Emergency powers in focus as President Trump and Democrats remain at impasse over border wall funding

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Emergency powers in focus as President Trump and Democrats remain at impasse over border wall funding

President Trump backs away from declaring national emergency as furloughed federal workers miss first paycheck; reaction and analysis from the 'Special Report' All-Stars.

This is a rush transcript from "Special Report," January 11, 2019. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. TIM KAINE, D-VA.: Today, we tie for the longest shutdown in the history of the United States government.

REP. TED YOHO, R-FLA.: In the last 21 days, without a secure border, approximately 42,000 migrants have sought illegal entry.

REP. NANCY PELOSI, D-CALIF., HOUSE MINORITY LEADER: We are endangering the food safety, the safety of our food supply, the security of our airlines.

YOHO: That's 115 homicide charges for illegal aliens in the last 21 days.

SEN. CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, D-MD.: Where their normal pay period salary should be, there are zeros, zeros.

YOHO: Twenty-one days is three weeks. That means at least 900 Americans have died because of heroin.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BAIER: The back and forth on Capitol Hill, it's pretty empty now. Everybody has left there, and there really isn't any progress going forward in the negotiations to end the partial government shutdown. The president tweeting a bunch this morning, including this tweet in which he said "The fake news media keeps saying we haven't built a new wall. Below is a section just completed on the border, anti-climbing feature included. Very high, strong and beautiful, also many miles already renovated and in service."

So what happens now and where are we going? Let's bring in our panel, Charles Hurt, opinion editor for "The Washington Times," Charles Lane, opinion writer for "The Washington Post," and Jason Riley, "Wall Street Journal" columnist and senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute.

OK, Charlie, it doesn't seem like it's ending. The president said he is not right now going to declare a national emergency but said that he can at any time.

CHARLES HURT, OPINION EDITOR, "WASHINGTON TIMES": Sure. And I think the reason he made that statement is because he feels pretty confident that he is holding a winning hand, at least politically speaking, in the current environment, that when your opponents are saying this is a manufactured crisis, that there is not really a problem at the border and doing something, like building a wall, is immoral, he feels very confident that he is winning that.

But when he went to the border, he took with him his lawyers and he also took the head of the Army Corps of Engineers because I think it is clearly a strategy that he is thinking about. And I think from my conversations with lawyers that have looked at this, I think that he does have legal standing if he wants to declare an emergency and do it that way.

BAIER: Here is the president on the national emergency and Senator Murkowski on this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: If they can't do it, I will declare a national emergency. I have the absolute right to do it. It says as clear as I can.

SEN. LISA MURKOWSKI, R-AK.: The real concern I have is the precedent that this then sets, because this border security is Donald Trump's priority. We don't know who our next president may be, but it may be a president whose number one priority is dealing with climate change. He says, I don't care whether I have the support of the Congress, I'm going to direct these funds to address this, because I feel that this is a crisis.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BAIER: Republicans from Alaska there. Republican from South Carolina, Lindsey Graham, had this statement. "I just met with President Trump and his team. It is clear to both of us that Democrats don't want to make a deal and will never support border walls/barriers on President Trump's watch even though they did so in the past. They hate President Trump more than they want to fix problems, even problems they acknowledge to be real and serious in the past. Democrats will do everything in their power to defeat Trump in 2020. Mr. Trump, declare a national emergency now. Build a wall now." Chuck?

CHARLES LANE, OPINION WRITER, "WASHINGTON POST": Well, I guess it is hard to tell whether we have entered the really absurd stage of this or the really serious stage of this. The reason it all seems so absurd is that both sides know what the deal to be done at the end of the day would be. It would be some form of wall funding for a concession on something Democrats really care about, like DACA. You start to see even some of the newly elected Democrats from swing districts talk about that. Trump in the past has said that his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, has been running around Capitol Hill seeing if there is any interest in that. so it's absurd that they can't get to yes on that.

But the serious thing is we have actually reached the point now where just our government is not functioning as it was intended. The separation of powers is about to be thrown out of the window here by this off the cuff declaration of national emergency. I understand he probably has a leg to stand on legally here, but it is certainly not within the spirit of how these things are supposed to go. And it could just set us on a further downward spiral of government dysfunction, because, as Lisa Murkowski says, somebody might try the same thing the next time around.

