The Daily - Avoiding a Shutdown (by Declaring an Emergency)

Episode Date: February 15, 2019

We take a look at the president’s last-minute plan to fund his border wall — and at how we got here. Guest: Mark Landler, who covers the White House for The New York Times. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily.

Oh, it's not plugged in. How about this one? Can anybody hear me? Peter? Oh, okay. Hello. Hello, hello. So, Peter. We are going to start with just, like, having you... Can I... Sorry, can I interrupt for one second?

I'm sorry, this is Bill calling me from upstairs. Of course. Sorry, one second. Hello? No, what just happened? He is. We got a state of emergency HFO. Yeah, yeah, I'll be right there.

Hang on a second. Okay, bye. Yeah, Peter, do you need to dash? Hey, guys, yeah. McConnell just said he's signing the state of emergency. The president signed the state of emergency

in order to use money to build the wall without Congress. So I got to run real quickly. Okay, just one really quickly. What does that mean? It's not like he could be. I don't know. I got to go find out. Bye. Okay. Okay, bye. Do we have to rejigger our script now? Okay, the news is changing in real time here. You just heard from Mitch McConnell. From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. That's right, Ali. Lots of news in what Mitch McConnell just said on the Senate floor.

Today, the president's last-minute plan to fund his border wall and how we got here. To be clear, this is moving pretty fast right now. Casey, there's a bunch of news here because there are some questions. I mean, I think we've witnessed and we were maybe even a part of real-time reporting. As you said to the congressman, news is changing extremely fast. It's Friday, February 15th. Peter Baker covers the White House for The Times. Guys, I think we just lost our reporter. Thankfully, so does Mark Landler.

Michael. Mark. Hey, how are you? I am okay. Mark, we had planned to talk to our colleague, Peter Baker. No offense to you. We love you. We were going to talk to Peter about Trump's evolving strategy on the wall and what it had achieved or failed to achieve up until this point. And then this

news broke and Peter was suddenly on deadline and had to run. So thank you for filling in. Happy to play understudy, Michael. So now I think, Mark, we really want to understand what exactly just happened. So where do you think we need to start? Well, to get to where we are today, you really need to go back to the end of the government shutdown. Remember, this was this titanic battle between President Trump and Congress over funding of his border wall with Mexico. He demanded $5.7 billion in funding. The Democrats, who now control the House, in effect said no way. And there was this 35-day shutdown of large parts of the federal government,

left government workers without paychecks, left the government closing national parks. Right. In the end, it even led to fears that air traffic controllers were not going to be able to properly do their jobs. Too many of them were walking off their jobs. Flights were being delayed into LaGuardia. And the situation became, by all accounts, untenable for the president and for Congress. He was losing support of the Republicans, not to mention the Democrats. So essentially what happened is the two sides agreed to sign a temporary bill that would reopen the government and set a clock for three weeks of negotiations

where the president and Congress would try to find a more lasting solution to the impasse. It was a pretty stinging defeat for President Trump. After all, he had campaigned on building this border wall. But at the time, he claimed, look, we have three weeks to get a better solution, and if I don't get a solution that's satisfactory, I'm willing, perhaps, to shut down the government a second time. Mm-hmm.

I'm willing, perhaps, to shut down the government a second time. And so by the beginning of this week, a team of Democrats and Republicans on the Hill are beginning to coalesce around a potential compromise that would avert this second government shutdown. And there are some early and fragile indications at the White House that perhaps President Trump is in the mood to do a deal, that perhaps he's feeling somewhat conciliatory. And so we begin the week on this somewhat hopeful note after a long period of just a deep impasse between the two sides. So it feels like the president is ready to kind of eat his lumps and capitulate here and get on board with this deal. It does. But with an important caveat, he has to figure out how to do this without looking like he's totally letting down his political base.

Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the president of the United States, Donald J. Trump. So on Monday, the president goes on the road. And I'm proud to be an American, where at least I know I'm free. You know, this is the first big political rally that he's taken part in since the midterm elections. It's his first road trip since delivering his State of the Union. And he goes to this very highly symbolic place. Thank you very much, El Paso. Thank you very much. El Paso, Texas, right on the border with Mexico. And he goes there to essentially lay out the case for why building a border wall is so important.

Right on the banks of the legendary Rio Grande, where, by the way, I don't know, you heard, right? Today, we started a big, beautiful wall right on the Rio Grande. So as the president is waiting to take the stage in El Paso, a couple of his aides pull him aside and they say, Mr. President, back in Washington, we've just gotten news that the Democrats and the Republicans have reached an agreement that if you sign, we'll allow you to reopen the government. And he essentially says to his aides, I'm about to go out on the stage. I don't want to hear about this right now. And then he walks out. And in the course of a very long, very energetic speech, he acknowledges, gee, I heard something just before I came out here.

