welcome to "inside politics." i'm john king. thank you for sharing your day with us. president trump tweets his position on pulling u.s. troops from syria hasn't changed. his national security adviser, though, is telling allies pay no attention to the president's initial promise to withdraw quickly. plus day 17 of the partial government shutdown and no evident progress. a white house letter to congress demands several things. democrats label nonstarters, not just the border wall. by the way, the president announcing he is headed to the border. democrats take over the

house. unapologetic, promising to push her liberal priorities and dismissing those who question her budget math. >> if people want to really blow up one figure here or one word there, i would argue that they're missing the forest for the trees. i think there is a lot of people more concerned about being precisely, factually and semantically correct rather than being morally right. the president now saying he will head to the southern board. the trip scheduled for thursday, according to the white house press secretary. that trip will be a big moment for the president on what his white house calls the front lines of a national security crisis. here in washington, no talks and no progress, and no sign the democrats are interested in putting furloughed federal workers back in the office. the president said he expected a sunday meeting between

negotiators to produce nothing. that meeting met that lack of expectations. right now we are where we were a week ago, with one notable exception. the white house finally putting an offer on paper, $5.7 billion for what the white house calls a steel barrier. 800 million to address humanitarian needs. 798 million for additional detention beds and 571 million for additional law enforcement on the board. they say the president's math wildly unrealistic. but look close enough for some division in the democratic line. chuck schumer telling an audience in new york this morning the president cannot, will not get his way. >> if when every time president trump throws a tantrum and demands he get his way unless the government will be shut down, it will create disaster. it will encourage his worst instincts which are bad enough now. maybe he thinks he can bully us. but i'm from brooklyn.

if you late bully succeed, you'll be bullied again worse. >> listen here, though, democrat senator chris coons apparently sees it a little differently. >> i am someone who is willing to see more border fencing as long as we choose a technology that dhs says is going to be effective, and i do think his moving toward steel slats rather than concrete wall, if it holds, is important. what you've just cited there is progress. >> with me this day to share their reporting and their insights, kathy lucy with the associated press. we could have a senate and a house play. let's start with what we just learned before we came on the air. sarah sanders tweeting, the president will now go to the border on thursday. number one, it's monday. that tells us there will not be a solution to the government shutdown before thursday. at least unlikely. the president has decided this is a big political move to go stand at the border and say the democrats are wrong, i want my wall.

>> yeah, that's right. i mean, there is no movement over the weekend, as we saw from talks led by the vice president and with senior congressional staff. the president, in fact, before the second set of talks on sunday declared he was expecting nothing and only he could resolve this with principals, so the white house has not seen a lot of momentum here. they have suggested a shift from concrete to steel that has not gotten a ton of democratic interest so far, and they want to make a big statement. there's been chatter for a while about doing a wall visit to try to reinforce what they say is a national security crisis. >> does he have a big enough bully pulpit? can he create, if he doesn't have the support now, can he create it? whether you like him or not, he has communication skills. >> part of the problem here is that the wall has become symbolic not only for the president but for democrats, because it was pushed so much during the campaign. it's really been a central part of the president's candidacy and then presidency. it's become a central point of

opposition to democrats, and the democratic base, they have said from the beginning of this administration, that there is no point of compromise with the president. so it's not really about the building materials. concrete, steel, it doesn't matter. >> potato, potato when it comes to steel or concrete. >> it could be dirt or bricks and the democrats would oppose it. it makes it really hard to find a compromise. >> to that point, if you have two very stubborn people who believe, a, in their position, b, that they have to answer to their base, meaning the president who is now going to his corner, which is the border. nancy pelosi, the new speaker, in her corner, which is the democrats' non-starter. she says nothing. i don't know if she can hold the nothing part if there is an event w eventual shutdown. but if you get two stubborn people in their country, day 17, where are we going?

