White House Adviser Doubles Down On Claims On Voter Fraud
WHITFIELD: All right, the Trump administration says all options are on the table with the president's proposed travel ban. Athena Jones is traveling with the president who is in Palm Beach, Florida. Athena, we know that one of his top advisers was more than just hinting but really delivering the message that all options are on the table, and they're going to continue moving forward on this travel ban.</s>ATHENA JONES, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Fred. That's right. You know, the big question is, what is going to happen next? They're discussing all options. It's very clear that the president believes as he told us on the flight down here on Friday that his administration would ultimately win out on any court battle. But he also made the argument that there is a sense of urgency here because he believes -- he feels that the nation's security is at stake. And so it's clear that they would like to take some actions rather quickly, sooner rather than later certainly, but just what those actions will be is still being worked out. Let's go ahead and listen to what the President's Senior Policy Adviser Stephen Miller had to say on "Fox News Sunday," and then we'll talk about it on the other side. Let's play that.</s>MILLER: Right now we are considering and pursuing all options. Those options include seeking an emergency state at the Supreme Court, continuing the appeal with the panel, having an emergency hearing en banc, or going to the trial court in the district level and the trial on merits. They also include as you have mentioned the possibility of new executive actions designed to prevent terrorist infiltration of our country. But I want to say something very clearly, and this is going to be very disappointing to the people protesting the president and the people in Congress like Senator Schumer who've attacked the president for his lawful and necessary action. The president's powers here are beyond question.</s>JONES: And those last couple of lines, Fredricka, are very interesting to talk about. He talked about the president's lawful and necessary action, his powers here are beyond question. So, Stephen Miller is making the case that the president's statutory and constitutional powers allow him to institute this travel ban. That's completely within his powers. He's also sounds like he's making the case that the president's actions are not reviewable because they deal with national security. And if you remember, during those oral arguments that so many of us listen to before the three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, that was one of the essential questions whether this idea of whether the president's actions are reviewable. Certainly, the court came down on the side that they are reviewable. Stephen Miller continues to argue that they are not reviewable, essentially, and he made that point over and over again on various Sunday shows this morning. It's not surprising that he should make that point, but it is interesting to point out, because it is at odds with that ruling. The bottom line here, Fredricka, is that despite what President Trump told us on that flight on Air Force One down here -- coming down here on Friday when he said that, you know, he could file a brand new order as soon as tomorrow or Tuesday. Now, he didn't commit to either of those days. But, it just doesn't look like it's quite as imminent as that that a new order could be coming at. It looks as though they're still working on it. But this White House has been full of surprises, and so we'll have to just wait and see what actually happens. Fred?</s>WHITFIELD: All right, Athena Jones, thank you so much, in Palm Beach. Appreciate that. All right, let's bring back CNN Senior Political Analyst Ron Brownstein. So, you know, Ron, the Trump administration considering all options on this travel ban, at the same time you're hearing, you know, from Athena where -- that the White House feels that these actions are really not reviewable. Why is this -- the White House running the risk of jeopardizing its credibility in this way?</s>BROWNSTEIN: First of all, I mean, the essence of the American constitutional system of checks and balances is that there is nothing beyond question. Everything can be questioned within the political system. And ultimately, it is for the courts to decide where the lines are in both statutory and constitutional authority. And as Athena alluded to, not only was this issue raised during the oral arguments, but the Ninth Circuit judges explicitly rejected the idea that -- in their decision that the president's actions in this area were not reviewable. So, I mean, there is no question that the courts ultimately have authority to decide when the president has exceed his own authority. I mean, that's been since, you know, since, you know, John Marshall. So, you know, I think that they are kind of moving into a position that kind of raises a different set of issues then they narrow, than the immediate ones surrounding this executive order.</s>WHITFIELD: So it almost sounds like there are two messages. Well, Donald Trump tweeted, you know, "See you in court." It also sounds like they're saying they're willing to dismiss what the court is asking, which is an explanation of the motivation behind the court order by saying when he was on Air Force One, "I'm going to have a new executive order and we're likely to see it this week."