Return to Transcripts main page
CNN Newsroom
House Impeachment Managers Meeting On Capitol Hill; State Of Emergency And Extra Security Before Tomorrow's Scheduled Gun Rights Rally In Virginia; Royals Moving Forward After An Unprecedented Family Split. Aired 3-4p ET
Aired January 19, 2020 - 15:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[15:00:04]
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN HOST: Hello again, everyone. Thank you so much for joining me. I'm Fredricka Whitfield.
Right now, House Impeachment Managers are meeting on Capitol Hill. Their meeting comes as we're less than 48 hours away before the Senate impeachment trial of President Donald J. Trump. That trial is expected to get underway Tuesday afternoon, but arguments are already being played out in the court of public opinion.
Last night, House Managers who essentially act as prosecutors in the trial delivered their brief arguing why President Trump should be removed from office, calling President Trump's conduct, "the framers worst nightmare."
And now the ball is in the President's court. His legal team has until noon tomorrow to file their own brief. CNN's Sarah Westwood is on Capitol Hill where House Impeachment Managers are meeting behind closed doors.
Sarah, what are you -- what's your impression of what's happening behind closed doors?
SARAH WESTWOOD, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Yes, Fred, some of those seven House Managers have been huddling in the Speaker's office behind closed doors all morning. We've seen a handful of them leave. Congressman Adam Schiff, Val Demings, Sylvia Garcia, they've left not really eager to take our questions about how the session is going.
Congressman Schiff did acknowledge that trial preparations were taking place in that meeting. He told our colleague, Greg Clary, that those preparations were coming along fine.
We also saw counsel for the House Democrats coming in and out. Daniel Goldman, Norm Eisen and Bill Burke hauling big binders, so it suggests there's a lot for these House Democrats to get through in their meeting.
Now, we're just less than two days away from the start of the Senate trial, and these preparations are taking place against the backdrop of a bitter fight continuing into the start of the trial over whether the Senate will call witnesses. That's something Democrats today, were expressing concern about as well as other aspects of this case. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D-CA): If the Senate decides, if Senator McConnell prevails, and there are no witnesses, it will be the first impeachment trial in history that goes to conclusion without witnesses.
REP. JERROLD NADLER (D-NY): There is no question that working with a foreign -- working with a foreign power, trying to extort a foreign power to interfere in our election is about as bad as you can imagine.
The main fear the framers of the Constitution had, why they put the impeachment clause in the Constitution was they were afraid of foreign interference in our domestic affairs.
SEN. CORY BOOKER (D-NJ): We have a President that has openly been engaging with the Russians and others right now, in this case with Ukraine to try to undermine our elections. This is a real threat to this nation.
And so what are we going to do when a President openly, unabashedly in a way that's proven unprovable, in the way that his top levels of his administration has said was done? What are we going to do when our democracy is under threat? Tolerate this behavior or do something to stop it and hold that person accountable.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WESTWOOD: Now, there's a lot for these Democrats to get through in such a short amount of time. There are seven House Managers, so they need to figure out who is going to say what, what's the best way to present what they have described as the overwhelming evidence they've compiled against President Trump.
Last night, we saw the House Democrats file, what's essentially the paper version of their case against President Trump, what they'll be drawing from as they present on the Senate floor, and that's the trial brief that we saw the Democrats deliver last night.
We didn't learn a lot more new from that document. Obviously, a lot of it is what is included in the House Intelligence Committee report, the House Judiciary Committee report laying out the evidence against Donald Trump, before the House took that vote on the Articles of Impeachment.
But one interesting note from that trial brief is that these House Democrats intend to draw from evidence that has come in since after that vote on the Articles of Impeachment. That's the documents, the text message is provided by Lev Parnas, an associate of the President's personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani. Now that's another battle that will take place heading into the trial.
But Democrats making clear, they want to add that new evidence to the body of evidence they've already compiled, one of the many things that the members are working through during these meetings today -- Fred.
WHITFIELD: All right. All right, Sarah Westwood. Thank you so much.
All right, meanwhile, President Trump's team is busy getting their legal brief ready before tomorrow's deadline, and they're hitting the airwaves to make the case before trial begins on Tuesday.
CNN's Boris Sanchez is with the President in South Florida. So Boris, how are the President's attorneys making their cases?
BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Fred, first, I should just tell you that President Trump is actually about to depart West Palm Beach, Florida. He has an event in Austin, Texas, before heading back to D.C. later tonight.
As far as his attorneys go, we've heard from them, they believe this impeachment is constitutionally invalid. They're making the argument that this impeachment is an attack on Americans, and they're going to try to make a three-pronged effort to try to defend the President.
