Democrats Off for Vacation, Republicans Still Working
DON LEMON, CNN HOST: This is CNN TONIGHT. I'm Don Lemon. Thanks for joining us. So, President Trump and his top aides at it again today. Saying things that are simply false. We should just call them for what they are. They're lies. As if saying them makes them true. It doesn't. But what is true, what is real for so many American families is that hundreds of thousands of federal employees are taking the brunt of the partial shutdown of the government, nearing its seventh day now. Going without paychecks this holiday season. These are the facts. OK? About the Trump shutdown, as Nancy Pelosi calls it. Three hundred eighty thousand federal workers have been furloughed, and there is no guarantee they'll be paid retroactively when the shutdown is over. There's no guarantee of that. In addition, 420,000 employees are deemed essential and are working without pay. That includes 41,000 federal law enforcement and correctional officers. And tens of thousands of Customs and Border Protection agents and customs officers. President Trump's ignoring those facts. And today he tweeted this really outrageous remark. "Do the Dems realize that most of the people not getting paid are Democrats?" The crassness of that statement is just stunning. And as usual, the president offers zero evidence to support it. No evidence. But Congressman Gerry Connolly, a Virginia Democrat who represents thousands of federal workers, responded this way.</s>REP. GERRY CONNOLLY, (D) VIRGINIA: What an outrageous thing for a president of the United States to say. I have no earthly idea whether a federal employee is a Republican or a Democrat or an independent. And what is the relevance of that to a shutdown to an individual federal public servant not getting paid?</s>LEMON: And it looks like those federal workers will be without paychecks for quite a while. Both the House and the Senate reconvened for just moments today, and then they adjourned until next week. So that means no progress, nothing is getting done. But the White House lies, well, they just get better. OK? Because the press secretary Sarah Sanders releasing a statement today claiming President Trump and his team stayed in Washington over Christmas to negotiate a deal and that the Democrats decided to go home. So, let's see what's wrong with that statement. OK? Purely political. Obviously not true. The president stayed at the White House because of the optics of going to his luxurious Mar-a-Lago estate. Well, that stinks. While hundreds of thousands of employees are not being paid. Top aide Jared Kushner and his wife, Ivanka Trump, they're not in Washington this week. They're in Florida. Along with their Secret Service detail, by the way, which is not being paid right now. And the idea that Republican leaders stayed on Capitol Hill to head off a shutdown, that's laughable. Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan couldn't get out of town fast enough after Trump scuttled the deal to keep the government funded temporarily. And note to this White House. Capitol Hill is empty. Negotiations said to be frozen. President Trump, meanwhile, blasting Democrats as obstructionists for not giving him $5 billion for his border wall. Nancy Pelosi in a statement tonight reminding him that there are proposals on the table to reopen the government and they include money for border security, which is different than a border wall, which she calls immoral and expensive. But remember, it was the president who said this about a shutdown.</s>DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Chuck, you want to put that on mine.</s>SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER, (D) NEW YORK, MINORITY LEADER: You said it.</s>TRUMP: I'll take it.</s>SCHUMER: OK, good.</s>TRUMP: You know what I'll say? Yes. If we don't get what we want, one way or the other, whether it's through you, through a military, through anything you want to call, I will shut down the government.</s>SCHUMER: OK. Fair enough.</s>TRUMP: And I am proud--</s>SCHUMER: We disagree. We disagree.</s>TRUMP: And I am proud to shut down the government for border security, Chuck. I will take the mantle. I will be the one to shut it down. I'm not going to blame you for it.</s>LEMON: You can count on that, Mr. President. But let's go back to 2013. OK? This is what Donald Trump said to Fox News ahead of a government shutdown when Barack Obama was still president.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Who's going to bear the brunt of the responsibility if indeed there is a shutdown of our government?</s>TRUMP: Well, if you say who gets fired, it always has to be the top. I mean, problems start from the top and they have to get solved from the top. And the president is the leader. And he's got to get everybody in a room. And he's got to lead.</s>LEMON: It starts from the top. If anyone should get fired, the president. Donald Trump suggesting that President Barack Obama should have been fired for a government shutdown. Priceless. Well, a lot to get about the government shutdown. Let's begin with former Republican Congressman Charlie Dent, National Security Analyst, Matthew Rosenberg, and Political Analyst, Rachael Bade. Good evening to all of you. Thank you for being bright and chipper and joining us this evening. I appreciate it. Rachael, I'm going to start with you. You know, I called it. The shutdown will continue into the new year. Our sources on the hill say no progress has been made towards a deal. And that is abundantly clear when you look at the sheer number of tweets the president shot off today. Nothing is getting done.</s>RACHAEL BADE, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes, that's absolutely right. I was up there all day today. And it was a ghost town. I can tell you. I think I saw maybe two lawmakers, Jim McGovern, who is a Democrat from Massachusetts, he tried to bring up a bill in the House at about 4 o'clock that would basically reopen the government. He tried to--</s>LEMON: You saw a Democrat -- the president said Democrats had gone home and the Republicans were still there. Well, clearly say one thing, facts clearly show another. Right? And Republicans are the ones who gaveled him down. They wouldn't let him bring it up for a vote. So, you know, there's a lot of talk about this. Clearly lawmakers, despite the fact that this is, you know, a total disaster and people, federal workers are going to feel the brunt of this, they're not here. And you know, my sources on the hill are saying maybe January 11th becomes the new soft deadline. That is the day of the first furloughed paycheck for a bunch of government workers who are either working without pay right now or not working at all. So, we've gone a while and I think the reason you're seeing Trump tweet so much right now is because he knows he's losing this war right now. And his leverage is only going to decrease as soon as Nancy Pelosi takes the speaker's gavel because she's going to pass over and over again a bill that will reopen the government and you know, the pressure is going to be increased tremendously on Mitch McConnell in the Senate to put that on the floor and reopen the government. And it's just going to look increasingly bad for the president.