Friday, Jan. 19, 2018

[0] From the New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro.

[1] This is The Daily.

[2] Today, from shithole to shutdown, the story of the past week, from the perspective of the only Democrat in the room, when the president's now infamous remarks started it all.

[3] And if there is a shutdown, whose fault will it be?

[4] It's Friday, January 19.

[5] So is the bipartisan effort to pass immigration reform dead in the water?

[6] President Trump tweeting late this afternoon, Senator Dickie Durbin.

[7] Senator Dickie Durbin.

[8] Senator Dickie Durbin totally misrepresented what was said at the DACA meeting.

[9] Deals can't get made when there is no trust.

[10] Durbin blew DACA and is hurting our military.

[11] When was the last time anyone called you Dickie?

[12] When I was about four years old.

[13] That one I just hadn't heard before.

[14] I remember and my mother hated it and told all of our relatives, stop calling him Dickie.

[15] I wish my mom were here.

[16] She could call the president.

[17] She would be on the phone.

[18] On Thursday morning, my colleague Carl Hulse spoke to Senator Dick Durbin about how much has changed since his meetings with the president last week when the two were discussing the terms of a bipartisan immigration deal.

[19] The first meeting was on Tuesday in the cabinet room, 26 of us, and the president asked me to sit next to him.

[20] That was the fourth time I ever had a conversation with the president.

[21] During the course of the meeting, he kept referring to Dick and I agree, and I'm thinking, goodness, I mean, I've really come into high cotton here.

[22] He said several times, send me a bill, and I'll sign it.

[23] We've got to do this.

[24] There's no reason to delay it.

[25] And so I came back, this group we've been negotiating with, bipartisan Senate group.

[26] We've been working together for months.

[27] I said, we've got to close this deal.

[28] The president's ready to go.

[29] And we did in a matter of 24 hours.

[30] And I called the president back because he'd asked me to on Thursday morning at 10 o 'clock and said, Mr. President, we have a bipartisan agreement in the Senate.

[31] It hits all four points you raised.

[32] Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina is coming over to explain it to you.

[33] Great, he said, I don't want to slow walk this.

[34] Let's get this done.

[35] So Lindsay and I, two hours later, two hours after this phone call, we're scheduled to be in the Oval Office with the president.

[36] The big shock was when we looked and saw we weren't the only ones invited.

[37] In a matter of two hours, someone had called five other members of Congress, two senators and three House members, most of whom have a pretty virulent opposition to any immigration reform.

[38] So the deck was stacked against this as the president walked in the room.

[39] And so how then did the discussion go?

[40] Did it start out immediately contentious?

[41] I mean, did he sit down and just say, well, I can't take this deal?

[42] It started off of Lindsey Graham sitting right next to the president.

[43] president describing what we'd agreed to.

[44] And he barely had a sentence or two out of his mouth.

[45] Then the president started commenting.

[46] Who is affected by that?

[47] What is this going to do?

[48] It was a very tough conversation starting immediately.

[49] The president who was so open to ours before was not open when we talked to him in the Oval Office.

[50] Now, you didn't push back on the president in the meeting, but Lindsey Graham did from your account.

[51] Yes, he did.

[52] And I'm glad he did because it was a moment I thought to myself, Durbin, what are you going to do?

[53] You just can't sit here silently.

[54] Right, so this is in your brain.

[55] Even if it's the president, and Lindsay stepped in.

[56] And blessing, he gave the most articulate, extemporaneous defense of American immigration that I could ever ask for.

[57] And he was very explicit.

[58] He used the vulgar term which the president used, repeated it to him and describing his own family circumstance.

[59] I've complimented him publicly and privately over and over again.

[60] It was a great statement.

[61] it.

[62] I spoke up on a number of issues.

[63] I said, if you separate the Haitians from the El Salvadorans and the Hondurans who are here under temporary protected status, it's pretty obvious what you're doing.

[64] I mean, it's an obvious racial decision.

[65] You were the only Democrat in the room, I think, as far as I know.

[66] That's right.

[67] Do you think that there's any possibility that he kind of just forgot that or just didn't hold back?

[68] I don't know the answer to that.

[69] But as I looked around in the room, yes, I was the only one there from the Democratic Party.

