GARRETT: Bob, what does it tell you, based on your experience in politics when you see internecine fights like this playing out on a public stage?
BOB SHRUM, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: Well, I said to David earlier, we've heard all of this before, where you attack people because they're seeking immunity, they've got a self interest. It tends to end badly. I think Chris Christie may end up as time goes on worried less about going to the White House and more about going to the Big House. Then I think that's actually a real threat for him. This is a stupid scandal. He was going to win this election overwhelmingly. He or his staff did not have to engage in hardball tactics. They opened a can of corrupt worms, you know, the stuff that went on in Hoboken or that's alleged to have gone on in Hoboken. And they put it all in emails. Now he's collapsing in Republican polls for 2016, his favorable/unfavorable is upside-down. I've never seen a supposed front-runner for a nomination implode so fast.
GARRETT: But you're not a disinterested party in...
SHRUM: No, actually, I'm -- you're right.
GARRETT: Democrats would like to see Chris Christie fall and tumble. But I want to get back to what you said about the criminality. You believe that there is significant criminal downside risk for the governor.
SHRUM: Oh, I think there is risk. He's going to get called in by the U.S. attorney, I assume, at some point, asked when he knew. And he's either going to stick to the story he had in that press conference, or he's going to give a different story. But what he says under oath better be true.
GARRETT: David, you've worked in White Houses under significant stress, legal and political, what's your take?
GERGEN: Well, I think we have to distinguish between legal versus political trouble. I don't think he's in legal trouble right now. There has been no allegation and indeed no evidence to suggest he broke any law that he knew beforehand, that he ordered this, and that he's behind it, in effect, which I think would put him in legal jeopardy and I think raise all the questions that Bob said. But I think his political problems are growing rapidly. Yes, as Kimberley points out, this could go on for a couple of months. Every week that goes by when he's in the news with this sort of (INAUDIBLE) awful stuff, you know. It just hurts him politically. And now, very importantly, we do have someone who is very close to him has turned on him and said, you know, basically you've been lying, not about whether you did it or not, but you've been lying about when you knew. And I think if he has found to have lied on that, he's in deep political trouble. I think his road to the White House is blocked. And, indeed, The Newark Star-Ledger, biggest newspaper in the state, left-leaning, but endorsed him this last time out, has said -- as you pointed out earlier, has said he has to resign. That's his political problem, not his legal problem, but it's politically difficult.
GARRETT: Quickly around the table, Republican Governors Association, Governor Christie is the leader of it. Should he stay in that position or do you believe what Rudy Giuliani said, he needs to stay and fight, because if he steps down, he will just give in to the opposition?
GERGEN: I think that's a tough question the governors are going to have to -- if this keeps going, somebody else comes out a little bit more. This is a corrosive story. I think there will be pressure within the Governors Association to suspend his chairmanship.
GARRETT: Bob, if this were a Democrat under similar stress, and the Democratic Governors Association position was up for grabs, what would you recommend?
SHRUM: Well, I don't think it matters what I would recommend because I think the guy would stay as long as he possibly could. You know, the truth of the matter is if there's nothing to hide here, they ought to release all the emails. Get this over with. He can be governor of New Jersey. He can run for president. He can be head of the RGA.
GARRETT: Mike?
GERSON: I think there will be more clarity in just a few more weeks as this investigation in the New Jersey legislature continues and things clarify. So I guess -- I think he'll wait and see what...
(CROSSTALK)
GARRETT: It would be premature to step down.
GERSON: Right, yes.
STRASSEL: I mean, right, why would he? Again, what new has actually come out? An allegation, but there has been no significant shift in the basis of information we have here.
GARRETT: Kimberley, what was your takeaway from House Majority Leader Eric Cantor? I pressed him twice on what the House Republican principles on immigration actually said, and he wasn't even comfortable saying what they said on camera.
What do you think House Republicans actually are as opposed to what they represented rhetorically?
STRASSEL: You know, I was actually out at the Republican retreat for a bit this week. And, I mean, here's the good news. The Republicans -- there's a growing number of Republicans who do seem to understand that they are going to have to address this issue at some time.
