Politics of Trump's clash with Schumer and Pelosi

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Politics of Trump's clash with Schumer and Pelosi

Border wall funding divides President Trump and congressional Democrats as a government shutdown looms; reaction and analysis from the 'Special Report' All-Stars.

This is a rush transcript from "Special Report with Bret Baier," December 11, 2018. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SENATE MINORITY LEADER CHUCK SCHUMER, D-N.Y.: I think we can agree on is we shouldn't shut the government down over a dispute. And you want to shut it down. You keep talking about it.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: The last time, Chuck, you shut it down.

SCHUMER: No, no, no. Twenty times.

TRUMP: And then you opened it up very quickly. I don't want to do what you did.

SCHUMER: Twenty times. Twenty times you have called for I will shut down the government if I don't get my will.

TRUMP: You know what I'll say? Yes, if we don't get what we want, I will shut down the government.

SCHUMER: OK, fair enough. We disagree. We disagree.

TRUMP: And I am proud -- and I'll tell you what, I am proud to shut down the government for border security, Chuck.

SCHUMER: This temper tantrum that he seems to throw will not get him his wall and it will hurt a lot of people because he will cause a shut down.

HOUSE MINORITY LEADER NANCY PELOSI, D-CALIF.: We think we left it in a pretty good place. We gave him two possibilities. They said they would think about it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BRET BAIER, ANCHOR: Welcome to divided government in 2019, Oval Office meeting between the Democratic leadership, the president there fighting for the border wall funding, later at another event said he was fine with that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I don't mind having the issue of border security on my side. If we have to close down the country over border security, I actually like that in terms of an issue but I don't want it to be an issue. I want it to be something that the country needs.  It's not really an issue. It's something the country needs. It's common sense.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BAIER: So where are we as a partial government shutdown looms 10 days from now? Let's bring in our panel, Charles Hurt, opinion editor for "The Washington Times," A.B. Stoddard, associate editor at Real Clear Politics, and Jonah Goldberg, senior editor at "National Review," Charlie, it was quite something to see, obviously, just the moment was quite something to see. But then the minority leader saying, you know what, get the cameras out of here, let's talk. And then the president turning and saying, Nancy, it's about transparency.

(LAUGHTER)

CHARLES HURT, WASHINGTON TIMES: That's one of the things I'll never understand, a complaint that I'll never understand in this era of Trump. I would think that at the very least people who don't like Trump and don't like the stuff that he says would at least applaud the fact that he is, shall we say, transparent. He doesn't mind having the press in these meetings.

But you got two people here in Pelosi and Schumer who have 60, 65 years of political experience on the guys. This guy is a complete novice. And what we saw in that 15 minutes in the Oval Office was him completely getting them -- playing rope-a-dope with them so that they are playing 100 percent his game.

He is right, on the issue of border security, Republicans win that fight, Trump wins that fight. In fact, it's what got him elected. But there are a couple things that Chuck Schumer said in particular that I thought were fairly amazing. One is the line about election matter. I guess elections matter except 2016 when Trump won. And then also he says this having just lost two seats, a pretty historical difficult thing to do.

BAIER: But then kind of blows it off. North Dakota and Indiana, who cares about that?

HURT: That was the most astonishing thing out of it to me, the idea that he would say that when the president brings up North Dakota and Indiana he's in big trouble, completely dismissing two very important entire regions of the country. I thought that he will live to regret that remark.

BAIER: A.B., Democrats seemed to be happy with the fact that they had the president on camera, on tape saying I will own it. If it shuts down, I will own it. But negotiations are continuing.

A.B. STODDARD, REAL CLEAR POLITICS: And to Charlie Hurt, it's a rope-a-dope. Look, Republicans have dreaded this moment for months, and they don't want a government shutdown. Yes, the Democrats did this last year and they regretted it very quickly. As the president pointed out, they opened it right back up. Government shutdowns are a loser particularly when you proclaim that you want one and you are the architect of the shutdown. You will get blamed.

Republicans still have a majority in the Senate and the House. They don't want to shut the government down on their watch. The Democrats like Nancy Pelosi are saying you guys have the votes, you guys fund the government.  You're right, it's a partial shutdown. It's only five agencies left, about 20 percent of the discretionary spending, but it still is a political loser to shut the government down and jump up and down smiling about it.

It doesn't matter that border security is not a potent issue. It is. The wall is a popular policy idea among Republicans. But shutting the government down is never a good idea, so Republicans like Mitch McConnell had to come out and clean up and say I don't know what happened with that contentious meeting, but we don't want to shut the government down.

BAIER: Let's listen to the Senate majority leader.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIPS)

SENATE MAJORITY LEADER MITCH MCCONNELL, R-KY.: I understand it was a rather spirited meeting that we all watched. But I'd still like to see a smooth ending here, and I haven't given up hope that's what we'll have.

SEN. PATRICK LEAHY, D-VT.: This is irresponsible. If you saw it a comedy show or you saw it on some television program you might think, OK, this goes over the top. Well, it does go over the top.

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM, R-S.C.: I talked to the president just a few minutes ago, and I told him you are right to make this request, this demand. He seems pretty dug in.

(END VIDEO CLIPS)

BAIER: Jonah, there is going to be horse-trading over the next 10 days, a lot of it. We could be seeing the beginning dance of what could be a lot of things that happen on Capitol Hill.

JONAH GOLDBERG, NATIONAL REVIEW: We could be. We could also be looking for faces in clouds.

(LAUGHTER)

GOLDBERG: I think in six months we will look back at this White House meeting and marvel at the level of decorum and civility.

(LAUGHTER)

GOLDBERG: We'll be nostalgic for this kind of thing. All this seemed like with Chuck Schumer and Trump was like -- as a New Yorker I know the types - - two old guys fighting over whose cab it is.

(LAUGHTER)

GOLDBERG: And it's going to get worse. I agree with some of the things Charlie said about transparency and all that, but the idea that this was 100 percent Trumps game and rope-a-dope, Republicans on the Hill were calling it the Schumer shutdown right before this meeting. They can't call it Schumer shutdown anymore. I think at minimum the Democrats, they can overplay their hand, they get strategy wrong all the time. But they went in hoping to get what they got today.

BAIER: Right, but for the base, Charlie, the president, this is probably his last chance to stand up and say I want this wall funding.

HURT: So obviously it's very good, this is an important issue for the base. But if you move away from the word "wall" and start talking about border security, which is kind of the thing that's being debated here, that's far more widely popular beyond just the Republican base. That is where you start eating into a lot of Democratic support. And when you have people in the party who are legitimately in favor of sanctuary cities and legitimately opposed to any kind of border security, that's a winner for Republicans.

I also think we should be careful overstating how damaging a shutdown is.  Obviously, it's very disruptive around here. But remember the last time Republicans got blamed for a shutdown, they went on to win historic, in 2012, went on to win historic margins in the House. So I think that we get really upset about this sort of thing because it's so unusual, but I don't think that beyond here it makes quite as big a difference.

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