Full transcript: Face the Nation on January 21, 2018
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JOHN DICKERSON, HOST: Today on FACE THE NATION: Congress shuts down the government on the first anniversary of the Trump administration.
The political finger-pointing is in full force, all the way from Capitol Hill.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA), HOUSE MINORITY LEADER: Happy anniversary, Mr. President. Your wish came true. You wanted a shutdown. The Trump shutdown is all yours.
REP. PAUL RYAN (R-WI), SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: We do some crazy things in Washington, but this is utter madness.
SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY), MINORITY LEADER: Negotiating with this White House is like negotiating with Jell-O. It's next to impossible.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DICKERSON: To the White House, where callers were greeted with a recording Saturday.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Unfortunately, we cannot answer your call today because congressional Democrats are holding government funding, including funding for our troops and other national security priorities, hostage to an unrelated immigration debate.
(END AUDIO CLIP)
DICKERSON: On day two, Washington's mess is already spreading around the country, as some landmarks shut down and nonessential government workers have been furloughed.
Can the president, Republicans and Democrats work together to reopen the government?
House Speaker Paul Ryan, White House Budget Director Mick Mulvaney and the number two Democrat in the Senate, Richard Durbin, are all here with us today.
We will also have plenty of political analysis to make sense of it all.
And I will have some personal thoughts on my last regular turn as host of this broadcast.
It's all coming up right now here on FACE THE NATION.
Good morning, and welcome to FACE THE NATION. I'm John Dickerson.
It's day two of the shutdown, but on day three, when most federal employees go to work, the effects will really kick in. Can Congress and the president overcome the paralysis in Washington and work together to reopen the government?
We begin today with House Speaker Paul Ryan.
Welcome, Mr. Speaker.
RYAN: Thank you.
DICKERSON: So, where are things in these negotiations as of right now?
RYAN: Well, first, let me just say, this is your last show. You're going from hanging out with the likes of Ryan and Mulvaney to hanging out with O'Donnell and King. You're in for a serious upgrade. I want to say congratulations on that.
DICKERSON: Thank you.
RYAN: So, to the serious point, we're still in shutdown. We're waiting for the Senate Democrats to open the government back up.
This is solely done by the Senate Democrats. It's absolutely meaningless. They shut down the government over a completely unrelated issue. And the bill that they're opposing is a bill that they support, which is just baffling to us, children's health insurance, funding for our troops, keeping the government going.
They shut it down over an unrelated immigration issue with a deadline weeks away. And what's so baffling about this was, we were negotiating in good faith on DACA all the same. We actually want to solve this problem. So it's not as if we were saying, no way, no how, no discussions. They blew up the negotiations that were already under way.
DICKERSON: I want to get to some of those issues in a minute, but where are we right now? Is there an agreement to maybe get something going here before people go to work or don't on Monday?
RYAN: We're waiting to see. We're basically waiting to see today whether the Senate will vote on this or not and they have the votes for it.
So, as you know, the House passed a bill keeping the government funded.
DICKERSON: But what is going to change that they would vote on that...
(CROSSTALK)
RYAN: Well, what Leader McConnell is going to be offering is one that has different date on it. We passed a bill keeping thing funded through February 16. He's going to bring up a bill keeping things funded to February 8.
We have agreed that we would accept that in the House, and so we will see sometime today whether or not they have the votes for that. And that's really where we are right now.
DICKERSON: The president -- you talk about blame for Democrats all that, but they're not the only players in this.
But in 2013, the president, Donald Trump, as a civilian, said: "It always happens to be the top. I mean the problem starts from the top and have to get solved at the top."
The top he was talking about was the presidency. So, why is this president, who came in as a negotiator who said he was going to fix Washington, why is he not contributory to this problem that we have a government shutdown?
RYAN: Look, as Republicans, we have some experience with futile gestures like government shutdown.
You want to see some quotes, let me give you one. "Open the government. When you open the government, we will open negotiations."
That was Dick Durbin in 2013, exactly what they were saying back in those days.
DICKERSON: Right. But I'm talking about the president, though, not Dick Durbin.
RYAN: Well...
DICKERSON: The president came in saying, Washington is broken, I'm going to fix it.
RYAN: And so...
DICKERSON: This is exactly -- we're exactly where we were. This is why he ran. This is what everybody doesn't like.
RYAN: Donald Trump didn't shut down the government. Senate Democrats -- why did they call this Schumer shutdown? Because Senate Democrats shut down the government.
DICKERSON: But they is Republicans calling it the Schumer shutdown.
I want to get past all that.
(CROSSTALK)
RYAN: John, let me get you there.
You can't blame Donald Trump for the Senate Democrats shutting down the government. They shut down the government with no endgame in sight. I frankly don't think they felt we were going to pass our bill. And when we passed our bill, funding children's health insurance, keeping the troops funded, preventing the medical device tax from kicking in, in a few days, which will raise everyone's health care costs, they would not pass that bill.
That has nothing to do with President Trump.
DICKERSON: I'm not trying to assign blame. I'm trying to just figure out what is going on here.
This is a very familiar play. We have been here before, as you say.
RYAN: And it's futile. It never works.
DICKERSON: But I want to know why a president who came -- just what's gone wrong. Why has he not been able to apply -- he came in as the great negotiator. What is it that has made it impossible for a person who ran on fixing the system unable to get past it?
RYAN: It's a good question, because we're so baffled.
If we were saying, for instance, we're never going to do a DACA solution, we're going to kick these kids out, then I might understand Democrats getting frustrated.
But what's baffling about this, John, is, we were in negotiations on how to solve this problem, and then they blew that up and stopped these negotiations.
So, our -- we have Kevin McCarthy representing House Republicans who was negotiating with Dick Durbin and other leaders. That's what's baffling about this.
DICKERSON: Here's what they say. And you had two Republicans in the Senate who voted against this funding measure for roughly similar reasons, which is, the president has been a moving target.