[15:05:03]
SANCHEZ: First, they're going to argue on the process. They're suggesting that House Democrats have not afforded the President due process, then they're going to try to argue the substance as well, suggesting, as we've heard many times that President Trump's phone call with President Zelensky of Ukraine was perfect, and that there was no quid pro quo.
Lastly, they're going to argue the actual content of the Articles of Impeachment. They're going to suggest that the accusations against President Trump don't rise to high crimes, and therefore they're not impeachable acts.
We heard some of that from Alan Dershowitz, the newly minted attorney on the President's legal team today, as well as some of his G.O.P. allies in the Senate. Listen to what they said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ALAN DERSHOWITZ, ATTORNEY ON TRUMP IMPEACHMENT DEFENSE TEAM: They came up with abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: And there is debate on that I should say.
DERSHOWITZ: Yes, and the reason they came up with those is they could not honestly get a majority to charge bribery, treason or other high crimes and misdemeanors, so they went back to obstruction and to abuse and those do not fit the constitutional criteria.
SEN JOHN CORNYN, (R-TX): Unfortunately, this seems to be more of a political or policy differences than actually a high crime and misdemeanor as the Constitution requires.
This is the first time in history where a President has been impeached for a non-crime, for events that never occurred.
SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-SC): Abuse of power so poorly defined here. I don't know how Presidents in the future can conform their conduct. It's the first impeachment in history, where there is no allegation of a crime by the President.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SANCHEZ: And Fred, we are learning an interesting detail about Alan Dershowitz and his involvement in the President's legal team. You'll remember, he expressed some hesitation about joining, gave some ambiguous comments about his exact role on the legal team.
It turns out that his wife, Carolyn Cohen, had objections to him joining the President's legal team and that President Trump actually had to get on the phone with her and make a personal appeal to try to persuade him that Alan should join the team, ultimately she relented.
Alan says that his wife is ambivalent about it, but that she supports him -- Fred.
WHITFIELD: Boris Sanchez, thank you so much. All right, let's talk more about all of this. With me now, Congressional Reporter for "The Washington Post" and CNN Political Analyst, Karoun Demirjian, and investigative reporter for "The New York Times" and CNN National Security Analyst, Matthew Rosenberg. Good to see you both.
All right, so Matthew, you first. You know, we've seen a lot of Alan Dershowitz on television, you know, lately, in the last few days, and today, he said something rather interesting about his role on the President's defense team. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DERSHOWITZ: I'm not involved in the day-to-day issues such as --
KEILAR: But you haven't argued on the floor of the Senate dozens of times or a dozen times?
DERSHOWITZ: No, I actually was on the Florida Senate once on behalf of Senator Alan Cranston.
KEILAR: Once.
DERSHOWITZ: Many years ago.
KEILAR: Okay. But in this case, I --
DERSHOWITZ: But very people have argued.
KEILAR: I just -- I want to make this clear, because I'm not seeing this clearly, Alan, who hired you?
DERSHOWITZ: I was asked by the President's defense team to become of counsel on the specific issue of the criteria, the constitutional criteria for impeachment. That's a very important issue.
I will be making that argument as an advocate, not as an expert witness, I will be advocating against impeachment of this President based on the constitutional criteria.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WHITFIELD: So Matthew, that's really interesting distinctions he was making. Why do you feel he needs to do that? How is that advantageous for, I guess, the legal team as a whole, or at least for Dershowitz, or Trump?
MATTHEW ROSENBERG, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Well, we just heard that his wife was clearly ambivalent or reportedly ambivalent. You know, I can understand why someone who doesn't really have a lot of control over his client might not want to be, you know, entangled deeply in them.
We also know, we've seen in the filings that President Trump -- President Trump's team, one of the key parts or key pillars of their defense, is that this whole endeavor is constitutionally invalid, that you know, there's no real crime here. So how can you be impeached?
And of course, getting somebody who is a constitutional scholar to come in and argue that, you know, that's going to help your defense and that's clearly what they want him for. So, you know, it makes some sense there.
WHITFIELD: Okay, so Karoun, you know, the dueling narratives, you know, the House Managers filing their brief, 111 pages last night saying President Trump put pressure on Ukraine to interfere in a U.S. election for his personal gain, and then tried to cover up.
Republicans saying there was no crime committed at all, this in their response to that filing, and the Republicans or at least a legal team is saying that Democrats are attacking Americans right to freely choose their President.
So these are huge contrasts. But, you know, it seems as though it's going to be a duel that either is about, you know, commitment to party lines, or, you know, are we going to see play out the differences over what is considered fair, you know, impartial trial?
