Trump to Sign Executive Order on Immigration Practices

We're gonna also count on Congress, obviously, but we are signing an executive order in a little while. We're gonna keep families together. But we still have to maintain toughness or our country will be over run. That's a reversal of Trump's insistence that only Congress could end his policy of separating families at the border. Joining me as David Beer, an immigration policy analyst at the Cato Institute, David immigration was key in Trump's rise to power, and it's central

to his image. So can he just back down from the zero tolerance policy without losing credibility with his base? Look, what's really losing him credibility with the American people on this is that he has been saying for weeks, the only reason I'm doing this is because the law requires me to do this. I cannot back down from this. This is the requirements of the law. I have to separate these families, have to take away these children. And now he's saying, well, actually, we can make changes in

order to prevent this from happening. So that's what's really going to cost him credibility. I don't think his base is is that concerned one way or the other about whether the children are separated or not. What concerns those individuals is whether or not these um people are eligible for asylum and can apply through the legal process as to stay in the United States. They want them removed immediately and uh, you know, without without a process for

them to apply to stay in the country. Trump said that he's going to sign something that's somewhat prep preemptive

and ultimately will be matched by legislation. Any ideas what he might be signing well, reports are that he's considering, uh, requiring the Department of Homeland Security to detain all children with their parents while at the same time they are being prosecuted by the Department of Justice, and UM, it doesn't really address the problem fully because if any of those parents are sentenced to prison time, they would uh be separated from their children of course, and those children

would have to go into foster care. We would take back to the exact same situation that we're at right now. Um. The other problem with it is that there is a court order that requires them to release children after twenty days. They cannot hold children in jails for more than three weeks. And we have said this before. It's a it's a court requirement, and so there is not an opportunity for him to ultimately detain them long enough to go through

this entire process. So his executive order won't work. I think he's trying to portray himself as fixing this problem that he created, but it's really not going to resolve the issue. We have news from our Bloomberg DC team that about House members are heading to the White House, so there can be some type of perhaps public event there are the House Republicans said earlier today that they

were going to go ahead with some immigration bills. Tell us about the various immigration bills and their chance of passage. There's really two bills that are being voted on probably tomorrow, and one is a extreme hard right bill that would slash legal immigration. That's legal immigration by about um overnight. It would kick millions of people who have been waiting in line for the opportunity to come to this country

legally out of line and eliminate their applications entirely. Uh. It would provide some very limited temporary work status to the dreamers. Uh. The alternative on the other side, UH is this compromise bill that was a compromise between moderates and the Republican Party and conservatives, and that bill would do a lot of the same things. It would cut legal immigration by more than a million over the next two decades. It would provide some legalization for for mostly

people who are in akka. Uh, those who were too old or uh you know, uh couldn't afford to apply for doctor will probably being left out of this legislation. And um, at the end of the day, you're talking about again banning nearly three million people who have waited in line for legal visas to come to the United States legally. All of those people's applications would be canceled. So it's really a compromise between the hard right and conservatives.

But it's still a partisan bill and it's not something that is likely to make its way through the Senate. We have about a minute and a half year. David, now explain what what the position of the Senate is, the Republican and democratic position of the Senate if any of those bills happens to get to it. Well, the Senate already debated this issue, and they had their own proposals. Many of them were similar to the ones that we're adjusted right now that are coming up for a vote

in the House. Uh. The one that's most similar to the hard right proposal only got forty votes. It needed sixty votes in order to make it through the Senate. It only got forty votes. Um. Some of the other bipartisan bills in the Senate received a majority of the senators, so more than fifty, but didn't get the threshold. So the Senate, as far as their concerned, tried to do something on this, they weren't able to do it. It's unlikely that they will do anything with these bills. Uh

if they make it through UM the House. Well, thanks David. We will keep up to date with you on on what's happening in this issue that seems to be changing but doesn't look like there's any definite proposal in the off thing. That's David Beer. He's an immigration policy analyst at the Cato Institute. FBI Director Christopher Ray stood by Special Counsel Robert Mueller on Monday, as Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee asserted the Muller investigation was tainted by

anti Trump bias from the start. Senator, as I said to you last month, and as I said before, I did not believe Special Counsel Mueller is on a witch hunt. Inspector General Michael Horowitz also testified at the hearings, which were focused on his report that was critical of former FBI Director James Comey's investigation into Hillary Clinton's email joining me as Jimmy Garula, a professor at Notre Dame Law School, Jimmy, how did Ray do in defending the FBI against the

