[John Vause, Cnn Newsroom:] The world's greatest negotiator is set to agree to less than $1.5 billion in funding for his border wall. A year ago he turned down a democrat offer of reportedly $20 billion. Goodbye El Chapo, hello, El Mencho, with a guilty verdict in a trial of the notorious drug lord, already a new more vicious kingpin is taking his place. And India, making life so miserable for tens of thousands of Rohingya refugees, life in a Bangladeshi a camp is seen as a vast improvement. Hello and welcome to our viewers joining us from all around the world, great to have you with us, I'm John Vause and you're watching CNN Newsroom. To sign or not to sign, to cave or not to cave, that is the question facing President Donald Trump as he considers a congressional compromise on government funding and border security. The deal falls well short of the $5.7 billion the President demanded for his border wall with Mexico, but signing it would avert another damaging shutdown.
[Donald Trump, U.s. President:] Am I happy at first glance? I just got to see it. The answer is no, I'm not. I'm not happy. But am I happy with where we're going? I'm thrilled.
[Vause:] The deal includes nearly $1.4 billion for new border barriers but it prohibits the use of concrete walls. That means fencing or steel slats that are most likely the option which they'll use. The number of beds available for those detained by immigration and customs enforcement stays the same, just over 40,000 and the Department of Homeland Security will get a $1.7 billion increase in overall funding. Kurtis Lee is a National Correspondent for the Los Angeles Times and he joins us from L.A. Good to see you, Kurtis. Thanks for coming in.
[Kurtis Lee, National Correspondent, Los Angeles Times:] Thanks for having me.
[Vause:] Let's review here the art of the deal. A year ago with that offer for $20 billion reportedly for, you know, probably the grand bargain which included an overhaul of the immigration and legalization for the Dreamers, Trump turned them down, it wasn't good enough. Back in December he demanded almost $6 billion for a wall, he shut the government down for 35 days to get it, he got nothing. So now, it looks like Donald Trump will accept just shy of that $1.4 billion, he gets 55 miles of barrier and fencing similar to what is already in place on parts to the border. He [INAUDIBLE] with this 6 billion, he wanted 200, also miles of steel and concrete barriers, he's not going to get any of that. I guess the President well, he may need a little executive time to take a break for all the winning right now. It just seems clearly this is not over.
[Lee:] No, absolutely. I mean, this has been a campaign promise of Donald Trump. I mean, ever since the 2016 campaign, the President has touted that he is going to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. And, I mean, now, we're more than halfway into his first term and there hasn't been almost any funding for his wall, and which is came off of a 35-day government shutdown. The President has insisted time and again that he wants $5.7 billion for a wall. And now here we are after this 35-day government shutdown and we're just days away for another possible shutdown and democrats have basically said, hey, we will give you this $1.3 billion for fencing and, I mean, you're even seeing republicans saying, hey, President Trump, take this deal. Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell had a phone conversation with the President in which he stressed the need for that for taking this deal. So it just remains to be seen if the President does take this deal, but the time is the clock is certainly ticking.
[Vause:] U.S. Vice President Ann Coulter, she hit the Twitter machine to let her frustration be known. Trump talks a good game on the border wall but his increasing which he's afraid to fight for it. Call this his yellow new deal. Then joining his regular appearance on Fox News, the White House Chief of Staff, Sean Hannity was equally critical.
[Sean Hannity, Fox News:] $1.3 billion? That's not even a wall or barrier? I'm going to tell this tonight and we will get back into this tomorrow. Any republican that supports this garbage compromise, you'll have to explain.
[Vause:] Okay. Ann Coulter is not the Vice President, Sean Hannity is not the Chief of Staff, but in many ways, they carry a lot more influence in their roles as conservative commentators. They're seen as being reflective of the base, and if that's the case, the base won't be happy.
[Lee:] No, absolutely. I mean, these are voices that President Trump listens to, Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity, obviously, he's appeared on his show a number of times and done interviews. I mean, these two individuals, Sean Hannity and Ann Coulter, they have President Trump's base, their ear. And, I mean, the base really listens to these two firebrands who are on immigration, and they really do listen to them and the President sees these Tweets and he knows that his base is seeing them so it has to be in the back of his mind. I mean, right around before the 35-day government shutdown last month, I mean, Ann Coulter was Tweeting and there were reports that the President wasn't happy with some of her rhetoric and he was looking at it and that kind of lead to a series of events to lead to the shutdown. But these folks are Tweeting and talking and the President is certainly listening.
[Vause:] Yes. The plan now is to take this deal, take the $1.4 billion and then find money for the wall elsewhere within the government. Even if that plan actually comes together, I wonder if the base and all the talking heads will still be unhappy, because the President will be seen as giving into Chuck and Nancy and the base and the conservative talking heads on the crazy end into the radio dial, they like to fight. They don't like it when this President gives in to the democrats.
