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Historic Week As House Prepares To Vote On Impeachment; New Poll Shows 50 Percent Say Trump Should Be Impeached And Removed. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired December 16, 2019 - 10:00   ET

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

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POPPY HARLOW, CNN NEWSROOM: All right. top of the hour. Good morning, everyone. I'm Poppy Harlow.

JIM SCIUTTO: And I'm Jim Sciutto.

This country is moving towards an impeachment both in the House and likely a Senate trial to impeach and remove a sitting president, as the Democratically controlled House is set on Wednesday to make Donald Trump just the third U.S. president to be impeached. Negotiators for what the Senate trial will look like are just beginning. Right now, there is a huge gap between what Democrats and Republicans want to see in that Senate trial.

In a letter to Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer says he wants to bring in witnesses that the White House has had on lockdown, such as acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, former National Security Adviser John Bolton, two who had direct knowledge of the president's involvement in this.

HARLOW: All right. That request becoming a reality, that's another story. Looking highly unlikely at this point, Mitch McConnell has not made it a secret that he wants a quick trial and several Republican senators, including McConnell, who are supposed to be impartial jurors in this whole process, have already signaled or outright said they have already made up their minds. And by the way, so have some Democrats in the Senate.

Joining us now is CNN Senior Congressional Correspondent Manu Raju. He joins us again this hour on Capitol Hill.

So this morning, talk to us about this 600-plus page report that came out in the middle of the night. What are Democrats on the Judiciary Committee in the House doing with that right now?

MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. A 658-page report detailing the Democrats' case for impeachment, it also includes views from the Republicans, dissenting views as well. But this is similar to what was done to the Nixon impeachment proceedings, also the Clinton impeachment proceedings. The Judiciary Committee issues report detailing everything that's found through the course of the investigation that occurred and why Democrats in this case believe that President Trump should be impeached.

This is one of the procedural steps that needs to take place before that historic vote on Wednesday. Another procedural step will occur tomorrow before the House rules committee. That committee will hear testimony both from the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Jerry Nadler, and the top Republican on that committee, Doug Collins, will testify. They will field sharp questions from members about the investigation. That's all to set the parameters for the floor debate that will occur on Wednesday. And that, of course, will be the historic vote where the majority of the House will vote to impeach the president, just the third time in history that that will be done.

And the Democratic leadership is confident that they have the votes to impeach the president. There are a handful of Democrats who have yet to say how they will come down, particularly those Democrats who came from districts that the president won in 2016. There are 31 of those districts. A number of those Democrats still haven't said but the expectation is by and large that they will ultimately come out in support of impeachment, including this morning Elissa Slotkin, a Michigan Democrat, a freshman who was resistant to moving forward on the impeachment inquiry, later got behind one in the aftermath of the Ukraine revelations. She announced this morning that she would get behind both articles of impeachment, another sign that allow these freshmen Democrats from swing districts will come down that way.

But, of course, we are also hearing about that other freshman Democrat, Jeff Van Drew, who's one of two who have previously said they would oppose moving forward. He is signaling he will switch parties in large, we are told, because of his own political issues and his concerns about not being able to win re-election as a Democrat, but expect those defections to be very small and this vote, historic vote on Wednesday, to come down mostly on party lines. Guys?

HARLOW: All right. Manu, thank you very much.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer making it clear that he wants additional witnesses this time around in the Senate impeachment trial. In a letter obtained by CNN, he called at least four witnesses at least to testimony.

SCIUTTO: These are the four witnesses, Mick Mulvaney, John Bolton, senior adviser to the acting White House chief of staff Robert Blair, and Office of Management and Budget official Michael Duffey. Why are all these people key? These are folks at the center of what Democrats allege was a presidential direction to delay the aid in return for a political favor. This witnesses, of course, blocked by the White House.

Let's bring in CNN National Correspondent Suzanne Malveaux live on Capitol Hill. What's what Chuck Schumer is asking for. Will he get it?