[70] So, you know, we've both been in politics a long time.

[71] People talk differently behind closed doors.

[72] And you've been in these discussions, but this was beyond what you would normally.

[73] It was beyond.

[74] And after Lindsay and I left the room and got in the car together to come back to Capitol Hill, it was silence in the car.

[75] We just witnessed something that neither one of us ever expected.

[76] I came back here and they'd people, the senators I sat down and talked to immediately, or four or five of them, to describe exactly what happened as we tried to decide what to do next.

[77] They said, you look shaken.

[78] I said I was.

[79] So this is a tricky question because I don't exactly know how this all came down.

[80] And my understanding is that you did not leak this to the president.

[81] I did not.

[82] And I instructed my staff not to.

[83] So would you have preferred in some ways this hadn't come out because of the chaos it's caused in the DACA negotiations?

[84] I think now that the American people have a clearer understanding of the president's motivation on immigration, it makes it, easier to confront some of the things he's suggesting.

[85] If you remember from the campaign, this was all about security and terrorism.

[86] You know, these people are getting in here and they're dangerous.

[87] Stop these Muslims and so forth.

[88] Then it kind of moved to, no, we're really protecting American jobs.

[89] Well, that Thursday meeting in the White House brought up another part of this debate, which had not surfaced before.

[90] And I think it is a major part of the president's calculus.

[91] And so in the airing of this ultimately, you know, clears the air a little bit, And there's more of an honest discussion?

[92] I think there's more of an honest discussion.

[93] I also think that when we look at President's immigration policy, most of which I consider to be excessive and unfair, that we'll put it in the context that this may not be about security or American jobs at all.

[94] It's something else.

[95] So do you think there might have to be a shutdown for a while to force the issue?

[96] I think we can avoid it.

[97] I think what's going to happen here is you're going to have a bit of a pushback, if not a rebellion, from members of both political parties about the fact that we're on our force.

[98] continuing resolution.

[99] For your listeners, a continuing resolution is an excuse.

[100] We can't agree on a budget.

[101] So we're just going to push it the can down the road, as they say, for another few days.

[102] That's awful.

[103] Mitch McConnell is handing us this CR and saying to the Democrats, take it or leave it.

[104] That is no way to run a government of the greatest country in the world.

[105] If there's a short -term CR without a DACA deal, do you vote for it?

[106] No. So you're off.

[107] I'm off.

[108] Well, this is going to be an extremely interesting 48 hours or so here.

[109] Thank you, Senator.

[110] Thanks for being here.

[111] Thank you.

[112] We'll be right back.

[113] Jonathan, what are the conditions under which government shutdowns happen?

[114] Let's look at the last time the government shutdown.

[115] That was in 2013.

[116] Jonathan Weissman covered that shutdown for the times.

[117] Remember, this legislation will not fix everything that ails our health care system, but it moves us decisively in the right direction.

[118] You have Barack Obama.

[119] This is what change looks like.

[120] The President of the United States.

[121] Well, I think that we need to repeal this bill and replace it with common sense reforms that will bring down the cost of health insurance.

[122] You have Republicans in control of the House of Representatives.

[123] Democrats still had control of the Senate.

[124] The leader of Senate Democrats, Harry Reid, has already made it clear.

[125] There will be no defections on his side.

[126] Any bill that defends Obamacare is dead.

[127] dead.

[128] It's a waste of time, as I said before.

[129] And if I recall, in this mix, at this moment, are Tea Party Republicans who have just been elected, and they are particularly rancorous.

[130] Right.

[131] The Tea Party Republicans were swept into power in control of the House in 2011.

[132] What's happened here?

[133] Because all across the country, we have Republicans and Tea Party candidates making huge gains over Democrats.

[134] The new Tea Party rising star, Ted Cruz, from Texas.

[135] A Tea Party uprising of sorts nationwide.

[136] Throw the bums.

[137] out.

[138] And they're an angry bunch.

[139] They want to show that they still have control of the House.

[140] They can still push Barack Obama around.

[141] Time is running out to pass a spending bill and avoid a partial government shutdown on Tuesday.

[142] That's when Ted Cruz, the senator from Texas, decided no government spending can be approved by Congress unless it strips all money from the Affordable Care Act.