[Lee:] No, absolutely. I mean, the President's base loves for him to fight and they love for him to take into democrats and on this issue, I mean. But we saw polls during the shutdown. Time and again, polls showed that Americans were blaming the President for the shutdown and that wasn't you know, that was obviously, you know, probably on allies, people in his administration, their mind with this, but, no. His base definitely wants him to fight and he could be seen as caving on this issue.
[Vause:] Yes. We'll move over here quickly because the President, he's demanding the resignation of Ilhan Omar, one of two Muslim women elected to Congress because of a Tweet over the weekend, which suggested U.S. lawmakers only supported Israel because they have been paid off by an Israeli lobby group. The comment was regarded by both sides to politics as anti-Semitic. Omar issued an unequivocal apology but that was not good enough for Donald Trump. Here's what he said.
[Trump:] Anti-Semitism has no place in the United States Congress. What she said is so deep seeded in our heart that her lame apology, that's what it was. It was lame, and she didn't mean a word of it, was just not appropriate. I think she should resign from Congress, frankly. But at a minimum, she shouldn't be on committees.
[Vause:] Yes, the same President who could see very fine people on both sides of a rally when one of those sides were in fact neo-Nazis and white nationalists carrying Tiki torches and making Nazi salutes. I mean, this is just hypocrisy, which it is just going [ph] and beyond this scale.
[Lee:] No. Absolutely. I mean this is rhetoric. I mean, the President for the President to call on someone to re-sign, I mean, he's with a number of, you know, racially-tinged to remarks during the campaign and, you know, even during his time in office, remarks that offend immigrants that offend the native Americans and obviously the comment that you made earlier about him saying that both sides were to blame, when white nationalists killed the woman in Charlottesville. I mean, this is something that the President has made a number of controversial remarks. And it's kind of interesting that we really see him call on someone to resign, who has apologized for her remarks. But, yes, no doubt, the President has obviously made a number of controversial remarks over the years.
[Vause:] Yes. If that's the level for resignation, then Donald Trump should have resigned a long time ago anyway.
[Lee:] Right, yes.
[Vause:] Finish it off, Kurtis, last word.
[Lee:] Thank you so much.
[Vause:] Okay. Good to see you. Thanks for coming in. Well, international drug lord, prison escape artist and now, at long last, the notorious head of the Sinaloa Cartel has another title, U.S. convict. A jury in New York has found Joaquin El Chapo Guzman guilty of all ten federal counts he faced, including running an international criminal enterprise, that was the big one, drug trafficking, firearms and conspiracy to launder money. He faces a mandatory life sentence with no chance of parole. Guzman, showed no reaction as the verdict was read but one of his lawyers described El Chapo as extremely upbeat.
[Jeffrey Lichtman, Defense Lawyer:] This is a positive thinker. He's a positive guy. And, look, it's a testament, you know, to his character. And for better or worse, this is a guy that doesn't give up. And I can assure you he has lawyers that will never give up.
[Vause:] Well, to Washington now, and Malcolm Beith, author of the Last Narco, inside the hunt for El Chapo, the world's most wanted drug lord, now available at the discount table with all the good books were sold. Malcolm, I'm just wondering, after the verdict here, we had the defense lawyers, they spoke to reporters, they came out, they admitted that they had never seen a prosecution case quite like this one. Here's what they said.
[Lichtman:] I have never faced a case with so many cooperating witnesses. I have never faced a case with so much evidence. And we did our best.
[Vause:] Okay. So here's the question. Is this the end of the story for El chapo? Do you need to change the title of your book to the man he was the world's most wanted drug lord?
[Malcolm Beith, Author Of The Last Narco:] Well, the question now is whether he was the actual last narco or whether he's Mayo Zambala who the prosecution and defense brought up during the trial is really the last narco. And actually I was spoiler alert here, in my book, I contemplated that question too, because in 2010 when it was publish, similar question were swirling around Sinaloa. Is this the end for El Chapo Guzman, we'll see. He's going to spend the rest of his life in prison. But I was talking to a former colleague and friend and we agreed that this is not the last we will have seen of him. Somehow whether through wife, through his sons, who were believed to be running the Sinaloa Cartel or the remnants of it, we will hear his name again.
[Vause:] Outside the court, we heard from the prosecutors, they went kind of all Eliot Ness. Listen to this.
[Richard Donoghue, U.s. Attorney, Eastern District Of New York:] There are those who say that the war on drugs is not worth fighting. Those people are wrong. Every day, we lose American lives. Every day, harm is inflicted on this country by drug addiction. And every seizure, every arrest and every conviction contributes to a noble effort to save American lives.
[Vause:] I guess, perhaps the question should be is this the right way to be fighting the drug war? Last time El Chapo went to jail, what, 2016, 2017, heroin production from Mexico went up almost 40%.