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, as you know, he's in the minority along with the Democrats, but this really is kind of setting the marker, if you will, the starting point of some negotiations. Not clear at all that he's going to get any of those witnesses, highly unlikely, but at least putting pen to paper and letting Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell know what the wish list is.

I also should let you know that he added an event, a press conference this afternoon at 2:00, so clearly trying to get his message out in a very public way, trying to undercut the Republicans' argument that, hey, we didn't get any primary witnesses, so trying to call those primary witnesses, at the same time expanding the scope, the scale of the trial and also accelerating the timetable, if you will.

[10:05:00]

So we're looking right after the holiday. This is what he's laying out here, January 6, pre-trial measures established and adopted, the following day, the swearing in of Chief Justice John Roberts and senators, and then two days later, House managers making their presentations, the president's counsel also making its presentation to the Senate. And then restrictions on those presentations, that this will move fairly quickly, 24 hours for the opening presentations and rebuttals and then 16 hours for questioning by the Republicans and the Democrats.

All of this, Jim and Poppy, what Schumer says, is laying out a process that he believes the American people can believe in. Take a listen.

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SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY): This letter is an attempt to create a fair deal, not simply I'm going to do what the White House wants or I'm going to do just what I want, which is what Mitch McConnell has been doing up until now.

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MALVEAUX: He furthermore has said that this has to be a process that the people believe that the government is on the level, that this is not going to turn into some kind of circus proceeding but that something that the American people can get behind. Jim, Poppy?

SCIUTTO: Suzanne Malveaux on the Hill, we know you'll be covering it.

Joining us to discuss, Elie Honig, former federal state and prosecutor.

All right, impeachment, Senate trial, it's a political process, right? But there is some law and there is some precedent for how these things play out. Based on what Schumer who's in the minority is asking for here, what's likely to happen? Because you also have a political issue for Mitch McConnell, do you not, because he might lose some Republican senators if he blocks everything.

ELIE HONIG, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Yes. So there're only two ways these disputes over witness and other evidence can play out. One is that there's an agreement reached between McConnell and Schumer and they go with that agreement. If not, it's going to be majority rule. There are a set of Senate impeachment trial rules in place but they're antiquated and they mostly deal with ceremonies and oaths and that kind of thing, and with the witness question is not addressed.

So, ultimately, it's going to come down to the will of the majority. Of course, it's 53-47 Republican right now. So I think Schumer understands he's at a disadvantaged position.

SCIUTTO: Which happened in the House, we should note. I mean, it was usual majority there too based on the proceedings.

HARLOW: You think -- this is an interesting point that you've made -- that Democrats in the House on the Judiciary Committee may have made a mistake by just charging abuse of power and not broadening that article out to include words that are in the Constitution when it talks about impeachment like bribery.

HONIG: Right, I do. So I understand why the Democrats charged essentially Article I as abuse of power. You are entitled to do that. You do not need to allege a crime under our Constitution and laws and precedent. That said, it's giving the Republicans this open shot, this counterattack to say, as the president called it, impeachment lite.

The Republicans are out there saying they haven't even charged a crime, but I think they could have. I think bribery fits. I think extortion fits. And they could have -- the Democrats could have charged those things, bribery and extortion, either a sort of a subpart of abuse of power or as a separate article of impeachment.

SCIUTTO: There's been a lot and some genuine concern about this impeachment process leading to impeachment becoming a more common thing in the future. But I do want to play Lindsey Graham because he's, of course, made the same argument back in 1998 when he was a member of the House and he was, in fact, one of the prosecutors of President Clinton. Listen to him then and then I'll get your reaction.

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SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-SC): If a Republican president would have done this, let me just say this, it would be a good test for us. If a Republican president had done these things, what a Republican delegation going telling him to get out of town, I hope so. I would like to think that they would have done that.

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SCIUTTO: Of course, they were talking about different bad activity by that president and this president. But at that question of can -- is the functioning of our government right now that lawmakers of one party will not pursue charges in effect, if you want to call them that, against a president of the same party?

