[John Berman, Cnn Anchor:] President Trump back to the wall but still in no man's land when it comes to telling the truth about it. John Berman here in for Anderson. A lot happening in the hour ahead. You're looking at the county coliseum in the Texas border city of El Paso. The president will be speaking there shortly and on the street tonight heading to a counter rally nearby, protesters including former Democratic congressman and possible presidential hopeful Beto O'Rourke. That's on the right side of your screen. They are marching to tell the president what they think of his border policy and statements like this which are just plain wrong.
[Donald Trump, President Of The United States:] The border city of El Paso, Texas, used to have extremely high rates of violent crime. One of the highest in the entire country and considered one of our nation's most dangerous cities. Now, immediately upon its building with a powerful barrier in place, El Paso is one of the safest cities in our country.
[Berman:] So keeping them honest, that's not true, full stop. El Paso was and is one of America's safer cities before and after the wall. Here are the facts courtesy of the "El Paso Times" and figures they received from the FBI. They show violent crime they're peaking in 1993, and declining by more than a third by 2006. Border fencing was authorized that year and was completed in 2009. And as you can see, while a crime actually went up right around then, about 17 percent, and it's bounced around at a fairly low level ever since. The numbers are consistent with other big cities over that period. Violent crime going down substantially or in many cases dramatically, and the president any president can get those numbers by just picking up a phone a local call, any president at any time of day or night has access to more facts about more things than any of us could possibly imagine. Unless that is he prefers imagining his then doubling down and actually going to the place he lied about to prove a point that's not true, you know, because it's Monday. In a moment, you'll hear from the mayor of El Paso, a Republican by the way. First, live coverage of the events starting with the protest march in CNN's Jeff Zeleny who joins us live. Jeff, give us a sense of what's going on where you are.
[Jeff Zeleny, Cnn Senior White House Correspondent:] John, there is a sense that the residents of El Paso here as you can see behind me, they're staging to have a march to the arena where the president is going to be. They are saying that they want to tell their story about El Paso. They want to tell their facts and figures about the actual crime right here. As you said the Republican mayor of El Paso, other Republicans we've spoken to all day long say the president simply is not correct here in his facts. So that is something that they are marching. They want to, of course, a correct the record if you will. They were stung last week when the president mentioned this in the State of the Union Address. So they are trying to correct the record. But, John, a lot of attention is focused on one person in the crowd, a tall person in the crowd. That, of course, is Beto O'Rourke, the former Texas congressman. Anticipation hanging over the air here about his future.
[Berman:] And the question is will he announce whether or not he is running for president the former Texas congressman has said he will decide by the end of February. We will hear from Beto O'Rourke shortly. Do you have any sense on what he might discuss tonight.
[Zeleny:] Well, John, we know that he will not announce that he is going to seek the Democratic nomination tonight. I've talked to two friends of his who say he does not want to use the timing or the space here of the president's rally to announce his future plans. But we do know that he wants to talk about his opposition to the border wall. He wants to talk about his you know, differing view of immigration policies so that is what we expect him to say. He wants to also he says tell the story of El Paso which he says is one of the safest cities in America because of immigration, because of legal immigration. So that is something we are going to hear from him. But so, there are black flags here, John, whipping into wind saying Beto for president for 2020. He has not yet made that decision we're told but he's inching ever closer to it. That, of course, would be adding one more name to the crowded field should he do it. But don't look for that announcement, John, but a bit of a tease here.
[Berman:] Yes.
[Zeleny:] A couple weeks before he'll make his plans known, John.
[Berman:] Yes, he won't announce it tonight, but it is clear he is using this night in this event to create the juxtaposition with the president of the United States. It is interesting in and of itself. Jeff Zeleny, great to have you on the ground there in El Paso. Keep us posted as this march develops over the next several minutes. Again, we were expecting the president shortly. Let's check in now at that video with CNN's Kaitlan Collins. Kaitlan, so why did the president chose El Paso for this rally, given that the facts do not support the arguments that he made about the need for the wall in El Paso?
[Kaitlan Collins, Cnn White House Correspondent:] Yes, John. Despite what officials say and despite what the numbers show, the president believes this is the city that makes the argument for his border wall. One reason he believes that is the state's attorney general, Ken Paxton, who told the president that violent crime here dropped after that fence barrier was built along the border, which you can see when you step just outside of the coliseum and that the president is speaking at tonight. Now, despite the numbers and what officials have said as you said at the beginning the show saying that's not true, the president is expected to continue undeterred, making that argument here to the residence of El Paso tonight.
[Berman:] Hey, Kaitlin, has he spent anytime meeting with people today, any officials to find out what's really going on on the ground?