findings of the Inspector General's report? I think he was It was very straightforward. He was unequivocal in his support of A. Bob Moore, and I think in large part because he knows, he knows more, he's worked with him in the past. I think, uh, he is well aware of his integrity and his honesty, and he believes that

that he's conducting this investigation in a proper manner. There's been an extraordinary amount of attention paid to about a dozen anti Trump text messages exchanged between an FBI agent an FBI lawyer who were having an affair, perhaps because the texts are so concrete in a massive ambiguity is has there been too much attention paid to this or are these really troubling? Well, they certainly create an appearance

of impropriety. They create an appearance here of of unfairness because of the anti Trump sentiments that are included in these text messages. But at the same time, the d o J Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz concluded that there was no evidence, absolutely not that this bias affected the decision making in either the Hillary Clinton email scandal investigation or the investigation into possible collusion between the

Russians and the Trump campaign. The Inspector General also testified on Tuesday at a joint hearing of the House Judiciary and Oversight Committees, where the rhetorics seem to be ramping up a bit. Do you think that he answered questions, particularly those raised by Republican Trey Gaudy who said that that anti Trump bias in the FBI couldn't be put aside. Well, it's interesting with the with the House Republicans. On the one hand, they praise the Inspector General in his report

and findings regarding the anti Trump bias. On the other hand, they criticize an attack the same Inspector General in the same report with respect to his findings, and that that that that there's no evidence that the this bias had any effect in either the the Clinton investigation or the Trump campaign investigations. So it seems to me that the House Republicans can't have it both ways. I mean, either the Inspector General did a good job, these were findings

that were based on concrete evidence, or not. I don't think you can have it both ways. Do you see any long term effects on the Mueller investigation of the I G. S Report or the testimony we heard. Oh, there's there's no question about it. And I think the hearings here, how the hearing cell before the House Oversight Committee and the House Judiciary Committee, they're political in nature. I think the objective is quite clear. This is an attempt to to taint, to undermine the credibility of the

Muller investigations. So therefore, once the investigation is concluded, whatever the findings are, if they again are are negative, they they shed shed bad light or look badly on on on Trump or members of the Trump administration, that the Republics can conflain, well, it was ricked, you know, this

was corrupt, it was there was biased. So so I think there's a long term objective here that the Houses is trying to to achieve and move towards and what But what we've seen in the past, which with everything that's come out, every new allegation, is that you have the Republicans on one side and the Democrats another. It's very very part is in doesn't would anything change that in the future. Well, I think perhaps depending upon the findings of the of the Oler investigation and the strength

of the evidence to support those findings. I mean, if there if there's a smoking gun, you know, if there are are refuted regarding their credibility or or text messages or phone conversations, then it may be difficult for for the Republicans to to claim that this is a witch h to claim that this is a tain an investigation. Now we have it's about a week almost a week since Paul Manafort was sent to prison. There's been no movement there. Did do you think that it was expected

that something would happen quickly after he was put behind bars. Well, it's hard to say. Clearly, he has not been willing to cooperate up to this point. And again he hasn't been in jail, and so perhaps the longer he's he spends in jail, I mean, that could influence his decision. H. The other importance event to keep in mind is that the trial is scheduled for his jury trial. Manforts jury trial is scheduled for September of two thousand and eighteen.

So that's not that that far off. And so if he's going to agree to cooperate, he's gonna have to make a decision relatively soon. He's only got a few months left too before the trial begins. Jimmy explain how it's harder to prepare for trial when your client is in prison and you have to go see him all

the time. Well, it does create some obstacles. I mean, with respect that you've got to take you know, the lawyer, the defense lawyer has to has to take the time and to travel to the attention facility, has to bring all of the relevant aisles and documents and so on along with him or her to to brief and to

discuss the trial and trial strategy with the client. And and certainly that's much more cumbersome than than if Manaphort was was at his home and they could meet in a much more informal setting, kind of at their leisure. And that's clearly not the case. Now. Um, we are we are always happy to have you on the show, and thanks so much. That's Jimmy Grula. He is a professor at Notre Dame Law School. Thanks for listening to

the Bloomberg Law Podcast. You can subscribe and listen to the show on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, and on Bloomberg dot com slash podcast. I'm June Brosso. This is Bloomberg