HONIG: Look, there's an interesting double-edged sword here when it comes to precedent. One the one hand, there's the argument, well, now, is every party going to just impeach the president of the opposite party. It never happened in a serious way with George W. Bush or Barack Obama. On the other hand, there's a presidential concern of what if the House or Senate does nothing here. What message does that send about what future presidents can do?

HARLOW: You think Justin Amash, who Switched from the Republican Party six months or so ago, would be a good choice to be a House manager in this process. Pelosi, the reporting is she does not like that idea.

HONIG: Yes. Well, Speaker Pelosi is a better tactician than I am, but I'll say this. I think it would be a great reminder to the Republicans and to the public that there is a bipartisan element on this. Not much, but the one person who was a Republican who came over to the Democrats is Justin Amash. He's an attorney, he went to law school, so he's qualified. But him out there is a reminder that it's not all Democrats. There is somebody from the Republicans at least.

SCIUTTO: Absolutely. And he's been strong in his statements on the constitutional basis for this, has Amash.

Thanks very much, Elie Honig, as always.

HARLOW: All right. Let's talk about the politics of all of this. Former Republican Congressman Charlie Dent is here. Good morning.

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I wonder --

CHARLIE DENT, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Good morning, Poppy. Great to be with you.

HARLOW: You too.

I wonder, Congressman, if you think that Schumer is right when he says that he believes that some Republicans in the Senate may side with him on wanting to call fact witnesses like Mick Mulvaney and like John Bolton. Do you see a Lisa Murkowski, a Mitt Romney, a Susan Collins saying, we should at least hear them out?

DENT: Yes, I actually do think that there could be some limited fact witnesses. Whether they actually show up live in the Senate or through video depositions, I guess, remains to be seen. But I think they also recognize there's a risk. The risk is that these witnesses will be negotiated on both sides. So if you were to get Bolton and Mulvaney, what would the Republicans get?

So I think they might be a little hesitant to bring any witnesses at all based on what could ultimately be negotiated.

SCIUTTO: I want to play Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, his comments talking about how he's in close coordination with the White House here. Well, we don't have the sound but you know what he said. He said everything that he's doing is, in effect, in lockstep with the White House. Now, we should note factually that there was communication between Democrats and the Democratic White House during the Clinton impeachment but not -- the majority leader at the time, Tom Daschle, said he did not coordinate directly. And after all, they decided on the rules 100-1voteon the Senate, then was some bipartisan agreement.

What do you say to your Republicans colleagues? What do you specifically to Mitch McConnell about how he is handling this as a former Republican lawmaker yourself?

DENT: Well, first, again, if Senator McConnell is simply informing the White House of how the process is going to move forward. I don't have a problem with that. If there's active coordination, I think that would be potentially problematic. I have been urging senators for some time to keep their powder dry, that they certainly have feelings about this impeachment proceeding but they shouldn't really come to a final conclusion until they hear all the facts and the evidence and then cast their vote and then make their statement after they do it.

So I think most of them should really just try to keep their powder dry and say less. Less is more.

HARLOW: We learned this morning, Congressman, that a Democratic congresswoman, one of the freshmen Democrats in a risky district for her, Elsisa Slotkin, will vote for impeachment. She laid it out in an opinion piece in the Detroit Free Press this morning. And this is the part that struck us. Quote, to be clear, presidents from both parties have leveraged the powerful role of the United States to get foreign countries to do what's in our interest. It's quite standard, as senior U.S. official wield leverage to increase our own national security.

But here's the fundamental difference. President Trump used the power of the presidency for his own benefit to give himself some advantage in the very election that would determine whether he remained from office.

What will a statement like that mean for her and other vulnerable Democrats? Will it be enough for their constituents who do not support impeachment to re-elect those members of Congress?

DENT: Well, I think her statement is actually a fair one. Of course, foreign assistance is condition-based, but usually to support some American national interest, not a personal or political interest. So I think her statement is fine.

