be an exit strategy. He could say because he signaled this before the shutdown occurred where he said, well, even if democrats dont give me this money, im going to use the military to build the wall. So if he were to say, im declaring a National Emergency, im directing the department of defense to construct barriers on dod land because the dod does own some of that border land, then there would be a court fight but at least it could get him out of the situation hes in right now. Sure. Everyone understands were not sending john snow to the reio grand. Theres not going to be a wall from the gulf of mexico to the pacific ocean. That would stop all of the illegal immigration. Other than the ice monster giants. What were going to do is democrats are okay with 1. 6, the president wants 5. You find a number in the middle, move the money around a little bit, do a physical barrier where its appropriate, which democrats have voted for in the past, and the next you do technology, et cetera, and the president declares victory and democrats declare victory and the government reopens. If you want to talk about Border Security in a comprehensive strategy, lets go in and have that discussion. The president of the United States does not know the details. He doesnt want to know the details. Hes the only person who can decide yes or no on anything. My goodness, look where we are now. And thats the reason this could go on so long. The president is play to his base, democrats have no incentive to fold. We could be there a while. Vetoes can be overridden. Thats true. Its not out of the question that would happen. It would take a heck of a lot it would take a set of behaviors we simply have not seen from Senate Republicans for that to happen. True, no question of the but remember weve got a president who is waiting like all of us are to see what Robert Muellers next move is. His political position is weak and on the brink of getting weaker. And Mitch Mcconnell, having been burned by the president , i dont think is going to hang in there forever and say, yes, mr. President , whatever you say. I do think that was potentially a big mistake on the part of the president , to tell Mitch Mcconnell one thing behind closed doors and change his mind and embarrass him publicly. It is worth remembering what the president told the New York Times Editorial Board about his Campaign Promise back in 2016, quote, if my speeches ever get a little off, i just go well build a wall f it getsing and i think maybe people thinking about leaving, i tell the audience, well build a wall and they go nuts. Michael steele, the steel slats question, suddenly to lauras point, this is i guess the president s designed this as a concession to say okay, were not going to build what i said but hes still breaking his Campaign Promise. Im obviously as prosteel as anybody at this table. Perhaps more so. Perhaps, on given days. But the details of Border Security have never been the point here. This is a slogan. This is a political winning issue. This is were going to knock the hell out of them and take their oil. The president didnt have detailed policy positions as a candidate, he had a series of slogans which were appealing to his supporters. And trying to translate those appealing slogans into actual policy has been where he stumbled repeated over the past couple of years when Congressional Republicans werent there to sort of guide the process towards a good result as they did on tax reform. And democrats have zero incentive to affirm his symbolism, his slogan. And keep in mind republicans did not give him the wall either the last two years when they controlled both chambers of congress. Thats a very good point. Laura, how, as you kind of step back and look at this again from kind of a national perspective, how does this how does this end . Where does the pressure come from in the end . I think weve seen democrats already pass two bills, ones that would clearly reopen the majority of the government and another that would open dhs until february. They passed that last week. So i think its them repeatedly applying pressure to Senate Republicans. We already saw a few Senate Republicans last week cave a tiny bit. We saw senator Corey Gardner of colorado say, i think we should just do this. We should open the government bill that democrats passed until september 30th and this week we may see more Senate Republicans start to waver and put pressure on Mitch Mcconnell. After that, if mcconnell is willing to bring up bills that are in line with what House Democrats passed, we may see trump say okay, i guess i have to go along with it. I guess well see. Laura barone lopez, thank you so much for being here tonight. I really appreciate it. Were just Getting Started of course this evening. Still to come, were going to look ahead to 2020 as Elizabeth Warren hits stop after stop in iowa. And im joined live by congressman Eric Swalwell and governor jay insley. And Saxby Chambliss joins me live. First, nancy pelosi retakes the speaker gavel, but the man who nominated her, hakeem jeffries, can one day follow in her footsteps. He joins me as the democrats try reopening the government. Democrats are down with ndp, Nancy Dalessandro pelosi, the once and future speaker