I have to tell you, as I was walking up to the stage, they said that progress is being made with this committee. Just so you know, we're building the wall anyway. They say that progress has been made. But I didn't want it to interrupt me. I didn't want it to kill the mood in this room. So I told my aides, I don't even really want to hear about this. Just now, just now. I said, wait a minute.

I got to take care of my people from Texas. I got to go. I don't even want to hear about it. And so he both announced it and seemingly dismissed it in the same breath. It was really a very interesting moment to watch. So at this point, what do we know about what's in this agreement that the president has been briefed on but hasn't quite digested, that has been come up with by this bipartisan group of legislators? Well, what we know, and this is really the bottom line from President Trump's perspective, is that the deal provides only $1.37 billion for the building of actual barriers or fences. The president, remember, asked for $5.7

billion. So this number is far short of the amount of money that he demanded. So it sounds like the president feels that he doesn't So it sounds like the president feels that he doesn't really have a choice at this point, given what happened with the 35-day shutdown, other than to get on board with this compromise. I think that's right, because he knows that he's losing the Republicans. He knows that Mitch McConnell and other Republican senators

are simply not willing to go through the ordeal of another shutdown. And we will make America great again. Thank you, Texas. Thank you. We are going to interrupt this, take you live now to President Trump. He held a cabinet meeting actually earlier today. It ended just a short time ago. Here are the president's remarks at that meeting. Thank you all for being here.

Before we begin, we're thinking about... And the next day, Tuesday, he sends sort of conflicting signals. I can't say I'm happy. I can't say I'm thrilled. Look, I don't really like this deal. But the wall's getting built. Thank you all very much. Sir, will you sign Congress's border deal? I have to study it. I'm not happy about it. It's not doing the trick, but I'm adding things to it. And when you add whatever I have to add, it's all going to happen

where we're going to build a beautiful, big, strong wall that's not going to let criminals and traffickers and drug dealers and drugs into our country. It's very simple. It's very simple. We're building a wall. The Press Sir, do you really want to go through another shutdown?

The President I don't think you're going to see a shutdown. I wouldn't want to go to it now. If you did have it, it's a Democrat's fault. There won't be a shutdown, which implies I'll sign the deal. But then he goes on to say, look, this will be, quote, hooked up with lots of money from other sources. In other words, he's suggesting I'm going to find other pots of money to build this wall. And the next day, the president left open the option of declaring a national emergency. This is an executive action, constitutionally authorized, that allows the president to, in essence, spend money that was not appropriated by Congress if he can show the evidence of a genuine national

security emergency. And that's always been, to some extent, the nuclear option that the president has reserved in the event that he can't get the money any other way. And does that nuclear option of declaring a national emergency, does it feel in this moment like a real possibility? Well, the president has kept it open as a possibility throughout this entire dispute, but it's kind of waxed and waned over the period of time. The complicating factor for the president is that Republican lawmakers, notably Mitch McConnell, really oppose the idea of the president going this route. McConnell cautioned President Trump privately about the consequences of declaring a national emergency, telling him the move could trigger political blowback and divide the GOP.

We've not had the procedure before because the national emergencies that have been issued in the past have not been contentious. I'm pretty sure that this one would be. And their reasoning is very simple. If a Republican president can invoke a national emergency to spend money around Congress, what's going to stop a future Democratic president from evoking a different national emergency and spending money and making an end run around Congress? That's what Republicans are really worried about, and that's the principal reason that they've been pushing back on this declaration of an emergency.

So it seemed like a real long shot. Now to the effort to prevent another government shutdown when federal funding runs out Friday night. All sides are sounding optimistic that President Trump will sign the deal. If there are no major surprises, lawmakers believe it will pass with significant support and is likely to be signed by the president. Then we wake up on Thursday morning.

The Senate will come to order. Good morning. Let us pray. The Senate and the House have both scheduled votes on this compromise spending bill. And it really looks like the president has finally backed himself into a corner, like he really will have little choice but to sign the bill when it reaches his desk. We pray in the most holy name of Christ Jesus, our Lord. Amen. Among other things, you have one of his staunchest Republican supporters in the Senate.

So I'll pray that the president will have wisdom to sign the bill so government doesn't shut down. Senator Chuck Grassley. Join me in pledge. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States. Actually praying with his colleagues that President Trump will sign this spending bill. that President Trump will sign this spending bill. So it's clear that even among his own party, the heavy presumption is that the president has no choice.

