tv Inside Politics CNN January 30, 2017 9:00am-10:01am PST
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welcome. i'm john king. welcome to "inside politics." the second full workweek of the trump presidency starts in crisis. restricting u.s. entry from seven majority muslim nations set off a firestorm here at home and around the world. he says the complaints are overblown and his bottom line is keeping america safe.
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someday we had to decide to make the move. >> democrats call it cold-hearted and will try to get congress to repeal the order today. >> this executive order was mean-spirited, unamerican. it was implemented in a way that created chaos and confusion across the country and it will only serve to embolden and inspire those around the globe who will do us harm. >> emotion from the senate's top democrat. president trump, though, not impressed. >> i'm going to ask him who is his acting coach. i know him very well. i don't view him as a crier. there's a 5% chance it was real, but i think they were fake
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tears. >> significantly, though, this is much more than a partisan fight between the president and the democrats. many republicans are condemning this action too. some on the substance arguing the order is a recruiting gift to isis. more republicans, though, are furious that the trump white house rushed the order out without giving key agencies and the congress time to understand it. >> this process and these conclusions were not vetted. there's so many questions that, for example, it didn't filter down to our customs people. who can come in? who can't? is a green cardholder, is that person barred from coming into the country? >> protests are now a trump administration constant. this weekend spread overseas. key u.s. allies claiming the order is out of step with american and western values.
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with us today to share the reporting and their insights, jackie kusinich of the daily beast, cnn's mamu raju, and cnn's dana bash. senate democrats say they're going to try today to overturn this. i assume their chances of doing that are nil. >> nil at least today. it's going to go to the floor. minority leader chuck schumer will ask for a vote on this bill that dianne feinstein has drafted that will kill this executive order. the bill hasn't been drafted yet. rnlz haven't seen it yet. democrats haven't seen it yet. expect a republican to -- now, does that mean that they're not going to get support down the line for a bill to do just that, to kill the executive order? no, because we're seeing a lot of republicans come out and voice their opposition. presumably they can eventually get a vote, but it's going to take a little bit of time to build support, get a deal and use the levers of the senate to force a vote on this issue.
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there's a lot of concern among republicans and presume bring some could get on board behind this idea because a lot of them were caught off guard and think it's not the right approach. >> it's not just the usual suspects. we're getting iced to lindsey graham and john mccain speaking out. not saying it's not important, but we are used to them speaking out against president trump. you saw bob corker, lamar alec ander, tim scott, marco rubio. all of them coming out and saying they have problems with this. you saw tom cotton speaking out because of the iraqi translateors that were being -- that were having trouble getting into the country. there is -- there is broad support particularly among republicans. you are absolutely right. >> the question is this a one shot wonder? like we saw earlier in the obama administration. >> i don't think necessarily so. i don't think it's necessarily
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poison the well already for things to come, and i think that the fact that the white house is moving up their supreme court announcement to tomorrow is a way to make sure that it's not poison because there's -- there are very few things that rally republicans together as much as a supreme court pick, and one that we expect to be conservative and one that most republicans are going to like in some ways what this is an early lesson of is checks and balances works. this is an executive who made an executive order, and what happened? the judicial grant said, no, no, no. a judge agreed to stay and to stop it temporarily. congress hasn't acted and might not, but they might not have to because of the republicans you talked about from across the board from the senate foreign relations chair to somebody like senator tom cotton who has been pretty supportive of donald
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trump even when he was a candidate. that told you something about perhaps the way that this is going to work if the executive, donald trump, overreaches, then the levers of government will pull him back. >> politics. keeping republicans all in one corner is a benefit to donald trump when the republicans have so much power in washington right now. that's what the supreme court pick is going to do. i think what worries republicans on capitol hill more than anything is the lack of coordination. this executive order demonstrates that. this is not the way you run a government. you telegraph what you are going to do. you make sure that everybody is on the same page. there were customs and border patrols getting their assign am at 3:00 in the morning because they rent e hadn't laid the ground work and hadn't gone through the office of legal counsel and we saw over the weekend there were several
