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Lawmakers Kick Off Talks To Prevent Another Government Shutdown; "Empire" Actor Jussie Smollett Allegedly Attacked In Possible Hate Crime; CNN Reality Check: The Cold Truth About Climate Change; President Trump's Dealmaking Skills Put To The Test After Government Shutdown. Aired 7:30-8a ET

Aired January 30, 2019 - 07:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:31:21] ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: All right.

A bipartisan group of lawmakers will meet today to discuss border security proposals in the hope of preventing another shutdown. Some of the most powerful Democrats are sending a message to the president before these negotiations even begin.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. DICK DURBIN (D), ILLINOIS: I think we can find bipartisan answers to most of the issues involving border security, but if the president has the last word it may not be enough.

SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY), SENATE MINORITY LEADER: When the president stays out of the negotiations we almost always succeed. When he nixes in, it's a formula for failure. So, I'd ask President Trump, let Congress deal with it on its own.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: All right. Joining us now is Seung Min Kim, White House reporter for "The Washington Post" and CNN political analyst. And, Chris Cillizza, "CNN POLITICS" reporter and editor-at-large. Great to have both of you.

It's deja vu all over again, Seung Min. What is going to change in the negotiations this time around?

SEUNG MIN KIM, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST, WHITE HOUSE REPORTER, THE WASHINGTON POST: Well, if you're looking at kind of the baselines of where the sides are, not much.

But what is different this time is that you do have this group of 17 lawmakers tasked with trying to find a deal and we'll see how empowered they are at the end of the day to reach an agreement on border security. A lot of times these conference committees in Congress -- everything gets punted up to leadership and they're really the ones who figure it out.

But if you look at the makeup of these 17 lawmakers from the House and the Senate -- Democrats and Republicans -- these aren't fire-breathing partisans. They are dealmakers, they are pragmatic. If you talk -- appropriators -- the lawmakers who figure out the funding details for the federal government are among the most likely on Capitol Hill to make a deal.

But the equation here with -- the wildcard in the equation here is Donald Trump and whether he would be willing to accept a deal that these members come up with. We'll start to see -- we'll start to see signs of where the fault lines are later today at their first public meeting.

But again, the really -- the question is what the president's redlines are and what he's willing to support.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: And he just let us know on day five of his relative seclusion. He's had no public events. Now, today is day five of that.

Chris Cillizza, he just wrote, "If the committee of Republicans and Democrats now meeting on border security is not discussing or contemplating a wall or physical barrier, they are wasting their time!"

Does he have the juice to move the discussion at this point?

CHRIS CILLIZZA, REPORTER AND EDITOR-AT-LARGE, CNN POLITICS: I guess we'll see.

I -- here's the problem John, is that there's a difference between a wall and some sort of physical barrier -- money to repair the physical barrier that's already there, right? There's nuance in this that breaking news gets lost on Donald Trump's Twitter feed.

You know, I -- I'm very skeptical for the reasons Seung Min just laid out. I'm very skeptical that you see anything beyond the narrowest of deals emerge out of this group tasked with trying to cut a deal because anything -- the larger it gets -- DACA -- permanent DACA -- anything like that -- it just -- I think you start losing people. People start chirping away from it.

And again, Donald Trump -- who knows? Some days it sounds like he's OK if there's just money to repair what's there and maybe build some. Some days, he wants a wall from sea to shining sea.

I still think the ultimate outcome here -- most likely outcome is that a deal is crafted he does not like or he signals Republicans not to sign onto and he eventually declares a national emergency.

I don't think the government shuts down again because it's then broadly seen as catastrophic for him and his party. But I also don't see anything that's fundamentally changed in the fault lines of where --

BERMAN: Yes.

CILLIZZA: -- we got the shutdown from. CAMEROTA: Yes. Seung Min, just to put a finer point on this -- how crazy this is outside the Beltway.

[07:35:02] Outside the Beltway, what it sounds like is the president has worked his way from a 1,000-mile sea to shining sea to 234 miles. He's worked his way from a 30-foot cement wall to slats or a barrier of some kind.

And, Democrats have worked their way from zero to $5.7 billion, which is what the president wanted for something -- for some sort of border security.

And so, the idea that they can't close this deal is a shocker.

KIM: It could be, but -- and I think that's why you've seen, especially before the first meetings start later today, that Democrats have been careful to not draw too many redlines in their negotiations.

And if you look at some people on that committee -- look, Jon Tester is a moderate from -- is a moderate from Montana. I mean, he's also technically a border state politician, just on a different border. And he's been willing to entertain the idea of barriers or fencing and whatnot.

And I think what we saw in the shutdown is that while leaders in the party, like Nancy Pelosi, do have firm lines in terms of the wall and wall funding, their ultimate -- their first focus was that you can't negotiate on this while the government is shut down.

