The Daily - Trump’s Prime-Time Address

Episode Date: January 9, 2019

Millions of Americans watched on Tuesday night as President Trump made his case for a wall on the southern border, and as Democratic leaders dismissed his talk of crisis. Guests: Michael M. Grynbaum, who covers the media for The New York Times, and Mark Landler, a White House correspondent. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily.

From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily Watch. Today. Millions of Americans watched on Tuesday night as President Trump made his case for a wall on the southern border and as Democratic leaders rebuked that case. Why did we need a presidential address for both sides to say what they've been saying for weeks?

It's Wednesday, January 9th. Are you going to do the music? Oh, that was pretty good. Oh, it's like burned in your brain, right? Oh, yeah, I can do all three. Okay, great. Ready? Michael Grimbaum, you cover media for The Times.

What's the significance of a presidential address to the nation? There's a whole ritual surrounding these events. This is an ABC News special report. The president breaks into regular programming. There's a special bulletin. This is an NBC News special report. You hear that trumpet score come out from NBC News. A presidential address to the nation.

It all signals to us that something very important is going on. Good evening. And then... Tonight, I can report to the American people and to the world. You have the president typically in the Oval Office, not always, but looking directly into the camera. president, typically in the Oval Office, not always, but looking directly into the camera. The United States has conducted an operation that killed Osama bin Laden, the leader of Al-Qaeda. Addressing his public, there's a certain statesman quality to it that I think underscores that these are moments that we all kind of remember. And what are the occasions on which these speeches

are generally delivered? From the president's office in the White House in Washington, D.C., we present a special address by the president of the United States, Dwight D. Eisenhower. Dwight Eisenhower in one of the very first times this presidential address ever happened, because TV was a new thing. Good evening, my fellow citizens. For a few minutes this evening, I should like to speak to you about the serious situation that has arisen in Little Rock. Told the country why he was desegregating the schools in Little Rock, Arkansas. Just two hours ago, allied air forces began an attack on military targets in Iraq and Kuwait.

And I think the ones that immediately come to mind are when the president has decided to take our nation to war. Tonight, as our forces fight, they and their families are in our prayers. My fellow citizens, at this hour, American and coalition forces are in the early stages of military operations to disarm Iraq, to free its people, and to defend the world from grave danger. Or even when a national tragedy occurs. Nancy and I are pained to the core by the tragedy of the shuttle Challenger. In the aftermath of the attempt, we continue to hold the government of Iran responsible for the safety and for the early release of the American hostages who have been held so long. Today, our fellow citizens, our way of life, our very freedom came under attack

in a series of deliberate and deadly terrorist acts. It tends to be kind of a sober, solemn occasion. May God bless our country and all who defend her. And this is President Trump's first time delivering this kind of speech. That's right. And so what happened when the president went to the networks and asked for this time? Normally, when the White House goes to these networks, requests the time, it's really a pro forma thing.

It's a very rare thing to ask for, and the networks defer. The president wants to address the American people. So they almost automatically say yes. It's pretty much automatic. But in this case, there was a lot of deliberation. This is an unfiltered platform for the president to reach tens of millions of Americans. And President Trump, when he talks about the wall, when he talks about border security, it's been well documented that he makes false claims that he can mislead the public. For the networks to hand over their airtime felt like a question of their responsibility to viewers. Can they fact-check him sufficiently?

Is there a way to contextualize the statements he's making? What does it mean for a television network to let a president assert falsehoods without a filter? But clearly they ended up deciding to give him their airwaves. So there's two factors at play. First of all, I think they made an editorial decision that we are in the middle of a federal government shutdown. There are hundreds of thousands of workers who potentially are not going to be paid this week.

That is an urgent national moment. And it feels inherently newsworthy to hear what the president has to say about it. The other reason is, is it paternalistic for a news network to make the decision that the American public can't hear from their president? I think a lot of executives felt that in the end that was going too far. That if the president asks for this time, they ought to defer to him. I talked to Ted Koppel, legendary anchorman.