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senior cabinet officials who were really upset by the lack of coordination. >> you had attorneys representing the united states government going into court and judge asked the question, and they would say i don't know because they didn't have the guidance, and they were going in to court. to the point about congress, mike mccall, a republican, the chairman of the homeland security committee, issued a statement that said, in part, in the future such policy changes should be better coordinated with the agencies implementing them. to your point. and with congress to insure we don't get it right and to undermine our nation's credibility while trying to restore it. this is one of the republicans who says absolutely. if you want to strengthen the vetting process, strengthen the vetting process. you ran out in the campaign. you won the election. you have every right, every reason to do this, but it's how you do this. it's how you do it. >> and it's interesting that you poifb the mccall statement. mccall was involved in some discussions during the trump campaign to figure out how to do this extreme vetting proposal. they created some white papers to discuss this more broadly. when they drafted it, they did not discuss with mike mccall and his staff about how to draft
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this according to an agency that's familiar with these discussions. instead, they went forward with it and in catching one of the key allies by surprise, and it goes to reed's point that you need to coordinate with yourle alies on such a controversial issue. not just for how to implement it, but just messaging. >> congress hates surprises where. >> they hate surprises. there needs to be adjustment to it, and perhaps he could join some sort of effort for legislation. >> they're getting peppered with questions too, and they don't know the answers. to that point, you don't think -- you don't see long-lasting breaks with the republicans. what was interesting to me is, one, mccain and graham, you're right. that he have been constant critics. the president wasted no time typical trump, trademark trufr, he went back to them on twitter. john mccain and lindsey graham is wrong. they're, sadly, weak on immigration. the two should focus their efforts on -- instead of always looking to start world war iii. sometimes you have these early missteps. you think, okay, step back. turn down the temperature. not with this president.
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>> trump is not the kind of person that said we'll make it than any other president has done. george w. bush did this. barack obama did this. stepping back, calming down, allowing cooler heads to prevail. it's not his style. >> it's only a matter of time. right now they're easy targets for donald trump. they've been targets for a while. once it becomes -- it's not hard to imagine him attacking congress, and congress becoming a new villain for him, and that's when things get complicated because he needs them to implement his agenda. >> he has been loyal to his base. you can't afford to lose ground getting elected at 46%.
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a lot of these republicans are talking about some of the public statements. privately for them and their aides, they're getting, remember, he ran around the whole campaign saying we were stupid. we didn't know how to do anything. not just democrats. the congress, republicans. they were the stupid people, and he knew how to get things done where. >> that's exactly right. this is a first test of the trump m. o. not just trump. it's specifically let's just sort of dig deeper here. miller, steven miller, who were basically the authors of this, and their whole point in this was congress has done things a certain way for so long. it hasn't worked. we are going to do this differently. we're going to just push this through and for the people who say, well, wait a minute, you have to have things ready. you have to tell your allies. you have to tell the people who are going to execute this.
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the response, i'm told, was no, no, no. that's the way did things in the old days. we promised we were going to do something new. >> despite saying for three years that barack obama was the ethearal president because he abused his powers. >> so many politicians and this politician in particular love to say that we should run government more like a business. here's the executive of a business who has just offered a new policy without doing any of the ground work, and he is going to start to learn that government isn't like a business. there are 535 members of the board of directors who are going to want to have a say in it and in the house and the senate, and half of them are hoping that you fail. >> this is new coke. not the iphone. let's see whether team trump will learn a lesson or dig in.
