CBS "Face the Nation" - Transcript: Federal Shutdown

Interview

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MARGARET BRENNAN: And other potential candidates near their own decisions.

All that, plus, analysis on the week's other news coming up now on FACE THE NATION.

Good morning and welcome to FACE THE NATION. Top White House officials and senior congressional aides will meet again today to try to find a way out of the shutdown. So far their talks have yielded nothing. Yesterday the administration stuck to its demand for 5.7 billion dollars to build a border wall. Democrats insisted the government needs to reopen while negotiations continue. With no deal in sight, trash is piling up at the nation's national parks and some eight hundred thousand federal workers won't receive paychecks until the government reopens.

We begin today with Senate Democratic whip Dick Durbin who is in Springfield, Illinois. Senator Durbin is among a group of senators talking to the White House about how to end this shutdown. Senator, welcome to FACE THE NATION. The President said this morning that he's considering declaring a national emergency depending on what happens in the next few days. If he tries to build this wall without congressional approval, what will Senate Democrats do?

SENATOR DICK DURBIN (Minority Whip/@SenatorDurbin/D-Illinois): Well, I can tell you, first, there's no requirement that this government be shut down while we deliberate-- deliberate the future of any barrier whether it's a fence or a wall. This is the first President in history who shut down his own government. Unfortunately, there are going to be people who suffer. Look at those at the airport who were carefully-- going through-- the passengers to make sure that they're safe on airplanes. As of next Friday, they'll miss a payday that may mean some problems for mortgage payments, problems and balancing the budget of their own families and households. This is totally unnecessary. And that's a point we've made over and over to this President, let's have this debate on the future of any barrier wall or border security but not at the expense of critical services for America.

MARGARET BRENNAN: But the President says he could bypass Congress by declaring this national emergency. So what would you do if he-- he went that route?

SENATOR DICK DURBIN: I can just tell you, I don't know what he's basing this on, but he's faced so many lawsuits when he ignores the law and ignores tradition and precedent and just goes forward without any concern, he'll face challenge, I'm sure, if he's oversteps what the law requires when it comes to his responsibilities as commander-in-chief.

MARGARET BRENNAN: We described in your introduction your attempts in the past to broker agreements, you-- you've tried to be a deal maker. You were in the room with the President on Friday. Did you hear any points of agreement?

SENATOR DICK DURBIN: Well, of course, there was agreement to continue the conversation. But what we've said is open the government and let's have a fulsome debate and deliberation. This gun in our head approach with closing down the government is the thing we most opposed, and-- and we wish incidentally that the Republican Senate leader, Mitch McConnell, would step up and be part of this conversation. He's used to-- he's going to stand on the sidelines and wait for instructions from the President. He is part of a branch of government and a leader in the Senate, he should be a participant in this conversation from the start. As of last night, three Republican senators have said they don't like this approach of shutting down the government and they're talking about joining in a bipartisan effort to end it.

MARGARET BRENNAN: So from what you're describing, it doesn't sound like there is any progress. How close are we to ending this shutdown?

SENATOR DICK DURBIN: Well, I can't say that we're close because President's made it clear he doesn't care. He's prepared to see a shutdown for months and he even said years, and reaffirmed that before the cameras. It was stunning to hear a President of the United States say that about his own government, the government we elected him to lead. But that is his position. Think about the hundreds of thousands of people who will be entitled to income tax refund checks who won't receive them because the Treasury Department has been shut down, the Internal Revenue Service is shut down, the unfortunate end and unfair results here are just across the board.

MARGARET BRENNAN: According to the White House, so, you know, this centers on what they see as some hypocrisy among Democrats, right? They point to in 2006, there were about, you know, ninety Democrats who did sign on to a secure fencing act that talked about barriers and reinforced fencing at borders. Their argument is if you agree to it, then why can't you agree to something similar now? What-- what is your response to that?

SENATOR DICK DURBIN: Well, I would just say, do you remember the President's words, how could you forget, a concrete wall, two thousand miles long from sea to shining sea, paid for by the Mexicans. How many times did he say that to the American people? That is not what any of us have ever voted for in the past.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, he now says--

SENATOR DICK DURBIN: Talk about-- or--

MARGARET BRENNAN: --it doesn't have to be concrete.

SENATOR DICK DURBIN: --those fences and barriers. Well, he's changed-- he's changed his demand from time to time and he's changed the amount of money he is asking for dramatically from two billion to five billion to eleven billion to twenty-five billion, even to seventy billion dollars. And when we ask for specifics, how are you going to spend this money, what are you going to do with it? He basically says, well, shut down the government until you agree on it. That is not an approach that comes up with the safe border which Democrats certainly want.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Have you seen the more specific financial request that the White House says they were giving to Democrats?

SENATOR DICK DURBIN: No. As a matter of fact, the meeting yesterday between Vice President Pence and the staff, they agreed that today they would produce it, finally produce documentation backing up what the President's latest demand might be. But Vice President Pence said at one point a few weeks ago, two billion will do it, 2.1. And then within a matter of hours, the President reversed and said, "No, it has to be 5.6." That's what we're up against. There doesn't seem to be a consistent message and-- and it doesn't seem to be a message consistent with border security. If we're talking about border security, the overwhelming number of undocumented people in the United States overstayed visas.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Mm-Hm.

SENATOR DICK DURBIN: They did not cross the border. The solution to that is not a concrete wall it's a computer program that needs to track these people who have received the visas. And this wall, incidentally, when you have people coming to the border looking for a border official to present themselves and they make their claim for asylum or refugee status, this wall is no deterrent.

MARGARET BRENNAN: It sounds like you're saying you would be open to more border funding if it were spent in a different way, could you get to that five-billion-dollar number?

SENATOR DICK DURBIN: I don't see that. But I will tell you we've offered 1.3 billion with very specific limits which would not include a concrete wall. The President could have taken this long ago and we could have moved forward. But he said, "No, I'm going to shut down my own government." That's what he's done.

MARGARET BRENNAN: There has been speculation and-- and our next guest, Senator Lindsey Graham, has proposed this idea of a wall for DACA, sort of, a trade here. The President stood in the Rose Garden the other day and said he wants to wait until the Supreme Court rules on DACA before he comes to any kind of proposal here. Do you agree that we need to wait on the courts there? And is there any room for that kind of swap, that kind of deal?

SENATOR DICK DURBIN: Listen, Senator Graham and I could not be more different politically. He's a conservative Republican from South Carolina; I'm a progressive Democrat from Illinois. But we've teamed up time and time again to try to solve this problem. And a year ago-- a year ago, we presented to the President on January, the eleventh, 2018, I do remember the day, a bipartisan proposal to deal with DACA and many other aspects of the reform and the President rejected it. He said, "I'll go with my approach." His approach ended up with thirty-nine votes in the United States Senate. It wasn't even accepted by his own party anonymously. So we're in a position now where when the President makes these claims and promises a lot of us, I hope I could speak for Senator Graham, are a little bit skeptical.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, thank you very much, Senator.

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