of the United States house of representatives. I proudly place her name in nomination. May god bless her. May god bless the United States of america. That was Democratic Caucus chair hakeem jeffreys, formally nominating nancy pelosi as speaker of the house, ushering in a new era for the chamber that she is set to lead. With no end to the shutdown in sight, it remains unclear when the house will put an end to negotiating and get back to legislating. Joining me now from new york none other than hakeem jeffries. Sir, thank you for being here tonight. Its good to see you. Good evening. Great to be on. Lets start with these negotiations ongoing with staff over the weekend. It doesnt seem as though much progress has been made. At this point what is the solution to reopening government for all of these people who are at risk of losing another paycheck . What can you do . Either you have to give or the president does it seems. Well, we believe its totally inappropriate to hold 800,000 hard working pull servants hostage and now increasingly millions of americans who for instance will have their tax refunds delayed or have an inability to process Social Security payments and things of that nature as this unnecessary shutdown continues. So our view is we should reopen the parts of government that are completely noncontroversial, beginning with the treachery Treasury Department and irs which we intend do as early as wednesday upon our return and challenge Mitch Mcconnell and Senate Republicans simply to take yes for an answer. As you know, k. C. , were passing appropriation bills that the Senate Republicans have themselves already signed off on. We cant figure out what the problem is at this point. Fair enough to say it is unusual for a Democratic House to take up bills that had been actually mostly written under republican control, fair. However, we know Mitch Mcconnells already said hes not going to put it on the floor if the president is not going to sign off on it. We learned today the president is not going to sign off on this. So how do we get out of this . Weve already begun to see cracks within the ranks on the republican side over in the senate, at least two republican senators have said enough. We need to actually reopen the government and Start Holding the American People hostage simply because donald trump wants a medieval border wall and is trying to force us to play a 5 billion ransom note. We believe if we continue to move forward, do our job, highest priority, reopening the aspects of government that are noncontroversial and then with respect to the department of Homeland Security, again, were willing to pass a previously supported Republican Senate bill that would extend funding for the department of Homeland Security through earlytomidfebruary that would then give us the space to try to find common ground. That to me seems like a reasonable approach. Thats what we intend to pursue this week. The president has said that hes considering declaring a National Emergency and using that funding to try and Start Building the wall. Take a look at what he had to say about this, and then well talk about it. I may declare a National Emergency, depending on whats going to happen over the next few days. Theyll be having another meeting. I dont expect to have anything happen at that meeting. Does the president have the authority to do this . He absolutely does not have the authority to do it. He probably knows he does not have the authority to do it. And it seems to me to the extent there is a National Emergency in the United States of america, its because of the individual sitting at 1600 pennsylvania avenue. So that is just a nonstarter as it relates to a reasonable proposal. Whats happening right now is donald trump is looking for president ial lifeline in order to get him out of a mess that hes created. By proposing a fifth century solution in terms of this medieval border wall for a 21st century problem. Yes, we have a Border Security issue that we need to work through. Thats why democrats are prepared to provide additional funding for enhanced security on the border as long as its done in a fair and humane fashion. That does not involve a wall. Congressman, lets switch gears. I want to ask you about one of your new freshman members, Rashida Talib of michigan. Was i dont even want to say caught on camera because it seems as though at the event multiple people were filming. She seemed very aware of what she was saying. We showed our viewers, im not going to repeat what she said but suffice to say she was going to impeach President Trump. The Washington Post wrote about this, that her vulgar remark laid bear the rift between a small number of members and Strong Majority of the Democratic Base who want to impeach trump and a democratic leadership that clearly views this as premature and politically unwise. Do you think that congresswoman talibs remarks were wise or help snfl. I think theres increasing evidence that continues to emerge that something went very wrong in the context of the 2016 election. Thats fundamentally what this is all about, where russian spies likely colluded, perhaps with highlevel members of the trump campaign, to sell out a democracy and artificially place someone