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welcome back. if you have been paying attention, you know donald trump is not a man who easily admits he is wrong, but he did recalibrate time and time again during the presidential campaign when his words or actions provoked a crisis point. will he do that again now? not that he listens to the media, but a conservative and generally trump-friendly wall street journal editorial board is offering a little nudge. listen to this. "mr. trump is right that the government needs shaking up, but the danger of moving too fast without careful preparation and competent execution is that he is building up formiddable political forces in opposition. political disruption has its uses, but not if it affects your presidency in the process." from all the president's words and all the president's tweets so far, he is digging in. he says i'm right, you're exaggerating the problem. even if we messed up the
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implementation, i still think i'm right, and i'm sticking with it. >> we've seen it before and seen him retreat. do we expect some recalibration or is it just keep going? >> it's an open question. it will be interesting to see when his own party comes out against him how does he respond? does he dig in? does he fight back like he did yesterday going after john mccain, and lindsey graham saying they're trying to start world war iii by their own criticism of his executive order. he listened to the likes of the editorial page and the rest of the growing number of republican lawmakers. the "wall street journal" editorial page used to be very influential with republican presidents and republican leadership. they say something, then they would listen. donald trump isn't one to listen to that line of criticism, and i think that the question is going to be do the steve bannons of the world view that as the establishment pushing back against the president or do they try to do something to unite their party? >> i think it's possible that more than the "wall street journal" editorial page or even
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the national review or the examiner or any of the other historically influential conservative editorial boards that it's the people who -- the images, the imagery of the people out there screaming and yelling against him. it is if you kind of take a step back and think this is the tv producer president, right? he just gave a promo for his 8:00 big speech tomorrow night, announcing his supreme court gno nominee, and, yet, with this particular issue, he went in without a script. he didn't anticipate that the people out there would rally so quickly at the airports and elsewhere against him. my sense is that he is so sensitive to the crowds and the protests and he wants people to like him. he wants to do the -- it's the mind versus the soul and this is something that a smart republican just said to me this morning debate that every politician and every president deals with. he is just dealing with it on a level that is heightened on both
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sides. >> you can see him building a defense on this already on twitter. i'm just trying to keep you safe. they don't want to keep you safe. they're being politically correct, and i think that can be -- >> he might be successful with that. >> right. without a doubt you could sell that to the public. there's been polling that shows plurty of americans are in favor of this. he has every right to do it. he said he was going to do it. it was controversial, but he won. the question is how you do it, and then i think they came up earlier as to who does it for you. i'm told over the weekend that general kelly, now secretary kelly, the homeland security secretary, general mattis, now secretary mattis, the defense secretary, and rex tillerson, who is in line to be secretary of state, all vented about this saying this is not what i signed up for, and this is not how to run a railroad. especially in the case of the generals. they're the people whose folks have to implement this. in the case of the pentagon, president trump signed this at the pentagon. it's secretary mattis's troops that are in harm's way in the middle east where isis says this is a great recruiting gift to me. i'm told they're thinking you cannot do it this way. sir, we want stronger vetting
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too. we want to go after the terrorists too. you can't do it this way and rely on your ins lar circle at the white house that has no government experience. >> secretary kelly began some of the walk-back of this executive order that we saw. it was early in the morning over the weekend when he issued a statement and said that people with green cards would be able to come in even from those seven countries, but the longer-term question here is the balancing act that every president faces between a cabinet and a white house staff that becomes more and more ins lar. frankly, in the last several white houses power has drained away from cabinets and away from the departments and towards the white house. now the trump administration has senior officials that are going to put senior officials in place at all of these cabinet departments to oversee the secretaries, which raises the question of how much power a secretary kelly or secretary mattis will have. >> it's supposed to be different for this white house. as the ceo president, the reason why he wanted people who not only looked the part as secretary of defense and state and so forth, but people who
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could do the jobs because he doesn't have the experience. not just in government, but -- >> i hate to interrupt, but falling on that thought, if you were steve bannon or steven miller at the white house and you wanted to implement this and you watched those guys at their confirmation hearings, you knew that if you turned it over to them, you were not going to get what you wanted. >> it's happening fast and quickly and not without a lot of planning and execution. >> so fascinating to watch how this white house plays out and how donald trump makes his decisions and on who he listens to specifically because, you know, as dana -- there are different power centers within this administration. people have such conflicting views on some core issues, and trump is hard to pin down where he is on core issues and who is he actually listening to and how does that inform his decision making. >> on this question of national security council and decision, they have given steve bannon a role, which is unusual. karl rove, senior strategist, david axelrod were invited.