Mitch McConnell, the leader of the Republicans in the Senate, said, we're spinning our wheels until we know where the president is.
So, the Democrats felt like -- or this is their case anyway -- they felt like he is a moving target. Let's use this moment of leverage, as Republicans did with Obamacare in 2013.
(CROSSTALK)
RYAN: Which didn't work and didn't -- and I can -- look...
DICKERSON: Right. But it was something they cared about. Democrats care about this too.
I guess the question is...
RYAN: The question is, where is the president on this issue? Is that...
DICKERSON: And is he going to stay in one place?
RYAN: Yes, so, I think it's -- I think what the president should do is leave room for negotiation to get a solution.
That's exactly what he's doing. He's basically saying, in addition to a DACA solution, we have to have border security, including funding for a wall. He wants to get rid of the diversity visa program. And we want to move from a system of immigration based on family relations to one based on skills and merit for what the economy needs.
Perfectly commonsense. Here is the issue. If we simply did DACA, without incumbent reforms, then you would have a DACA problem five years down the road. We want to fix the problem and the root cause of the problem.
DACA is a symptom of a broken immigration system. We want to fix the root cause of this problem while we deal with DACA, so that we don't have 700,000 more DACA kids in five years. That's perfectly commonsense. And that's all the president is saying.
DICKERSON: I want to see if I can get your reaction to something that the Trump campaign has run. It's an ad they're running right now in the middle of these negotiations, where everybody is thinking the other side has bad faith.
Let's watch a little bit of it. And I want to get your reaction about how this affects things.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
NARRATOR: President Trump is right: Build the wall. Deport criminals. Stop illegal immigration now. Democrats who stand in our way will be complicit in every murder committed by illegal immigrants.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DICKERSON: Are Democrats complicit?
RYAN: Well, they're certainly not helping us keep the government open. They're certainly not helping us getting to a solution on immigration.
When you shut down the government, you -- and stop negotiating on immigration reform, they're complicit with not getting things done.
DICKERSON: But are they complicit in murders and...
RYAN: Look, I'm not going to comment on that. I just saw that. I don't know if that is necessarily productive.
It's no secret the president has strong views on immigration. But what is not productive is a pointless government shutdown that the Senate Democrats have foisted on this country.
Just so you know -- you said this in your opening -- tomorrow, people don't get paid. People get furloughed. We have soldiers fighting for us, troops overseas fighting for us who will not be getting paid.
DICKERSON: Well...
RYAN: This is ridiculous. And, so, look, we have done this before. It didn't work. It's not working now. Let me just give you a quick...
(CROSSTALK)
DICKERSON: Hold on. Hold on. But wait.
The military -- this military question is important, though. I'm sorry to interrupt.
But, in 2013, the president, then candidate Trump, said: "Here is the truth. The government doesn't shut down. All essential services continue. Don't believe the lies."
On this question of the military, in 2013, the payments continued. So, they don't continue now? Because I have looked at a lot of factors.
RYAN: You can ask the OMB director that in a minute, because I know you have him coming on.
DICKERSON: But it's quite a volatile thing to say they're not getting paid, if they are getting paid.
(CROSSTALK)
RYAN: Their payment gets deferred. They don't get paid.
DICKERSON: Why can't -- why couldn't Congress have fixed that?
RYAN: We did. We passed a bill. It's sitting in the Senate. They filibustered it.
DICKERSON: But why didn't -- the Democrats didn't filibuster the payment for the troops.
(CROSSTALK)
RYAN: The bill we passed pays the troops. It pays the Park Service. It pays the Border Patrol. It pays people doing basic health research.
DICKERSON: But, in 2013, when there was a shutdown, they did in fact get paid, right?
RYAN: No, their pay gets deferred.
Let me just say something: "I believe in immigration reform. what if I persuaded my caucus to say, I'm going to shut down the government, I'm not going to pay our bills unless I get my way? It's the politics of idiocy, confrontation and paralysis."
That's Chuck Schumer in 2013.
DICKERSON: You're taking all the quotes I'm going to read to Dick Durbin later.
(CROSSTALK)
RYAN: I know. But I'm saving you time.
DICKERSON: I'm trying to get answers from you.
(CROSSTALK)
RYAN: My point is, this is ridiculous. Open the government back up, and then we will get back to negotiating.
DICKERSON: I understand.
But let me go back to this. You said the ad is not productive. Here is the concern people have. This is a fight over this moment, OK, but it's opening up this larger, pretty ugly debate.
That ad suggests basically the Democrats are for the dangerous people, we're for the good Americans.
When it gets into that kind of a debate, it gets very elemental, and you start doing -- saying things and creating wounds that can't be healed. Do you worry about that?
(CROSSTALK)
RYAN: So, we should open the government back up and resume negotiations, which were going on in earnest, in good faith, before they blew things up and shut down the government.
DICKERSON: Can you give me your assessment of the president as a negotiator on this DACA question?
RYAN: Yes. I talk to him all the time about it.
It's what I just said. He wants -- in addition to a DACA solution, he wants to secure the border, including the border wall.
Here is the problem. If we have an illegal immigration problem, and we say we're going to give legal status to this group of people, as sympathetic as they are -- and we won't -- I don't want to see these kids deported -- and then you don't fix the problem, you're going to have more people saying, ah, come to the country illegally. Sooner or later, I will get an amnesty.
That is a bad incentive structure. So, what you want to do is fix the root cause of the problem -- we don't have control of our borders, we have a broken immigration system -- while we address this symptom of the problem. That's what the president is saying, and that's perfectly commonsense.
DICKERSON: Well, let me ask you about Congress, though, here.
That has been a problem for awhile, DACA, as has the Children's Health Insurance Program. In a functioning Congress, when DACA is thrown back into Congress to deal with, you work through the process, you get a piece of legislation, you vote on it. The same with reauthorizing children's health insurance.