KAROUN DEMIRJIAN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, I think you're going to hear the same partisan fight that has been playing out for the most part, go forward through the trial in much loftier language because we're talking about the constitutionality of the charges and the question of impeachment and everything else in the moment right now that we've been leading up to this far.
[15:10:14]
DEMIRJIAN: Most of the parties are in different camps on this. House Democrats are clearly saying they believe what the President did vis- a-vis Ukraine was impeachable. The President's team is saying no, and most of the G.O.P. is behind him.
It appears that there are not going to be enough Republicans in the Senate that will be swingable to actually convict the President, given that you would need 20 of them to crossover. But the open question is, will there be enough Republicans to join the
Democrats to get them to 51 votes to actually hear from additional witnesses and to see additional documents and anything else that may be a point of contention along the way as part of the process. I think that's where the big question is, because this is playing -- the trial is going to play out because in the way that it has to do for the formal process of the trial, but also the television cameras are going to be on this whole time.
And thus, there is going to be a second jury in a way, that's not just the senators that have to sit there silently and render a verdict at the end, but also what the public thinks in the same year as the President is going to be up for reelection, and that's where if four Republicans decide to join Democrats on the question of will there be additional witnesses there, this could look like a very different trial.
Odds are that if we open the subject of witnesses, Democrats want to hear from the John Bolton's and the Nick Mulvaney's of this world. But the Republicans may well insist on having their witnesses, too, if there are any that come forward, in which case you could start to hear from people with the last name Biden.
And that's all a to-be-determined question that's going to be the fairly pivotal area for where you may see some crossing of the party line.
WHITFIELD: Well, Matthew, you have to wonder, you know, the majority of Americans seem to, you know, of those polled seem to want to hear from witnesses, you know, how much pressure, how compelling will that be for the Senate Majority Leader?
ROSENBERG: You know, it's always hard to say, there are a lot of Republicans who are just not going to go for that, and as Karoun pointed out, you know, those few though who may swing, people who are up for reelection and others will kind of prove crucial here.
But I do think, you know, you're looking at in all of this, I think the same political issues that have been playing out the last three years. You know, you see the themes kind of coming up and again in these filings and in the arguments already being made, you know, from the President and his defenders, it's saying to their base, these people want to overturn the election, they don't accept the legitimacy of this election.
And from the left, its foreign interference -- it those themes and that this is somehow not -- that, you know, the President may or may not be legitimate now, but that if we allow another election to happen, it's going to be illegitimate because he is already inviting foreign interference. You know, it's going to be hard.
WHITFIELD: Yes. All right, so Karoun, Democrats are making the case that the President, you know, broke his oath of office, poses a threat to national security. And, and he has asked, you know, foreign nations like China, Ukraine, you know, to investigate.
An Alabama Senator, Richard Shelby was asked how he defends that today, and this is what he had to say.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. RICHARD SHELBY (D-AL): Those are just statements that are political, they make them all the time.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS, ABC HOST: So it's okay.
SHELBY: I didn't say it was okay. I said, people make them -- people do things, things happen.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Well, this is the President of the United States.
SHELBY: Well, and still the President of the United States is human, and he is going to make mistakes of judgment and everything else. They have historically, both parties, both from the beginning of our Republic.
STEPHANOPOULOS: So you say it was a mistake, but not necessarily impeachable.
SHELBY: Well, I'd say, I don't believe like Professor Dershowitz at this point, that it rises to the standard of an impeachable offense, but I still think we should wait and see what comes out in the trial itself.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WHITFIELD: So Karoun, I mean, is that just kind of a microcosm of an argument that, you know, the President just kind of made a mistake when he was on that, you know, South Lawn that time where he said -- invited, you know, Ukraine and even China, you know, to look into, you know, his political rival and Senator Shelby is saying, you know, that's a mistake and they do it all the time.
I guess he was talking about Presidents in general. He says they do it all the time. Is that going to be kind of an example of what the argument will be for those who are defending the President on you know, whether that's a threat to national security?
DEMIRJIAN: I think that may be the rationale for a lot of the senators in the Republican Party who are listening to all of this and trying to rationalize it and saying, look, you know, okay, some of these things could have been done in a perfectly honest, if slightly bungling way. That may not have been the best judgment, but there's nothing insidious here.
But remember, you have to juxtapose that with the fact that the President has been saying over and over again, everything I did was perfect. I did a perfect phone call. There were no mistakes here. Nothing to see here at all, and don't criticize anything that happened.