at 1600 pennsylvania avenue. However, we have an Ongoing Investigation that we called for that is now being led by special counsel bob mueller. Hes doing a tremendous job in running a fair and comprehensive investigation. In my view, and i think this is the view of the vast majority of the members of the house caucus, we should let mueller be mueller, complete his investigation, and then we can determine once hes issued his report what is appropriate to do thereafter. But let me also say its unbelievable to me and many others that some critics of Rashida Tlaib on the right wing now want to lecture her and us by extension about language, when this is the same group you dont have a problem what she said language wise . Its not language i would use but im trying to figure out why they have a problem with it when this is the president who used a sexual vulgarity on the eve of the election, they dismissed it. Who has called african nations shole countries, they dismissed it. Hes someone who had a political rally down south, called African American football players, sobs, we know what the b stands for, they dismissed it. Now this group really wants to lecture us when they said let trump be trump . But for some reason have a problem with rashida being rashida . That to me is hypocrisy so were going to be lectured to by her critics on the right. It seems inevitable were going to descend into words we didnt normally used to think were acceptable. Congressman, do you think impeachment hearings are an inevitability . I dont believe theres an inevitability because, again, the reasonable approach we should take is allow the investigation to run its course. As you know, k. C. , we originally called for Jeff Sessions to recuse himself and successfully he recused himself. We then called for Rod Rosenstein to appoint a special counsel, and he appointed a phenomenal american bob mueller to be that special counsel. And so now it seems the reasonable thing to do is allow this investigation to run its course and then see where we go from there. I do believe we to make sure we conduct ourselves as a separate and equal government and serve as a check, but when it comes to the ultimate death sentence, we need to see what bob mueller has to say. Congressman hakeem jeffries, thank you for your insight. Im sure its going to be a busy week on capitol hill. I will see you there. When we come back, the 2020 campaign descends on iowa. This time around its going to be all about the issues, right . Theres been criticism outside of massachusetts you have too low of an electability rate. What is your response to that . Im going to keep talking about the same kind of issues that pulled me into politics to begin with. [ dog snoring ] baxter. Its bedtime. Peace of mind should never be out of reach. [ voice command beep ] xfinity home. Xfinity home connects you to total Home Security you can control from anywhere on any device. And it protects you with 24 7 professional monitoring. I guess were sleeping here tonight. Xfinity home. Simple. Easy. Awesome. Call, go online or demo in an xfinity store today. Im going to get me a beer. Hey, my husband bruce is now in here. You want a beer . Ill pass on a beer for now. Welcome back. Before we continue, there is one more ad i would like to show you. Liability, bad. Drinkability, good. Not too heavy, not too light, bud light. The difference is drinkability. Liability, drinkability. Likability. Elizabeth warren is campaigning in iowa this weekend, ahead of her likely president ial bid. It took mere hours after her announcement for headlines like this one to show up, raising questions, naturally, about whether she is likable enough to be president. Did anyone ever ask, oh, say, Bernie Sanders that question in 2016 . I remember that going a little differently. Some of his headlines the Washington Post, seven ways Bernie Sanders reminds us of our grumpy grandpa. New York Magazine how did Bernie Sanders turn grumpiness into charm . Did you ever stop to wonder oh, say beto orourke might balance it all, running for president with the three young kids at home . What about ohio senator sherrod brown, unruly hair, gravelly voice . The New York Times wrotes, sherrod brown, rumpled, unvarnished and just may be a candidate for president. Vanity fair says brown sounds like a quintessential rp rug paul. Bordering on pugnacious. Who else is from the west . Amy, if her voice was grum manying and gravelly, would she be charming . And we have not even talked about clothes. What exactly is he trying to tell voters with this vneck sweater . Is it folksy sincerity perhaps . Just ask marco rubio during the primaries when these dress boots with heels became a thing. Im one of the only guys in the room and it didnt make a difference to me but i am glad you made a better shoe choice today. Let me get this right, isis is cutting peoples heads on, saudi arabia on the vrj of war, Chinese Landing planes on islands they say are theirs in some water that are territorial waters, economy flatlined and stock market falling apart but, boy, were getting coverage about a pair of boots. This is raisiness. Have we lost our minds . It is really fun, isnt it . Fashion aside, she writes in the New York Times the democrats