Those things have not been tended to by Congress.
RYAN: Do you know why? We have passed it three times now in the House. We have passed...
DICKERSON: So, is all the Senate's false?
RYAN: We have passed the CHIP program. That is the third CHIP long-term reauthorization we have passed in the House. And the Senate Democrats have been filibustering it each and every time.
We passed all 12 appropriation bills for all of government last September in the House. And the Senate Democrats have been filibustering those bills. We passed in December funding for these natural disasters in the hurricanes, and the Senate Democrats have been filibustering these bills.
So, the point I'm trying to make, John, is, the Senate Democrats have chosen filibuster CHIP, filibuster appropriations, filibuster getting these things done, and then blame the dysfunction on everybody else.
The point I'm trying to make is, if you want to get these problems solved, open up the government, resume negotiations, and let's solve these problems.
DICKERSON: But their argument would be, if you want to get these problems solved in the Senate, where you know you need 60 votes, when you have -- you need to do a little outreach and be ready. If you're going to say, it's my way or the highway, be recognized that that...
RYAN: Why don't you just bring a bill to the floor and start -- appropriations, let's take appropriations or CHIP.
DICKERSON: Well, what about DACA? Why not bring some -- you know you could get a bipartisan majority for DACA in the House and the Senate. The president, it would be on his desk in minutes.
RYAN: Bring bills to the floor and see where they go on appropriations. Bring bills to the floor to see where they go on all these other issues.
Here is the problem. The Democrats filibuster even considering these bills. And that is why we had this big pile-up. And with respect to DACA, it's really important. We want to fix the root cause of the problem while we address the symptom of the problem. That's perfectly commonsense.
And just so you know, John, we had good-faith negotiations on this issue under way until the Senate Democrats chose to shut down...
(CROSSTALK)
DICKERSON: Well, the Democrats can speak for themselves, but their argument is, they weren't in good faith. The president said, I will take a deal.
A deal was put before him. Then he wouldn't take it.
But on this question of DACA, why not put...
RYAN: I would take issue with that, but go ahead.
DICKERSON: Well, there is a bipartisan agreement that could be put on the floor of the Senate. The question is whether it would pass the House.
RYAN: One that we don't support. And it was an end-run around the negotiations we had. The president -- we had a negotiating format up. They brought other -- another bill, end-run around it. The president doesn't support it. We don't support it.
So, what we're saying is, let's stick with these negotiations. We had Kevin McCarthy, the majority leader of the House, Steny Hoyer, the majority whip, Dick Durbin, the majority -- minority whip, and John Cornyn, the majority whip of the Senate, in negotiations.
They tried to bring some end-run around that it that the president, he doesn't support, that we wouldn't support. We will support a bill that the president supports to fix this problem. And that means fixing this problem more comprehensively, so we don't have another DACA problem five, 10 years down the road.
DICKERSON: Let me ask you a final political question. 2018, there are some retirements.
Are you going to be speaker if you have the majority in the next Congress, after these elections?
RYAN: Yes, if we keep the majority, then the Republican speaker -- you're asking me if I'm going to run for reelection.
That is a decision my wife and I always make each and every term when we are finally in Wisconsin late in spring. And I'm not going to share my thinking with you before I even talk to my wife.
DICKERSON: Well, it's my last show, Mr. Speaker.
(CROSSTALK)
RYAN: Look, we're doing fine. I have no plans of going anywhere any time.
But that's something that my wife and I always decide in late spring of the election.
DICKERSON: You still having -- what...
(CROSSTALK)
RYAN: Yes, I'm not having fun in a government shutdown. I'd like to get back to work and make sure that that we don't defund CHIP and stop funding our troops.
DICKERSON: Mr. Speaker, thanks for being here.
RYAN: Congratulations.
DICKERSON: We turn now to White House Budget Director Mick Mulvaney to discuss where the administration stands in this impasse.
Welcome, Mr. Director.
MICK MULVANEY, WHITE HOUSE BUDGET DIRECTOR: John, it's a pleasure to be here on your last show. Congratulations on the new gig.
DICKERSON: Thank you.
The president said this shutdown would be a present for him. His son Eric Trump said this is good for the administration.
Why is it good for the administration?
MULVANEY: I don't think it's good for the administration.
I think the president's comment is correct, in that I think one of the reasons you asked Mr. Ryan one of the questions about, why are we doing this, why are we here right now, and I think part of the reason is that this is the first anniversary of the president's inauguration.
And I think the left wing of the Democrat Party is extraordinarily disappointed with how the first year has gone, because the president has a good many successes, the tax bill, the success in the stock markets, the advances that we have had in employment and the economy and so forth.
And I think one of the reasons you're seeing the Democrats pick this fight right now, and reason that it is different than it has been in the past is because here we are on the first anniversary, should be talking about the successes, and instead we're talking about a shutdown.
DICKERSON: But why is it considered a present, though, and why is it good you? People -- and you even said it was cool to shut down the government.
People are on the one hand being told this is a great disaster for military families and all that, and then all these other signals are being sent
MULVANEY: Yes, well, my comment was that I just thought it was interesting from an academic standpoint that after all I have been through in Washington, D.C., to learn on Friday afternoon that the person who actually physically sends the instructions to sort of shut the government down, to go through the lapse in appropriations, is the director of the Office of Management and Budget, which is me.
Didn't mean that I liked it. I think the administration has been very straightforward from the beginning. We do not want this shutdown. And that's why you have seen the president work so hard, and why we're so frustrated that Senate Democrats can't seem to figure out a way to get to yes.
DICKERSON: Here's -- I'm confused about this military thing.
Here is what Congressman Mulvaney said in 2013 during the last shutdown about it. You said, "In fact, about 75 percent of the government is open for business."
And so you said back then -- you said, "In the meantime, you should know that our troops are still being paid and Social Security checks are still going out."