Now, the politics of this, I think, is still unclear. We know that -- we don't know how it's going to play in November. So I don't think that they're necessarily in a terrible position here with the exception perhaps of Jeff Van Drew, who's obviously changing parties because of local issues in New Jersey, but I think her statement is a good one. I think at the end of the day though, Senate Republicans in those swing states have as much to worry about, the politics on impeachment, as do those swing House Democrats.

So it's going to cut both ways, not to panic just yet, a lot of time (ph) between now and the election.

SCIUTTO: Senator Ben Cardin said the same thing in the first hour of this broadcast. He said, listen, it's a long time between now and November. We don't know for sure how this politics play out, and that's probably a wise advice from both of you. Charlie Dent, thanks very much.

DENT: Thank you.

SCIUTTO: Still to come this hour, history unfolding in Washington, but what do voters think about the process? Are they paying attention? Do they consider it history? We're going to have new poll numbers ahead.

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HARLOW: And former Republican Presidential Candidate Carly Fiorina sits down one-on-one with us. We talk 2020 and she minces no words when it comes to what she thinks should happen this week.

CARLY FIORINA (R), FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I think it is vital that he'd be impeached.

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HARLOW: All right. Welcome back.

So this morning, half of American voters say the president should be impeached and removed from office. This is according to a new poll from Fox taken after House Democrats unveiled those two impeachment articles against the president. That 50 percent number is higher than the president's job approval number, which right now is at 45 percent.

SCIUTTO: With us now, CNN Senior Political Writer and Analyst, Harry Enten, and CNN Senior Political Analyst Ron Brownstein.

A lot of numbers here, Harry, and a lot of conventional wisdom that the public hearings did not move the dial, right? And you look that -- you see that in that number.

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But I want to put up another number from the Fox News poll and that shows that on the key questions, which are the content of the articles of impeachment here, majority -- and that's a 15-point margin saying, yes, he abused his power, 14-point margin that he obstructed Congress, smaller on committed bribery there.

Is it possible that the Democrats convinced most people of the substance of the crimes but not that he should be removed, for them?

HARRY ENTEN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL WRITER AND ANALYST: Well, I mean, if you look at the overlying top number, 50 percent, and you see that in that poll right there, clear pluralities and all of those different possibilities that are underlying these impeachment -- potential impeachment charges against the president.

So it seems that the Democrats have been able to make their case that the president of the United States should, in fact, be impeached. And that, I think, is the real question going forward though is whether or not those public polls actually mean anything for the United States Senate. My guess is probably not. But I think the polling clearly indicates that the public is on the Democrats' side.

HARLOW: Ron, you have a fascinating new piece in The Atlantic. A lot of it struck us. But here's one part that stood out especially. You write, quote, it creates new anxieties for some swing district Democrats that Trump himself will be on the ballot in the next election, unlike any of the other three American presidents who faced impeachment. That prospect changes the dynamics from previous impeachments in one crucial way. It does and we have no history here to tell us how that plays out.

RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN ANALYST: Right. As Charlie Dent said, we really don't know how this will play out because of this new factor. We've never had a president who is impeached and then ran for re-election. But I would say that one thing we do know is that we focus a lot on the 31 Democrats in districts that Trump won in 2016.

In 1998, there were 91 Republicans, three times as many, in districts that Clinton won in 1996. Almost all of them voted for impeachment. And over the next two elections, only seven of them were defeated for re-election. And that was at a point when two-thirds of the country opposed impeachment and Clinton's approval rating was 20 points higher than Trump's is now.

And to me that says, yes, there is risk in some districts but the history does not suggest this will be a dominant dispositive issue in the congressional races and, in fact, the vote last week on the prescription drug reform is probably something that's going to be talked about more in the fall of 2020 in the congressional races.

Presidential might be different but in the Congressional races, hard to see this emerging as the dominant issue to me based on that history.

SCIUTTO: And healthcare, I feel like every conversation I have is with folks and their families in how they're trying to handle healthcare costs.

Okay, let's talk about 2020, Harry Enten. Fox News poll shows Joe Biden holding a 10 percent lead among 2020 contenders, 10 percent with the number up here above Bernie Sanders, 17 above Elizabeth Warren. One enduring story of this campaign so far on the Democratic side is Joe Biden as a leader.