>> two potential corners. given their entrenched positions on this, it is the pain that a shutdown will lead to that will eventually jar people back to the negotiating table. i think one of the interesting things about this shutdown is it happenedov over a holiday seaso over a new congress taking their seats. it happened with only 70% of the government. that is about to change. january 11, the first paychecks of federal workers are starting to be missed. pain is starting. and that's when lawmakers start to hear it, that's when rank and file lawmakers start to get very ant antsy, want to put something on the table, want to get talks put together. can you jar two current leaders out of their place? not if things remain static. you look at past shutdowns, that's what brings people to the table. to be frank, i think they're waiting for that to really bite before anything starts to move. >> it would be apparent to me, anyway, that if the president is

announcing to his press secretary he's going to the border wall that he believes that's his leverage or at least that's his next step to get more leverage, so don't look for anything to happen over the next three days, i wouldn't think, because the democrats aren't going to raise their hand and say, let's settle this now, mr. president. i guarantee pollingwise with his base he is right in the sweet spot. if he cut a deal now, it would hurt him. is that where the president is, that again, we're talking in early 2019, we're talking about federal workers, we're talking about institutions shutting down, national parks are in trouble. we're looking at the president in 2020. he's just backed into a corner with his base? >> this is a base strategy the president is employing here. it doesn't show the wall is very popular with the populace, but they're disappointed republicans have not been able to put together a package that delivers the wall in the first couple

years with the presidency. the base does want president trump to fight on this. the problem we're seeing so far is the president is sort of continuing with the same argument. even if he goes down to the southern border and talks about the wall, we're going to hear the same message he's been putting out for the past several weeks, the same message the white house has been putting out. democrats haven't moved at all, so we're at this standstill, and both sides playing to their base is not going to solve this problem. they're going to need to have some sort of broader consensus about how to put together a deal that allow both sides to save face and we're no closer to that than we were a couple weeks ago. >> at one point the furloughed workers were all democrats. at another point he has said he thinks a lot of them want the wall and support his position. he said this yesterday, which again, i don't begrudge the president his wealth, but it's hard for a guy who lives in a penthouse, who is a multi-millionaire, he says multi-billionaire, that people who live paycheck to paycheck,

people that are about to miss a paycheck that he relates. >> i can relate, and i'm sure that the people who are on the receiving end will make adjustment, they always do, and they'll make adjustment. people understand exactly what's going on. but many of those people that won't be receiving a paycheck, many of those people agree 100%. >> you browrote about this overe weekend in his negotiating history, if you will. that's him trying to expand his base. i'm not quite sure he can be so successful to say "i relate to you" to the person having a hard time paying their mortgagor the -- mortgage or tuition bill. >> he ran as the deal maker who could get deals america had never seen before. but his strategy typically has been incredibly erratic, so he tries to sort of keep people

guessing. so he makes big statements, he'll pull them back. on this he has sort of suggested he was interested in a short-term deal before the holidays and then he turned around and said he wasn't. he said he would own the shutdown and then he tried to blame democrats. he said it would be a concrete wall, now it's a steel wall. he's gone back and forth again and again. in terms of the plight of people not getting paychecks, this is also something we've seen in previous times of national tragedy or tension. he struggles with showing empathy. that has been a consistency with this president. i'm not quite sure what making adjustments means, but i don't think that's going to be particularly helpful for people who literally do live paycheck to paycheck to pay a mortgage. >> at the top of the hour we showed you chuck schumer saying, no way, mr. president. chris coons saying maybe he's coming our way a little bit. you have a democrat versus republican argument, you have a pelosi versus trump argument. will we have a house versus

senate argument? you're looking at north carolina? are you looking at maine? are you looking at places you think you can play, somewhere south of the mason-dixon line? might we see a split among the democrats as this drags on? >> so far, no, but to your point, senator coons and others have been having conversations over the course of the last couple weeks about a way out of this, about potential areas of agreement on border enforcement that could kind of give everybody a semantic win and thread the needle a little bit. i think the biggest issue right now that i pick up in talking with staff, the staff themselves can make this work whenever they get the green light. they have done enough of these kind of crisis era negotiations, physical talks, shutdowns to be able to thread the needle on something that gives everybody a little bit of something and they can't claim both sides are completely defeated. can there be an organic uprising

in the senate, what's happened in the past, that could lead to a solution? yes, but the difference is both sides are so behind them that the upside of that, particularly at the leadership level, hasn't become apparent yet. >> if the president were willing to accept $3 billion instead of $5.7 billion, could nancy pelosi even bring that to the floor, this month in the first month of her speakership? that's the question. >> i don't think so now. >> this is how traditional washington works but we don't live in traditional. is there a deal to be had or will those talks add an already turmoil to a rocky stretch? one hour pickup order?

