The Daily - Wednesday, Jan. 17, 2018

Episode Date: January 17, 2018

A Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on border walls turned into a fight over the language President Trump used to describe Haiti and some African countries. Why does it matter so much to members of Congress? Also, Stephen Bannon is the first member of Mr. Trump’s inner circle to receive a grand jury subpoena in the Russia investigation. Guests: Julie Hirschfeld Davis, a White House correspondent for The New York Times; Michael S. Schmidt, an investigative reporter for The Times. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily.

From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. Today, a government hearing gets overtaken by the fight over whether the president used the word he's reported to have used. Why it matters so much to members of Congress. And Steve Bannon becomes the first member of Trump's inner circle to be subpoenaed in the Mueller investigation. It's Wednesday, January 17th.

So on Tuesday morning, there's a hearing scheduled in the Senate Judiciary Committee to talk about different options for a border wall. Julie Davis watched the hearing on Tuesday. But it came at sort of a tricky time. Are you saying the president did not use the word that has been so widely reported? Because... I'm telling you he did not use that word, George, and I'm telling you it's a gross misrepresentation. How many times do you want me to say that? And I'm telling you, it's a gross misrepresentation.

How many times do you want me to say that? The last few days have been consumed with this debate going on between the White House and Republican and Democratic senators about what was said by President Trump in this Oval Office meeting last week. I did not hear derogatory comments about individuals or persons, no. When he is reported to have said that African countries who send immigrants here are shithole countries. No, no, I'm not a racist. I am the least racist person you have ever interviewed. That I can tell you. And so... Do you affirm that the testimony you're about to give before the committee will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? So help you God.

What's happening in this hearing? Chairman Grassley, Ranking Member Feinstein, and members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify before you today. The protagonist here is Kirsten Nielsen. She is the somewhat new Homeland Security Secretary. And she is the top official at the department, so she would naturally be there to talk about border walls. But she also happens to have been one of the administration officials in the Oval Office last Thursday when the president made these remarks that have caused so much ruckus.

Madam Secretary, I hope you remember me. Almost immediately. We were together at two meetings last week. I would like to ask you about one of those meetings. week. I would like to ask you about one of those meetings. One of the senior Democrats on the Judiciary Committee is Senator Durbin, who was there for that Oval Office meeting and has now spoken out about what he heard. People across the United States and around the world want to know what this president believes should be our priorities when it comes to immigration. I'm going to ask you, as best you can, to recall what you heard the president say when it came to those priorities.

Right. Durbin's actually the Democrat who was in the room at the White House proposing this bipartisan immigration deal with Republican Senator Lindsey Graham. That's right. And Senator Durbin has been working on this issue for more than 15 years. But now he's also become a key player in this kind of back and forth over what actually unfolded at the White House and what this says about how the president views immigration and immigrants. Do you remember the president saying expressly, I want more Europeans? Why can't we have more immigrants from Norway? I do remember what he I do remember him asking about the concept of underrepresented countries. He basically says to her, you were there, I was there, and essentially dares her to deny what they both heard. You said on Fox News that the president used strong language. What was that strong language? Let's see. Strong language, there was... So Secretary Nielsen says that she did not hear that specific word.

Apologies. I don't remember a specific word. What I was struck with, frankly, as I'm sure you were as well, was just the general profanity that was used in the room by almost everyone. Did you hear me use profanity? No, sir. Neither did I. She says that tough language was used and people were impassioned. A lot of people were using profanity. What do you remember the president saying about immigration from African countries to the United States? But when Durbin presses her on what specifically the president said, she says,

What I heard him saying was that he'd like to move away from a country-based quota system to a merit-based system. And she also claims that she can't really remember any sort of characterization of African nations, which was the context in which everyone I've spoken to about this meeting says this remark was made. How did he characterize those countries in Africa? remark was made. How did he characterize those countries in Africa? I don't specifically remember a categorization of countries in Africa. I think what he was saying is, as far as best I could tell, and as you know, there were about a dozen people in the room. There were a lot of cross conversations. There was a lot of rough talk by a lot of people in the room. But what I understood him to be saying is, let's move away from the countries

and let's look at the individual and make sure that those we bring here can contribute to our society. Do you remember the president saying expressly? I mean, Julie, what she seems to be describing is kind of this profane locker room scene of the president and members of Congress talking about immigration. It was a sort of, everyone is cursing, this was a big shouting match. And it was actually somewhat surprising to me to hear the meeting described that way by her, because she's in effect conceding that this devolved into not very high-level discourse about this huge issue that they're trying to solve. not very high-level discourse about this huge issue that they're trying to solve. This has turned into a S-show.

So just to complicate things for this hearing. And we need to get back to being a great country. Another member of the Judiciary Committee who also gets his chance to chime in and ask questions is Lindsey Graham, to chime in and ask questions is Lindsey Graham, who was the only other Republican in the Oval Office at that meeting to have come forward and said publicly that there was an exchange that he pushed back on and he's defended and continues at this hearing to defend Senator Durbin and his account. I think Dick Durbin has been one of the best people you could ever hope to work with, has been one of the best people you could ever hope to work with, that he's a decent, honest man. And Graham is actually Durbin's co-sponsor on this bipartisan immigration plan.