One thing we have all learned out this, Bret, is a lot of these emergency powers lying around up there on the shelf on Capitol Hill, it is kind of dangerous to have that kind of power just lying around there.

BAIER: And there are some Republicans who have mentioned concerns about giving away power, and obviously they had those concerns when President Obama issued executive orders.

JASON RILEY, "WALL STREET JOURNAL" COLUMNIST: So did I. I was in the crowd that was very critical of President Obama for using executive authority.

BAIER: The pen and the phone.

RILEY: The pen and the phone not only on immigration but on environmental regulations and so forth, doing these end runs around Congress to press his agenda. And I think this would be more of the same from Donald Trump.

I think the precedent point that Lisa Murkowski makes is an important one. President Trump won't be president forever. Two can play this game. Oh, income inequality is a national emergency. I think we should spend x billions of dollars on this, and I don't need Congress's approval. Look what President Trump did before I got here. So I think that is a serious concern.

You also see senators from these states that are being hit by this shutdown, rural states, large forests, a lot of furloughed forest workers and so forth, Oregon, Alaska, Maine. And you are starting to see some fracturing on the right when it comes to standing together with the president on this the longer it goes on. That was quite a scene we saw there with these congressmen out there speechifying to an empty chamber. They are not doing their job. They're not in Washington doing their job at the same time that 800,000 people today didn't get a paycheck. I grew up in a family that lived paycheck to paycheck. This is a big deal for a lot of Americans, but a lot of those people in Washington who are supposed to be in Washington who aren't, aren't living paycheck to paycheck.

BAIER: Nearly 80 percent of Americans apparently live paycheck to paycheck according to the stats.

RILEY: It's a very bad optic.

BAIER: The president saying they're going to make sure that they get all the backpay once this thing is over. I want to play one more soundbite. This is the president on support for the borders talking to Sean Hannity. Is there fracturing on the center left on this border issue?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Democrats in Congress, especially the new ones coming in, are starting to say, wait a minute, we can't win this battle with Trump because of the fact that it is just common sense. How can we say that a wall doesn't work?

REP. KATIE HILL, D-CALIF.: I will vote for some money for physical barriers. It is not going to be across the entire 2,000 mile stretch and it's certainly not going to be a concrete wall, but it will be part of a package.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BAIER: Charlie?

HURT: I feel for federal workers. They have been treated very shabbily and they have been for a long time. But let's not forget. The federal government is not here to provide jobs. It's here to serve the American people, and employing federal employees is part of that.

As far as the separation of powers, I agree, I do not like that. But the idea that we are just now getting around to getting upset about that I think is kind of ridiculous considering over the past 20, 30 years, Republicans and Democrats are both to blame for this. Partisanship has taken over the separation of powers in a lot of ways, where if you have Democrats controlling Congress or Republicans controlling Congress, and somebody in the same party controlling the White House, they will throw everything away and disregard the jealousy of their own interests in order to advance partisanship. So I think that that's a real problem.

But going back to the thing with President Obama, it is important to remember that yes, the pen in the phone was bad and everything. He paid a price for it. And the same thing would happen if you had a president who declared an emergency on the environment, they would pay a huge political price for it.

BAIER: Next up, the Friday lightning round, the U.S. begins its Syria withdrawal, and future of Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Winners and Losers. Stick around.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MIKE POMPEO, SECRETARY OF STATE: We are very hopeful that we will get the bad actors in the region, the Russians and the Iranians, to come to the table, along with the regime and all the other stakeholders in there to come to the table and have conversations about what a post civil war political structure might look like in Syria.

We want to make sure all the options are open as that political discourse begins.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BAIER: Secretary of State Pompeo talking to our own Rich Edson in Cairo. The U.S. troops in Syria are eventually coming out. What the timeline is, we don't know, but they are fighting ISIS. We put this map up the other day where ISIS in 2015 is in the green, and ISIS now in the red. They are trying to take out the red. But what about Syria policy? You can see the change is dramatic in those three years. Back with the panel. Chuck?

LANE: I am struggling to understand exactly what our policy on keeping troops in Syria is, but it now appears that the president has been talked out of this precipitous, sudden withdrawal that he announced on Twitter and they are looking at something a little more gradual. I guess Mike Pompeo, part of his mission over there was to calm everybody down, explain what the plan was. John Bolton's statements hadn't done that.