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disputes to keep roiling global markets. today is their first face to face discussion since president trump and the president of argentina battled it out last year. trump feeling pretty optimistic heading into today's discussions. >> the china talks are going very well. i spoke to president xi recently. i really believe they want to make a deal. the tariffs have absolutely hurt china very badly, but our country is taking in a lot of money through tariffs, a lot of money. a lot of tariffs. steel-dumping tariffs and others. i think china wants to get it resolved. their economy is not doing well. >> matt rivers here from beijing with more on why the trump administration might be feeling so upbeat. >> reporter: well, john, day one is in the books of this very latest round of trade negotiations between the u.s. and china. no real word yet on how those talks went. but looming over them is a march 1st deadline. that's when the administration

will take tariffs on $200 billion worth on chinese imports currently at 10% up to 25%. a huge escalation in this trade war, a trade war that will hurt both average chinese and american consumers. only a trade deal worked out by then can stop that. now, these meetings today are mainly focused on laying the groundwork for more senior-level talks that could happen later this month or next. the trump administration is betting that china's slowing economy will make china more willing to make a deal by making key concessions, something the international community generally says china should have done a long time ago. but of course there is the risk that the u.s. overplays its hand, and we end up right back where we started, no deal and a lot more tariffs. china, of course, says its economy is fine. so really, we'll have to wait and see how negotiations go over the next eight weeks or so. if all that, john, isn't enough for you, a u.s. warship sailed right by artificial islands china is building and

militarizing in the south china sea in order to challenge china's territorial claim there. those operations are planned months in advance, so today's mission really is just a coincidence. but still, beijing really doesn't like it when the navy does that, so john, it just goes to show you there is a lot more to worry about besides trade when you're talking u.s.-china. >> tense time indeed. joining me now with his insight and expertise, moody's reporter on analytics. they say this might be hurting the chinese economy. president xi is making global concessions. if beijing wanted to raise the white flag, it would have done so already. the longer the trade war continues, the less realistic expectations the outside world should hold for china. now, there is always posturing and negotiations, but do you see in the short term here an offramp here where both leaders

say, let's cut a deal. you take this and i'll take that, let's stop this? >> i do, because both the chinese economy and the u.s. economy is suffering. you can see that in our respective stock markets. u.s. stock prices are down 10 to 15% of their peak. it's doing damage to both sides, and i think that's putting pressure on both sides to come up with some kind of arrangement. i think at the end of the day, they're going to come up with a face-saving arrangement to end this thing. >> face-saving arrangement, but let me just put infrastructural property on the table. the administration is dead right about china's behavior, but can it get an agreement? >> no. maybe on paper, but it will be meaningless. it will be much ado about nothing. very similar to the nafta deal. that was really much ado about nothing. remember the deal the president struck with the european union back in december? there was nothing there, either. at the end of the day, i don't

think he's going to make any substantive progress here. the good news is he's going to end this war because it is doing damage, and if he ends it, i think the economy can hang together. >> potentially doing damage at a time we've already seen a roller coaster in the markets and the broader economy. it's day 17 as we have this conversation of the partial government shutdown. what's your take on american markets and financial markets, the broader economy, might start seeing the impact of that? >> well, it's going to start to mount. so far no big deal. most of this was during the holiday season. not a lot going on so not a lot of impact. people had gotten paid, so it wasn't disrupting their rent payments or everything. it will affect food stamps and a lot of low-income households really depend on those food stamps. people will go into panic mode.

americans every year at this time, february, march, rely on tax refunds. it's going to affect some high-flying companies like uber and lyft. the insurance exchange commission is out of commission and can't do those things to get things to market. thousands of markets could suffer as well. the government does a lot of things, and we're going to get to know that very, very well over the next few weeks. no big deal now, maybe, not such a big deal by the end of the month f. we goat february, march and it messes with everything else going on. >> the government shut down two very different things. you can't connect the dots, except if there is continued uncertainty rkts ma.