</s>BROWNSTEIN: Right. I mean, look, so the problem they've got with staying in court is that a full hearing by the Ninth Circuit which is the most Democratic leaning of the circuits, 2 to 1 Democratic appointees is unlikely to end any differently than this initial decision. And then they face the prospect of reaching a divided 4-4 Supreme Court, not a conceivable even that one of the Republican appointed judges could uphold this decision. So, the court route is difficult in terms of reversing the stay. And even if you go back and rewrite the executive order, there's no guarantee that the coalition of forces that fought this one in court, the states of Washington and Minnesota, joined by 16 other states, joined by a coalition of 100 leading businesses including Apple, Facebook, Google, pretty much the entire 21st century economy would not go back into court and challenge that, because don't forget, both the district and appellate court questioned the very premise that they had shown, that the administration had shown sufficient evidence that there was a reason for any kind of additional restrictions beyond those in current law on these countries. That there was a national security threat. Presumably, that question would hang over to any kind of scaled back executive order, for example targeted to only those who had not been to the United States previously.</s>WHITFIELD: Yeah. It seems like it would be creating, get a whole new problem, a whole new fight.</s>BROWNSTEIN: Yeah.</s>WHITFIELD: So the Trump administration also now doubling down on claims of widespread voter fraud without offering any proof. Take a listen to this exchange on ABC earlier today.</s>MILLER: This morning on this show is not the venue for me to lay out the evidence, but I can tell you this, voter fraud is a serious problem in this country. You have millions of people who are registered in two states, or who are dead who are registered to vote and you have 14 percent of non-citizens according to academic research, at a minimum, are registered to vote, which is an astonishing statistic.</s>GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS, ABC NEWS ANCHOR: You can't make -- hold on a second. You just claimed again that there was illegal voting in New Hampshire. People bussed in from the state of Massachusetts. Do you have any evidence --</s>MILLER: I'm saying anybody -- George, go to New Hampshire. Talk to anybody who has worked in politics there for a long time. Everybody is aware of the problem in New Hampshire with respect to bringing in voters and with respect to --</s>STEPHANOPOULOS: I'm asking you as the White House Senior -- hold on a second. I'm asking you as the White House Senior Policy Adviser, the president made a statement saying he was the victim of voter fraud --</s>MILLER: And the president was.</s>STEPHANOPOULOS: Do you have any evidence?</s>MILLER: If this is an issue that interests you, then we could talk about it more in the future and we now have -- our government is beginning to get stood up. We have the Department of Justice and we have more officials. An issue of voter fraud is something that we're looking at very seriously and very hard. But the reality is, is that we know for a fact, you have massive numbers of non-citizens registered to vote in this country. Nobody disputes that.</s>WHITFIELD: OK. Well, it's being disputed a lot. I mean, and calling this once again a serious problem. I mean, bottom line, is this just like a diversionary tactic, again? Or what's going on?</s>BROWNSTEIN: No. I think it's quite the opposite. First of all, talk to anyone in New Hampshire. Today, Tom Rath, who is the longest serving long time GOP strategist in the state said that these claims are completely unequivocally unfounded. So, you can talk to anybody in New Hampshire. There is simply is no evidence of these charges, but I don't think it's a diversion at all. I mean, I think that, you know, we -- people started thinking this was kind of the peak of the president that it was -- his pride was hurt that he lost the popular vote. He lost in New Hampshire, so therefore it had to be because of voter fraud. In fact, what increasingly seems to be clear is that these claims are being made to pave the way toward potentially further restrictions on voting, tightening voter I.D., other efforts that the Obama administration in many cases went to court to fight as an attempt to constrain the ability of minorities and lower income people to vote. So I think this is far from a diversion. All indications are that they are heading toward "investigation" that will become the predicate for potentially a new round of voter restrictions and I think a battle royal both in state legislatures, in Congress and in the courts.</s>WHITFIELD: And switching gears now, the U.S. Department of Education sent out a tweet this morning with a quote from W.E.B. DuBois, so I'm pronouncing it DuBois, you know, misspelling is the bottom line of the last name. They followed up, the Department of Education with an apology and yet another typo saying, "Our deepest apologies," but spelling that wrong. Is this just, you know, an error or just a reflection of something else in terms of just not being concise, precise, caring?</s>BROWNSTEIN: Look, every new administration struggles to get its feet under it. This one is struggling more than most in a lot of different ways from the small, like the tweets that you cite to the large, like Stephen Miller being the architect of an executive order that was at the core of what they have wanted to do on immigration that has run afoul not only of Democratic but of Republican appointed judges. So, they are clearly struggling to get going. They are making a lot of waves. They are moving forward on a lot of things that they have promised to do, and thrilling many of their supporters. But I would note that today in the Gallup poll his disapproval rating reached 55 percent in 23 days. No other president has reached even 50 percent disapproval in less than 150, usually in like 600 or 700 to get to 50. There is a lot of evidence that the cart is kind of wobbling here in the early weeks, and that's why you begin to hear these kinds of whispers among Republicans about whether there will be a course correction on some of the staffing, particularly in the White House.</s>WHITFIELD: Cart is wobbling, a good way to put it. All right, I mean, really wobbling. All right, Ron Brownstein, thank you so much, in Washington.</s>BROWNSTEIN: Thank you.</s>WHITFIELD: We'll be right back.