And also, going back to something that Chris mentioned earlier about a potential broader deal with DACA and all those things thrown in, the president indicated in a private lunch that he had with David Perdue, a Republican senator from Georgia -- a lunch that was not advised on his public schedule, I will add, over the weekend -- that he understands that it is best to go kind of as simple as possible and to be focused.

Now, that may change in the next week or so. But I think the goal right now is just to get the job done immediately at hand.

BERMAN: So, Chris, a couple of developments in the Democratic race for president.

CILLIZZA: Yes.

BERMAN: Eric Garcetti, the mayor of Los Angeles, announced last night he is not running --

CILLIZZA: Yes.

BERMAN: -- which is interesting because look, I don't know if he was going to win but there people who were captivated by him in their own ways.

Another development was what I noted before as sort of the first clarification from one of the main -- CILLIZZA: Yes.

BERMAN: -- campaigns. Kamala Harris, senator from California, clarifying her stance on Medicare for All.

Are these connected, by the way? Is Garcetti not getting in because Harris looks strong at his point? Why is Harris clarifying?

CILLIZZA: Well, Garcetti -- let me take Garcetti first.

He's -- he was asked whether Harris' announcement and the positive press that she got for her role had had anything to do with his decision and he said it had zero to do with it. I would -- I don't think it had zero to do with it. I don't think it made his decision.

But look, Kamala Harris is going to hoover up a lot of the money, activists, buzz in California. It's a huge state, obviously. You can -- you can have several candidates, particularly because she's from the San Francisco Bay area and he's from L.A. But I do think it made something of a difference.

On Harris' Medicare for All, here's what they would argue. Well, she is for -- her preferred way forward on health care is single-payer Medicare for All. That said, she's going to be for anything, including bills she sponsored in the Senate -- or cosponsored -- that get you closer to it.

It's a nuanced position that candidly, in my opinion, she didn't really take with Jake during that town hall, so I think they are clarifying it. And I don't think this is a flip-flop but it does show that in a town hall public setting you've got to be very careful. When you say let's eliminate all of it, people are going to draw some conclusions about what that means.

CAMEROTA: All right. Chris Cillizza, Seung Min Kim, thank you --

CILLIZZA: Thank you.

CAMEROTA: -- both very much.

So, there's this polar plunge that has left most of the country in a very deep freeze this morning and led the president to ruminate about what he calls climate change, I guess, or maybe global warming.

So we have a needed CNN reality check. It's very hot.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:42:25] CAMEROTA: Chicago police and the FBI are investigating a possible hate crime after "EMPIRE" actor Jussie Smollett says he was physically attacked by two men that he claims shouted racial and homophobic slurs.

CNN's Sara Sidner is live in Los Angeles with more. What do we know, Sara? SARA SIDNER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This has caught the attention of a lot of people from A-listers to political heavyweights. We know this morning that police and the FBI are asking for the public's help because they are looking through dozens and dozens of hours of video, but they can't seem to find any evidence of the attackers in this case.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SIDNER (voice-over): Actor and singer Jussie Smollett is best known for his role in the television series "EMPIRE" where he plays Jamal, a black singer who is gay. Smollett is also black and gay, which may have been the motivation for an alleged attack against him in Chicago. Police say they are investigating a possible hate crime against the actor with the help of the FBI.

Authorities say the "EMPIRE" actor reported that the crime happened at about 2:00 in the morning Tuesday when two men got his attention by yelling out racial and homophobic slurs. Smollett told police the men then began hitting him in the face and poured an unknown chemical substance on him, adding that at some point during the incident, one of the offenders wrapped a rope around his neck.

During a follow-up interview, police say Smollett told them something new -- that during the attack, the offender uttered, "This is MAGA country."

Overnight, police announcing they are expanding the search area for surveillance video of the alleged attackers because so far, in a place with a high number of private surveillance cameras, they cannot find any images of the two alleged attackers after combing through hundreds of hours of videos.

The only image of Smollett police obtained from security cameras was inside this Subway sandwich shop near the location of the reported crime and he was standing alone.

"EMPIRE" director Lee Daniels taking to social media to voice his support for Smollett.

LEE DANIELS, DIRECTOR AND EXECUTIVE PRODUCER, FOX "EMPIRE": You didn't deserve nor anybody deserves to have a noose put around your neck, to have bleach thrown on you, to be called die faggot, nigger or whatever they said to you. We are better than that. America is better than that.

SIDNER (voice-over): Support for Smollett exploding online from Hollywood A-listers to political heavyweights.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi tweeting, "The racist, homophobic attack on Jussie Smollett is an affront to our humanity. No one should be attacked for who they are or whom they love."

[07:45:08] Democratic presidential candidate and senator Kamala Harris also weighing in, calling Smollett "one of the kindest, most gentle human beings I know," and calling the attack "an attempted modern-day lynching."