[Collins:] No, John, the president actually has not even landed yet here in El Paso. He's still up in the air, on his way from Washington, but right now, he doesn't have any briefings on his schedule. Instead, when he gets here, the two things we know he's doing is one, a photo line with supporters. That costs about $15,000 per supporter and he's pretaping an interview with Fox News that's going to air later on in the evening. Now, we should say that the president did visit the border city of McAllen, Texas, back in the middle of January, where he did do border security briefings. He walked along the border with several officials. But, John, this is the president's first time in El Paso tonight, the city that he says that's making the argument for his wall here, yet, he's not scheduled to have any kind of border briefings with any of the local officials who have been disputing what he's been saying about this city.
[Berman:] All right. Kaitlan Collins at the event itself. Thanks to you and thanks to Mick Jagger. On the other side of your screen there is the march, this counterprotest we can put it back up again against the president. People in El Paso, they say they want to give the president's the facts there about what has gone on in that city, again one of the safer cities before a wall was built and after a wall is built. In that crowd, former Democratic Congressman Beto O'Rourke, who we will hear from very shortly. So stay tuned. If anyone should know what life is like in El Paso, it is the mayor there he like the president is a Republican. He has been in office since 2017, and I had a chance to speak to him earlier tonight. Mayor Margo, just this afternoon, the president's campaign released a video featuring residents of El Paso saying that since the barrier was put up in your city, crime has gone down dramatically and that not constructing a wall is immoral. How do you respond to that?
[Mayor Dee Margo , El Paso, Texas:] Well, I haven't seen the clip. I don't know who was saying it. But the statistics show that we were one of the safest cities before the fence went up and we've remained today we're considered I think the safest city in the United States, according to uniform crime statistics reported by or to the FBI for a community that's or a city that's over 500,000. The fence has helped some on crime and the residents in some of the neighborhoods, specifically the Chihuahuita neighborhood, which is which is one of our oldest if not our oldest neighborhood have said that they felt safer as a result of that. But the overall crime statistics with the exception of vehicle thefts and some things like that hasn't had significant change.
[Berman:] No, and the notion that he stated in the State of the Union, El Paso had one of the highest crime rates in the country, one of the most violent cities in the country, you take issue with that?
[Margo:] Well, it's just it's not factually correct, but I think to give deference to the president, he was echoing what our attorney general had said a couple of weeks ago in McAllen and that's where the incorrect information came from. So, no one asked me to correct that one. I've just been correcting the or since the president's State of the Union.
[Berman:] What do you make of your city being used as something of a political tool tonight by the president, as a way to make his case for the border wall?
[Margo:] Well, I prefer not to characterize this as a political tool. I think it's an opportunity to showcase El Paso. My biggest argument has been if you want to understand immigration, if you want to understand the border, if you want to understand how Mexico and in our case El Paso and Texas are intertwined, culturally and economically for almost 400 years, you need to come here. And as a result that he's coming, even though it's a political event, I'm just happy to have them down here. But the problem we have is most of the people in the pundits who are in Washington or middle America or Chicago or elsewhere, I don't know where they are, but are making comments about the border have never been here and don't understand it.
[Berman:] Do you think or expect him to act or accurately depict the realities of El Paso tonight?
[Margo:] It's hard to say. I would hope I'm going to hope I hope that I will be able to visit with him before his rally a little bit and maybe, you know, eliminate or elucidate him for on El Paso. But it's hard to say. It's an awfully quick visit, but it's a start. I mean, we're pleased I would prefer it being a presidential visit for fact-finding and those kind of things as opposed to a political rally. But I'm but we're happy to have the president come down here and see a little bit of El Paso firsthand.
[Berman:] Mayor, you said you want people to come see the border for themselves. What do you want the president to learn about El Paso tonight?
[Margo:] Well, the fact that we are so you know intrinsically tied together that we're one we're really one region. You know, I like to say we're three states, New Mexico, Chihuahua and Texas in two countries, the United States of Mexico, and one region of two and a half million people, and we've been that way for almost four hundred years. People also don't realize that El Paso was original on the South Side of the Rio Grande until 1848. So it's just hard for people to fully understand. We're not a small dusty community. We're a large metropolitan area with over two-and-a- half million people.
[Berman:] Mayor Margo, I appreciate your time. Appreciate the work you do for El Paso. Thanks so much for being with us.
[Margo:] Thank you.
[Berman:] Always a note when a Republican mayor cannot say whether or not the president of the United States will be accurate tonight in his comments. Again, you're looking at live pictures from El Paso. This is not far from where the president will be speaking right now. This is the counter protest, a rally, a march to make a statement by the people in that city, but what would they say the facts are in El Paso, and among the marchers is the former Democratic Congressman Beto O'Rourke considering a run for president. We will hear from him shortly. A lot more head as we get ready to hear from the president and Beto O'Rourke as another shutdown deadline approaches. We'll get a live update on negotiations and take you inside the talks is one of the lawmakers tried to reach a deal. And later, the president may have thought he was only insulting a political rival. In fact his latest remarks about Senator Elizabeth Warren, Native Americans have also reopened an old and especially deep wound in this country. Keeping them honest on that ahead on 360.