[Beith:] Yes. You could always question the methods of stemming the flow of drugs or trying to stem the flow. Let's face it, they are smart businessmen at this point and they will meet the demand if it's there. They were producing they were increasing the volume of heroin production back in 2008 when I was there knowing that veterans coming back from Afghanistan and Iraq have end up historically turned to opiates, that they were ahead of the curve on this opiate trend, opioid epidemic. That's not surprising. What it really does show in terms of I don't believe in many victories in the war on drugs. It's a long, long effort. But this trial was a good step continuing in the right direction in that a drug lord like Chapo Guzman who had escaped prison twice, who had fled the law, fled justice in Mexico and created plenty of mayhem and effectively terror in some parts of the country was brought to a courthouse in New York where he was tried by U.S. citizens, not particularly a jury of his peers, but close you know, the closest thing that exists on that sort of trial level, instead of, for instance, we didn't drone him out of his base. We didn't bomb him and kill innocents in the meantime. As far as human rights are concerned, I think the fact that he was held on trial is a great development.
[Vause:] With the fall of one kingpin comes the rise of another. Goodbye El, Chapo. Hello, El Mencho. His cartel is makes El Chapo and the Sinaloa guys look like a bunch of Sunday schoolteachers. Here's a reports from Rolling Stone. The cartel has established trafficking routes in dozens of countries, six continents and controls territory spanning half of Mexico, including along both coasts and both borders. The cartel have increased their operations like no other criminal organization today. The network is about the same size as El Chapo's but grew in half the time and these guys sound like bloodthirsty lunatics. Again, quoting from Rolling Stone, in 2015, cartel assassins executed a man and his elementary school aged son by detonating sticks of dynamite, duck tape to their bodies, laughing as they filmed the ghastly scene with their phones. This is ISIS stuff, as one DEA agent who has investigated the cartel. There's also a report say they use rocket launchers, they laid siege to an entire Mexican city at one point, Guadalajara. The comparisons with ISIS in terms of tactics is pretty accurate.
[Beith:] Yes, there's no doubt. I have always been I've long been a skeptic of narco terrorism status that were introduced during the Bush administration. But the truth is a lot of these cartels have long used terrorist-like tactics, beheadings, any sort you know, at the end of the day, they are spreading terror. That doesn't always fit our definition of terrorism. But without a doubt, they're springing on the CJ&G's modus operandi is based that they've seized on the gap that was left by Guzman's, and it was the Sinaloa Cartel's gradual demise between 2009 and 2016. So they basically that's how they have expanded fast across the world. It's the same routes that the drugs need to get there. How terrifying they are and how terrorizing they are really I mean, we have to put it into context. DEA agents are going to sometimes exaggerate the fears or maybe highlight one killing, one specific incident. I don't track this stuff, but it's something worth tracking over the next year or so to see just how violent they're getting.
[Vause:] I want to finish up here with a word from the newly elected President of Mexico. As far as he is concerned more than a decade of a war on drug trafficking is officially over. He recently told reporters there hadn't been any capos [ph] arrested because it's not our main purpose. The capos is a reference to the name of the crime bosses. What we're looking for is safety, to lower the number of daily homicides. A part of that he says, will see you substitution for, let's say, crops [ph]. Can you see the psychos with a duct tape and dynamite deciding that maybe life is a corn farmer would be a better way of making an honest living?
[Beith:] No, it's not going to happen. I mean, my only I'm generally pro-legalization of marijuana at least, the other drugs probably not. It's just not possible. But when Calderon, The President Calderon in Mexico between 2006 and 2012 pushed decriminalization and the hope was to get effectively turnover the drugs long-term to the government. But why are they going to give up a multibillion dollar industry? And the question is would they be willing to just hold their disputes in a court for instance rather than shooting each other? Another reason why this trial is so important, this judicial model, some day, someone like Chapo might be tried in a courthouse in Culiacan, Sinaloa instead of Brooklyn.
[Vause:] And that would be a day to see. Malcolm, thank you so much, always good to see you.
[Beith:] Thanks very much.
[Vause:] In prison life seems to agree with comedian Bill Cosby calling it an amazing experience. He's serving three to ten years for drugging and sexually assaulting a woman in 2004. And his spokesman, Andrew Wyatt, says Cosby is trying to stay in shape even at the [INAUDIBLE].
[Andrew Wyatt, Bill Cosby's Spokeperson:] He said, wake me up at 3:30 A.M., they wake up him up at 3:30 A.M. and he exercises. He's in his cell, he does leg lifts. He pushes up against the bed and does push- ups to stay in shape. He showers. And he waits for breakfast.
[Vause:] Wyatt and Cosby's lawyers are apparently the only ones making jail visits, apparently that Cosby wants it. He talks to his wife on the phone three times a day for three minutes each and has received thousands of letters from total strangers, some even sending money. Persecuted, desperate and running out of options. Tens of thousands over Rohingya facing another crisis only this time from a place where they thought they would have been safe. Details, next.