So why was it true in 2013, when you said the troops are still being paid, and not true now?
MULVANEY: A couple different things.
First of all, Social Security checks do go out and will go out. Social Security is not impacted by any government shutdown, because the money is mandatory and not appropriated.
On the military, here is how it works. And I have much greater understanding of a shutdown now that I'm the OMB director. They will go to work, they do go to work. Folks who are in military, overseas, folks here at home will go to work. They just don't automatically get paid.
What has to happen is Congress has to go back after the shutdown is over and vote to pay them for the time during the furlough.
DICKERSON: Claire McCaskill, senator, Democratic senator, brought up a vote to pay them while the shutdown was going on. That vote didn't -- Mitch McConnell didn't bring that up for a vote.
Why doesn't -- why wouldn't Congress, why wouldn't the White House, executive branch do everything they can to take care of the troops while this is being adjudicated?
MULVANEY: A couple of different things on that.
Yes, I understand several of those unanimous consent requests came up in the Senate on both sides. For example, I think Mitch McConnell also brought up a unanimous consent request to take a vote today before 1:00 in the morning tomorrow morning, and that was objected to.
I think, when you get to those unanimous consent requests, those are procedural votes. And it goes to sort of the dynamic flow in the Senate.
But as to the impact of the shutdown on people, the president made it very clear to me Friday night -- we talked late Friday, right before the lapse came into place. And he said, look, I want to you do everything you can to make sure this impacts as few people as possible.
We are going to run and are running the shutdown very differently now than the Obama administration ran it in 2013. You cannot convince me that the Obama administration did not weaponize this for political purposes.
The president has told me, make sure as many people can go to work on Monday as they can. Make sure you use every tool legally available to you to keep as much of the government open. And that's what we will do.
DICKERSON: Because people are saying that's what the administration, Republicans are doing that word you used, weaponize, which is essentially saying things about military that are not true in order to put political pressure on the Democrats.
MULVANEY: Yes, let's be perfectly clear on the military, and on -- the same is true for the military folks. The same is true for the folks guarding the southern border, the folks fighting fires. They have to go to work. They will go to work. They will be continuing to guard the country and do the necessary and important work that they're doing.
But they have no guarantee of getting paid. And that's not right.
DICKERSON: But they will get paid at some point.
MULVANEY: Traditionally, every single time in a shutdown, Congress has voted to go and pay them retroactively. And we support that.
DICKERSON: And do you have any doubt that they will not be paid?
MULVANEY: No, I absolutely believe -- well, I tell you, Congress -- I never thought we'd get to this, because we've got -- again, you asked Mr. Ryan a question of what's different.
This bill would have passed in a previous Congress. This bill is something that the Senate Democrats are opposing, but they don't oppose. And that's new. That's a strange new world in Washington politics.
DICKERSON: I want to get your views on what I was talking about with the speaker, which is the larger kind of atmosphere and talk about immigration here.
The attorney general said this, this week: "What good does it do to bring in somebody who is illiterate in their own country, has no skills and is going to struggle in our new country and not be successful?"
In 2015, David Weigel, who was then with Bloomberg, interviewed you. And you said: "I have heard a lot of arguments about unskilled labor, but if that were the case, my family would not have gotten in here from Ireland. They were unskilled workers, and they helped build this country. It's not quite xenophobia," you said, "but it's moving that way."
Are we moving towards xenophobia in the way this is being talked about?
MULVANEY: I think what we're moving towards is a recognition that the immigration system of the 21st century in the United States needs to be different than it was in the 19th century, when my family came here.
Every other developed nation now has a system where you have to show merit. You have to show that you're going to contribute to the economy.
In fact, even if you go back to the 19th century, when my folks came in, and I think yours did as well, they had to have a certificate that said they would not be wards of the state.
And I think that's what we're trying to get back to, the point where we want folks who will contribute to the economy. That's why we want to move away from chain migration and over towards a merit-based system.
DICKERSON: But when you said this in 2015, it wasn't the 19th century.
So, you were making a claim about the tenor of things. And some people are worried that things have ended up right exactly as you predicted in 2015, with a message of xenophobia, rather than a traditionally welcoming American message.
MULVANEY: We're interested is in folks coming into this country who can contribute. I don't think that ever qualifies as xenophobia.
DICKERSON: All right, Mr. Director, thank you so much for being with us. We're out of time.
We will be back in a minute with the number two Senate Democrat, Richard Durbin.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DICKERSON: And we're back with the Senate Democratic whip, Richard Durbin.
Senator, welcome.
There seems to be deal in conversation about opening the government up, funding it for a few more weeks, if there's a promise there will be an ultimate vote on DACA.
Is that something Democrats can agree to?
SEN. RICHARD DURBIN (D-IL), MINORITY WHIP: Well, I can tell you we're working on it on a bipartisan basis. And I'm glad we are.
I'm sorry we're in this situation, but I think it bears repeating how we got here. The Republicans are in control of every branch of government, the presidency, of course, the House, the Senate, through their nominees the Supreme Court.
And the Republicans are in complete control of the business that comes before the House and the Senate.
Speaker Ryan is friend of mine, another Midwesterner. He overlooks the fact that the president challenged us on September the 5th to deal with the DACA problem. And, as yet, we haven't seen any hearings on any bills in the Senate.
DICKERSON: But the Senate needs 60 votes, and Democrats are the ones who voted to not get to 60 and -- who didn't vote, I should say.
DURBIN: But let me just add -- and I think this is key and why we call it the Trump shutdown -- there was an effort made, at the invitation of President Trump, for Chuck Schumer to come to the White House on Friday and avoid this.
They sat down for lunch, four of them, both the president, Schumer. Each of them brought their aides, John Kelly and Mike Lynch. And they reached a basic agreement. In that agreement, Chuck Schumer made major concessions to the president to get this job done.