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steve bannon, according, gets a seat all the time at the so-called principles meeting. among those, he is a constant critic, but he has a little experience in this regard. among the critics, senator john mccain who says, wait a minute. >> i am worried about the national security council who are the members of it and who are the permanent members? the appointment of mr. bannon is something which is a radical departure from any national security council in history. remember karl rove? when he sat in on one and axelrod when he was supposedly -- look, that is the role of the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff has been diminished, i understand, with this reorganization. one person who was indispensable will be the joint chief of staff. it's of concern. >> engo, you might view senator mccain through a partisan prism, but he is a war hero. a war hero. that came up in the campaign. he is a war hero. democratic senator jack reed, former army ranger said the same thing about bannon, and he added
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this to his statement. he is choosing ideology and unsound policy over the expertise of those with decades of military intelligence and foreign policy experience and expertise. mr. bannon has become a lightning rod. >> absolutely. look, it is news. it is something that we haven't seen in recent history. somebody like steve bannon, never mind that he doesn't -- i mean, he was in the military as a young man, but doesn't have the experience in the government or in the military, and it's certainly not his role traditionally in the white house structure to be on the national security council. my understanding is that at the highest levels much the white house right now they are taking some incoming from senior members of congress and others about bannon, but also questions about the chairman of the joint chiefs and saying, wait a minute, is it true that the joint chiefs chairman is not a steady member of the national security council and the response has been that they insist that the order and the
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way that it was worded and the list of national security council members is exactly as it was in the obama administration. we have to see if that's actually true, but they insist that the role of the chairman of the joint chiefs is no different in this administration than the obama administration. now, that doesn't answer the question about steve bannon. >> and the joint chairman also was briefed on the memo before the president of the united states went to his house, the pentagon, to sign it. before you jump in, i want to get to the point you were talking about earlier. the president is on pretty good ground when he looks at the american people and says i'm trying to keep you safe, but it's also the -- if you listen here, there is -- during the eight years of the obama administration, there were no fatal terrorist attacks from any kind insighted by someone who came from the united states coming in this order, and yet, if you listen to team trump sell it -- >> it was a very short period of time in which we had something to execute that insured that the people of the united states were safe. nobody -- everybody has been
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protected. the safety of individuals, what happened if we didn't act and somebody was killed? >> if we waited five days, ten days, six months to begin establishing the first series of controls, we would be leaving the homeland unnecessarily vulnerable. i just want to say something very clearly to everyone lisping this morning. our task in this new administration is to prevent what happened in parts of france and belgium and germany from happening in the united states where you have large pockets of radicalization that extend through generations and have become a serious long-term security problem. we have to act now to prevent that from happening tomorrow. >> at least right there he moved update 3. neither of which would be impacted by this. you need it hang tight and save it for the next break. be right back. the debate over the travel restrictions goes global. isis says it's grateful for the pop gapda gift. key u.s. allies wonder whether this is the first page of a new chapter in trans-atlantic relations.
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the trump presidency is off to a rocky start. the united kingdom strongly disagrees with the travel bans. 10 downing street says there are no plans to cancer the trump's state visit later this year. france's president criticized the refugee policy and the restrictions in his weekend call with president trump, and today in germany chancellor angela merkel said the travel restrictions suggested to her a fundamental shift. >> the necessary fight against terrorism in no way justifies general suspicion against people's certain believes in this case people of the muslim faith or from a certain origin. these actions according to my believes are against the core idea international aid for refugees and international cooperation. >> the question is does the white house care that britain, france, germany, and others say this is the wrong way to go or
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he made clear it is -- i'm going to do these decisions. america first. first and foremost, my decision will be made based on what i think is best for america. >> and i think that speaks -- a lot of supporters are happy about that. he said in his inauguration, there's a significant chunk of the country that voted for him on -- because of those calls. you take the things that he has been doing on the international stage, and this is creating real fears around the world. there is a fear that the united states has been not going tone gauge international states. that may play well with donald trump's base, but how does that work for the countries' foreign policy on some key issues. especially when we need cooperation on fighting terrorism overseas or another international trade issues.