[143] I intend to speak in support of defunding Obamacare until I am no longer able to stand.

[144] Cruz went over to the House, and he actually went behind the backs of the Republican leadership.

[145] Wow.

[146] He met with House Republicans, some of those Tea Party guys, and he rallied them.

[147] And he said, let's just not support any kind of spending bill that funds Obamacare, that doesn't kill Obamacare.

[148] The evidence overwhelming.

[149] This law is a train wreck.

[150] He inserts language into the House budget bill, the bill to keep the government funded, hoping that it would pass the House and somehow, I don't even know how, get through the Senate.

[151] The mainstream wing of the GOP is firing back, led by the Senate's top Republican, Mitch McConnell, who opened fire on the Ted Cruz wing of the party in the Wall Street Journal.

[152] Mitch McConnell, who said of Cruz's shutdown strategy, a tactical error.

[153] It was not a smart play.

[154] It had no chance of success.

[155] So Cruz is drawing a hard line among some Republicans, a line that seems impossible that the other side can accommodate.

[156] Exactly.

[157] It was going to fail from the very beginning.

[158] Not only there's no way that President Obama was going to sign into law, some kind of spending bill that got rid of Obamacare, but it was never going to pass the Senate.

[159] Because remember, the Senate needs 60 votes, and the Democrats were never going to go along.

[160] We're not going to be extorted.

[161] The country is not going to be extorted.

[162] We're not going to negotiate with a gun to our heads.

[163] We're not going to allow the Republicans to say, give us what we want, or the economy is going to close.

[164] Think about that.

[165] So they just put it in their back pocket, and they pass their own spending bill.

[166] The government's going to shut down in three days, 10 hours, five minutes, and nine seconds.

[167] The Senate has acted.

[168] Got it.

[169] So the House led by Cruz, who oddly enough is in the Senate, passes a bill that says we are going to try to kill the Affordable Care Act and link it to the budget.

[170] The Senate says that's never going to happen.

[171] So it passes its own more traditional bill that just keeps the government funded.

[172] But of course, as we know from you, those two things have to be reconciled.

[173] And there can't be reconciled.

[174] So then what happens?

[175] It is now exactly midnight here on the East Coast.

[176] And for the first time in 17 years, the American federal government is, as of right now, in the process of shutting down.

[177] The actual government shut down.

[178] While you were sleeping, Congress missed the midnight deadline to pass a crucial spending bill.

[179] Lawmakers went back and forth and back and forth.

[180] And in the end, got nowhere.

[181] The government shuts down for 17 days.

[182] More than 5 million disabled veterans won't get their checks.

[183] The National Institutes of Health began turning away dozens of children, many sides.

[184] suffering from cancer from drug trials.

[185] Hundreds of thousands of federal workers haven't been paid since the...

[186] I'm in Lyon Cook at the Smithsonian National Museum for the American Indian.

[187] Since the shutdown, I went from low wage to no wage.

[188] I'm a hardworking mother and I just want to let Washington know that it's not fair because we have, I have worked so hard to pay my taxes every year.

[189] I mean, the government shut down and I wasn't ready for it.

[190] I mean, so now I'm out of work.

[191] Real people are hurt by government shutdowns.

[192] This Republican shutdown did not have to happen.

[193] But I want every American to understand why it did happen.

[194] You know, when the government shuts down, it really signals to Americans that their hatred of Washington is founded.

[195] That Washington doesn't function right.

[196] This really shows that Washington is just not working.

[197] Let me be more specific.

[198] One faction of one party in one House of Congress in one branch of government shut down major parts of the government, all because they didn't like one law.

[199] The Democrats really played this.

[200] And of course, they have Obama in the White House.

[201] Obama has just been reelected.

[202] He's pretty popular.

[203] He's a lot more popular than House Republicans.

[204] And so he's able to use the bully pulpit to frame this as irresponsibility.

[205] on the part of the Republicans.

[206] Well, listen, we've been locked in a fight over here, trying to bring government down to size, trying to do our best to stop Obamacare.

[207] And ultimately...

[208] And so if they're going to hold on to their position that we're always going to raise taxes, then we're not going to come to the agreement.

[209] John Boehner...

[210] Speaker of the House, right?