That's what they were doing in the White House in the first place, right? Right. Thursday. Are you aware that Senator Durbin and the president talked at 10 o'clock around that time Thursday morning. Only through news reporting after the fact. And Senator Graham sort of recounts publicly what I and others have reported happened in the run-up to this extraordinary meeting, which is that he and Senator Durbin had gone to President Trump with the foundation of what they thought was a bipartisan compromise here. Are you aware of the fact that Dick Durbin called me and said,

I had the best conversation ever with the president. We should follow up on it. I am now. Okay. So is everybody else. That the president was actually quite upbeat about in phone conversations with them on Thursday morning. Are you aware of the fact that I said, great, Dick, I'll call the White House and see if we can set up a meeting. You are now. Yes, sir.

great, Dick, I'll call the White House and see if we can set up a meeting. You are now. Yes, sir. Only to then find when he got to the White House that it wasn't actually that simple and that he describes that the president that he confronted in the Oval Office was a very different person from the person he talked to on the phone that morning. Between 10 o'clock and 12 o'clock, we went from having conversations between Senator Durbin, which I believe every word, and the president that was very hopeful. And by the time we got there, something had happened. So what happened between 10 and 12?

It sounds a bit like a rhetorical question. So what is Nielsen's actual reply to Graham's question? I don't know since I didn't know any of that. I'm going to find out and I'm not going to. She basically says she doesn't know. Obviously, what Senator Graham is driving at and what he said after the hearing to some reporters in the hall is that he thinks the president has been poorly served by his staff. on these issues, and potentially even Nielsen herself, although he doesn't name her, are really constraining Trump from the position where he keeps trying to get, or where at least Graham would like to see him get. Tuesday, we had a president that I was proud to golf with, call my friend, who understood immigration had to be bipartisan. You had to have border security.

It's essential you have border security with a wall. But he also understood the idea that we had to do it with compassion. Now, I don't know where that guy went. I want him back. I actually think that Senator Graham, in some ways, was trying to talk to Trump through the hearing testimony or the questioning process. In other words, trying to, in essence, say to him, sir, you're the president. If you want to do these things, if this is your position, you should do them. Don't let these people push you around. If the president's watching, I'm still in the phone book. Don't give my number out, but call me.

number out, but call me. So let's take a step back. Why is whether or not the president used this word dominating this Homeland Security hearing on Tuesday morning? Why are these lawmakers so fixated on that? You have to understand that the government's funding is set to run out on Friday as part of a year-end spending deal that Republicans and Democrats made last year. They need to vote by Friday to replenish government spending and keep the government open. And Democrats and Republicans thought that they had reached a deal to address DACA before that happened, that they could have presented to the president that they could at least be on their way to getting that voted on and signed before they made the commitment to, in fact, support a measure to keep the government open. So they went to that meeting thinking that this was the path forward. At the White House with Graham and with Durbin. At the White House

with Graham and with Durbin. But what they found instead was an explosive meeting where the president used this charge term. And then all these days that followed of bickering over whether he said it or he didn't say it. And what it has essentially done is pulled the extremes of both parties away from a place where they were ready to deal. And instead, given Democrats pause about whether the president is serious about doing something for this population and for immigration in general, and given the Republican hardliners a reason to point at Democrats and say they're making this big deal out of nothing and they can't be trusted to cut a deal with us that is going to have the kind of immigration restrictions that we think need to be in place. So are the Democrats the ones in power here for once? The budget can't get passed without them, it seems.

So do they now have a leverage on this issue that they might not normally? They do have a leverage if they're willing to use it. But even now, even after these comments, there is a big question about whether all of the Democrats, they only need a few to vote with Republicans to keep the government running, are really willing to make the stand and say we're shutting down the government over this issue. Do you agree with me that the threats to the nation are pretty severe and if we shut down the government, that'd be a bad idea? Yes, sir. Okay.

Finally, Julie, I want to ask you about something else that Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said in this congressional hearing on Tuesday that I found quite interesting, and I wanted your take on it. Does the president intend to extend DACA past March 5th by executive order? Not that I'm aware of. Do you think he has the legal authority to do so? I believe the Attorney General has made it clear that he believes such exercise is unconstitutional. It's for Congress to fix. So I agree with that. I don't believe the President can extend this by executive order and March 5th, a lot of bad things begin to happen. Seems to me we ought to try to avoid that if we can. Do you agree with that? Yes, sir.

What's your take on that? Well, Senator Graham was saying something important here because Donald Trump has actually intimated in the past, he did when he rescinded DACA, that he could revisit this, that he would somehow have the power to go back. And if Congress didn't act, he was going to fix it himself. Senator Graham is basically saying that's not possible. Right. What Graham is saying is in rescinding this, you've basically said it's unconstitutional for you to deal with this. So it's Congress that solves this or nothing. And what he really seems to be saying to the president through his Homeland Security secretary is, let us solve this and stop mucking it up.