>> it's very clear that will heat up. you know that better than anybody else. we have this whole thing called brexit going on in the u.k., the united kingdom, which will come to a head in march as well. that's just part of it. there is a whole stew of things going on, and if they come together and conflate, that could be a real problem for this economy. >> always appreciate your insights, mark zandi. is joe biden getting close to making his big 2020 decision? i'm alex trebek here to tell you

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joe biden closing in on a big decision about 2020. cnn has learned the former vice president will decide in the coming month whether or not he'll make a third run for the white house. a friend telling cnn's jeff zeleny, quote, he understands he needs to make a decision relatively early in the process. he knows he can't wait. one reason is that other democrats are recruiting staff and recruiting donors. elizabeth warren early out of the gates taking a big iowa test drive just this past weekend. biden, though, doesn't see a threat when he looks at the list of democratic hopefuls. speaking for the "new york times," a biden friend quoting the former vice president as this, quote, if you can tell me there is someone better who can win, i'm happy not to do it. but i don't see the candidate who can clearly do what has to

be done to win. >> i am a ma krrchiavellian whe comes to electability. and i certainly wouldn't want him to even dream about running if i didn't think we could annihilate trump. you are absolutely correct, the election will be the primary. >> you want your brother on your side, you want your brother to think you can annihilate trump, but the vice president, number one, has the age question. number two, third time. the first two times were not good. >> no doubt about it. so that's a question. to return to the stage at the same place he left it in '07 and '08? no, he doesn't. he would have much more stature now, but the history books would say the race in '08, terribly unkind to him.

'07 not kind, either. but barack obama needed someone and he's beloved by a lot in the party. but his brother may have hit it oe t on the head there. he said the election is the primary. that's a big question if joe biden could navigate this democratic field of differences. the party is not where he left it. but what i'm told by a variety of advisers is he wants to run but has not decided yet. it's a family decision and there are many reasons not to run. his legacy is one concern, but he's facing a ton of pressure from donors and activists to make a decision by the end of january. >> in part because they're getting calls from everyone else, in part those loyal to biden. today's answer may not last to tomorrow or to new hampshire, south carolina and beyond. what is going to matter most to

democratic voters? is it beating trump? you think former vice president, kid from scranton, can do the blue car stuff. or is it -- look at the house of representatives. more pressure in the party and biden is out of step. which is it? >> democrats have not really cracked the code on how to effectively attack president trump, and that's partly what this primary will test. we'll see a lot of different ways the president is going to get attacked. this is not a biden democratic party, this is a party that has changed and moved pretty significantly to the left during the trump era. that means that joe biden has a very long record, and some of those things like the crime bill, which was a problem for hillary, like his bankruptcy bill, like the anita hill hearings may not wear so well in today's democratic party, and that's certainly something he needs to be thinking very seriously about.

>> and as he nears his decision -- this won't impact it, he's going to decide with his family. is my heart in it, can i really beat trump? you saw elizabeth warren out of the gates, but listen to her in iowa essentially saying it should be me. >> this is about my mom and dad. this is about where i grew up. this is about every experience i've had and every time i've been told, you can't get a consumer agency. a woman can't beat a popular republican senator, you can't get the ceo of wells fargo fired. [ applause ] >> welcome to campaigning. you lose you'r voice pretty quickly. you go through cycles of that. fairly or unfairly, help me with the right word for it. she said it right there, women

can't beat a popular republican senator. she did that in massachusetts. there are a lot of democrats, including women, asking the question, is it safe? of course, women are coming up in the party. can a woman beat trump? >> there is also -- we spoke to three dozen democrats over the weekend about this very question. there are people in the party who say it's too risky to nominate a woman, and that's rooted in the 2016 election, and that's rooted in a widerspread recognition that it is harder for a woman's win, but there is a flip side so that argument. a woman's position on the ticket and a woman's work won the party back in the house in the midterms. >> and math, 52 to 53, a growing part of the electorate. >> one thing about warren's visit to iowa, she got good crowds, good reviews. biden coming into this will not take the traditional vice