He really has to capitulate. He really has to sign the bill. So then what happens? Well, then, interestingly, Chuck Grassley is on the floor of the Senate speaking about an unrelated topic. The letter reads in part, allowing these tax credits. And Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, interrupts him. Would the senator yield? Jeopardizing the long-term investments.

In fact, it makes Chuck Grassley kind of angry. He says to him, you're being rude by interrupting me. I hope the next time I get a chance to have the floor, I won't be interrupted. I yield the floor and put the rest of my statement in the record. But Mitch McConnell has something very important to say. Mr. President. Leader McConnell. I've just had an opportunity to speak with President Trump. And he, I would say to all my colleagues, has indicated he's prepared to sign the bill.

He will also be issuing a national emergency declaration at the same time. He basically says, we're going to call this vote. The president is going to sign this measure. And oh, by the way, he's also going to declare a national emergency. So he delivers the news of the day. Right. And that's when our friend Peter Baker runs out of the studio. Exactly. And what exactly is McConnell communicating here?

What is suddenly now the plan versus what we had thought would be happening on Thursday? Well, he's in essence laying out a kind of a two-track strategy on the part of the White House. On the one hand, the president's going to sign the spending bill. He's going to avert a second shutdown. He's going to finally put this very vexing issue to rest, which is a huge source of relief for Democrats and Republicans. But on the other hand, he's going to plunge into this highly uncertain, very fraught issue of declaring a national emergency. This is something that will almost certainly be challenged legally. It could go up to the Supreme Court fairly rapidly as a

test of the president's authority and prerogative. So he's kind of on the one hand settling a housekeeping issue that was very problematic for Congress and the White House and embarking on this very uncertain course with his declaration of a national emergency. And what does McConnell say about how he and his fellow Republicans in Congress will respond to this controversial idea of an emergency declaration? And I've indicated to him that I'm going to prepare, I'm going to support the national emergency declaration. Well, what he says is, I'm going to support the president in his declaration. And that's a remarkable statement coming from Mitch McConnell.

Remember, this is the senator who, during the Obama administration, fought so fiercely against Barack Obama when he tried to use executive authority to spend money that had not been appropriated by Congress. This is the senator who has stood up for the prerogatives of Congress, the appropriators of money in the government. And yet here he is saying, I'm going to support the president as he heads down this legally dubious, politically difficult course

and potentially sets a very bad precedent for the relations between Congress and the executive branch in the future. So what explains that sudden change in approach to executive authority? I'm not sure Mitch McConnell has changed his view on executive authority. I think Mitch McConnell recognized that the president was in such a political box. He didn't want the president to shut down the government again, but I think he recognized that the president needed to do something to show his political supporters he wasn't capitulating entirely.

to show his political supporters he wasn't capitulating entirely. And with that, I ask the chair to lay before the Senate the conference report to accompany House Joint Resolution 31. The clerk will report. We'll be right back. So how exactly, Mark, would this work? What does this declaration of a national emergency actually mean? And how precisely does it get the president the money for his wall? Well, we're in kind of uncharted waters here, and the White House has not detailed how it would seek funding under a declaration. But in effect, the president would transmit to Congress a statement saying, I declare there to be a national emergency on our southern border.

And in order to address that emergency, I need X amount of funding. And I propose to get it from one of two or three different places. focused on are pools of money that's available under the authority of the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of the Army to spend money to, in effect, strengthen the defenses of the homeland. This is money that, for example, if there was a invasion of the country or something like that, it would allow the military to spend large amounts of money. The president presumably would argue that this situation is analogous to that, and I therefore should be allowed to draw from these pools of funds. Okay. So the emergency declaration is a way of completing a math problem for the president, getting the money in this compromised border security deal and whatever he can cobble together

from inside the government to suddenly get to the number of $5.7 billion. That's exactly right. A math problem is a very good way of thinking about it. And there's an ancillary benefit to a declaration of the national emergency. It really changes the subject. Rather than headlines that will simply say, Trump buckles, Trump yields, Trump gives up,

Trump signs a deal he hates, you have very dramatic headlines that say Trump declares a national emergency. His political supporters will eat that up. It will make him look like once again, he's the disruptor. He's breaking all the rules. He's willing to try something totally unorthodox to get what he has promised during the campaign. And Mark, how are members of Congress beyond Senator Mitch McConnell, particularly the ones who are negotiating this border security compromise, how are they reacting to what seems like a very explicit effort to circumvent them? Well, among Republicans, there are very mixed feelings. While Mitch McConnell has kind of laid down a supportive line from the leadership level,

Rand Paul has come out against this. The more moderate Republican senators have said it's a bad idea. As you might expect, the Democrats are rising up uniformly to say the president has no authority to do this. He declares this emergency. First of all, it's not an emergency, what's happening at the border. Speaker Nancy Pelosi came out and said, quote, the president is doing an end run around Congress. She promised to bring a legal challenge against the White House almost immediately. So that set the tone on the House side. And Mark, what would be the basis for suing to stop the president from declaring what he thinks is an emergency?