And, by the way, that's a big shift from even a year ago. I think there's bad news too, which is that you see them coming up with a huge number of excuses why not to do it now, you know. And there's always going to be those political excuses: This year is not going to be good, next year is not going to be good, going into a presidential election is not going to be good.
And you saw one of them. Now this is also coming up in the context, which is partly an excuse, but I also think is one of the consequences of this administration's leadership is that this is coming up as the debate is now raging about the president's overstepping of his authority, his decision to not use -- not enforce some laws, for instance, not deport younger people, not enforce part of the immigration laws or the drug laws when it comes to marijuana.
And so that is giving Republicans an excuse too to say, hey, if we were to pass immigration, we wouldn't be able to trust you to actually implement the pieces of it we care about.
GARRETT: Mike, of course, this issue is filtered through the matrix of Republican presidential aspirations. Demographically it seems to be an imperative, at least some Republicans have come to that conclusion.
If you believe that's the case, and tell me if you don't, how do you think these Republican principles fit into that longer party conversation?
GERSON: Well, it's hard to look at the evidence and not come to that conclusion. It's hard to win national elections with 27 percent of the Hispanic vote, which is what Mitt Romney got.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Impossible, actually.
GERSON: Right. It's pathetic. Moving forward I think serious Republicans know this. They question the timing before the midterms. I think there are serious questions here.
But as far as the 2016 election, that's probably the place you're going to get the real leadership on this issue, because it's a national political problem. You know, these primaries are going to be a test of how rational the Republican process is when it comes to immigration.
On one side you have a primal scream, on the other side you have a political strategy. And it's going to be a test as it moves forward.
GERGEN: David, this is an issue in which it's not only whether you get a law passed, but whether you're seen as dragged kicking and screaming to pass the law, or whether you're actually in favor of it heart and soul.
This is an issue in which the Republicans instead of sort of dancing back, need to be very aggressive. We need to solve this problem and let the White House, let the Democrats be the ones who are picking fights and slowing it down.
The Republicans will get nothing out of this politically in 2016 if they are dragged over the finish line. (CROSSTALK)
SHRUM: But they may actually end up in a worse position, because one of the principles that they proposed, which is that people can stay here legally but there's no path to citizenship, would essentially create Apartheid in America, where millions or tens of millions of people would work, would pay taxes, would have no right as citizens.
That won't solve the Republican problem with Hispanics. It will exacerbate it. It will actually make it a permanent feature of the electoral cycle.
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ... the rest of people in the line...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The question is how long the line is...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ... want legal status, not citizenship.
(CROSSTALK)
GARRETT: But, Bob, Apartheid is an incendiary word. These are not native born Americans.
SHRUM: OK. Second class citizens.
GARRETT: There is a legal distinction there, would you not agree?
SHRUM: Well, you know, we had for generations in this country, to our shame, the incredible spectacle of millions of Americans, living primarily in the South, who were unable to vote because of the color of their skin. Are we now going to create a system in which millions of people living in this country, primarily Hispanics, are unable to vote, but they can work and they can pay taxes? I think that would be bad. And I think...
(CROSSTALK)
STRASSEL: Does that mean everyone on a green card in this country right now is a second class citizen?
SHRUM: No, because people on a green card in this country can apply for citizenship.
STRASSEL: Well, so would...
(CROSSTALK)
SHRUM: Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush...
(CROSSTALK)
STRASSEL: That's the plan that everyone agrees. (CROSSTALK)
SHRUM: The plan is not -- the plan is not a guaranteed path to citizenship for all of those 11 or 12 million people who are here.
STRASSEL: You would have the option to use every existing pathway to get citizenship, now just like any green card holder.
(CROSSTALK)
SHRUM: It might take you 20 or 30 or 40 years.
(CROSSTALK)
GARRETT: And I didn't realize that...
(CROSSTALK)
GARRETT: You just saw, it was like what happened at the House Republican Conference...
(LAUGHTER)
GARRETT: ... Maryland.
SHRUM: You mean, I was there?