president slot and come into this as the established frontrunner, i think, in a way that he would have in past cycles. he's going to have to work. there are dozens of candidates, and there are candidates with organizations already in iowa and new hampshire, the early states. he's going to have to compete. and there are other candidates carving out the same issues he's talking about. the midwestern appeal that he has, it's not just him. >> governor mcauliffe said last hour, the more the merrier, that even if he runs, he wants joe biden in the field. is that an honest answer or a political answer? i don't want to overdo the politics part of it, but if you're a white guy in the democratic field, joe biden is a bigger obstacle to you than anybody else, right? >> that is true, and i think we're going to have a large field whichever way you cut it. biden may be one of the names that ends up being in there. but i think as he's hemming and

h hawing and trying to decide, he has to make a case for himself, the way elizabeth warren made a case for herself. joe biden, who ran multiple times, who has eight years in the white house, who has a long political history, he'll have to make that strong case to democrats that he is the person who can be the right candidate for the trump era. not for the 1980s or the 1990s. >> being frontrunner is a dangerous place to start, because there is always the candidate who wins the early primary in 2019. it's difficult. that's why i think governor mcauliffe doesn't mind if joe biden gets in. he can't do much about it, for one thing. joe biden starts with high expectations. >> to that point, ask jeb bush and ted cruz. the president walks back what he said about u.s. troops

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topping our political radar today, oral arguments at the supreme court taking place without the supreme court justice, ruth bader ginsburg. we're told she's still recovering from surgery she underwent last month to remove two cancerous nodules from her lung. she had a similar surgery before but it never caused her to miss votes. gavin newsom is being sworn

in as california governor. president trump apparently trying to get on the same page now with his national security adviser who says the u.s. troops pulling out from syria will happen more gradually than he first said. john bolton said the withdrawal hinges on certain conditions, including assurances from turkey that the kurds won't be attacked. >> to do so from northeast syria in a way that makes sure that isis is defeated and is not able to revive itself and become a threat again, and to make sure that the defense of israel and our other friends in the region is absolutely assured, and to take care of those who have fought with us against isis and other terrorist groups. >> in a tweet this morning, the president trying to suggest

that's where he's been all along, saying the conditions bolton laid out are no different from his original statement and that leaving syria will be, quote, at the proper pace. however, that's not what the president said originally. this is one of the issues we've seen since day one of the trump administration where he declares things on twitter and in other statements where he said "rapidly, "quickly," and his aides have to scramble on this case in a major global security situation and tell allies, pay no attention to what the president says, pay attention to what we do. happened on day one, still happens now. why? >> this is a feature of trump's governing, which is when he gets frustrated with something or he feels like something isn't moving as quickly as he would like, or maybe he wants to turn attention another direction, he's going to tweet out a policy whether or not everyone else has read in on it. >> and then he says we're fabricating it. there's nothing to see here except you can read what he said.

>> this is a president who wants to portray his administration as a well-oiled machine. everything is working just as it's supposed to but the evidence is very much in contrast to that. we hear multiple different messages from different parts of the administration. we hear the national security adviser trying to clear up the mess the president made through his tweets and his statements that seem very brash and led to the resignation of the defense secretary. i mean, this is a chaotic situation where the administration is sort of firing and then aiming afterwards. it's becoming much more of a problem among republicans in the congress who are not happy to see all of this chaos coming out of the trump administration and not having as much of an organized process as you would normally expect out of the white house. this could be a problem in 2019 for the president if he continues along this path. >> you heard congress say the israeli congress and his team are feeling better today. alex cortez gets the

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alexandria occasiacio-corte making it clear she wants to keep her request even though she's a new addition to the congress. and she says, quote, the trump has a dog whistle language. >> he certainly gave a voice to it and expanded it and created a platform for those things. >> do you believe president trump is a racist? >> yeah. no question. >> the white house responding by saying the president has repaidly condemned racism and bigotry. white house calls her, quote, sheer ignorance on the matter.