are fretting whether they should nominate a woman to run against donald trump. Much of the debate is grounded in the question if Hillary Clintons loss represented a rejection of a woman as president for one specific woman. Joining me on he set, Shawna Thomas and traveling with warren, mike menially, who reported for duty much earlier in the cycle than many of us hoped you would have to. Thank you for being here as well. I have to start with you, shawna, because this likability debate as you may or may not have been able to tell, has kind of gotten under my skin. Apparently, it has. Heres the thing, i dont think theres a problem talking about likability when it comes to politicians. We talked about whether we wanted have a beer with george w. Bush. We talked about whether we want to have a drink with barack obama. Likability on its own is fine. The problem with some of this Elizabeth Warren stuff really is its trying to, one, compare her to Hillary Clinton and we have to rank her likability on the Hillary Clinton scale, and the thing is Hillary Clinton lost, 2016. She had her own problems and that had to do with her last name being clinton and her being hillary and how she structured the campaign. If you want to talk about Elizabeth Warrens likability, we will see if they can connect with an audience in iowa. Maybe mike saw if she could connect with an audience in iowa. Thats part of politics. But what i dont want to do is talk about her in relationship to hillary. I have one question on that very good question from shawna, but michael steele, my main question with this and nick sweeney had an article i also recommend to all of our viewers whether it was a satire to somebody who said, well, i was ready for a woman president , just not Hillary Clinton and i liked Elizabeth Warren but now theres just something about her thats rubbing me the wrong way. And amy clove shar and kamala harris, theres something rubbing me the wrong way about them too. So the question is in the likability argument, is any woman always going to stand up worse than any man . I guess observing shes likable enough would be the wrong answer. Yeah. I think Elizabeth Warrens is not going to be likability. I think her problem is, like ted cruz or chrissty, she missed her moment. She was the exciting candidate for a large portion of the Democratic Base at one point in time. I think that point in time has passed and i dont see her catching fire in iowa or New Hampshire this year, but not because of her gender. Mike, care to answer that question, were there flames on the ground in iowa over the past weekend . What did you see . Kc, let me just wrap up the weekend here. You know, a week ago at this time i was heading to boston to cover senator warrens announcement of her Exploratory Committee. There were a lot of questions about why she was doing this so early and following up so quickly with the visit to iowa. After five events over the course of this weekend, talking to a lot of senator warrens aides, theyre very pleased how this went. They think they set a very high bar for other campaigns to have to meet. She took questions from voters at every stop, took photos with voters at every stop and questions from reporters as just with about every stop. On friday night we asked senator warren about her press gaggle of questions about likeable. She really sidestepped those questions. But this afternoon she did an event with seven women on the ballot in iowa in 2018, five of whom are part of the largest class of newly elected legislators in iowa. I want to play you a little bit of sound. Let me know if any of this sounds familiar as Elizabeth Warren talked about her first run for Public Office. There were a lot of people who called me and said, elizabeth, i love you, but you need to understand if you jump in this race, massachusetts will not elect a woman to the United States senate. Yeah, that was 2011. And it was almost as if folks were saying, hey, we tried that. It didnt work. So come back in a generation or two and we will see if we can try this again. After i said im going to do this, how many people, how many women just came off the benches out of the woodwork to say, girl, you take that part and we will do everything is else, and we became a force. I went from 35 points down to beating that guy by 7 1 2 points. Thats what we do the best. So to do a little s. A. T. Analogy for you, kasie, Martha Coakley in 2011 is to Elizabeth Warren in 2012 as Hillary Clinton in 2016 as to Elizabeth Warren is in 2020. We did see, it was interesting over the course of the weekend senator warren, one of the biggest names on the democratic party, obviously what we consider one of the early frontrunners perhaps for the nomination but she did use these events to talk about her personal upbringing, talk about her roots in norman, oklahoma, talk about getting married early, going to become a public schoolteacher, ultimately College Professor and now u. S. Senator. She is starting to fill in those gaps about her biography, not to be likable but tell a Bigger Picture about her career in Public Office john harwood, whats your view on Elizabeth Warrens kind of early rollout of her campaign, the criticism that she got from the dna test and the