DICKERSON: Right.
DURBIN: Two hours later, the White House called and said: It's over. We're not interested.
DICKERSON: But -- and I want to get to those concessions in a minute.
So, OK, so there's a little sloppiness. Why not keep the government open and figure it out over the next few little period? You guys, you're pretty close. Why shut the government down?
DURBIN: This is the fourth continuing resolution. There's been a consistent failure by the Republican leadership in Congress to deal with these critical issues.
We don't want to see this situation as it currently exists, but we want to see a solution that has meaning, and one that will serve this nation. We are lunching from one continuing resolution to the next.
You know what the secretary of the Navy said? Continuing resolutions have cost the United States Navy $4 billion, enough for us to make sure not only sailors are paid, but that we build the resources we need to keep the nation safe.
DICKERSON: But here's the thing. Democrats are contributory in this mess everybody is in. And by choosing to force this into a shutdown situation, everybody is now going to their corners. The president is running the kind of ads he is.
Does that befoul things so badly that you can't get an agreement?
DURBIN: It doesn't have to.
Do you remember January 9? You might have seen the president left the cameras on in the Cabinet Room and we sat with him. I was sitting right next to him. It was the fourth time we had ever had a conversation. And we were talking about DACA and dreamers.
And the president said: You send me a bill, and I will sign it.
Within 48 hours, Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, and I presented a bill to him, which was summarily rejected.
So, what happened to Schumer happened to us. We can't reach the agreement we need for this nation without leadership from a president.
DICKERSON: Let me interrupt you there. We will be right back.
Senator, hold on a moment. We will need to take a break, but we have got more questions for the senator.
And we will be right back. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DICKERSON: Be sure to tune town "CBS This Morning" tomorrow for Norah O'Donnell's interview with CIA Director Mike Pompeo.
We will be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DICKERSON: We will be right back with a lot more FACE THE NATION, more with Senator Richard Durbin and our political panel, plus some final thoughts on my last regular broadcast.
Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DICKERSON: Welcome back to FACE THE NATION and our conversation with the number two Democrat in the Senate, Richard Durbin.
Senator, I want to read you some quotes here from various people, including Senator Schumer, who, in 2015 said, a government shutdown would deal a huge blow to our economy. Bernie Sanders said, it is wrong for the right wing Republicans to ignore the results of the last election and hold the American people hostage by threatening to shut down the government. You said, open the government. When you open the government, we'll open negotiations.
So why was it bad then and OK now?
SEN. RICHARD DURBIN (D), ILLINOIS: It's not a good thing to do at any point. We have reached a desperate situation. This was the fourth continued resolution. The Republican controlled Congress has refused to fund the government. Been unable to fund the government. They can't resolve the issues within their own ranks. And so they give us one continuing resolution after the next.
And now we are piling up all the things that need to be done and now we are facing a deadline created by President Trump when it comes to DACA. So we feel there's an urgency for us to come together and do it quickly. And I hope it's just a matter of hours or days. But we need to have a substantive answer. And the only person who could lead us to that is President Trump. This is his shutdown.
DICKERSON: The -- they obviously say it's yours, and that's what we're in. But -- but the deadline's not till March. Why shut things down now?
DURBIN: Listen, it's been four and a half months since President Trump said this deadline and said that 780,000 young people who are protected in this country from deportation and can legally work are going to start losing that protection, 1,000 a day, on March 5th. What have the Republicans in the Senate done in the four and half months since? Nothing.
What we have done, three Republican, three Democratic senators is to craft a bill to put this bill before our colleagues and to put it before the president on a bipartisan basis. We're trying to solve the problem the president created.
DICKERSON: Speaker Ryan, you heard him, he was out there, he said they've had their solutions on DACA, but it's the Senate Democrats who are filibustering.
DURBIN: What he said, unfortunately, and Paul's my friend, is -- he refers to this bipartisan negotiation, Kevin McCarthy, whom I like very much, we've been doing this for 12 days. Twelve days with this deadline looming.
By -- our bill that we crafted, our bipartisan bill, took four months. We took it seriously. We took the president's invitation to offer a bill seriously, as Chuck Schumer did when he went down to the White House.
President Donald Trump has to step up and lead us at this point. He can do it.
DICKERSON: You know you've gone back to the president's comments where he said I'll take whatever bill. But it's perfectly reasonable for a president to take into consideration all the moving pieces. If he vote -- if he says, OK, we'll go with the Durbin bill, that will never pass the house. Plus, he's got his own constituency. I mean he's allowed to change his mind, isn't he?
DURBIN: Of course he is. But at some point he has to make a decision. Make a decision about whether or not we're going to go forward as a nation. That's what we've been waiting on.
And as we look at this issue, whether it's DACA or the larger agenda that Chuck Schumer has addressed, he'll make a decision. He'll embrace it. And with two -- within two hours do a pirouette and be off in another direction.
DICKERSON: What is the position among Democrats right now on funding the wall? The president wants $18 billion or $20 billion. Is there a number now that Democrats are --
DURBIN: Chuck Schumer made a significant offer to the president. And it wasn't just an authorization, although I think that is the way you run a government. You authorize a project and then you say to the administration, give us your plans. How are you going to spend the money? We don't wouldn't waste it.
But he also made a concession to the president on actual appropriations, so the president would not be slowed down at all. You know how much money from the 2017 appropriations for walls and fences and barriers has been spent so far? One percent.
DICKERSON: Do he meet the president's terms in that meeting?
DURBIN: I think he did because the president said we have an understanding. Two hours later called him and said, it's off.
DICKERSON: Let me ask you about that Oval Office meeting. It's been adjudicated like crazy. But you have Republican senators questioning you. What does that make the cloak room like when you're passing them? Do you say, hey, wait a minute, you've said I told an un untruth and don't go doing that? Do you have -- I mean does -- it should lead to confrontation of some kind (ph).