there is a dispute with the president who has used language like that in the past. the record is pretty clear. and then there's the moment in the sense that most freshman members of congress, even if they become stars during the campaign because of the big upset, she upset a leading member of the democratic leadership, they tend to disappear when they get here and they earn their time, if you will. what is up with her? >> i think it's her moment in this moment of time. not unlike the obama administration trying to go around reporters through youtube stars, she has figured out a way to get her message out beyond the political press, beyond the press corps to people. she can carry it over when she actually gets here. is she going to have power on the committees where she's the 34th ranked member on the committee? no, i don't think so, but when she has policy ideas, and she's laid out several. a new green deal, she's talked about the 70% marginal tax rate

for the highest earners, the party has to pay attention and the party has to listen. while she agreed with the characterization of radical, if that's what you want to give her, radical ideas from star members of a party have moved into the mainstream over time. we've seen it happen in the past couple of decades multiple times. so i'm far more interested, and whatever she has to say on "60 minutes" is if she's able to push her policy ideas that might be disagreeable to a lot of people, if she's able to get the party behind those or move them into the mainstream. >> build the wall. donald trump, it was his part of the party which was the dominant one. listen here because she got four pinocchios in the "washington post" because she has, as a

newm newcomer, gotten the numbers wrong. she said that's not her point. >> one of the criticisms for you is that your math is fuzzy. the "washington post" recently awarded you four pinocchios about federal spending. >> if people really want to blow up one figure here or one word there, i would argue they're missing the forest for the trees. i think there is a lot of people more concerned about being precisely, factually and semantically correct than about being morally right. >> it's interesting to watch, because you watch as politicians grow and you watch them as they make mistakes. she could have said, yeah, i screwed that up. instead she says, look, don't focus on the numbers, focus on the moral imperative, which is an interesting argument. >> i think she understands about two things the era we live in, and we're in a time of showhorses, not workhorses. she understands how to

capitalize from that energy on the grassroots. i think she also understands that people want a sense of authenticity. if that means standing by your original statement and saying, well, that's not the point, it seems authentic. or the comment about racism. i mean, what you typically hear from democratic politicians when asked that question is, well, i don't know what's in donald trump's heart, right? that just doesn't pass the smell test in a lot of ways, so just coming out skpand saying, look, think he's racist. i think that gives authenticity to what we know about donald trump when people seem to be craving politicians, even when their math is, in a sense, wrong. >> i think she understands the statements she's making is hugely popular with a certain section of the party. if she was old enough, we would be talking about her going to iowa for 2020. i'm sure we'll be talking about if she's going out and doing things for other candidates. >> i think she also mentioned that nancy pelosi was a younger

woman in the house democratic caucus at one point who was told no, or be patient, or wait your turn. i don't know where the sweet spot is that nancy pelosi says enough. up next, why the government shutdown could get more painful, much more painful, for americans in the week ahead. (avo) life doesn't give you many

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u.s.-mexico border on thursday. federal government workers will miss their first paycheck on friday. next week it will be the longest government shutdown on record and federal workers will feel the big impacts. is this just the president's position versus the democratic position, or americans, who live paycheck by paycheck, and as they begin to miss their paychecks, the politicians, is that where they take their q uru -- cue from? >> i think they take their queue from policyworkers. if mitch mcconnell says you need to figure something out, mitch mcconnell is going to reflect the views of his party. >> who are the key members here? susan collins is up in 2020, tom ti tillis, a member in 2020?

>> yes, but many have zeroed in on susan collins and tom tillis, saying, we don't want a part of this. people say there are a lot of senate republicans in 2020. most of those are from trump states, very red states and are very comfortable being behind trump right now. i don't think those are the drivers. when you have someone like tom tillis who perhaps worked on immigration issues before would say, look, we have to work something out. what we said earlier is interesting, too. both sides will at some point have to blink here. bases are important and democrats will have to find some reason to come across the table. >> who can tell the president, you need to blink and take less? who can tell nancy pelosi, first couple weeks of speaker, you need to blink and give the president something? 2 billion, 3 billion. i don't know what the number is. >> i think the president's base and the people he listens that started this whole shutdown,

talk show radio hosts, those types of people, could potentially get through to him, but they don't have the incentive to make this fight end. i think the president wants to keep this going and until we start seeing people talking on a broader basis, then we'll see the president do something. thank you for joining us in the fight. > time for cnn right now. the debacle takes a right into the steel. why the president's new offer won't go far with democrats. plus, while the president tells workers to make adjustments, he's in the middle of a standoff. john bolton contradicting the president