likability argument . Well, i agree with everything that shawna said. Likability is a universal question that we ask about every politician. Theres an element of sexism in evaluation of candidates, less so now than there was ten years ago or 20 years ago. I do think Hillary Clinton was sueyjen risk. There was 25 years of history layered onto evaluations of Hillary Clintons candidacy which simply dont exist with Elizabeth Warren, so all of that leads me to say its just early. Weve got wideopen field. She has a lot of assets. Shes very talented. Shes extremely bright and a leader in important policy areas for the democrats. We will see how she plays on the ground, and i think the idea of force feeding an early comparison to Hillary Clinton is just not time for that. So i put this question out there on twitter as we were pulling together the show tonight, if candidates were president , is what are some of the things they would have to ask about, and bill crystal wrote back. He said some of the differences would be one, is she likable . Men dont have to be likable. Two, is she healthy. A woman with a cold is treated as if she will keel over. Statistically i find this funny. A man is more likely to. And Middle America is presumed to be male. You worked for the highest ranking woman in politics. How much does this ring true to you . What do you think the real barier is running for president than a man . Being a woman. Sexism exists in politics today, existed in 2016 election, existed in the 2018 election and exists today. Look, i worked on the hill in 25 years. In 22 out of the 25 years i have work for women and ive seen it. Women are judged differently. Women are judged about how they speak, how they dress, who they know, how they operate. And women are much better politicians than many people want to give them credit for every single day. Things change. Women made democrats the majority in the house now. Were slowly evolving and talking about likability, the question about likability and Elizabeth Warren was put out there in order to see if shes going to sink or float, you know. I think shes going to float, and theres going to be women out there who are going to say enough is enough. Weve had it. And that will happen as more and more women run for office and run for the presidency and run for higher office. The thing is, and you said this, the question is, does sexism exist . Yes, sexist exists. Is it going to exist if Elizabeth Warren becomes president of the United States . It will still exist but we will get a little bit better. And its just part of the process and its not fair to you and i and those of us with vaginas, however, thats part of the gig and Elizabeth Warren knows that and hopefully if we keep talking about it and were like we shouldnt be talking about women as though the only thing about them is their likability, then it will get better, im sure. I think theres a media story now about Shawna Thompson language. I think thats the first time that words been used on that show. Thank you very much for staying up late, it looks chilly there. How is the weather in iowa . A little chilly. But were fine. Go get warm. Thank you very much. Were going to talk a lot more about the 2020 race in our 8 00 hour. Eric swalwell joins me live. And Washington Governor Jay Inslee is offering pardons for thousands of people with misdemeanor marijuana convictions in his home state as he plans a run. But first, former senator Saxby Chambliss. Maybe its bait or maybe its just the norm in washington nowadays but my next guest was with me on this show in january 2018 talking about a Government Shutdown. It was a different shutdown. That is what he had to say back then. This is part of my frustration and what caused me to leave in 2015, compromise is now a fourletter word in washington and the longer this goes, the more difficult its going to be to find that Common Grounds and to find compromise. Joining me now from atlanta, former georgia senator and former vice chairman of the intelligence committee, Saxby Chambliss. He also serves on the president s intelligence Advisory Board. Sir, its great to see you. Thank you for coming back. Hi, kasie, good to be back with you. Its getting to be an annual event to talk about shut junes. Event to talk about shut downs. A tradition, its unfortunate one although were always welcome back in happier times, the shutdown being the unhappy piece. The difference with this one though compared to what you were talking about back then seems to be theres not really a way out. What do you think is the path out of this Government Shutdown . Well, nothing really has changed from the comment made, and that is a compromise is still a fourletter word. The real problem with trying to have a compromise here is as you say, folks are just dug in on both sides. Nancy pelosi said the wall is immoral. President trump said hes not going to budge, we got to have a wall. Normally theres some kind of middle ground. That middle ground has not appeared at this point in time. I do hope something positive may be going on with these talks, but i was involved in three shutdowns, 95, 96, 2013. None of them are pleasant and they show to the American People that washington is dysfunctional. And