He said when the president of the United States asks to address his public, you've got to have a pretty damn good reason to say no. I'm struck, Michael, by the fact that, yes, the government is shut down. And, yes, there is a situation at the border. But as we have reported at The Times, the president has created those situations or really amplified them. On the other hand, I suppose that's true of any time a president makes a declaration of war, for example, or launches a missile attack. They have made a decision that creates the urgent moment that then merits this primetime speech. Yeah. And I think TV networks, you see this over and over again. they've made the decision

they're not going to parse the motives or the political posturing at play with the president. They're going to assess, is the nation in a moment of crisis? And they've determined that in this case. Understanding that, how are the networks approaching this in a way that they feel is commensurate to the moment and responsible given their concerns about this president's history of exaggerations, misinformation? So as soon as they agreed to air it, the Democratic leadership said, hey, wait a second, we need a chance to talk to the same audience. So the networks have created an interesting format. The president will come out and talk for what's expected to be eight minutes. Chuck Schumer and

Nancy Pelosi will then have a few minutes to come on and respond to what Trump just said. And after that, the usual anchors and White House correspondents will come on the air. They can fact-check what the president said. They can contextualize it. They can offer the assessment of why he's picked this

moment to address the nation. Hmm. So, Michael, it's 8.35 p.m. How many people will be watching when the president goes out before the cameras in about 25 minutes? This is the biggest audience that a president can have. I would expect upwards of 20 million Americans. Michael, thank you very much. Thank you, Michael. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. CBS News Special Report. I'm Jeff Gloor. Good evening. We're coming on the air right now because President Trump is set to address the nation.

President Trump is about to deliver his first address from the Oval Office. His first primetime speech from the Oval Office. Here now, the President. My fellow Americans. At 9 o'clock on the dot, the President appeared sitting behind the Resolute desk in the Oval Office. The president appeared sitting behind the Resolute desk in the Oval Office, and he gave what began as a characteristically sober Oval Office address. Mark Landler covers the White House for The Times. Tonight I am speaking to you because there is a growing humanitarian and security crisis at our southern border. He talked about the crisis of thousands of illegal immigrants crossing the southern border every day.

We are out of space to hold them, and we have no way to promptly return them back home to their country. He then began ticking off the tangible cost of this crisis. Our southern border is a pipeline for vast quantities of illegal drugs, including meth, heroin, cocaine, and fentanyl. Every week, 300 of our citizens are killed by heroin alone, 90% of which floods across from our southern border. He talked about the incidences of people involved in sex crimes or violent killings that cross the border. in sex crimes or violent killings that cross the border. This is a humanitarian crisis,

a crisis of the heart and a crisis of the soul. And then he went on to say... This is the cycle of human suffering that I am determined to end. And from there, he then went into the proposals that he said his administration had sent to Congress to try to improve border security. The proposal from Homeland Security includes cutting-edge technology for detecting drugs,

weapons, illegal contraband, and many other things. And he actually, in this part of the speech, said relatively little about a border wall. We have requested more agents, immigration judges, and bed space to process the sharp rise in unlawful migration fueled by our very strong economy. And then finally after this very long windup, finally as part of an overall approach to border security, he got to the core of his ask, which is $5.7 billion for a physical barrier. It will be a steel barrier rather than a concrete wall. And so you really saw him de-emphasizing what has been the most inflamed part of the debate over immigration, his demand to build a border wall. He's almost suggesting, look, I'm willing to call this whatever you want,

and I'm even willing to conceive of it differently than I once did on the campaign trail. So why are you Democrats being so unreasonable? But I assumed that this presidential address was ultimately designed to end the government shutdown, and the government shutdown is only being held up by a wall. and the government shutdown is only being held up by a wall. So why not use this speech to persuade Americans that we need the wall? Well, I think he's trying to use the speech to persuade Americans we need enhanced border security

across a wide variety of fronts, including a wall. I think he just doesn't want the wall to become the one sticking point, even though we all know in the debate it is, in fact, the one sticking point. This is the reason the Democrats aren't willing to make a deal with him. They're willing to give him more money for border security. That's never been an issue. They're even willing to discuss forms of barriers. What they're not willing to do is give him nearly $6 billion to build this monstrous concrete wall. And I think the president, in a sense, was trying to get away from that being the dominant theme of his remarks tonight.

