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Trump Ends Dreamer Program; Another Hurricane Threatens U.S.; Hurricane on Collision Course with Florida; Trump Ends DACA; Congress to Act on DACA. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired September 5, 2017 - 13:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: -- plan to end the dreamer program. But giving Congress six months to save it. The battle beginning right now.

Speaking of Congress, the clock is ticking. Just a short time from now, lawmakers are back in session, facing an epic month of deadlines and agendas.

Plus, begging for war. The U.S. claims that Kim Jong-Un is gearing up for a nuclear fight, as we get word North Korea may, repeat may, may be right now moving an intercontinental ballistic missile.

And Florida on alert right now as Hurricane Irma barrels towards the United States as a category five storm. The brand-new track just in. We'll have that for you.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

BLITZER: Let's begin with the breaking news. The president's decision on DACA. To begin the removal of protections for the so- called DREAMers. It impacts around 800,000 undocumented immigrants here in the United States brought to the U.S. as children by their parents.

Here's how it was announced by the attorney general, Jeff Sessions.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEFF SESSIONS, U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL: The program, known at DACA, that was effectuated under the Obama administration is being rescinded. The Department of Homeland Security should begin an orderly, lawful winddown, including the cancellation of the memo that authorized this program.

Acting Secretary Duke has chosen appropriately to initiate a wind-down process. This will enable the Department of Homeland Security to conduct an orderly change and fulfill the desire of this administration to create a time period for Congress to act, should it so choose.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: The major announcement is already being met with protests over at the White House, over at Trump Tower in New York City, among other places. We'll be keeping a very close eye on these demonstrations throughout the hour.

But first, let's go to our Senior White House Correspondent Jim Acosta. He's joining us live from the White House.

So, Jim, what was the explanation for why this decision, a very important decision, was now reached?

JIM ACOSTA, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Wolf, we should report, yes, President Trump has dumped the DREAMers. He is ending DACA. But he did not make the announcement in front of the cameras himself. He left that to his attorney general, Jeff Sessions.

But within the last hour or so, the White House did issue a statement from the president. We want to put this up on screen and read this to you. It lays out some of the president's thinking on this.

He says, as president, my highest duty is to defend the American people and Constitution of the United States of America. At the same time, I do not favor punishing children, most of whom are now adults, for the actions of their parents. But we must also recognize, this is key here, that we are a nation of opportunity, because we are a nation of laws.

The statement goes on to say, as I've said before. We will resolve the DACA issue with heart and compassion but through the lawful Democratic process, while, at the same time, ensuring that any immigration reform we adopt provides ensuring benefits for the American citizens we were elected to serve.

Now, we should point out there is a briefing coming up here, Wolf, within the next hour or so. It's scheduled for 1:30. We'll see if it starts on time.

But interesting to note, the president saying there that his highest duty is to defend the Constitution of the United States of America. Wolf, critics are already lashing out at this decision and pointing out the president pardoned Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio over there in Arizona within the last couple of weeks.

Sheriff Arpaio was essentially convicted in federal court of violating the civil rights of Latino people in that state, in that jurisdiction of his. And so, the question is, why is the president -- according to his critics, why is the president saying he wants to uphold the Constitution when it comes to the DREAMers but not when it comes to Sheriff Arpaio? I assume, Wolf, that that'll be one the questions that are asked in the briefing coming up here in the next several few moments -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Very quickly, why didn't the president make this announcement? Why did Jeff Sessions, the Attorney General, do so? We know the White House did issue a statement in the president's name, a written statement.

ACOSTA: Right.

BLITZER: But why wasn't the president on television making this announcement?

ACOSTA: Well, Wolf, I think that is, obviously, going to be a top question at this briefing. Why did the president not make this statement?

We are told by senior administration officials that one reason why the attorney general was sent out there today is because -- and we heard this from Jeff Sessions during that statement he gave to the news media. By the way, he did not take any questions. That he did not feel and the administration did not feel that where the attorney general is to challenge DACA in court that they would be successful. That they would be able to defend the constitutionality of this Obama- era program.

But, of course, there are plenty of critics out there who were saying that this was just an act of cowardice, on the part of President Trump, to not come out here and take the heat himself, personally.

After all, how many rallies did he hold across the country, Wolf, where he talked about building the wall and Mexico was going to pay for it. That he was going to be taking a very tough tone on the issue of immigration.

