Worldwide Outcry Against Trump's Travel Ban
PAUL: Welcome back. I'm Christi Paul.</s>BLACKWELL: I'm Victor Blackwell. Good morning to you.</s>PAUL: Any moment now we could get the Justice Department's response to a federal judge's ruling that blocks President Trump's travel ban.</s>BLACKWELL: That judge temporarily stopped the executive order that kept people seven predominantly Muslim countries from entering the U.S. and suspended or indefinitely halted refugee programs. Initially, the White House called the decision outrageous. But later dialed back the language omitting that word saying the DOJ would file an emergency stay at the earliest time possible. Now U.S. Customs and Border Protection is working to reinstate previously cancelled travel visas and alerted airlines to begin admitting people trying to come into those -- to U.S. from those countries to allow them to board those flights.</s>PAUL: Want to bring in CNN political commentator Errol Louis, CNN global affairs analyst Kimberly Dozier, and the White House correspondent for the "Washington Examiner," Sara Westwood. Thank you all for being here. We appreciate it. Errol, I want to start with you. How do you think the administration will argue the validity of the ban now that they have to do so?</s>ERROL LOUIS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, the validity of the ban, we'll get some clues to it and the response is going to be worth paying attention to because for the injunction that's sought, you have to sort of show irreparable harm. You have to show that there's a likelihood to succeed on the merits. If they're going to argue the other way, the government now has to come back and say we've got some likelihood to succeed. We've got some problems as far as irreparable harm and protecting the public interests. And they're going to have to start to really sort of make the case for why they wanted to do this. Up to now, really what we've heard so far, Christie, is them sort of saying this was a campaign promise and we're going to go ahead and do it. They've made some vague claims to enhancing public safety. They're going to have to be a lot more specific. And that's what I'll be looking for with the DOJ response comes in.</s>PAUL: Kimberly, we've been seeing the images from London already this morning. A lot of people there as they walk into Downing Street to oppose the travel ban here. And we need to keep in mind, this isn't just a ban on refugees and migrants. This involves anyone who has a permanent residence status, like business travelers, tourists. What do you make of the reaction we're seeing around the world to this one executive order?</s>KIMBERLY DOZIER, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Well, the fact of the matter is, though, the White House keeps stressing that this is not a Muslim ban. That is how it's being perceived. And even once this gets sorted out in the coming weeks, it's going to leave lasting bitterness. I've been speaking to Iraqi translators who worked with the U.S. military. They talked about feeling like they've been called a traitor by being banned for this period of time. Even though that situation was eventually resolved and they're now exempted from the travel ban. So the fallout for this internationally could complicate the White House's goals in terms of moving forward with some foreign plans because a lot of European diplomats I'm speaking to are also saying that their populations are looking at the U.S. right now and see the U.S.' reputation much diminished by this.</s>PAUL: So, Sarah, when we put that into perspective the phone calls the president will have to have with world leaders, how do you think this is going to affect any of that kind of business?</s>SARAH WESTWOOD, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, WASHINGTON EXAMINER: Well, look, clearly there has been a big backlash to this order. The uncertainty over people who have dual citizenship, people who have valid visas, people who are en route to the United States when Trump signed it, none of that should have happened. And there were a half dozen contingencies at least that the administration clearly didn't think through. And now President Trump is being forced to expend political capital to clean up a policy that should have been an easy win for them because even with the rollout of this thing being sloppy as it was, keep in mind that about half of Americans still support it. So it is tempting for Democrats now to fall into the same trap of mercilessly criticizing the policy. But they risk making the same mistakes Hillary Clinton did by criticizing it but not offering up solutions because it is still supported by about half of Americans.</s>PAUL: OK. I think it's 47 percent agree with the travel ban, 53 percent oppose it. Sarah, what is the White House going to do? And I'm go to ask you the same question I asked Errol, how do they argue the validity of this? And in terms of a timeline, how soon are we going to hear from the White House?</s>WESTWOOD: Well, certainly, it's in their interests to move as quickly as possible to put this uncertainty to rest given the other -- given the other order in Seattle. So they're going to move forward and seek an order likely in a district court maybe in the eastern side and have that order maybe supersede the one in Seattle.</s>PAUL: Errol, let's look at the CNN/ORC approval poll that came out this week. The president's been in office for essentially two weeks and when we look at his approval rating in that amount of time, 44 percent approve, 53 percent disapprove. That is the lowest rating of any president in recent history as far as we can tell. There you have it, President Obama, it was 76 percent at this point. George W. Bush at 58 percent. Bill Clinton at 59 percent at this point. What do you make of how that number will affect what he does moving forward?</s>LOUIS: Well, you know, it's interesting, Christie, my sense is that the number is in part as bad for the president as it is because he hasn't wanted to move it in any other direction. I can't point to a single gesture in the last two weeks, in these first two weeks, in which he decided he was going to try to make peace with some of the people who were skeptical or even hostile to him and his agenda. In fact, they've gone in the opposite direction. So my sense is that he's going to try and figure out how to govern even without popularity on his side. They will make it much, much more difficult when it gets into negotiations with Congress. There are some people who do sort of worry about their popularity numbers. And you know, we can start with the 23 odd Republican members of the House of Representatives whose districts were won by Hillary Clinton, who did not have a lot of Trump support on one level. So he's going to have to really figure out what he wants to do and who if anybody he wants to bring over to his side going forward.</s>PAUL: And Kimberly, really quickly, this is a man who was a businessman, who was used to protecting his brand. Politics doesn't fall into that same category. Do you think that we will see a transition from business leader to political leader?</s>DOZIER: Well, I think he's going to get the message from Capitol Hill from Republican lawmakers I've been speaking to over the past couple of days. They're hearing from their constituents who are not happy about how this has been handled. And the message is going to be, if you want to work with us on your other initiatives, you can't have another messy rollout like this. You've got to get professional. You've got to clean up your act.</s>PAUL: All right. Errol Louis, Kimberly Dozier, Sarah Westwood, always appreciate having your voices in the conversation. Thank you.</s>LOUIS: Thank you.</s>BLACKWELL: More on the breaking news in just a moment. But first the excitement growing for tomorrow's Super Bowl. Andy Scholes is in Houston. We'll talk to him in just a moment.