obviously congress earns the Approval Rating that it has. The white house has been claiming and Sarah Sanders was on tv as recently as this morning claiming that 4,000 terrorists have come across the southern border with mexico. She was fact checked by chris wallace, the host of Fox News Sunday who pointed out many of those come through our airports, not across the southern border. Youre somebody with a deep background in intelligence. Is the southern border our biggest terrorist threat . Is that argument that the white house is making a valid one . Well, it is valid. I mean certainly we know that a certain percentage and i cant tell what you it is because obviously, its very difficult to fact check it, but we do know that a certain number of terrorist opportunities are come ago cross the southern border because it is so porous. But its for the exact number, kasie, i dont know that anybody can pinpoint that exactly. As somebody who spent a lot of time thinking about these issues, would the sorn border be the number one concern when youre thinking about trying to prevent terrorists from coming into the United States, or would it be a different area . The southern border is not necessarily what keeps me awake at night from a bad guy terrorist standpoint, but as i say it is a concern and i think the white house is correct, that we need to be very cognizant of that. The white house also today seemed to have switched its position or attempting to offer a concession to democrats. The president now insisting hes going to call the wall steel slats, instead of building it out of concrete, hes going to use steel slats. First of all, do you view a steel slat barrier as something thats necessary or effective to secure the border . And second of all, is this a Material Change from his previous position . Well, i think the change is designed to try to placate the democrats some extent, for whatever reason. They dont like the idea of a concrete wall and im not sure from an engineering standpoint which is better and which will be more attractive. I want to see something that will be effective. We have already some constructive walls on the border. I remember back during the late 90s we had an issue of, a serious issue down in the san diego area and put a wall up down there and it worked. Still works today. So theres some places that a wall can be very effective. Trying to build one all across the southern border in a short period of time is going to be, number one, impossible, and im not sure thats what you would want to do, but there are certain hot spots where i think when you put a wall up and use it in concert with drones, with increased Border Patrol who are doing a great job down there, that the kind of leadership that we have within the Border Patrol will allow us to use that as one of the most effective tools in keeping folks out. The wall, that is. Okay. You have been recently nominated to serve on an intelligence Advisory Board for the president of the United States. This, of course, comes amid the Mueller Investigation as well as the president questioning a lot of the assessments of our Intelligence Community on a variety of issues from interference of russians in his own campaign to, of course, Jamal Khashoggi and who is responsible for his killing. Im wondering, whats your take on the morale of the Intelligence Community in the United States right now under this president . I think when the president came in, he had some criticism of the world of intelligence. It had more to do with the obama administration, frankly, than it did with his administration, and he made some comments about wanting to make the right kind of changes that would improve the Intelligence Community. Very honestly, with the leadership we have in place right nows chris wray at the fbi and others, these people are doing a really, really good job of providing the right kind of leadership. Morale is always an issue in the intel world, but when you have good leaders who are setting the right kind of tone, it really makes morale much less of an issue, and i think right now morale is about as good as ive seen it in a while. Can it be improved . Sure. I mean, were always trying to challenge our Intelligence Community and unfortunately we overwork them, but they are brave men and women doing a great job and very dedicated. I think right now theyre just totally committed to making sure that this president has the information that he needs to make the right kind of National Security decisions. All right. Senator Saxby Chambliss, thank you for your insight tonight. Appreciate it. Sure. Good to be with you. Thanks. Reminder. If you miss an episode of kasie dc catch up with our podcast. Back with more kasie dc in just a moment. There is another hour of kasie dc just ahead. This morning, the government shut down enters day 17 with little progress made by lawmakers. Now President Trump is threatening to declare a National Emergency in order to build his border wall. Plus white house National Security adviser john bolton is outlining finance for u. S. Troop withdrawals. And senator Elizabeth Warren makes a Campaign Across iowa after launching her 2020 Exploratory Committee just last week. Good morning, everyone, its monday, january 7th