[13:05:08] But when it came to this issue of these 800,000 DREAMers, as the president, himself, admits in his statement, were brought to this country of no fault of their own. Why is he not announcing this policy change himself? Wolf, they have not given us a direct answer to that question yet. And I suspect that'll come up almost immediately during that briefing today -- Wolf.

BLITZER: OK, we'll have live coverage of that briefing coming up later this hour.

Jim Acosta at the White House. Thanks very much.

We're waiting to hear, once again, for reaction from President Obama on the phasing out of this DACA program. The program his administration put in place five years ago.

Listen to what he had to say about its impact on DREAMers during an immigration speech back in 2014.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BARACK OBAMA, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Now, tomorrow, I'll travel to Las Vegas and meet with some of these students, including a young woman named Astrid Silva. Astrid was brought to America when she was four years old. Her only possessions were a cross, her doll and the frilly dress she had on.

When she started school, she didn't speak any English. She caught up to other kids by reading newspapers and watching PBS. And she became a good student.

Her father worked in landscaping. Her mom cleaned other people's homes. They wouldn't let Astrid apply to a technology magnet school. Not because they didn't love her but because they were afraid the paperwork would out her as an undocumented immigrant.

So, she applied behind their back and got in. Still, she mostly lived in the shadows. Until her grandmother, who visited every year from Mexico passed away. And she couldn't travel to the funeral without risk of being found out and deported.

It was around that time she decided to begin advocating for herself and others like her. And today, Astrid is a college student working on her third degree.

Are we a nation that kicks out a striving, hopeful immigrant like Astrid or are we a nation that finds a way to welcome her in?

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: All right. The woman you just heard President Obama mention, Astrid Silva, is joining us now live from Las Vegas. Astrid is the co-founder of Dream Big Vegas, an immigration reform activist.

Astrid, thanks so much for joining us. I want to get your reaction to today's announcement from the attorney general, Jeff Sessions, ending the DACA program over the course of the next several months.

ASTRID SILVA, CO-FOUNDER, DREAM BIG VEGAS: Thank you for having me. I think this is disappointing. But, at the same time, this is something that, during the campaign, Donald Trump said he would do. And I find it no surprise that he did this.

But, at the same time, it's really disheartening that he couldn't do it himself. He couldn't tear apart our dreams himself. And he chose to have Attorney General Jeff Session do it.

But, at the same time, I know that this is not something that's going to put our community down. We're going to continue fighting. As you mentioned yourself, there's already people taking to the streets in D.C. and New York.

Our community, we know how important this is. This is something that has changed millions of lives across our country and it's something worth fighting for.

BLITZER: The president, President Trump, did put out a written statement in the last hour, Astrid. We mentioned it. He says he's not in favor of punishing children, but adds that we, here in the United States, are a nation of laws. He also says he will resolve DACA. He says with heart and compassion.

What's your message, Astrid, to the president of the United States?

SILVA: Well, our president just told us that he doesn't want to punish people, yet he took away a program that's helping 800,000 people for no reason. There was no deadline. There was no expiration date on this program.

He chose to end it himself, at a moment when our country is suffering from a catastrophe in Texas, where we should all be getting together to rebuild that state. We should be getting together to feel that he's concentrating on building a wall.

You know, I don't believe the not wanting to punish us, because this is what he's doing. And he's not just punishing us. He's punishing everybody that's affected by this. We contribute to the economy.

86 percent of Americans believe in the DREAM Act. This is not just punishing us. This isn't punishing our families. This is punishing our entire country.

BLITZER: What the president and the attorney general say, Astrid, is that they had to do this now because attorneys general -- various attorneys general around the country were filing lawsuits, saying that what President Obama did five years ago was unconstitutional, was illegal. It's up to Congress to pass legislation to make laws. The president can't unilaterally change what our existing laws are.

[13:10:00] What do you say to that argument?

SILVA: You know, again, he didn't have to do this. There was other ways.

The lawsuit, we saw Tennessee dropped out of it. They saw that what was happening and that this really wasn't something that was going anywhere.

What we need to do is have Congress take action on it. But taking it away and saying six months, and using us, you know, as bargaining chips for other legislation that he wants to push through, that's not what we should be doing right now.

We should be concentrating on pieces of legislation that are actually going to help. There are several pieces out there that if we can work on in a bipartisan way. I have seen so many people come out in support of DACA in the past five years. And now is the time when we really need to push that legislation, but not by holding us hostage during that time.

BLITZER: Well, what happens if Congress doesn't pass new legislation that will keep DACA in place, Astrid? Over the next six months, the next year or so, what happens to you and 800,000 other DREAMers?