DURBIN: John, I stand by every word. My Republican colleagues know exactly what the president said, and I do, too. I was the only Democrat in the room. At least one other Republican, Lindsey Graham, has said that I was accurate in what I said. Others have said they've forgotten. We had the -- Secretary Nielsen of DHS, she seemed to forget the words that were said. I can't forget them.
DICKERSON: All right, Senator Durbin, thanks so much for being with us.
And we'll be right back with our panel.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DICKERSON: It's time for some political analysis.
Joining us now, Ruth Marcus, columnist and deputy editorial page editor of "The Washington Post." Jeffrey Goldberg, editor of "The Atlantic." Ben Domenech is founder and publisher of "The Federalist." And Ed O'Keefe covers Capitol Hill for "The Washington Post" and is a CBS News contributor.
Ed, I want to start with you.
Where are we right now?
ED O'KEEFE, CBS NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Well, see I -- I think this is all because you're leaving town. We'll call this the Dickerson shutdown. Look --
RUTH MARCUS, "THE WASHINGTON POST": Hash tag.
O'KEEFE: Yes. Ah --
JEFFREY GOLDBERG, "THE ATLANTIC": It will not go viral.
O'KEEFE: Right.
Look, the Senate reconvenes this afternoon. House Republicans are huddling this afternoon to try to figure out what might happen among them.
There is a group of moderate senators who are meeting in the offices of Susan Collins trying to sort of see if there's enough support to reopen the government until February 8th and then slam out all the unfinished business, which might include immigration or it might not.
And -- and the reason this group thinks they have a chance is because Majority Leader McConnell has said to them, if you get everything else done, disaster funding, the actual budget, reauthorizing the Children's Health Insurance Program, but you can't do immigration, I'll give you a vote on immigration separately. And that might be a few different options.
And then, at that point, it will require the president and House Republicans to signal which one they like and then maybe that issue gets resolved. So it could be a late night, but we're not there yet.
DICKERSON: Ben, OK, we just saw lot of who shot John here --
BEN DOMENECH, "THE FEDERALIST": Yes.
DICKERSON: Despite John's attempts to try to figure out who's doing the shooting.
Take us -- we're going to all try and rise up out of this for a moment. What does this means? Is there a bigger thing here or is this just a spat and we're going to be moving on to the next thing?
DOMENECH: I think this is the perfect way to end the first year of the Trump presidency, which is that this is a tale of two presidencies, in the sense that on the one hand, if you had rewound the clock and told Paul Ryan two years ago that two years from now you're going to have a Republican president, you'll have passed the most significant tax reform since Ronald Reagan, you'll have an economy that's booming, wages that are increasing, unemployment is going to be down, you will have withdrawn from the Paris climate deal, you'll have mostly killed ISIS, you will be -- have a very happy Paul Ryan.
DICKERSON: Yes.
DOMENECH: Except that you also have to tell him that even though 58 percent of the people, you know, approve of the presidency on the economy, 58 percent of them are also opposed to him, or unfavorable to him, as Ed O'Keefe's "Washington Post" most recently said this week, which indicates basically that we're at this point where we have to ask ourselves, is it still the economy stupid? Is that really the most important thing or is the kind of craziness than has come with under -- with this presidency and with the constant negotiation, not just, you know, via the White House meetings but via television, via his tweets, et cetera, has that had enough of an impact that now puts Republicans on a road toward a very difficult 2018 midterm.
DICKERSON: And, Ruth, Democrats are taking advantage of what they think the answer to Ben's question, which is, this is an unpopular president. We want to win points with our constituents by having a shutdown here and making Republicans -- putting them in a bad spot with an unpopular president.
MARCUS: Sure. And that's understandable.
I think the reality of a shutdown is whoever wins the -- excuse me, whoever wins the battle of the hash tags, hash tag Schumer Shutdown, hash tag Dickerson Shutdown, hash tag Trump Shutdown, everybody -- nobody wins. Everybody loses. It drags down everybody to the extent that it does. And then people forget it. People are going to particularly forget it in this kind of disaster episode, you know, craziness de jour Washington that we're living in.
So the question is, what makes this shutdown different from all other shutdowns? And the answer -- I did that for Goldberg. And the answer is, this is the first one party shutdown we've had. And so we have this situation where the president and a Congress, both houses, which are controlled by his own party, can't even get the government funded. I know, 51 votes, everything else. But that's the --
O'KEEFE: Yes.
DICKERSON: Well, that's kind of important.
MARCUS: But, you know, that's the reality. And you know that's -- those are the rules that you're living with, work it out.
DICKERSON: Right.
GOLDBERG: The -- you know, I was talking about who's going to forget this and who's not. You know who is not going to forget this, the Chinese leadership. They're not going to forget this moment. They're watching -- talk about -- a one-party shutdown. They think to themselves, well, we have one party and we don't shut down our government.
The issue is -- the issue is the signaling here. Over and over again this country is signaling to allies and adversaries that it can't run itself. That's the lasting impact of this. And I think if you talk about what lifting up and thinking about what does this mean in the long term, yes, we'll forget this shutdown, but other people won't. And people are watching around the world and thinking this is a completely dysfunctional country.
DOMENECH: I have to say -- dispute a little bit this -- this meme that has been out there quite a lot that this is a one-party shutdown. The government shut down five times under Carter, including with significant Democratic majorities. The difference is, that shutdown was fundamentally different because of the different ways that people were being paid. Mick Mulvaney was right (ph).
MARCUS: It wasn't a real shutdown. It didn't shut things down, so it lapsed (ph) the funding --
DOMENECH: It -- the -- yes, but -- but, see -- but, see --
GOLDBERG: But now we're doing the meaning of shutdown.
DOMENECH: But see I think -- but I think the meaning of shutdown also shifts, too. I mean Mick Mulvaney was a fan of shutting down the government.
DICKERSON: He sure was.