</s>LEMON: Yes. Congressman Dent, listen. I'm kind of joking about that because I just think it's -- I'm just pointing out the hypocrisy. There's nothing funny about this, you know. And the minute it came out I was like you know, there's nothing funny about it. But there's so much -- it's so hypocritical because the president is claiming without evidence that most of the 800,000 federal workers affected by the shutdown are -- he's saying they're Democrats. He is trying to play a political game here. But come on, these are real people with real bills and mortgages. It's offensive.</s>FORMER REP. CHARLIE DENT (R), PENNSYLVANIA: Yes. It's almost inexplicable that he would make a comment like that. It's certainly indefensible. I mean, the shutdown affects everybody negatively. There's nothing good about it. And by the way, the party that makes the policy demand owns the shutdown. And the president owns this one. When he says if I don't get my border wall funding, I'm shutting down the government. Well, guess what? You own it. When the Democrats insisted on a DACA bill as a price for keeping the government open, they more or less opened that shutdown. When Ted Cruz insisted on defunding Obamacare as the price to keep the government open, guess what. Ted Cruz and Republicans owned that shutdown. So, the president clearly owns this one. And this is so unnecessary, as Rachael said. Nothing is going to happen on this until January 3rd when the Democrats I think are going to probably pass one of three likely funding bills which I can get into if you'd like to hear them. But they'll have I think three options to reopen the government. Then you have to send a Democrat -- Senate Republicans to figure out how to proceed.</s>LEMON: You can tell me about the options if you can do it quickly.</s>DENT: Sure. One--</s>LEMON: You said if you'd like to hear that--</s>DENT: Yes. Absolutely. The first one would be the continuing resolution that the Senate passed, that same one. Identical. Pass that. If they don't do that then I would recommend they can pass a continuing resolution for the entire year. Not recommended but they can do that. And the third one, my choice, is pass the six appropriations bills that are completed.</s>LEMON: Right.</s>DENT: Pass them as is and then do a continuing resolution on the homeland security appropriations bill.</s>LEMON: What do you--</s>BADE: And Senate Republicans, just to be clear, on that first option, the reason Senate Democrats think they actually have the upper hand on this is the Senate Republicans just voice voted that same bill to continue funding the government through February. So, they think they have the upper hand on that.</s>LEMON: Yes. Matthew two questions. First one is what are the chances do you think that anything will happen like what Charlie said?</s>MATTHEW ROSENBERG, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: You know, I mean, with--</s>LEMON: OK. That was your answer right there.</s>ROSENBERG: I mean, look, the guy is sitting in the White House spending the week tweeting. It's really not a president that -- presidency we've had before. So, I'm having trouble predicting what could happen here.</s>LEMON: OK. Well, let me ask you this. So, House Democrats take control in the new year. Right? What leverage does the president have to demand $5 billion for a border wall once they take control?</s>ROSENBERG: I mean, look, he can keep the government shut down. He can veto every bill they come up with. That's leverage. I don't know if it does him any good, but it's leverage.</s>BADE: Yes. I would -- I was just going to add, Reuters just put a poll up a few minutes ago saying that 47 percent of Americans blame the president for the shutdown and 33 percent blame the Democrats. I think that that gap is just going to continue to grow. And you know, again, Charlie Dent just said it. If you're the party making the demand, you are the party that usually loses. Just look back to what happened one year ago when Democrats were saying we're going to shut down the government until we get a fix for DREAMers.</s>LEMON: Yes.</s>BADE: And they didn't get anything. They folded and they looked like fools.</s>LEMON: Yes.</s>BADE: And likely that's what's going to happen here.</s>LEMON: Yes. That's -- we don't use that polling but I mean, it gets the point across because I think all the polling across the board shows something at least similar to what Rachael is talking about, Congressman Dent. Here's the other thing. The federal deficit rose to $779 billion in fiscal year 2018. That's up 17 percent from last year. Where's the money coming from to build a wall, the wall that Mexico was supposed to pay for?</s>DENT: Well, that's why we run deficits. They're going to have to find the money. They're going to issue it. Revenues are going to be obviously not sufficient to meet expenditures. The point is look, if I were the Democrats right now, I would just first move to reopen the government. Once I reopen the government, then seriously negotiate with the president on border security. You know, $5 billion is a small price to pay for DREAMers and maybe the Mueller protection -- the Mueller protection bill. I mean, they can negotiate something. I agree there's no reason to build a 2,000-mile concrete barrier on the southern border. That literally makes no sense. I voted for the Secure Fence Act in 2006 that authorized 700 miles of fencing along the southern border. They can do a lot of things to enhance border security and maintain operational control. But what the president's talking about, he still hasn't really explained what it means, what wall means. How many miles?</s>LEMON: Well, they added a trillion dollars to the deficit this year, congressman. I mean, come on. Who's going to pay for all this?</s>DENT: Right. By the way, deficits were projected to go up anyway. I'll just say that. Sooner or later this president and the Congress, whether it's Democrat or Republican, are going to have to get involved in a very serious fiscal reform, something along the lines of Simpson- Bowles, and get serious about it. The day is coming. And these deficits are only going to get worse. You're right, Don. You're making a point. It's money that's going to be deficit financed.</s>LEMON: Congressman, Matthew, Rachael, thank you very much. I appreciate your time.</s>ROSENBERG: Thank you.</s>LEMON: Secretary of homeland security traveling tomorrow to Texas to the border with Mexico. Two migrant children have died in U.S. border control custody this month. I'm going to talk to the incoming Democratic congressman from El Paso on what changes need to be made to U.S. policy along the border when we come back.