SILVA: Slowly people are going to start losing their work permits. As mentioned this morning, the first ones that would begin to expire would be in March of 2018. That's thousands of people in our workforce that are teachers right now. What's going to happen to their classrooms? That these are that people that are working in hospitals. People that are taking care of our community. This is going to be something that's devastating.

We need to push legislation forward. But, at the same time, we need to take into account that this is something that has been worked on for many years. And we're going to need to, really, have everybody contribute to it.

And this isn't the time to try and figure out what's going to happen. We need to work on the bill. I'm just -- right now, our community is in a lot of fear. There's a lot of uncertainty. People are calling. People don't know what's going to happen to their kids. People don't know what's going to happen.

We believe in our government. We gave them our information. And now, people are afraid that ICE agents are going to come knock on their door.

Because no matter what the government is saying, we are all priorities. We've had DREAMers be deported from the time the president took place until now. There is no protection for us.

BLITZER: Astrid Silva, good luck to you. Good luck to all the DREAMers out there. A very, very significant moment unfolding right now. We'll watch it very, very closely. We'll see what, if anything, the United States Congress does about this. Astrid, thanks so much for joining us.

SILVA: Thank you.

BLITZER: There's other breaking news we're following, including Hurricane Irma strengthening to a monster right now. A category five storm. That's the strongest Atlantic hurricane in a decade. Its newest track has it barreling towards the United States.

Let's go to our Meteorologist Tom Sater, who's joining us now from the CNN Severe Weather Center. Tom, what are the latest details on the storm?

TOM SATER, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Well, it's amazing's, Wolf. And, in fact, since last Thursday, in its infant stages, what triggered our onlook on this thing is that it blew up from a tropical storm right to a category three hurricane, now a four and five. It's rare to see this kind of growth.

I want everyone to take a good look at this. Anywhere around the world you're watching, because this is rare to see something so strong. For international viewers, Wolf, this is like a super-typhoon in the Pacific. 180 mile-per-hour winds are equivalent to 285 kilometers (INAUDIBLE.) Just so they understand what we're dealing with.

A lot of devastation headed towards the northern islands or the Lesser Antilles. I think the eye may move right over Anguilla and then maybe the British Virgin Islands.

Now, the U.S. Virgin Islands, along with British Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico are under a warning. State of emergency for Puerto Rico. I really believe this storm system, even though the strongest winds are near the center, they extend outward so far that we're going to have devastating effects on many of the islands with loss of power, communications, maybe water.

So, as the system moves, I believe the eye will stay over water. That's going to continue to sustain the strength.

But, again, the damage is going to be north and south of this. When you look at the track from the National Hurricane Center, it has been like this for the last couple of days. High pressure in the Atlantic is keeping it to the south.

By looking at its forward momentum, you would think maybe it would move into the Gulf of Mexico. We can't rule that out just yet.

But we are losing the window that could maybe spare the U.S. a landfall moving off the coast of the Carolinas, into the open Atlantic. That window is shutting very quickly and will probably shut today.

The computer models, excellent agreement. This is what you want, to have confidence in the forecast.

What looked to be a turn to the north Friday looks more like Saturday. Still, a steering current will draw this system northward. And as we watch it, really, Wolf, we're not going to be able to let anyone know exactly where landfall will be until the turn occurs.

So, it could still happen into the Carolinas. It could still happen up into the Gulf.

But, again, it does look like we could see a landfall in the northern coast of Cuba. That could down grade it. But the water is so warm right now. It's like jet fuel. We're looking at a major hurricane impact late this weekend in toward Monday, September 11th.

BLITZER: Yes, a lot of nervous people already gearing up for it, Tom.

[13:15:02] Thanks very much. Tom Sater, helping us. Appreciate the enormity, the enormity of this storm.

People living in south Florida, by the way, they are already not taking any chances. They are clearly in the path of the storm the size and strength of Irma. That has not been seen, as we said, in a decade. They're stocking up on supplies. They're buying water. Their groceries stores, they're emptying all shelves as we speak.

And a visitor evacuation order for the Florida Keys actually goes into effect tomorrow. An evacuation for residents also we -- will be issued, we're told, but the timing hasn't been announced, at least not yet. We expect that very soon.

I want to speak a little bit more about the threat from Irma with Miami Beach Mayor Philip Levine, who's joining us right now.

Mayor, thanks so much for joining us.

What are you telling the folks in beautiful Miami Beach right now, should they pack up, should they get out of town? How should they prepare?