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he specifically said it's a disaster. when it comes to that, i think he would say something like consider the source. for me it's back to the same question i had about congress. this is a rough beginning, and you move on, and you move to the next issue. you start with a clean slate. yes, maybe he thinks and angela merkel's policy is a disaster. it's a critical security and economic relationship with germany, whether we're dealing with russia, talking about other big issues. is the well poisoned? >> this is what we're talking about in terms of rolling out an executive order and making sure that everybody who is involved knows what's coming. it's even more critical on the international stage where diplomacy stops wars and making sure that everybody knows what's about to happen so that nobody
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is terribly embarrassed. consider what's happening with mechanics couxico at the moment. the spat that called president pi pina nieto. they have produced results on international trade to the drug war working together, and that's essentially gotten a lot better because the mexicans are working with the americans so much on issues like stopping international drug trafficking. if you suddenly pick a fight with somebody and those ties get frayed, that's not good. all the walls in the world -- i'm reminded of the old cartoon that says the 30 foot wall next to bob's 32 foot ladder store. all the walls they're not going to stop a whole bunch of drugs coming into the u.s. if the american government is not continuing to work with the mexican government to stop those. >> one of the white house explanations as to why they did this at the white house, they didn't physically inform their own agencies. never mind bringing into congress. they said they needed to act
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secret and quickly because you can't give the bad guys a heads up that you are going to do this. my point to that is if the bad guys were watching the campaign, maybe they thought this was coming. >> donald j. trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of muslims entering the united states until our countries' representatives can figure out what the hell is going on. >> we're going to do tear toes and not let people come in from syria that nobody knows who they are. >> the muslim ban is something that in some form has morphed into an extreme vetting from certain areas of the world. with all of the problems that you see going on, i don't want hundreds of people coming in from syria when we know nothing about them. >> i mean, if you paid any attention to the campaign, and i assume, you know, isis and the other bad guys did, isn't the question more why did he wait
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ten days? >> right. >> which is why this is -- this is a message in search of a solution basically. that they're doing this because they see that this was a big, big problem with regard to basic execution and frankly competence and understanding how a government runs and how to implement something that actually probably could have gotten a lot more support than it's getting now given the messaging that we're hearing from the wlohite house now abou safety and extreme vet and so forth. the fact that they didn't do this ahead of time and give the agencies a heads up and give the actual boots on the ground who are trying to figure out how to implement this a better understanding is something that has hurt what could be something that they could have gotten. he did campaign on this, and we
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knew it was coming. it's how they did it that was more important than what they did. is it inexperience, or is it this is our style, my way or the highway? we're going to do this. the rest of you be damned. >> perception is everything. especially when you are selling a controversial policy like this. the messaging -- people are interpreting this as a muslim ban, and the white house is saying it's not a muslim ban, but the fact that it's been perceived that way is in large part because they do not explain exactly what they are doing here, and you can tell from the slips you are playing in the campaign how toxic just the idea of a muslim ban was that they had to change their language through the course of the campaign to sound like extreme vetting because that sounds better than a muslim ban. this is a real problem if you don't sell it to the public, sell it to your own party. you don't have a kpleer communication strategy. >> they changed the messaging and the policy. >> in real-time. they didn't know what to do with people who had green cards, and someone said, no, says they're included. allegedly that was bannon's call, and now they're not.
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policy like this that is this controversial doesn't usually invol evolve on the fly. >> this is not the trump organization. it's a little bigger. everybody, sit tight. in primetime, president trump will unveil his first supreme court dhois and open up another contentious debate. 100% of our food is 100% clean. no artificial preservatives, sweeteners, flavors, or colors. panera. food as it should be. as after a dvt blood clot,ital i sure had a lot to think about. what about the people i care about? ...including this little girl. and what if this happened again? i was given warfarin in the hospital, but wondered, was this the best treatment for me? so i asked my doctor. and he recommended eliquis. eliquis treats dvt and pe blood clots and reduces the risk of them happening again. yes, eliquis treats dvt and pe blood clots. eliquis also had
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the announcement was moved up two days from thursday, and it's a safe bet the white house is trying to compete with all the harsh reviews of the new travel restrictions. listen here as trump white house counsellor kellyanne conway tries to pressure the democrats. >> here's the thing. the way the democrats in the senate have treated our cabinet nominees does not bode well for filling that vacancy left by antonin scalia. it's just been terrible the way they try to humiliate and embarrass our cabinet nominees. >> i think it's politics. i guess you're entitled to your own -- she's making a point there. the democrats have been rough and even more rough today with the senate leader chuck schumer coming out against a bunch more on the trump nominees. the republicans held up for ten months. more than ten months. the guy president obama wanted to put in the supreme court. it's a little disingenuous for republicans to be saying, well, the democrats better not stall or delay here.
