JUDY WOODRUFF: As
President Trump faces the
political fallout from
his emergency declaration,
Democrats eager to take him on
in 2020 hit the road, courting
voters in the early nominating
contests.
For analysis on all this and
more, I'm joined by our Politics
Monday team, Amy Walter of
The Cook Political Report
and the host of the podcast
"Politics With Amy Walter" on
WNYC, and Tamara Keith of NPR.
Hello to both of you.
So, there's a lot to talk about.
We have just been talking
about, though, the
emergency, the national
emergency that President
Trump declared on Friday.
We are out with a poll
just done over the weekend.
This is the "NewsHour," NPR
and Marist College, Amy, and it
shows -- and we're showing the
- - everybody watching the
results -- among Republicans,
very popular, not surprising,
85 percent like what the
president did, support it.
Among Democrats,
unpopular, only 6 percent.
But among independents, it's
also not a majority, 33 percent.
AMY WALTER, The Cook
Political Report: Right.
JUDY WOODRUFF: What
does this tell us about
what the president did
and what the public
thinks?
AMY WALTER: Well, the
president has had a
challenge for some time now.
First of all, the facts
themselves don't support
the claim that there
is an emergency on the
border, whether it's the number
of people being apprehended
of people who are trying
to cross illegally, whether
it's where drugs are coming
in, normally at ports of entry.
They're not being taken
at other border crossings.
So the facts have been pretty
well set that there's not an
emergency there at the border.
And the president has been
trying to make the case now for
some time that there is indeed
an emergency.
He's had an Oval
Office address,.
he's been in the Rose Garden,
he used the State of the Union
address to put these -- this
idea forward.
And what now you see is
58 percent of Americans
don't believe that
there is a crisis at the
border.
The only folks who seem
to really be supporting
the president's claim
that he has authority
to do this emergency declaration
or that there is an actual
crisis, not surprisingly, are
Republicans, which tells you
all you need to know where
this is going to head up in
Congress, which is that
most likely the Democrats
in the House will support
a resolution saying
they don't agree with the
emergency declaration,
and Republicans in the
Senate will stick with
the president.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Republicans
are going to stick with
him, Tam, regardless.
TAMARA KEITH, National Public
Radio: Well, most likely,
though there have been a few,
a handful of Republicans who,
in the Senate, have said that
they really don't support this
emergency action.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Right.
TAMARA KEITH: What is
interesting here is
that law from 1976 that
you just spent a good
long segment talking about, it
includes a fast-track authority.
So the House takes up this bill
to terminate the president's
emergency order, which we
fully expect.
It will pass the
Democratic House.
It will go to the Senate, and
there's nothing Mitch McConnell
can do to avoid a vote.
It has to get a vote.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Huh.
TAMARA KEITH: And so what it
does is, it -- it does require
Republicans who, leading up to
this, said, wow, this would be
terrible, please don't do it,
don't put us in this position,
it puts them in that position
of having to decide whether
they sort of believe in the
Article I role of Congress or
whether they want to support
their Republican president.
AMY WALTER: And many of
them argued during the
Obama presidency that
he was overreaching.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Yes.
AMY WALTER: Right, and power
grab, unconstitutional decisions
that he made, specifically, not
surprisingly,
around immigration.
JUDY WOODRUFF:
Dreamers, et cetera.
AMY WALTER: Right,
and their parents.
JUDY WOODRUFF: And their
parents, the families.
AMY WALTER: That's right.
TAMARA KEITH: Though
that wasn't done using
an emergency declaration.
AMY WALTER: Correct.
TAMARA KEITH: It was done
administratively, and all
within the executive branch.
This is a little bit different,
in that the president has
taken the word of Congress.
Congress said, this is
how much money we want
to give you for the wall.
And he's saying, actually,
I would like more than that.
AMY WALTER: Right.
Right.
JUDY WOODRUFF: It's
executive action vs.
declaration of emergency,
which is a more extreme step
to take.
AMY WALTER: Right.
JUDY WOODRUFF: I do
-- we mentioned 2020.
And I want to bring this
up, and we have got a map.
We have tried to look where the
2020 Democratic candidates --
they were all over the country
in the early states.
I was just looking at this.
They were in Iowa, not
surprising, New Hampshire.
But they were also in Wisconsin,
Georgia, South Carolina,
Texas, California, and Nevada.
Tam, you know, we are -- they're
out there, but the other new
name that we have that we
heard about over the weekend is
William Weld, who has run for
office, and was the governor
of Massachusetts, but he's
running as a Republican.
He's challenging President
Trump -- or at least he's
formed an exploratory committee.
TAMARA KEITH: And you can expect
him to spend a lot of time
in New Hampshire, where they
may remember him
or heard his name.
He did run for vice
president on the Libertarian
ticket last time around.
He's not like one of
the big-name, big-money
Republicans that potentially
could run against
President Trump in a primary.
But a president facing
a primary, even a weak
primary, is something
that indicates potentially
someone out there believes that
the president has weaknesses.
JUDY WOODRUFF: And there
are other Republicans.
AMY WALTER: And there are other
Republicans looking at it.
We will see -- John Kasich,
the most talked about person
who's likely to challenge him.
But what's interesting is, the
candidates - - or the presidents
who have had significant
primary challenges in recent
history, that president had
very low approval scores among
members of their own party.
So, I mean, think back
to where Jimmy Carter's
approval rating was...
JUDY WOODRUFF: Jimmy
Carter and Teddy Kennedy.
AMY WALTER: ... when
Ted Kennedy announced.
... his approval ratings
among Democrats were
somewhere in the 40s.
When LBJ was challenged
by McGovern, his approval
rating among Democrats
was somewhere in the
50s.
George H.W. Bush was somewhere
in the 70s when Pat Buchanan
announced his primary to
him.
This president is a
president with an 89 percent
approval rating Republicans.
So there's not an
obvious path...
JUDY WOODRUFF: Path.
AMY WALTER: ... for
a Republican to take.
I think Tam is right.
You don't want to, as
an incumbent president,
have to spend your time
and energy and money
on this.
But we are going to see,
especially in a place
like New Hampshire,
which is a swing state,
a battleground state, one Trump
barely lost in 2016, is there
a group of Republicans there
that are so disappointed
with this president
that they are willing to
go and support another
candidate on the Republican
side for president - - and what
that will tell us about these
voters.
I'm going to look at those
voters then as we go into
2020, where do they go?
Do they go with the Democrat?
Do they stay at home?
Do they decide to stick with the
president at the end of the day?
JUDY WOODRUFF: This is unfair.
We have got less than a minute
left, Tam, but something
you two have wanted to talk
about is, not only is there a
presidential campaign in 2020,
but obviously the Senate's
up, the House is up.
These Senate candidates in
a number of states where the
cycle is their turn, it's a huge
concern to Republicans
and Democrats.
Democrats want to
pick up control.
TAMARA KEITH: Yes.
Whereas the last midterm was a
good map for Republicans, this
is a better map for Democrats.
But Democrats are now
frantically trying to
get people who could
potentially be Senate
candidates not to
run for president.
AMY WALTER: Right.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Right.
AMY WALTER: Yes, in places...
JUDY WOODRUFF: Because, when
you're running for president...
AMY WALTER: You can't do both.
That's exactly right...
TAMARA KEITH: Right.
AMY WALTER: ... in places like
Colorado and Montana or in
Georgia, where Stacey Abrams,
they're trying to get her
to run for the Senate.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Some
cross-pressures.
AMY WALTER: That's right.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Amy Walter,
Tamara Keith, thank you both.
AMY WALTER: You're welcome.
TAMARA KEITH: You're welcome.