House Passes Bill To Reopen IRS And Other Agencies, White House Threatens Veto; CNN Reality Check: Interview with Rep Adam Kinzinger (R-IL).
BERMAN: Today, House Democrats are voting on the second of four funding bills aimed at reopening parts of the federal government. Yesterday, the House approved the first bill to fund the IRS and other financial agencies, which the White House has threatened to veto. During that vote, eight House Republicans broke ranks and voted with the Democrats on that bill. Joining us now is one of them, Republican Congressman Adam Kinzinger of Illinois. Congressman, thank you so much for being with us.</s>REP. ADAM KINZINGER (R-IL), MEMBER, HOUSE FOREIGN AFFAIRS COMMITTEE: Good morning.</s>BERMAN: Why did you cast your vote to reopen or fund at least part of the government?</s>KINZINGER: Well, I think shutdowns are stupid. I think it's the dumbest way to do government in the world and people laugh at us when we can't get our act together. And we use shutdown as a way for leverage. This goes to both sides, by the way. This isn't an attack on the president or just the Democrats. I voted for this because I said look, I want to build a border wall. I support it, I voted for the money. I think the president is right to say that if we're going to have a negotiation, Nancy Pelosi has got to get off her 'absolutely no wall' position because from that position it's untenable. But my view is when we can open parts of government and, in essence, kind of release hostages in this process -- in this really bad way of doing government -- I'll vote for it if the bill's agreeable. So for the next three bills that are going to come up, if they're agreeable -- if they're close to what I believe should be the priorities, I'll vote for them. And if they're not, I'll vote against them. But I'm going to operate by looking at each bill on its merits.</s>BERMAN: Seven of your Republican colleagues in the House joined you. What's your message to the others? Do you think they should vote with you?</s>KINZINGER: No, I think everybody has to make that internal decision. I mean, I think there's no doubt that there is this idea that it's not going anywhere. I mean, the House is going to pass it and the Senate's not going to do anything with it, and it gets into the politics at that point. What gives the president more leverage? And I think people are right to vote their conscience on that. For me, I just looked at it and said I represent 700 and some thousand people and I'm going to vote on the bill based on its merits. And the more hostages we can get out of the room in this terrible process of government, I'm going to do that. I'm going to vote for it.</s>BERMAN: It's been widely reported by everyone who was in that meeting that the president put his hand on the table -- either he slammed it or hit it -- walked out, and said bye-bye. Is that an effective way to negotiate an end to this?</s>KINZINGER: No, and I also don't think, though, if it's true, that the president said hey, if I reopen government will you talk about a wall, and she goes absolutely not. That's not an effective way either. And I think we have to be fair on this, which is the president has never said that he will not do Dreamers or not do DACA ever. Nancy Pelosi has said she will never do the wall, ever. If she can come off that position, I look at this and say this is an issue I think we can solve. We can get DACA and Dreamers, we can get the wall money done. Immigration, honestly, is one of the easiest issues to solve out here if we would all get past our desire to give the other side no wins whatsoever. We are like eight days into this new Congress and we're already in reelection mode. There's got to be a moment for God's sake so we can take even just a week and actually govern before we return to reelection politics.</s>BERMAN: I saw something which blew my mind yesterday which was that the Coast Guard -- the Coast Guard support organization put out tips to the Coast Guard members who --</s>KINZINGER: Yes.</s>BERMAN: -- who won't receive paychecks tomorrow and these are just some of them. These people won't get paid so the Coast Guard had a suggestion to them if you need the money have a garage sale, sell unwanted items on the newspaper, babysit if you have to. You know, walk dogs if you have to. The Coast Guard, for whatever reason, they took this down. I don't know if it was because it was embarrassing to have it out there. But, Congressman, you're a lieutenant colonel in the Air National Guard. When you see this, what do you think?</s>KINZINGER: I think it's stupid. I mean, I think -- you know, look, it's -- they're all going to get paid. I want to be clear about that. When this ends they're going to get paid for these days, so they're not going to lose the money. But it's obviously a cash flow issue and many people --</s>BERMAN: Yes.