ENTEN: 30 percent. I don't know which way the camera will see it. But 30 percent, that is the most -- you can set your clock to it. It's unbelievable. No matter what happens, 30 percent, Joe Biden, Democratic primary. And that makes him, at this point, the frontrunner. It continues to make him the frontrunner.

And more than that, despite we've had all the Hunter Biden stuff, we've had all this, all the impeachment stuff, Biden maintained that steady 30 percent in the primary. And in the general election, what do we see in those Fox News polls? Every single Fox News poll that's been taken this year, Joe Biden has held a seven-point lead or greater on the president of the United States, including this last one.

SCIUTTO: Nationally but not necessarily in the swing states.

ENTEN: In the swing states, it's significantly closer if you look at those The New York Times/Siena College polls. But even there, Biden holds a slight lead in those states like Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania.

HARLOW: It's not nothing, Ron, that Bloomberg is clocking in at 5 percent so soon. That's not nothing.

BROWNSTEIN: Yes. Well, no, but that's -- you have to calculate the return on investment, on spending.

HARLOW: $100 million for 5 percent.

BROWNSTEIN: Look, he has the same problem that a Pete Buttigieg has or, to some extent, Elizabeth Warren, which is that they're largely dependent on one group of voters, well-educated white voters. It's really hard for me to see how Bloomberg -- although he has had some support from mayors -- cuts into the African-American community, which is, of course, the bulwark for Biden.

I mean, to me, the -- I think Harry might with this, the critical question in the Democratic race is if Joe Biden underperforms in Iowa and New Hampshire, which is possible, does that or does that not undermine his support among African-Americans in South Carolina and down the road, because if it doesn't, he can still recover and claw out the nomination.

George McGoven in '72, Clinton in '92, the only ones to win after not winning either of those states. Biden can still recover if, in fact, African-American voters in South Carolina will take a second look because he doesn't perform well in those first states. Then he's obviously in much more trouble.

Right now, it doesn't appear that they're very focused on what's happening in those predominantly white states of Iowa and New Hampshire, but that, to me, is the pivotal issue.

SCIUTTO: A story in Axios made a lot of waves this morning, Harry Enten. A focus group in Saginaw, Michigan, of course, a key swing state, swing voters who went for President Obama and then flipped for Donald Trump remain in Trump's camp now. And they said, and this is crucial, that they're sick of impeachment, which is not the only place you're hearing that.

[10:25:03] Now, I'm always skeptical of focus groups because I feel like you can pick ten people off the street. And I'm sure they did their homework to try to get an indicative group as possible but still bigger polling numbers, you've seen data and you see a similar effect.

HARLOW: Your piece.

ENTEN: Yes, exactly. If you look at the impeach and remove question in those six battleground states that The New York Times/ Siena College poll, what you see there is that a major of voters in those key swing states are against impeaching and removing the president of the United States.

SCIUTTO: And does that translate to wanting to keep Trump and to voting for him again in 2020?

ENTEN: Yes. I do think that what we do see in those swing states is that there are more people who are against impeaching and removing Trump than more people who are for Trump overall. But, again, I think to Ron's point earlier, this is just not the number one issue in voter's minds and our own polling ranked at the bottom.

SCIUTTO: Way down, no question. Harry Enten and Ron -- I'm sorry, a quick thought before we go. Sorry.

BROWNSTEIN: A real thought, watch those non-college white women in the swing states. There's evidence from '18 and polling now that Trump has suffered some erosion among them. And in those key Midwestern states, they could be the decisive tipping point.

SCIUTTO: And we saw that in the midterms among those voters.

Harry Enten and Ron Brownstein, two wise men, thanks very much.

Two top U.S. military academies are investigating after what some students flashed what could be a white power hand sign during the Army-Navy football game. The question, did the students know what they were doing? We're going to be live from the Pentagon next. It's a real hard question here for the academies.

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