House To Vote On Two Immigration Bill Next Week; Democrat Who Admits Domestic Violence 45 Years Ago Wins SC Primary
HARLOW: Welcome back. I'm Poppy Harlow in New York. President Trump is back at the White House this morning and declaring that North Korea is no longer a nuclear threat. Joining me now is Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey. He's the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Thank you for being here this morning</s>SEN. BOB MENENDEZ (D), NEW JERSEY: Good to be with you, Poppy.</s>HARLOW: So, the president writes, "There is no longer a nuclear threat from North Korea." Do you agree?</s>MENENDEZ: No. The reality is North Korea still has all of the warheads it had before, the nuclear warheads it had before, it has the nuclear process to create fissile material, to create bombs. It continues to have its missile systems unfettered. And so, at the end of the day, the same exact threat that we had before the summit exists now.</s>HARLOW: However - and you said - look, just yesterday you said, this is just a promise from more promises and we've been down that road before. I hear you. But even frequent critic of the president, James Clapper, former director of national intelligence, last night on this network to Anderson said, we're in a much better place. We're on a diplomatic path as opposed to where we were six or eight months ago. Does the president deserve some credit for getting us there, senator?</s>MENENDEZ: Well, I think you have to take a step back to analyze that statement. Number one is, it's the president's heated rhetoric where he was exchanging with Kim Jong-un the threats of nuclear annihilation through Twitter. And so, the president ratcheted this up dramatically as well. So, to give him credit for bringing it down several decibels is something that he created of his own doing. And so, look, I think it's better that these two ultimately have a process to talk versus threaten nuclear annihilation, but at the same time it didn't h to be at a presidential level.</s>HARLOW: Right.</s>MENENDEZ: It could have been with a lot of thorough work that produced in the past much more substantive agreements with a pathway forward than this communique.</s>HARLOW: Sure. Maybe more substantive agreed frameworks like '94, but that fizzled, right? That failed. And you made the point yesterday to Jake, my colleague, that you wanted to at least, out of this summit, see a definition of denuclearization because it is defined so differently by this administration than the Kim regime. We didn't get that. However, this is the first of a number of meetings to come, we're told. As we sit here today, do you believe that the United States is safer than it was on Monday with respect to North Korea?</s>MENENDEZ: To the extent that the rhetoric that President Trump used that heightened the potential risk of a miscalculation on either side, yes. But to the extent that all of the substantive threats that North Korea poses to us in the Korean Peninsula, throughout the region, those are all still there. And what worries me is we have taken Kim from international pariah to a respected state leader, that we have actually ceased our military exercises and the president adopts the provocative language of the North, saying it is provocative and war games, and that we don't tell our allies that are critical to us to succeed in our efforts with North Korea at the end of the day.</s>HARLOW: As you know, the vice president went up to the Hill yesterday and tried to sort of clean that up by saying, look, we're still going to have some joint exercises, but not these "war games." But I take your point. Quickly before I move on to immigration, the president did say that a White House invitation for Kim Jong-un could be in the cards "at the appropriate time" according to the president. What would be the appropriate time for the North Korean dictator to come to the United States, meaning what would you have to see to make you comfortable with that invitation? We'd have to see - that should be towards the end of a process. We say trust, but verify. There's nothing here to verify except a promise to make more promises. We've been down this road. So, we'd have to actually see Kim Jong-un in the process of destroying and dismantling his nuclear weapons, his nuclear infrastructure, his intercontinental ballistic missile infrastructure. If he's down that process and it's verifiably so and we can determine that we're on a path to irreversibility, then that would be maybe be the possibility. I would hope the president would raise the enormous human rights violations that exist in North Korea. He says that Kim Jong-un is honorable and loves his people, but tens of thousands are in North Korean prisons, tens of thousands more are starving. I don't want that type of love from my leader.</s>HARLOW: He did say that human rights came up briefly in his conversation with Kim. On immigration, what we know now is that Republican leadership is going to potentially take up these two immigration bills that would deal with DACA. One of them is still being written at this point in time. What would - and the concern here is that nothing's going to get passed because no - one of the reasons being that no Democrats are expected to get on board with this. I wonder for you, someone who has been so outspoken about the need for immigration reform, so outspoken about protecting DREAMers and DACA legislation, what would those bills need to include, senator, to get you on board, to get a yes vote from you?</s>MENENDEZ: Well, there would have to be a clear pathway for DREAMers to legalize their status in the United States. In the first instance, give them a pathway where they already, to be a DREAMer, under existing regulations, they have to be a law-abiding citizen, they have to be either gainfully employed or in school, pay taxes, if they're actually employed and pass a criminal background check and then you give them a pathway towards permanent residency and later US citizen. And you look at their immediate mother or father as part of a package. That would be a pathway towards something. What the administration would require for that has been overwhelmingly unacceptable. They want to change legal immigration, as we know it, in this country, even though President Trump benefited from legal immigration by virtue of his grandfather coming to the United States, claimed under the fifth preference category. They want to change the nature of what is asylum in this country. I think that's a problem. I mean, they want to change immigration as we know it and have benefited from it for over a century.</s>HARLOW: Senator, before you go, very quickly, in the primaries overnight, in South Carolina, the Democratic candidate Archie Parnell won his primary fight in the 5th district. This came a month after he admitted to assaulting and battering his ex-wife 45 years ago. She said she feared for her life, she had to obtain a restraining order. My question to you is broad. And it is, should domestic abuse ever, even 45 years ago, be disqualifying for someone to hold public office?</s>MENENDEZ: In my view, it probably should be. Of course, the electorate always decides what is and is not disqualifying. But in my view, even if it's that long period of time, it should be.</s>HARLOW: Sen. Bob Menendez, appreciate your time this morning. Thank you.</s>MENENDEZ: Take care.</s>HARLOW: Coming up, a busy primary night last night. A big lesson for Republicans. Challenge the president at your own peril. Just ask a certain congressman in South Carolina.