DOMENECH: Back in 2013 in almost exactly the same scenario where you're shutting it down over an issue that is not related to continuing to run the government. There is always a strain of conservatism that believes, as Jessie Hems (ph) did, that every day these buildings are closed the republic grows stronger. And that's something that does, I think, have a real strain (ph) within it.
I actually don't think, though, that this one will have the kind of political consequences long term simply because the one in 2013 didn't play out the way that we thought.
DICKERSON: Right. Yes. Republicans got blamed in the short term and (INAUDIBLE) --
GOLDBERG: Well, the news cycle is so frenetic that --
MARCUS: Right. That's --
GOLDBERG: We moved to the next crisis (INAUDIBLE).
DOMENECH: We aren't even talking about the doctors (ph), you know, press conference the other day, you know?
MARCUS: Or other things.
DICKERSON: Ed -- yes.
Ed, let's bring the president into this.
O'KEEFE: Yes.
DICKERSON: Again, regardless of where anybody wants to place blame, the president is not absent from participation in American government. And this one made specific promises about fixing the kind of messed up situation that we are now presently in. What's the -- what's the accurate way to think about the president's role in this?
O'KEEFE: The accurate way I think is that that Tuesday meeting, most of which was televised, was it was a break-through moment that a lot of people thought was going to avoid what we're now dealing with. But that Thursday confrontation, where bad words were used, probably sealed the fate of -- of the situation we're in simply because they brought to him what he asked for, a bipartisan agreement. The problem is certain supporters of his weren't involved in that bipartisan agreement. But you don't need Tom Cotton necessarily to pass something in the House and the Senate.
DICKERSON: You don't. But, Jeffrey, John Kelly, when Bret Baier interviewed him, said bring in those conservative viewpoints is my job to put all the information in front of the president. So that doesn't -- may not -- that may mess up the deal, but it's the way a White House is supposed to work.
GOLDBERG: Well, the interesting thing here is that what he's showing is that he's - he's -- he knows the art of the instigation, but the art of negotiation is really alluding. And I do find it interesting -- and -- and what you're hearing inside the White House is that we don't know what he thinks and we don't think he has the attention span to bear down on these issues. So the shutdown is in part a product of drift. Leaderless drift.
MARCUS: I -- I -- I want to follow up on that because you've sort of alluded a few times to the president's statement in -- at the convention in Cleveland, I alone can fix it. Well, it turns out that, first of all, you can't fix Washington alone. No president can. And also that he may be uniquely ill-suited to fix this situation. Senator Schumer said negotiating with him was like negotiating with Jell-O. I've made a Jell-O mold or two in my day and I'd like to say, I think that's unfair to Jell-O. Because, Jell-O, once it's set, keeps its shape. This -- this is a president who shape shifts depends on who the last person is he spoke to. And the way that people -- his chief of staff, the Senate majority leader, are talking about him, we have to wait until he figures out what he thinks, he's involving, is really pretty remarkable and it goes to those two presidents that Ben was talking about.
DICKERSON: But, Ed, with other presidents, Clinton, FDR, the shape shifting and the telling one person one thing and the next person the next thing was considered actually a talent and an art.
O'KEEFE: Right.
DICKERSON: So just having multiple positions in -- is not by itself bad for a president. Some people think it's crucial.
O'KEEFE: Right. Yes. And -- because, in those cases, they were -- they were shifting to cut a deal and they kept in that position. The problem with this guy is, you know, 9:00 a.m. he's here, 3:00 he's here, 8:00 he's somewhere else. And that is part of the struggle that Republicans especially will tell you makes this difficult. Andi --
MARCUS: And if it's strategic or not.
DICKERSON: Right.
Ben, before -- add to whatever you were going to say to this, which is this art of instigation --
DOMENECH: Yes.
DICKERSON: That ad being run by the Trump campaign, in this context, how do you seen that ad and then add whatever you want (ph).
DOMENECH: There's a line (INAUDIBLE) in that politicians in opposition are expert in the means to some end and in office they are an expert on obstacle to it. I think that the fact is that Trump was, as a candidate, not someone as entirely familiar with the obstacles, namely something like needing to get sufficient Democrat votes to continue to have this government running under a continuing resolution.
But I also think that part of what you're seeing here, with Kelly bringing those other conservative voices in, speaks to something interesting about this president's first year, which is that it has been a much more conservative year than I think we could have expected from candidate Trump.
GOLDBERG: Oh, yes.
DOMENECH: He is much more conservative as a president than generic Republican, you know, in terms -- if you think of generic Republican as being Mitt Romney or someone along those lines, he has been much more aggressive. I think you saw that this week in terms of Washington experiencing the pro-life March for Life that happens every year, followed by the women's march on the other side. This -- it's not just his nature, it's not just the craziness, it's also the ideology that has created a very tribal environment, and I don't think that's going away any time soon.
GOLDBERG: There is this interesting phenomenon going on -- Ben's colleague Molly Hemingway just wrote that she's elated that the president turned out (INAUDIBLE) progressive.
MARCUS: But where did she write that, Jeff?
GOLDBERG: One of the local Washington newspapers.
MARCUS: I was going to say.
GOLDBERG: And -- and it was fascinating because there was such low expectations on the part of conservatives that he would actually be dispositionally conservative. So it's one of those sort of markers of a year that John Kelly is bringing him these conservative views. But he's very respective to them. It's not as if there's an argument to sort of move him to the right.
DICKERSON: Right. A way in which maybe his shifting positions have, in the end, helped conservatives rather than -- Ruth, let me ask you this question about the point Ben made, which is it may not be the economy stupid. In our -- in our polls, 67 percent say the economy is very or fairly good, but the president's approval rating is 37 percent. What does that disconnect mean, if anything?
MARCUS: Um, it --
DICKERSON: Because the president should have better approval ratings when the economy's doing so well.