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SIDNER: And there are many, many more people, both famous and people who are just fans, who have come out in support of Smollett.

Though we have not heard from Smollett, himself, we did hear from his publicist. He has not been speaking publicly about this or going on social media talking about this after the attack. However, his publicist said that he was recovering and out of the hospital.

BERMAN: All right, Sara Sidner for us. We know you're going to stay on this. Thanks so much.

SIDNER: Yes.

BERMAN: The record-breaking polar plunge already being blamed for at least five deaths and the worst of it isn't even here yet.

And speaking of the worst of it --

CAMEROTA: Oh?

BERMAN: -- President Trump is using the arctic blast as an opportunity to get a little cute about climate change.

John Avlon joins us with a reality check -- sir.

JOHN AVLON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: That's right, guys.

Look, Chicago's going to be as cold as Antarctica today. And over in Minnesota, it's even worse with a wind chill that flirting with 70 below. In fact, three-quarters of us are going to see temperatures drop below zero. And from North Dakota to Long Island, folks are expected to feel some of the coldest weather ever on record.

Now, normally in this kind of weather emergency, we can count on the President of the United States to speak words of wisdom. This one, not so much. Quote, "What the hell is going with global waming (sic)? Please come back fast. We need you!"

OK. If you thought it was bad when Trump joked about hacking Hillary's e-mails, here he is joking about a gathering global catastrophe. And what's worse, the President of the United States is, once again, confusing climate with weather. It's like an endless debate you have with an out-of-touch uncle.

So, one more time. Climate and weather are different things.

Weather is what's happening today.

Climate is about broader trends, like the fact that the past four years were the warmest on record. Climate causes oceans to rise and coral reefs to die, catastrophic polar ice retreat, and flooding from New York to Miami Beach. It's that thing that every responsible scientist agrees is manmade and irreversible unless we act basically, yesterday -- something President Trump has steadfastly refused to do according to the very harsh judgment of history.

But, if Trump won't put any credence in climate change then thank goodness the government does because hours after the president was being sarcastic on Twitter, the Intelligence Community was being deadly serious in an official report.

They warned of, quote, "The impact of global human security challenges, such threats to public health, historic levels of human displacement, and the negative effects of environmental degradation and climate change." Climate change could also cause, quote, "competition for resources, economic distress, and social discontent through 2019 and beyond."

Got that? That's 2019, as in right now. This isn't some future tense dystopian fantasy.

And that's not all. A brand-new study from the American Heart Association says a warming climate raises the chances of a baby being born with a congenital heart defect. While another study says it can even affect the gender balance of newborns with fewer girls born in places with rising temperatures.

But the Trump administration has been feeling the opposite of urgency. For example, releasing a report recommending no tightening of tailpipe emissions -- arguing basically, we can't fix it, so why bother?

Look, the weather outside is frightful and if your radio station is still allowed to play "Baby, It's Cold Outside" this is a good day for it.

And get ready for a festival of denial. The president trolling environmentalists on Twitter, climate change deniers building igloos, and lawmakers even carrying snowballs into the halls of Congress -- all stunts we've seen before. But don't buy it. If you won't listen to the environmentalists or the scientists, how about the Intelligence Community?

And that's your reality check.

BERMAN: The Intelligence Community part of it is so interesting John, and for so long, they've been crystal clear. You don't see it every day but one of their big fears around the world has been climate change. They take it very seriously.

AVLON: It's one more example the experts disagree with the president.

CAMEROTA: John, again, I feel this one is evergreen. You could do it every single week and I feel like you do. And I think that it bears repeating, what's going on with the climate.

Thank you very much.

AVLON: Yes, absolutely.

CAMEROTA: All right. He was the ghostwriter of President Trump's book, "The Art of the Deal." He's here to tell us why President Trump has retreated inside the White House in the days since the shutdown.

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[07:53:28] CAMEROTA: President Trump campaigned as a master dealmaker but he failed to strike a deal to fund his proposed wall along the Mexican border. Instead, he shut down the government over it. So today, after the longest shutdown in history, what's the president's next move?

Joining us now is Tony Schwartz. He's the coauthor of "Trump: The Art of the Deal". Great to have you here.

How long did you spend with him while you wrote that book?

TONY SCHWARTZ, COAUTHOR, "TRUMP: THE ART OF THE DEAL": Eighteen months.

CAMEROTA: Eighteen months. So you know him well. You knew him well. You knew how he operated.

Were you surprised that he didn't get the deal that he wanted with the border wall?

SCHWARTZ: No, not at all. I've not been surprised all the way through as he's had one failure after another because it's a totally different world he's operating in. He ran the show when he was a real estate developer. He doesn't run the show by himself anymore.