The other thing he was doing was realigning the United States very aggressively with its traditional allies, like Saudi Arabia and Egypt, not so much on human rights. That seems to be downplayed.

BAIER: Jason?

RILEY: I think I'm with Chuck here. I think we need some clarification on exactly what the Syria policy is. The president last month tweets that we are getting out ASAP, then the national security adviser, John Bolton, goes over to Turkey and says we are only leaving on the condition that our Kurdish allies will be protected. It sounds to me like you have State Department and the Pentagon talking past each other to some extent. I think we need some clarification. I'm glad they want to keep the sanctions no with Iran, but I don't know how getting out of Syria sooner rather than later strengthens our hand with Iran. Iran is cheering our exit from Syria along with the Russians.

BAIER: They are not leaving Iraq, and obviously that's a big deterrent for Iran there, the U.S. presence there. But I tell you what, the troops are coming out at some point, sometime soon.

I want to turn. Ruth Bader Ginsburg, not showing up for oral arguments, not next week either, obviously raises a lot of questions. People at the court saying she is going to be fine.

HURT: Yes, and this is a very, very tough woman. She's the ultimate survivor. And I suspect that she will be back in short order and ready to roll.

BAIER: There you go. Winners and losers, really quick?

LANE: My winner this week is based on the theory that there is no such thing as bad publicity. And nobody got more publicity this week than Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. And she managed to turn the tables on some of her detractors, catching them publishing fake nudie pictures of her. I don't agree with her much on policy, but I have to admire the way she punches back. And I think including the Democrats in senior leadership are trying to reign her in, and they find it is not so easy to do.

My loser this week is Steve King, who just can't seem to stop the racist comments, and I think somebody in the leadership of his party is going to have to stop him.

BAIER: Winner, loser?

RILEY: My winner is Kevin Hart for telling the Oscars to go stuff it. I don't know where Hollywood gets off lecturing him on morality and decency after indulging the likes of Harvey Weinstein and Roman Polanski for all these decades.

My loser is Beto O'Rourke who felt the need to show us pictures of himself at the dentist. Boundaries, congressman, boundaries. I think we need more politicians who can exercise restraint, more restraint, not less.

BAIER: How will Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders beat that?

(LAUGHTER)

BAIER: Charlie?

HURT: Winner of the week is Mitch McConnell for his deft handling of the shutdown crisis. Since I couldn't pick Beto O'Rourke as loser of the week, I picked the American taxpayer who inexplicably has to continue paying their taxes even though the federal government is shut down. Somebody ought to pass a law that bars the federal government from collecting taxes while the federal government is shut down.

BAIER: I think you are all winners for getting around the horn very quickly on the panel.

(LAUGHTER)

BAIER: When we come back, "Notable Quotables."

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BAIER: It's Friday, that means "Notable Quotables."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A parent should not have to bury their child. We need the wall.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We may soon have enough trash building up in our national parks to build a wall.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer right now haven't lifted a finger.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're going to go in there and we're going to impeach the mother --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You can disagree with somebody without basically calling them an ignorant slut.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Jeff Bezos announced that he and his wife of 25 years are divorcing.

TRUMP: I wish him luck. It's going to be a beauty.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: As we are walking along here, we are not seeing any kind of imminent danger.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You're such a smart ass.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The president walked into the room and passed out candy.

CHUCK SCHUMER, (D) SENATE MINORITY LEADER: Again, we saw a temper tantrum where he slammed the table.

TRUMP: I should have, but I did not smash the table.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: If convicted Spacey could face up to five years in prison and would have to register as a sex offender.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm not going to run for president right now.

SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN, D-MASS.: Nevertheless, I persist.

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS, I-VT.: People who are our neighbors, friends, and family members are going without pay.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I want to see the president of the United States hold a garage sale.

TRUMP: Why do wealthy politicians build walls? The don't build walls because they hate the people on the outside, but because they love the people on the inside.

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM, R-S.C.: This is the most presidential I've seen President Trump.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BAIER: One week, hard to believe, all of that in one week.

Thanks for inviting us into your home tonight. That's it for this “Special Report,” fair, balanced, and unafraid. "The Story" hosted by Martha MacCallum starts right now. Can you believe all of that in one week?

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