MAYOR PHILIP LEVINE, MIAMI BEACH: Wolf, right now what we're doing, working very closely with the county. We have been preparing for the last week. We've been telling our folks, the residents of Miami Beach, make sure you have a personal plan to deal with this hurricane. We're communicating constantly with our residents.

Any decision regarding evacuation, whether it's for tourist or for residents, we believe this afternoon, tomorrow, that will be under consideration and discussion. We'll be notify the residents and tourists accordingly.

But one of the things we're doing, of course, is making sure we've got portable generators on the ground. We have portable pumps on the ground. We've been raising our roads for a while in anticipation of something like this. And we're telling people, listen, be prepared. If you need water, use that good, old-fashioned faucet. You have bottles at your house. The water's clean. The water's fresh. Fill them up right now.

BLITZER: What about power? Bracing for the possibility, very real possibility, if this hurricane hits Miami Beach, south Florida right now, you're just going to lose power?

LEVINE: Well, I think that's usually what happens sometimes in storms like this, Wolf. But what we need to do is make sure the pumps that we have can function to remove the water as fast as possible. And that's the reason why we've been stocking up on portable generators. Have as many as we possibly can get, we brought into the city, to gearing up and power up these pumps. As you can imagine, Houston has taken a lot of these generators because they need them. But, of course, we need them now and we've been able to do that the last four or five days to bring in generators, to make sure we have as much power as possible to keep our streets as dry as possible.

BLITZER: What should people who are vacationing in Miami Beach, in south Florida, be doing right now?

LEVINE: Well, right now they should be listening to us, the news. And, of course, when we -- if there is a decision from the county to make an evacuation for the tourists, of course they're going to need to leave Miami Beach. That will be coming out today or tomorrow. That decision's going to be a county decision. And we expect to have a meeting and a call on that actually within about an hour from now.

BLITZER: So you're thinking an hour from now we'll learn whether or not you're ordering the evacuation of people from Miami Beach? Is that what I'm hearing?

LEVINE: Wolf, what will happen is the county will make that decision. And we expect to hear from the county this afternoon on what they advice and what their next plan is going to be. But that doesn't even make a difference. We've been preparing. Even our staff of our city has made sure their families are prepared so that a staff of Miami Beach can be there to make our city as resilient as possible for this upcoming storm.

We have sandbags available for people. We're cleaning out our drains. Literally doing everything we can to prepare for this storm. It's a very serious storm. And if there is an evacuation order, we're going to make sure that everybody heeds that order. BLITZER: All right, you guys got a huge challenge ahead of you. Good

luck to you. Good luck to everybody in Miami Beach and Miami-Dade, in Broward, Palm Beach County, all of south Florida right now. We're watching it very closely with you.

Mayor, thanks so much for joining us.

LEVINE: Thank you, Wolf.

BLITZER: We'll stay in close touch.

Meanwhile, protests are underway right now against the president's decision to end what's called the dreamer program. We're going to take you there live and update you on that.

Plus, after a turbulent month of controversy and insults against Republicans, the president now faces a series of urgent deadlines, but must work with Congress to meet them.

And there are right now new warnings coming in that North Korea may be moving an intercontinental ballistic missile as Kim Jong-un launches an explosive threat against President Trump.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:23:21] BLITZER: We're only moments now from today's White House press briefing. You're looking at live pictures coming in from the briefing room. We'll go there live as soon as it gets underway. Stand by for that.

President Trump has started the clock on Congress with the announcement today, very dramatic and important announcement, that the White House is ending protections for dreamers, as they're called, in six months. Congress now has that long to try to get a fix passed. The decision isn't unexpected. It's something the president spoke about on the campaign trail, but since then we've also heard this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: They shouldn't be very worried. I do have a big heart. We're going to take care of everybody.

Some absolutely incredible kids. I would say mostly. They were brought here in such a way -- it's a very, very tough subject. We are going to deal with DACA with heart.

We love the dreamers. We love everybody.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: We love the dreamers, we love everybody, you just heard the president say.

Here with us right now is our chief political analyst Gloria Borger, our senior political reporter Nia-Malika Henderson, our chief political correspondent Dana Bash, and our senior Washington correspondent Brianna Keilar.

Ladies, thanks so much for being here.

We've got a lot to discuss as we await this important White House briefing that's about to begin.

So what was the president's intent, Gloria, this morning in allowing the attorney general, ordering him in effect, to go ahead and make this important announcement?

GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, I think the president was, in a way, trying to have it both ways, Wolf. What he said is he's keeping a promise to the base of his party, which is that he wants to end this. But at the same time, he placed -- placed the ball back in Congress' court and said, if you don't want to end this, come up with a better idea.

[13:25:06] And in the end, what the president may be looking for, and this is lots of iterations down the road, the president may be looking for some kind of compromise on wall funding and funding -- and restrictions on DACA. So, you know, you don't know -- you really don't know yet how this is going to play out. And if it doesn't work out, if Congress can't come up with something, and there's no reason, really, to think that they can at this point, but we'll have to see, then he can also blame them and say, well, I gave you an opportunity to save DACA, but it wasn't important enough to you, or you didn't want to do it.

BLITZER: Is Congress going to take this up, the Senate and the House, and pass legislation that would protect these 800,000 dreamers who have come forward, filled out all the forms and said they want to work with the process?

NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER: Well, it's not like they have room on their to-do list at this point, right? I mean they have so much stuff to do, tax reform, obviously dealing with the debt ceiling limit, dealing with budget issue, that's on their plate, and not a lot of time to do it.

I don't necessarily see that there's a lot of urgency among Republicans on Capitol Hill to get something done on this. You have had leaders in the party, people like Paul Ryan, people like John Cornyn, come out and essentially say, sure, it's time to get something done on this, that they would like to address it. But in some ways they've been saying that same thing for many, many years now.

They had a chance to look at this in 2010, a Dream Act. Republicans by and large didn't back that. I think only three people voted for that in 2010. So there's not a, I think, you know, sort of -- sort of the passion in terms of immigration on illegal immigration on the Republican side is really restrictive, right? It's being hawkish. It's limiting illegal immigration. And that's where this president has ended up with kind of rescinding DACA.

BLITZER: Because the Democrats, as you know, they want to protect the dreamers and a lot of Republicans do as well. So why is this so difficult for senators and representatives?

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: No question. Look, just if you kind of take a step back, the whole reason that we are where we are, the whole reason that President Obama did this by executive action is because Congress couldn't or didn't want to or just plain, it didn't happen. So that's why, Gloria, and both of you guys are right to say that there shouldn't be a whole lot of faith in Congress suddenly being able to act now.

However, the difference is that President Obama did put this into place and that these 800,000 people did give the United States government all of their information. And they are more vulnerable now. And you are seeing protests like we're looking at right now. And that is not going to stop. I don't think that's going to abate anytime soon.

And so even though particularly the Republican Party has turned much more towards where Donald Trump and his base is with regard to illegal immigration, this is a separate class of people. These are people who are, you know, didn't come here through any -- they didn't personally, you know, jump over a fence or sneak into the United States on their own. They came, many of them, as infants and they are people who are part of the fabric of the United States and they -- they don't have accents. I mean they -- many of them don't even speak Spanish or whatever other language that their parents spoke. So that is the difference, and it is going to be a huge test to see if finally something can happen in a bipartisan way, because you're going to need Democrats and Republicans to do this.

BLITZER: But their -- Republican leaders are saying they want to protect the dreamers, including the House speaker, Paul Ryan, John McCain, and a whole bunch of others, they say, yes, this is really important. These were young kids. They were brought here by their parents. They've been raised here in the United States. Dana says they all speak English. So why is this so complicated?

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: : That's right, but it requires cooperation between the White House and between Republicans in Congress. You're seeing this really oppositional stance. I mean if you go back to when George W. Bush was making an attempt at comprehensive immigration reform, which, Dana, you covered, that -- he had a much more deft touch, right? This idea of, you're pushing some legislation but you're sort of standing back. It's a very divided topic.

Well, now you're in an environment that is even more divided when it comes to immigration reform and you have essentially the president kind of offloading this onto a Congress that has other things to do and doesn't have the appetite to do this. This is not the starting point, this is not the healthy starting point for dealing with something like immigration reform.

And if you thought that repeal and replace was hard, I mean that was nothing. That should have been a cakewalk compared to doing something like dealing with this.

BORGER: Well, that's why the president actually proposed this in a way, because he could say to his base, I'm getting something done.

HENDERSON: Right.

BORGER: I didn't get the repeal and replace done. Tax reform is not going to be easy. I haven't repealed the Iranian nuclear deal. I haven't gotten us out of that. I haven't gotten us out of NAFTA yet, which I told you I was going to do.

[13:30:03] So, you know, this is something he could say, OK, I've given them six months, or else.

KEILAR: And the test will be what happens to these dreamers. Ultimately, are they going -- are some of them going to be --