Interview with Nicole Lauer, East Bay Coast Guard Spouses Club
ALLEN: Welcome back to our viewers in the United States and all around the world. We appreciate you watching CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Natalie Allen.</s>HOWELL: I'm George Howell with the headlines we're following for you this hour.</s>HOWELL: Returning now to our top story that we're following, the latest proposal from the White House to end the government shutdown. Democrats flatly rejected it, even before President Trump made his pitch.</s>ALLEN: The president had proposed stopping deportations for three years of 1 million undocumented immigrants but only if he got $5 billion for his wall on the southern U.S. border.</s>HOWELL: The top U.S. Democrat, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, accused the president of passing off old and rejected ideas as some kind of compromise and said it won't fly with Congress. So the political back and forth, the shutdown, grinds on, now into 30 days and counting. And in the middle of this stalemate, some 800,000 government workers about to miss another paycheck. Ryan Nobles has the latest for you.</s>RYAN NOBLES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Even before President Trump made his announcement at the White House on Saturday, Democrats were roundly rejecting his proposal of trading some funding for his border wall in exchange for temporary relief for those DREAMers and the TPS community the Democrats have often fought for. There are two reasons for that. The first being they just weren't involved in this conversation. This wasn't a negotiation in any way, shape or form. It was something that the president just laid on the table and did it mainly through media reports. And Nancy Pelosi, the House Speaker, saying, "Unfortunately, initial reports make it clear that his proposal is a compilation of several previously rejected initiatives, each of which is unacceptable and in total do not represent a good faith effort to restore certainty to people's lives. "It is unlikely that any one of these provisions alone would pass the House and, taken together, they are a nonstarter. For one thing, this proposal does not include the permanent solution for the DREAMers and TPS recipients that our country needs and supports." That seems to be a major sticking point for Democrats on Capitol Hill. Yes, at one time Chuck Schumer did offer President Trump $25 billion to build his border wall but, in exchange, he wanted a clear pathway to citizenship for those DREAMers. That's not what this is. Yes, it is less money, only around $6 billion for the wall but it would also mean that the DREAMers and the TPS community would only have protection for about three years. And Democrats say they're not interested in trading a permanent wall on the southern border in exchange for only temporary protected status for these folks, who find themselves in this position here in the United States. Meanwhile, Republicans seem excited about this. They view this as the president going on offense, forcing Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer to the bargaining table; Mitch McConnell and an aide to Mitch McConnell say it is likely this bill will come up on the Senate floor in some form next week. Democrats will likely fight it but Mitch McConnell is prepared to make each one of them vote up or down yes or no on the president's proposal -- Ryan Nobles, CNN, Washington.</s>ALLEN: The impact of 800,000 federal workers not being paid goes far beyond those individuals --</s>ALLEN: -- and their immediate families. It has a ripple effect on their local communities and puts a strain on society at large. Food banks are popping up across the country to provide groceries. These government workers are now on the verge of missing their second paychecks. Nicole Lauer joins me from Alameda, California, she is the vice president of the East Bay Coast Guard Spouses Club. Her husband is a Navy veteran and now on active duty in the Coast Guard. And I think I have this right that you served as well, Nicole, is that right?</s>NICOLE LAUER, EAST BAY COAST GUARD SPOUSES CLUB: I was actually -- I'm the Navy veteran. My husband is active duty Coast Guard. He's always been Coast Guard.</s>ALLEN: Got it. Thank you to you and your husband for serving this country. Let's talk about what you're going through. What is the biggest challenge for you and your family right now? We're staring at the government being shut down for a month now.</s>LAUER: I think that the biggest challenge that we're facing is that, you know, when it first started, it was a few weeks and, you're, like, OK, I'll figure it out. Now that we're looking at a month, this is long-term impacts on finances. What we had in savings is only going to last us a little bit, especially in the Bay Area. So we're having to take the steps to call our car companies and creditors and see who is willing to work with us and who isn't. It is just a very unfortunate situation that no military family should ever have to be in.</s>ALLEN: What kind of stress is that doing to your day-in-day life and the people around you that you know that are in the same situation?</s>LAUER: We're trying to take a positive approach to it. I have been focusing a lot on these food banks that we're running for our Coast Guard families in Alameda. That's taking a lot of my mind off the negativity surrounding this situation and put positivity into it by providing groceries for our local Coast Guard families and taking one less stress off of them.</s>ALLEN: What is the response like when you put a call out for a food bank?</s>LAUER: Absolutely overwhelming. We're like we'll get a few places to help and by the next day we had so many businesses calling us and so many Alameda residents calling us, saying we want to help, how can we help. And we're going on about two weeks of collecting donations already. And they keep coming in. We're still getting the same amount today as we got on the very first day.</s>ALLEN: And what kind of things are you hearing from people that want to help, that want to ease the suffering that you're going through?</s>LAUER: The most we have been hearing is that it is just showing support for the Coast Guard. Alameda sitting on the water is obviously a very big -- with the boaters in the area. So it has been a lot of support from the Alameda community knowing that the Coast Guard is here, they helped in the community a bunch of times. So it is the community giving back to our members here. It is really uplifting to see that, to know that they have got our backs, like the Coast Guard has theirs.</s>ALLEN: Right. Let's talk about that. Your family serves the government. And now the government is not serving you. How does that make you feel that your family has been placed in this precarious situation?</s>LAUER: You know, it is one of those things where you -- you can't get upset with anybody at this point. It is just a matter of you having to focus on your family and focus on what you need to do to get through to these next steps. And as, you know, military members, they don't join the military to make money, they join to serve their country. So you're going to serve your country no matter what. But it is tough when a lot of military members aren't making, you know, making a lot of money to begin with and you're struggling paycheck to paycheck when you are getting paid. So it definitely is a lot of stress not being paid at the moment.</s>ALLEN: Right. And when you think that the issue that is keeping the government shut down is a border wall, it is ironic, isn't it, that the Coast Guard serves the border, you're there in Southern California and this is what the Coast Guard does and this shutdown is over a border wall. How does it make you feel? What do you think about that?</s>LAUER: My opinion is the Coast Guard is the wall. They're the ones actively out there, stopping the drugs from coming in and protecting our borders. So it is a little disheartening to have this argument over this wall that doesn't exist at the moment and we're not funding the wall that currently is there in place.</s>ALLEN: Right. How do you see this ending? When do you think this will end? How long can you hold out here?</s>LAUER: Unfortunately, I'm not sure when it is going to end. We are really tracking the Pay Our Coast Guard Act which has bipartisan support on both sides. So that's I think one hope that a lot of Coast Guard families are holding out hope for, is that it will be passed this week. We're prepared for a little bit. But like I said, there are multiple families around us who aren't. And at some point, one side will have to give at some point.</s>ALLEN: We certainly hope that happens sooner than later. I'm sure the people in your community appreciate your leadership, Nicole, and we appreciate your time and what you're doing. Thank you for your time and talking with us.</s>LAUER: Thank you.</s>HOWELL: Now to talk about a fast moving winter storm sweeping across the U.S. and it is threatening millions from the Midwest to the Northeast.</s>HOWELL: Given all the uncertainty we talk about with Brexit, this sounds a bit utopian. Britain with no new taxes and plenty of national unity.</s>ALLEN: That's what Boris Johnson says will happen post-Brexit. Critics aren't so sure. We'll have that story next.