MARCUS: A president with an economy this good should have better approval ratings. No president, at the end of his first term, has ever had approval ratings this low. Therefore, something is going on that tells us precisely what you said, it's not the economy stupid.
And if you look underneath at some of the other questions that are asked, people are rattled by this president. They are rattled by -- they may be happy or unhappy about his ideology, but many of them have had questions, I think in "The Washington Post" poll, about whether he was mentally stable. That is a scary moment in American democracy.
DICKERSON: Unfortunately -- I got to -- I got to cut it there.
GOLDBERG: Oh, that's right.
DICKERSON: So I want to thank --
MARCUS: But not.
DICKERSON: You guys are my favorite part of this show, but I'm afraid -- Jeffrey's about to interrupt.
GOLDBERG: No. I'm sorry John, but we actually want to seize control of the show from you for the last minute or --
MARCUS: It's about time.
GOLDBERG: Yes, it's a long, long time coming. The -- we want to turn this into a little bit of a Trump cabinet meeting and go around the horn and -- and praise you and I would start by simply saying that we've all enjoyed your hosting, your moderating and we think that you're civility and restraint and persistence and intelligence have been a great boon to us and a great boon to your viewers.
DICKERSON: Thank you.
MARCUS: And, John, I would like to say that I feel blessed to have sat around this table with your broad shouldered leadership. And I --
GOLDBERG: Ruth Marcus starring as Mike Pence.
MARCUS: And I -- no one has ever said that before.
And on a more serious note, might get a little choked up here. Washington is part of your DNA. It's part of your heritage. It's part of your heart. We're not sending you to New York, we're just loaning -- we're just loaning you to New York. We expect you back.
DICKERSON: Thank you.
DOMENECH: And, John, you are honorable, decent and fair, which is something that is very rare in Washington. And even rarer still, you've managed to be those things while remaining very interesting. We will miss you very much. And we know the best is yet to come.
O'KEEFE: And one of the things that viewers may not appreciate is, I talked to people up in the Capitol when this announcement was made and they said, you know, he's the only one of the guys that host one of these shows that actually still shows up, up here. He still reports. And one of the dirty secrets is that sometimes people get these jobs and they don't do that anymore, and you have, and it is widely appreciated. (INAUDIBLE).
DICKERSON: Thank you. Thanks to all of you.
MARCUS: Bravo, John.
DICKERSON: Thank you. Just as I wrote them.
I'll miss you all.
And we'll be back in a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DICKERSON: This week, former Senate majority leader and 1996 Republican presidential nominee Bob Dole was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal. He showed his trademark wit.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BOB DOLE, FORMER REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: I want to thank all those who have said such kind words about me. They probably aren't true, but they were nice.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DICKERSON: And his generosity.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DOLE: And I also want to thank my colleagues, for without them nothing would have been accomplished.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DICKERSON: As we were looking over his career, there are plenty of echoes to today. As Congress tries to break out of the government shutdown, we were reminded of Dole's role in a bipartisan attempt to avert a shutdown in 1991. And his appeal to compromise.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DOLE: The naysayers, the nitpickers may have a field day because the easy vote in this case is to find something you don't like and vote no. But in my view, we owe more to the American people than finding fault with what I consider to be a good agreement.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DICKERSON: And, as the president defends himself against charges of racism, Dole's words at the 1996 Republican Convention have also been circulating on social media.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DOLE: But if there's anyone who has mistakenly attached himself to our party in the belief that we are not open to citizens of every race and religion, then let me remind you, tonight this hall belongs to the party of Lincoln. And the exits, which are clearly marked, are for you to walk out of as I stand this ground without compromise.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DICKERSON: Senator Dole has been a guest on FACE THE NATION 63 times. And his career also touched the lives of two of us on this show. Me, as a young reporter covering his campaign for "Time" magazine, and in need of a haircut, and our executive producer, Mary Hager, covering him for CBS both as a campaign embed and on Capitol Hill.
For recognition of a career serving and sacrificing for his country, congratulations Senator Dole.
Back in a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DICKERSON: In the hallway to the FACE THE NATION offices, there is a picture from the last presidential campaign. The staff is gathered around our executive producer, Mary Hager's computer. We're staring at the famous Billy Bush tape just after it was released. That picture represents something fundamental about this show, which I will leave today as the full-time host.
That was an extraordinary moment, but the picture captures what we do each week. We look hard at the news and then launch into the same thing that happened after that picture was taken. We throw ourselves into trying to figure out what something means and who we can bring on the show to help us understand it better.
It is a group effort. I have had the privilege for the last two and a half years of meeting you here for an hour each Sunday. What you don't see are the other 167 hours in the week when all the people you don't see are working to make our hour together go smoothly.
It starts almost the minute we go off the air when executive producer Mary Hagar is already thinking about who we should book for the next show. A raid all around me right now are the people who get up long before the sun and work long after it has gone down. Who chase down the host's every last query. Save him from getting a fact wrong. (INAUDIBLE) the teleprompter. Replace a guest who has gotten sick at the last minute. Frame the shot. Keep the batteries fresh in the microphone packs. Poke all these lights over my head. Search for the right interview location, wrangle time, space and security guards at those locations when we take the show on the road. Chase reluctant public officials. Keep my forehead from looking shiny. And drain pot after pot of coffee in the edit room. They give up their weekends and they give up planning, because when you work in the news, birthdays, anniversaries and commitments to your kids and your parents get overturned.
They do all of this because they are committed. They want to tell you what's going on as best as we can figure it. And believe that we can give you some control over your world by helping you understand it. I'm proud of what they do and proud to have been a part of doing it alongside them.
To all of you out there, thank you for your trust, your loyalty and your generosity. I'm moving on to "CBS This Morning," but maybe I'll be lucky enough to come back and fill in some day. You're in good hands, though, as you've always been.
For FACE THE NATION, I'm John Dickerson.
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