You kind of have to find the sweet spot in the middle there and that what the President and his legal team want to say and whatever the President's legal team does has to at least get the tacit okay of the President to go forward with what's actually going to be, you know, sit well, with the Senate G.O.P.
[15:15:12]
DEMIRJIAN: I don't think again, many of them are going to break from him on the big questions of the ultimate guilty or not. But you need to give an argument that everybody can sit well with if you want to keep them with you for the duration of the trial and all the procedural votes that come in the interim.
And so I think that it's interesting that you're going to hear potentially slightly differing rationalizations from different parts of the Republican Party.
WHITFIELD: Depending on reelection is for them.
DEMIRJIAN: Depending on that and also just depending on how they view this. I mean, you know, there are various factions of the G.O.P., there's the people that are up for reelection. There are the people that appeal to the same part of the GOP as Trump's base and get their power from there, and there's also the lifers that have been around for a very long time.
They may have differing explanations for what is actually for, you know, what they consider the President's intent have been and if that was innocuous, then okay, this is not impeachable and it may ultimately end up at the same place.
But the explanations you may hear in the duration from the Republicans in the Senate may not actually match up with what the explanations are from Trump legal team, and that's where you'll start to see some of the room for potential wiggling when it comes to these votes in the middle about how this trial should go forward.
WHITFIELD: All right, we'll leave it there for now. Karoun Demirjian, Matthew Rosenberg, thanks to both of you. Appreciate it.
ROSENBERG: Thank you.
DEMIRJIAN: Thank you.
WHITFIELD: All right, coming up, a state of emergency and extra security before tomorrow's scheduled gun rights rally in Virginia. Investigators on a mission to prevent a repeat of the violence from years ago in Charlottesville.
Then later, a new kind of robot that could be a game changer. Could something less than a millimeter-wide treat serious health problems?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[15:20:56]
WHITFIELD: All right, the F.B.I. is working with law enforcement in Richmond, Virginia ahead of a scheduled gun rights rally predicted to draw thousands tomorrow. The state of emergency is in effect and a temporary weapons ban is in place on State Capitol grounds amid increased threats of violence.
Officials are expecting extremist groups to show up in droves to protest new gun control measures. Seven alleged white supremacist were already arrested around the country. Police say three of them planned to incite violence at the Martin Luther King Jr. Day rally.
CNN's Nick Valencia joins me now with more on the effort to avoid a repeat of the deadly violence in Charlottesville in 2017. What are you learning?
NICK VALENCIA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, we're certainly seeing a lot more foot traffic here of individuals coming to see the event space where tomorrow's rally is expected to be held, Fredricka.
And earlier, I was talking to some officers patrolling the area and they said that it appeared that some individuals were in fact doing counter surveillance on them. That's their characterization, not ours.
However, I did speak with a source at the Virginia State Police who said, over the course of the last 48 hours, they've seen an increase in threats on law enforcement, particularly on the social media pages of the Virginia State Police, as well as the Richmond Police Department.
It goes without saying, there's a lot of people concern that something bad could happen here tomorrow, and Tim Anderson is one of them. He's a Second Amendment attorney who had planned on showing up here tomorrow in what is officially known as Lobby Day, but he says it's not going to be Lobby Day, it's going to be more of a protest, and he wants nothing to do with it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TIM ANDERSON, SECOND AMENDMENT ATTORNEY: What worries me most about tomorrow is there's going to be a bad actor, right? Not a Virginia gun owner, not somebody who is lawfully owning and possessing a firearm. There's going to be a bad actor, and there's going to be something that happens in here.
I just hope that people just truly understand that that Virginia gun owners are peaceful people. We've peacefully demonstrated. This is not -- this just didn't start today. This started back in November.
We've peacefully demonstrated throughout the Commonwealth, and if anything bad comes out of tomorrow, I hope that the world understands that it is not Virginia gun owners that are causing this. It is -- it is the same kind of terrorist organizations that have caused unrest in other places.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VALENCIA: Anderson said almost from the moment that the Democrats took control of the State Legislature, they started to pre-file bills that made a lot of law-abiding gun owners in this state uncomfortable, so much so that he says that 90 percent of the cities and counties in this state have declared themselves sanctuary places that non-binding, legally non-binding declarations that are intended to send a message that constitutionally, that they have a problem with what Democrats are doing in the State Legislature.
Of course, the concern here tomorrow, all eyes really from the nation are on tomorrow here in Richmond. They're worried as you mentioned, Fredricka, they want to avoid a repeat of what happened in Charlottesville. They don't want anything like that to happen here -- Fredricka.