It's basically the whole notion of separation of powers. The power to appropriate, the power to spend money is vested in the legislative branch in Congress. That is the heart of what Congress does. The president does not have constitutional authority to do that except under very extraordinary circumstances. And that's the principle that's going to be tested when this goes to the courts, as it inevitably will. So there's a very real possibility that the president will declare a national emergency, and it will be gummed up in legal system, and he will not be able to find that money through that tactic. In fact, that's the most likely scenario,

that this gets tied up in the courts, goes as high as the Supreme Court. Of course, he has a majority of conservative justices on the court, but many of those justices are deeply suspicious about a president exceeding his constitutional authority. I think he needs to show his base he's willing to do whatever it takes to keep building the wall. So how has the base reacted to this decision he's made in the past few hours to make the declaration of national emergency? Well, the initial reaction is not good. Ann Coulter, the conservative columnist who has been at the vanguard of pressuring the president on this issue, I'll read you a couple of her tweets. The first one says,

about the national emergency, there's no coming back from this. No emergency or presidential powers will allow him to build a wall ever after he signs this bill. Trump has just agreed to fully open borders. I have to imagine that's not the response President Trump was expecting. And I guess I'm not quite certain why that is the response, if he's getting the job

done in his mind. First of all, I agree with you. I think that is not the response he expected. I think he will be really rather brutally disappointed by it. And I think the reason he's getting that response is the assumption is that it will get gummed up in the courts, that it will be challenged, that he will never get the money, and that hence he will never build the wall. So where does this leave the president's standing this moment? He can't get the wall funded through Congress. He's trying to do it through an emergency declaration, but not even his biggest supporters in the conservative world think that's going to work. So where is he? Well, President Trump will keep talking about the border wall. He'll keep going to make America great again rallies at which

he will say we're building the wall, we're finishing the wall. He'll talk about new miles of wall being built or fencing or barriers or whatever word he chooses to use. But as time goes on, I think it will become clearer and clearer that this wall is not being built, certainly not on the scale he promised during the campaign, and that will expose the weakness of his skills as a dealmaker. And frankly, even as a rhetorical device, the wall will become less and less effective for him over time, and he will look weak. Finally, Mark, how is Peter?

I assume he's hunched over a computer pounding away, which is, after all, what they pay us to do most of the time. I thought they paid you to be on the daily. Grudgingly. Thank you, Mark. Thanks, Michael. On Thursday night, both the Senate and House passed the Compromise Border Security Bill that would give the president $1.3 billion for his border wall. That bill now heads to Trump's desk, where he is expected to sign it,

along with the emergency declaration. Here's what else you need to know today. Are there any senators in the chamber wishing to vote or change their vote? If not, the yeas are 54, the nays are 45. Nomination is confirmed. On Thursday, the Senate confirmed President Trump's choice for Attorney General, William Barr, in a highly partisan vote over who should lead the department overseeing the special counsel's Russia investigation. Just three Democrats voted for Barr, who has embraced a sweeping view of presidential power that many of them fear could influence the course of the Russia investigation. Republicans, all but one of whom, Rand Paul, voted for Barr, said he would bring stability

to the Department of Justice after the rocky tenure of Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who was fired by Trump for recusing himself from the special counsel group. And in an abrupt move, Amazon has canceled its plan to build a headquarters in New York City after Democratic lawmakers opposed a nearly $3 billion package of government subsidies. Supporters of the headquarters said it would provide well-paying jobs to about 25,000 people in Queens. But opponents, including liberal leaders like Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who represents Queens, questioned why taxpayers should subsidize a company that earns $10 billion a year.

In a tweet after Amazon's announcement, Ocasio-Cortez said, quote, Today was the day a group of dedicated everyday New Yorkers and their neighbors defeated Amazon's corporate greed. Thank you. and Jonathan Wolfe, and edited by Paige Cowan, Larissa Anderson, and Wendy Dorr. Lisa Tobin is our executive producer. Samantha Hennig is our editorial director. Our technical manager is Brad Fisher. Our engineer is Chris Wood. And our theme music is by Jim Brunberg

and Ben Landsberg of Wonderland. Special thanks to Sam Dolnick, Michaela Bouchard, and Stella Tan. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you on Tuesday after the holiday.