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>> you have seen in these court fights that each party takes the bad habits of the last party -- >> and the talking points. >> switch names. they take it a step further. >> you are making a strong case here. >> exactly. >> the democratic calculation will be important here. whoever donald trump picks is going to replace antonin skola. the balance is not going to shift. if you are the democrats, do you go all the way and try to go all out and try to derail this nomination and then if you do that, perhaps mitch mcconnell, the majority leader, will use the so-called nuclear option, blow up the filibuster and get the nomination confirmed, and then you lose a full bester for the next supreme court fight who perhaps if one of the more liberal justices were to retire, then that would be a significant shift for the courts. >> a lot of conservatives think justice kennedy wants to retire. >> exactly. >> he is the swing vote.
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>> he can move to the right. democrats have to -- it's not -- it's a risky -- >> it's a short play and a long play. >> they haven't picked their battles when it comes to these. i'm curious what they have to do here. they haven't picked their battles when it comes to cabinet nominees. a lot of people have been in 11 when in reality it's probably a lot of them are just republican orthodoxy. not all of them, obviously. if they say every person is bad and against the republic, the people will be less likely to take them seriously, and they won't have a grassroots movement that isn't sort of the usual suspects behind them. >> ironically i think that there is going to end up being a connection between the quick liberal and, frankly, a lot of mainstream outcry about these travel restrictions and the supreme court pick because i think it was very telling when the minority leader chuck schumer was having his press conference yesterday and he was basically being heckled by somebody saying why are you
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supporting the president's cabinet picks, but you are hearing from a lot of democrats because some of the early national security picks did get broad bipartisan vote. the pressure among the democratic base on the democratic leaders is growing, and i think they got a lot more fuel because of this travel -- because of this travel restriction in that it will potentially make them feel emboldened or, frankly, pressured to oppose the supreme court nominee even though it might not be in their best interest because it's just replacing a conservative and they might want to hold out for when there is a swing vote. >> the fight over confirmations have been escalating for 30 years since robert bork sort of began this modern era of every single nomination that's contentious. it's gotten worse, to amanda's point. everybody seems to escalate the republicans when he they take charge. when the democrats take charge, they do more than the republicans did and vice versa.
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loretta lynch got fewer than ten, and she was less controversial than eric holder. the democrats, though, have not scored any big wins in these confirmation fights. they haven't been able to knock anybody off of their pedestal. george w. bush, barack obama, bill clinton all lost cabinet nominees before they were actually confirm. democrats have evg late all they want, but they haven't scored. >> quickly show our viewers. i want to quibble show our viewers the two leading candidates. there's no guarantee it's from this list, but we're told from two leading candidates, one is thomas hardeman, third circuit court of appeals, and a young man there. sits on the same court as donald trump's sister. donald trump is getting good information on judge hardeman. she's 49 years old. two very young men here. he is a judge in the tenth circuit court of appeals. if you are trying to impress anthony kennedy, you might go there. again, we're never certain with
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these. you get words from inside these are the favorites. if we think washington is juiced up now, friday morning, thursday night, right? >> yeah. the pressure is going to be on moderate red state democrats, whether they go along because to dana's point, it will be hard for the democratic leaders to say no to their base. it will be hard for the liberals to come out guns blaze, but where do the moderate democrats who are up for re-election in those trump states. five from very red states. ten from trump states like florida and pennsylvania that he won who are up for re-election in 2018. they feel pressure with their base or do they feel pressure to be more moderate and be more pragmatic where. >> one thing the republicans learned when mayor garland was president obama's appointee was voters don't care that much. chuck grassly, the chairman of the senate judiciary committee was supposed to be getting a lot of heat for not bringing out merrick garland's confirmation.