Right. Let us do this for you. The president has said repeatedly that he feels for these kids, he calls them, even though many of them are not kids, that he has compassion for them, that he wants to do something that's full of love. And essentially, Senator Graham is saying, He wants to do something that's full of love. And essentially, Senator Graham is saying, if you don't allow a deal to go forward in Congress, if you mess this up, if this gets derailed, we can't help you address this. You will be responsible for having ended this program and it will be over. Thank you, Julie. Thanks, Michael.

We'll be right back. Mike Schmidt, what are you reporting now? Today, we reported that Steve Bannon, the president's former chief strategist, had been served with a subpoena last week by Bob Mueller, the special counsel. Breaking news today, though, in the Russia investigation. For the first time... The thing here that was interesting, new and different is that... He's using his broad subpoena power. Bannon is the first person in the president's inner circle to get a grand jury subpoena.

Everyone else that Mueller has talked to, former White House chief of staff Reince Priebus of Wisconsin, that we know about, former White House press secretary Sean Spicer has been interviewed by, has done so in the informal setting of his offices in downtown Washington. White House communications director Hope Hicks spent the last two days meeting with special counsel Robert Mueller's team. The curious thing was that Bannon, someone who at least publicly had the image of being close to the president and certainly was around for a lot of things, wasn't among them. So we kept on wondering if Mueller's investigation is coming to an end as the White House has tried to say it is, why hasn't he talked to Bannon? The bombshell book about the Trump campaign and the administration is now available for

everyone to read. Is the timing of this subpoena meaningful? Because it came just a few days after Bannon got himself into a lot of hot water with the White House because of the comments that he made in Michael Wolff's book, Fire and Fury, about Donald Trump Jr.'s meeting with Russian officials, which he called treasonous. We don't know, but the timing is certainly funny. The book's publisher moved up the scheduled release of Fire and Fury to today, after the Trump administration threatened to sue to keep it from coming out. The book comes out in the first week in January.

In the book, Steve Bannon, the president's former top advisor, calls the president's son unpatriotic and treasonous. You have Bannon out there saying Donald Trump's son's decision to meet with Russians in 2016 who were promising dirt on Hillary Clinton was treasonous. He also said the ongoing Russia investigation is a category five hurricane for the administration. You have him saying that there was almost zero chance that Trump's son didn't bring the Russians to meet the president. An extraordinary war of words breaking out between President Trump and his former top strategist, Steve Bannon. A clear break between Bannon and the president. On Wednesday, the president excoriated Bannon, saying he'd lost his mind. Bannon losing his job atop Breitbart.

And last week, as this split has become public, Mueller moves in and serves him with a subpoena. So the special counsel has many reasons, but many of them related to the book book to now talk to Steve Bannon. The book created these fissures in Trump world that exposed breaks that had gone on between people, between Bannon and the White House and other White House officials, where Bannon's hatred for Ivanka and Jared was very public. It exposed these things. Ivanka and Jared was very public. It exposed these things. And if you're Mueller and you see these things sort of fracturing in front of you, you want to go in as quickly as possible and get Bannon and find out what he knows. The other thing here that Mueller may have been doing is trying to

give Bannon cover. So there's two ways that Mueller's going to try and talk to people. There is the interview in his office with his investigators, which is more informal, or there's the grand jury appearance, which is as formal as they get. It's transcribed. You can't take your lawyer in. It's a much more intense setting. look, I'm not a rat that's going in to give up stuff on the president voluntarily. I'm being compelled to do this. I'm being legally pushed to go before the grand jury and tell them everything that I know. So one way of looking at this subpoena from the special counsel is that they're giving Bannon some cover. Another way of looking at it is that they're forcing him to talk after he probably regrets saying what he said in the book and having this fallout with the president. Well, at the end of the day, Mueller's going to compel who he needs to, to get the information that he needs. And whether that means nicely asking for you to sit down for an interview,

being a little more stern in compelling you with a grand jury subpoena, or going to court to enforce that grand jury subpoena and actually getting the FBI to go out and get you. Mueller's going to get what he needs to get to the bottom of this. And we're just simply watching that process play out. Thank you, Michael. Thanks for having me. Here's what else you need to know today. In summary, the president's overall health is excellent. His cardiac performance during his physical exam was very good. On Tuesday afternoon, the president's overall health is excellent. His cardiac performance during his physical exam was very good. On Tuesday afternoon, the president's doctor, Ronnie Jackson, held a news conference to describe the results of his first physical exam of President Trump since taking office.

He would benefit from a diet that is lower in fat and carbohydrates and from a routine exercise regimen. During the exam, Jackson said he performed an additional test. The reason that we did the cognitive assessment is plain and simple because the president asked me to do it. He came to me and he said, is there something we can do, a test or some type of screen that we can do to assess my cognitive ability? And so I looked into it. The president, Jackson said, got a perfect score.

The president did exceedingly well on it. So that was not driven at all by any clinical concerns I have. It was driven by the president's wishes, and he did well on it. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.