But how does the speech to the American people break us through this stalemate if he doesn't convince the American people that it's specifically the wall that we need? the American people that it's specifically the wall that we need? Well, I think that's a good question because I don't think that this speech did break through in the way that the White House hoped it would. The president tonight needed to advance the ball. He needed to give Americans a new reason for believing in the necessity of his message on border security. And to do that, I think he needed to lay out a new set of facts or a new argument behind the facts. And I don't believe he really did that. In fact, if you look at the second half of the speech, after that very sober and measured opening,

he really then shifts into very familiar and quite inflammatory rhetoric. Day after day, precious lives are cut short by those who have violated our borders. and quite inflammatory rhetoric. Day after day, precious lives are cut short by those who have violated our borders. In California, an Air Force veteran was raped, murdered, and beaten to death with a hammer by an illegal alien with a long criminal history.

He talks about Americans being killed by illegal aliens. In Georgia, an illegal alien was recently charged with murder for killing, beheading, and dismembering his neighbor. He says at one point, how much more American blood must we shed before Congress does its job? It really turns into a very, very partisan argument. Democrats in Congress have refused to acknowledge the crisis. And they have refused to provide our brave border agents with the tools they desperately need to protect our families and our nation.

But so if he's not really making any new points, why the presidential address at all? It seems the president has quite effectively been getting these same points out through Twitter, through news conferences, through all the ways he normally does. Interestingly, Michael, we've learned since you spoke to our colleague Michael

Grimbaum earlier this evening that it was really White House aides, it was his advisors who pushed him to do this speech. It was not something he was particularly excited about on his own. In fact, in an off-the-record session with television news anchors earlier today, he basically told them he thought this strategy was at some level pointless, which is something that we have reported in the last several hours. And I think the president realizes that to some extent he's running out of time in this whole debate. The federal government's been closed now for 17 days, and that closing is really starting to bite. And I think he realizes that unless he can turn this debate relatively soon,

he's gonna be left to consider more radical moves, one of which declaring a national emergency is something that he may yet do. I think perhaps this was, if you will, a second last ditch effort to galvanize the American people and to turn what has seemed at times a manufactured crisis into a genuine crisis. And one way perhaps to measure the success of the speech

is whether Mr. Trump will succeed in the call he issued at the end of his remarks. He told people... To every citizen, call Congress and tell them to finally, after all of these decades, secure our border. They should call their congresspeople and demand action on this issue. But I felt that the notion of a manufactured crisis was still hanging in the air. thought in some ways one of the most pertinent observations that someone made about this speech was Stuart Stevens, a former campaign advisor to Mitt Romney, who said on Twitter, there are numerous examples of presidential addresses made to calm a frightened public. This will be the first to frighten a calm public. I think President Trump tonight was speaking to a public that fundamentally doesn't

share his belief that this is a crisis, and I'm not sure he changed enough minds. And if people end up calling their congressperson and say, I just watched the president speak, you need to vote for this wall, that would be an indication that President Trump has sufficiently frightened the public and turned a manufactured crisis into a genuine one. I think that's right. But I think here's the issue. I think a lot of people who are going to call their congresspeople are going to say, you need to reopen the agriculture department so farmers get their rebates. You need to reopen social services so people don't stop getting their food stamps.

I think the problem for President Trump is the real crisis may be the growing one from having a government that continues to be shut down and not from the one that exists along the southern border. Right. So which volume of calls will be higher in the next few days? I think that's the big issue. And I think it might be the government shutdown. When I took the oath of office, I swore to protect our country. And that is what I will always do. So help me God. Thank you, and good night. And then it was the Democrats' turn.