</s>KINZINGER: -- live paycheck-to-paycheck. This is not how the federal government should operate. And again, in our broken political system -- and if you're sitting here saying well, it's the other side's fault -- it's the Republicans -- or you hear Republicans say it's the Democrats, you're the problem because the problem is it's everybody's fault. This has started years ago. When we start using these stupid shutdown leverage points to try to get our way because we can't give the other side any kind of a win -- if we -- I get that there's issues that are like the holy grail out here and fight for those. But there are also issues that are really easy to solve and immigration is one of them. But we're stuck here with we can't give the other side a win because it will help us in the next election. I think it's frustrating.</s>BERMAN: All right. I want to talk to you about Syria now which is an issue you care deeply about. And I learned for the first time yesterday you actually met with the president to talk about his decision to pull U.S. troops out of Syria. The Secretary of State -- I'm not sure you've had a chance to hear this. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is in Egypt. He just gave a speech. This is what he said just a few minutes ago about pulling troops out of Syria.</s>MIKE POMPEO, SECRETARY OF STATE: And it's possible to hold in your head the thought that we could withdraw our forces -- our uniformed forces -- from Syria and continue American's crushing campaign where we have taken down 99 percent of the caliphate in Syria and continue that. And we are intent upon that.</s>BERMAN: I honestly don't know where that leaves us now because initially, the president said we're pulling troops out of Syria now, then it became four months, then it became conditional on John Bolton's words. And now, Mike Pompeo is back to we can do it and still fight ISIS. What do you think it is?</s>KINZINGER: Well, I think the president needs to put clear guidance out. I think there's an idea hub (ph) where he recognizes that look, withdrawing from Syria is a good plan but we need to do it in the right conditions. We need to make sure Iran's defeated. We need to make sure our base in Tanf that is blocking the proverbial highway of resupply to the enemies of Israel, and continue to execute the fight against ISIS. I mean, ISIS will triple their numbers overnight if we leave and basically, declare victory without victory. So, I think it's going to be the president having to put more guidance out. But my hope is this is -- and he deserves compliments for this -- is reassessing the idea of an immediate withdrawal and saying that wouldn't be right. You know, we'll have to see. The proof is in the pudding. But I'll tell you, just leaving Syria all of the sudden will be the biggest boon to ISIS in a long time.</s>BERMAN: I think we're all waiting to hear from him directly on it --</s>KINZINGER: Yes.</s>BERMAN: -- because we've heard things that confuse the matter from John Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Last question, again, on something I just learned yesterday. In this "BuzzFeed" lawsuit over the Steele dossier --</s>KINZINGER: Yes.</s>BERMAN: -- which was part of the investigation or whatnot into Russian meddling, it's reported that you got a copy of this dossier in the fall -- late fall-early winter of 2016. You were on the first people to get it. Explain this and what you did with it.</s>KINZINGER: Yes. Thank you for asking me about it because this has been like on the Internet troll kind of thing. About a few hours before this was released on "BuzzFeed," I was handed a copy of the dossier. I looked at it and put it away. I never met Christopher Steele. There's implications that somehow I got it from Christopher Steele. I think there was an attempt to before this came out on "BuzzFeed" to disseminate this as widely as possible and I happened to be in the crossfire of that. So, I obviously didn't do anything with it. There's no conspiracy here. But the person who did it named me in a lawsuit because he remembered having given it to me in a deposition and that's how that came out. But any idea of a conspiracy of me being involved is ludicrous and silly.</s>BERMAN: And do you have any sense why it was you or one of the people who was given it?</s>KINZINGER: No, no idea. I just -- I think they were trying to push this thing out as widely as possible. And I happen to know the guy that was doing it from prior stuff in foreign policy and I think he just came by and goes here you go. Three hours later, it's out on "BuzzFeed."</s>BERMAN: So you never had a chance to give it to anybody else or --</s>KINZINGER: No, and I never would have. No, no -- absolutely not.</s>BERMAN: Adam Kinzinger, congressman from Illinois, thanks for joining us this morning and talking about a range of subjects. Appreciate it.</s>KINZINGER: Yes, you bet. Take care.</s>BERMAN: Alisyn --</s>ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: All right. CNN is at the southern and northern borders of the United States this morning. So do people living there think there is a crisis that requires a border wall -- or any crisis? We talk to them, next.