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they ran just to highlight that. he won with, what, north of 60%. somewhere around 60ers approximate of the vote. >> where is that machine that turns out those candidates? >> voters don't necessarily care. >> the base cares. >> will those red state democrats pay attention to that, or will they -- >> it's also interesting to see the president's communication skills as he does this for the first time from the white house. our reporters share from their notebooks next, including two powerful men who share most of the same goals, but operate at very different speeds. attorneys of the ree you can talk to through legalzoom. don't let unanswered legal questions hold you up, because we're here, we're here, and we've got your back. legalzoom. legal help is here.
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we surround our table with reporters, not pundits for a reason so, we can close by asking them to share a nugget and get you to the political news around the corner. >> william pryor is the third justice that could be you should consideration for the supreme court spot, and there's been some chatter in conservative circles about a particular
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decision that he cited with a transgender woman who was suing her boss for discrimination. he was in favor of that decision for her. now, i'm told that if if he is the nominee, he might be asked about it, but it's not going to be a deterrent for conservatives and he is very strong against roe v. wade they both talked about how they viewed the year turning out. paul ryan very ambitious. talked about getting major things done by the august recess, including repealing, replacing obama care, getting the tax reform done, significant chunk by then, and getting the repeal of obama care done, actually moving through the house by march. now, republican senators are dubious of that, including senate majority mitch mcconnell who actually in that
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presentation tried to tamp down expectations. we need 6 0 to do a lot of mashg things. we have to confirm nominees as well. it really shows how the two chambers operate at much different paces. there are different rules, and if they are not able to get a lot of things done from the senate, there's going to be a lot of tension from house republicans who want to follow that timetable. it's one of the major things they have to work on. >> the tortuous and the hare come to mind. >> maine is the eighth state in the country that has legalized marijuana for recreational purposes. this has an implication for federal policy as well. there are now 93 members of the house of representatives who represent states where marijuana is legal for recreational purposes, and that's going to matter when certain riders come up that might not allow the justice department to prosecute states where marijuana is legal. those measures narrowly have failed in the last couple of years, but even republicans who don't like legalization tend to vote in favor of these things
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because they don't want the justice department suing their home states. >> makes me curious as to why you are so well informed on this. >> people are so fascinated with this story. i love it. >> well, republicans in congress who are pushing to really punish russia for meddling in america's elections talk to some who are really angry that apparently when president trump spoke for the first time with vladimir putin over the weekend, he made no mention of that at all, and the fact that senate majority leader mitch mcconnell over the weekend left the door wide open to congress passing additional sanctions on russia gives the people who are behind the bipartisan legislation to do just that, hope, because it is mcconnell who schedules the vote on anything in the senate. especially this. i'm told to expect lawmakers who want to toughen sanctions to step up their rhetoric this week. not just against vladimir putin, but against president trump for being too easy on vladimir putin. >> we'll watch how that plays
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out. the president's first supreme court pick tomorrow night. special coverage here on cnn. we'll being back here noon eastern tomorrow. that's it for us today. wolf blitzer right here after a quick break. but they're different... nice tells you what you want to hear. but kind is honest. this bar is made with cranberries and almonds. so, guess what? we call it cranberry almond. give kind a try. on a perfect car, then smash it into a tree. your insurance company raises your rates. maybe you should've done more research on them. for drivers with accident forgiveness, liberty mutual won't raise your rates due to your first accident. and if you do have an accident, our claims centers are available to assist you 24/7. call for a free quote today. liberty stands with you™. liberty mutual insurance. that goes beyond assuming beingredients are safe...ood
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hello. i'm wolf blitzer. from wherever you are watching from around the world, thank you very much for joining us. right now we're keeping an eye on two events during this hour. the first is over at the white house. the daily white house press briefing. you are looking at live pictures coming in. left part of your screen. the white house press secretary sean spicer will be answering reporters' questions about the temporary travel ban involving seven muslim majority countries and the indefinite ban on the united states taking in syrian refugees. we're also watching for an announcement from the council on american islamic relations, care, as it's called, which is planning to file a lawsuit to stop president trump's immigration orders. we're going to bring you both of those events once they happen. this morning during a meeting with small business leaders, president
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