CAMEROTA: Look, having been around the president myself a few times, I know his powers of persuasion. I've seen his powers of persuasion.

He has a lot in his toolkit. He can be charming, he can be flattering, he can be bullying. He has a lot of different things that he uses.

So, what went wrong here?

SCHWARTZ: Well, what went wrong is he didn't hold the cards and he was up against somebody with more complexity, more composure, more circumspection, more gracefulness. I'm talking about Nancy Pelosi, obviously. And, the wrong issue at the wrong time with the wrong people around him advising.

Other than that, he did a great job.

CAMEROTA: So where are we now?

[07:55:00] This is the fifth day, today, that the president has no public events scheduled. That's interesting because he likes public events. He likes, you know, interacting and mixing it up with people. And so, there's a feeling from the outside that he's sort of retreated. Is that unusual?

SCHWARTZ: Well, we all know that it's unusual for him to retreat for the -- what appears to be the case over the last couple of years is that he spends most of his time watching T.V. and doesn't have a very busy work schedule. He's on the phone and talking about what he's watching on the T.V. about himself with the people he's on the phone with.

But, I -- listen, I think we are at a -- the critical situation here right now is that we're in a world in which me and us are so dominant at a time when what we so desperately need is we. We desperately need a candidate -- a public adoption of the perspective that it's about more than my self-interests or our immediate -- my interest group self-interests. It's the notion of an evolutionary leap that we require.

And what you are seeing is a classic clash of civilization where the current set of worldviews which are all about I'm right and you're wrong, no matter which they are, are insufficient to help us address the complexity of the problems we're facing.

CAMEROTA: Is Donald Trump capable of that kind of evolution because it sounds antithetical to what we know about his character?

SCHWARTZ: It's -- your observation is exactly right. His worldview is a very primitive one. It's narrow, shallow, and short-term when what we need is wider, deeper, and longer.

CAMEROTA: You know, we had on Cliff Sims. He was in the White House. He was, I guess, the media strategy guy. He has a new tell-all book out.

And what he said was that there is something about Donald Trump that changes the character of the people around him. He changes their moral compass.

How does he do that?

SCHWARTZ: There is no question. Listen, I'm an example of it.

You know, I've been in -- I've been in penance for 30 years over it. And he did this to me -- pulled me into something that violated my own values. His values violated my values. He absolutely does that and it makes this an incredibly depressing time.

I find myself angrier moment-to-moment, day-to-day than I would have been two years ago if there were no Trump, and I think that's across the population.

He disrupts your -- he disrupts you, is what he does.

CAMEROTA: How?

SCHWARTZ: Because he is so relentless, number one. He comes at you and comes at you and comes at you. You've described the variety of ways in which he does that.

And he has no conscience so he is willing to say anything -- to lie, to deceive, to distort -- and not feel the slightest bit of guilt about it, and it throws anybody off.

So, we're operating -- this is what you get. I said this in 2016. I haven't used this word that much since then but it's absolutely so. He's a sociopath. He's sociopathic and --

CAMEROTA: Meaning what?

SCHWARTZ: Meaning the absence of conscience. It means there isn't a soul in there.

There isn't -- there's not only not a heart, because he doesn't have that -- but there's not a soul. There's not some -- there's not an internal barometer. There's no truth north.

CAMEROTA: But how do you know that? From when you worked with him those 18 months, how did you get that impression?

SCHWARTZ: Well, I watched it in every moment. I sat in his office for seven, eight hours a day listening on another extension and I watched the way he would do things.

And, you know, he would get off the phone and he would do a little running commentary for me. "You think that worked?"

You know, he would get on the phone and he would scream at somebody. And then he'd slam the phone down. He'd turned to me, look completely relaxed, and he'd say, "I think that did it, don't you?"

CAMEROTA: Tony Schwartz, the book is "The Art of the Deal". Thank you very much for your insights of what's happening.

SCHWARTZ: Thank you.

CAMEROTA: Historic and record-breaking arctic blast. Let's get right to it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's really, really dangerous out right now.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're talking wind chills of minus 30 to minus 60.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It doesn't take but a few minutes to get frostbite. It is brutally cold.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We have won against ISIS. We've beaten them and we've beaten them badly.

DAN COATS, DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE: ISIS is intent on resurging and still commands thousands of fighters.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This has been a pattern. He says one thing and the Intel Community says another. It is very, very disturbing.

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R), SOUTH CAROLINA: The president would like to get a deal. Shutting down the government is not a good experience for anybody.

SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY), SENATE MAJORITY LEADER: I'm for whatever works. Exactly how to do that, as you all know, has been quite challenging.

SCHUMER: President Trump touched a hot, hot stove and hopefully, he won't do it again.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY with Alisyn Camerota and John Berman.

CAMEROTA: And good morning, everyone. Welcome to your NEW DAY.