Good evening. I appreciate the opportunity to speak directly to the American people tonight about how we can end this shutdown and meet the needs of the American people. Yes, and what you saw was this rather awkward tableau of Nancy Pelosi, the new Speaker of the House, standing next to Chuck Schumer against a backdrop of American flags. Pelosi spoke first. Sadly, much of what we heard from President Trump throughout this census shutdown has been full of misinformation and even malice. The president has chosen fear.

We want to start with the facts. She did a very brief effort to sort of disprove a lot of the arguments that the president was making. On the very first day of this Congress, House Democrats passed Senate Republican legislation to reopen government and fund smart, effective border security solutions. But the president is rejecting these bipartisan bills, which would reopen government, over his obsession with forcing American taxpayers to waste billions of dollars on an expensive and ineffective wall. And she then pivoted to basically getting into the unfairness of the president holding the government hostage to a border wall. He promised to keep government shut down for months or years,

no matter whom it hurts. That's just plain wrong. So her effort, in essence, was to throw the onus of the argument back on President Trump. Thank you. Leader Schumer. Thank you, Speaker Pelosi. My fellow Americans, we address you tonight for one reason only.

Chuck Schumer spoke next. Make no mistake, Democrats and the president both want stronger border security. However, we sharply disagree with the president about the most effective way to do it. He basically said, Most presidents have used Oval Office addresses for noble purposes. have used Oval Office addresses for noble purposes. This president just used the backdrop of the Oval Office to manufacture a crisis, stoke fear, and divert attention from the turmoil in his administration.

And he ended by challenging the president to reopen the government and then have a legitimate debate with Democrats over border security. Just don't hold the government hostage to that debate. Mr. President, reopen the government, and we can work to resolve our differences over border security. But end this shutdown now. Thank you. Now.

Thank you. I couldn't help thinking, Mark, as I watched this, that the two sides of this border security debate had borrowed the dignity of that hallway in the Capitol and the Oval Office to have the exact same highly partisan debate that they have all day long in front of tens of millions of Americans and preempt regular programming on TV to do it. You know, I agree. I couldn't help but feeling at the end of watching both addresses that our government had intruded on the Tuesday night

of millions of Americans. This is a debate that, as Chuck Schumer said, ought to be thrashed out in the halls of Congress, in the Oval Office between President Trump and the congressional leadership. Sure, it's the stuff of evening news. We talk about it, we write about it in newspapers, but it doesn't get elevated to the level of a communal national crisis. To see the Oval Office used

for this kind of a communal national crisis. To see the Oval Office used for this kind of a partisan policy debate just struck me as not only inappropriate, but as I said, somewhat intrusive. I'm not sure Americans needed to have their Tuesday night interrupted this way. Market is late. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you, Michael.

Here's what else you need to know today. On Tuesday, weeks after the special counsel broke off its plea agreement with Paul Manafort for repeatedly lying to prosecutors, a new government filing has detailed what Manafort lied about. Among other things, Manafort lied about sharing 2016 campaign polling data as Trump's campaign chairman with a Russian national with close ties to the Kremlin, and discussing a Ukrainian peace plan with the same person. Manafort's actions suggest a pathway by which Russian officials could access Trump campaign information and seek to influence Trump on matters important to Russia. Manafort, who was convicted of 10 felonies last year,

will be sentenced in March. And, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan publicly scolded President Trump's National Security Advisor, John Bolton, for putting conditions on the U.S. withdrawal of troops from Syria.

Bolton has infuriated Erdogan by declaring that the U.S. will not withdraw until it has a guarantee from Turkey not to attack the Kurds, a U.S. ally in Syria and a longtime foe of Turkey, once U.S. troops are gone. In a statement, Erdogan called Bolton's plan a, quote, grave mistake and, in retaliation, refused to meet with Bolton while Bolton was traveling in Turkey on

Tuesday. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.