With All right, Nick Valencia. Thank you so much. All right. The Royals moving forward after an unprecedented family split. The key questions about Harry and Meghan's finances and independence as the family tries to repair the relationships and reputation.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[15:28:30]
WHITFIELD: All right, the Queen has made it official, Prince Harry and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex are no longer working members of the Royal Family.
Buckingham Palace says the couple will no longer use the titles His and Her Royal Highness. They are also stepping back from Royal duties and will no longer officially represent the Queen.
They are also expected to pay back British taxpayer money recently spent to renovate their official residence to the tune of $3 million, roughly, but they still get to keep the titles Duke and Duchess of Sussex.
I want to talk more about this with Diane Clehane. She is the Royals Editor for "Best Life" and wrote the book "Diana: Secrets of Her Style."
Good to see you. So this agreement will be reviewed in about a year, which does seem pretty generous for, you know, the Queen. Why does the Queen look at this as maybe a temporary arrangement?
DIANE CLEHANE, ROYALS EDITOR, BEST LIFE: Well, I think it's really more all the Palace officials that are concerned about something that's never been done before.
Harry and Meghan are effectively going off to North America. I think Canada. It is going to be a very short brief day, on to Los Angeles, and they're looking to monetize basically their Royal brand. So they're going to be looking at it carefully. But I don't think anyone knows how it's going to work out until they actually start doing it.
WHITFIELD: So the couple, they're going to be financially independent. That's their, you know, plan. Do we know how they will make their money? You know, is it branding on articles? Furniture? Clothing? Is it speaking engagements?
[15:30:05] CLEHANE: Well, I don't think we're going to see Essence of Sussex
anytime soon. I think they're going for really the big guns. They could do something ala the Obamas, which would be a book deal, a development deal with Netflix or Amazon, sort of to tie in with Meghan's interest in Hollywood, and I think getting back to her acting career.
So I also think they have a big future in speaking engagements. I don't think that we're talking about branding, per se, the way we think about it in terms of merchandising that would definitely not pass muster with the Queen.
WHITFIELD: To be financially independent, I mean, that that is been a big goal of theirs, and apparently there will be a transition period. What's your understanding about what this transition might mean?
CLEHANE: Well, it's -- there's no downside for Harry and Meghan, in terms of financially. Prince Charles will still be supporting them out of his private funds. They're giving up the sovereign grant money which is really only a very small amount of what they receive. Maybe five percent.
Ninety five percent of their money came from Prince Charles and I really do believe it will continue to be so until they decide that they're -- and I when I say they, I mean the officials decide that they're making enough money that Charles could possibly pull back, but they always have that cushion to fall back on.
So I think they're poised to become the biggest lifestyle brand in the world.
WHITFIELD: And then do you think other members of the Royal Family are, you know, relieved about this or are they frowning on it?
CLEHANE: Well, I think the statement paints a much rosier picture than what actually happened. I think that William and Harry's relationship is in tatters. I think now, Harry has a very strange relationship with Prince Charles, who was really one of Meghan's biggest champions. He is reportedly really hurt about the way in which this all came about.
The Queen is doing her best to hold the family together. But I think they are really just we're still reeling from what happened and there were a lot of hurt feelings, and it's not -- they're not going to go away anytime soon.
WHITFIELD: Yes. And what about between the brothers?
CLEHANE: I think that's the saddest thing of all for a lot of us that have been covering the family for so long. I mean, no one can forget that image of the two boys walking behind Diana's coffin.
And now, I mean, this started back when Harry first dated Meghan, and it's just gotten worse and worse. And it's funny a lot of people ask me, oh, Diana would be so happy that Harry is going off and doing his own thing. And that's probably true, but she would be devastated that her sons are on such bad terms.
WHITFIELD: Yes. Wow. Okay, so the Queen. You know, the Queen, seemingly, you know, is coming across a lot more modern than people may have thought and here she is today, attending church and with Prince Andrew.
CLEHANE: Prince Andrew, right?
WHITFIELD: Yes. Why is this particularly so significant?
CLEHANE: Well, I think probably the only person that's happy about what happened over the last 10 days is Prince Andrew because it took the heat off of him considerably. No one was even thinking about him and that disastrous BBC interview.
But again, the Queen is all about --
WHITFIELD: And that interview was about, you know, Jeffrey Epstein and who he ...
CLEHANE: Yes.
WHITFIELD: ... had dated or had seen or met and all of that.
CLEHANE: He had a long term friendship with Epstein, and when he was asked by the BBC, did he regret his relationship with him? He said, no. I mean, he had the opportunity to sort of spin it in a way where at least he was apologetic.
So he got sort of banished from rural life fairly quickly, and now he is back. I mean, he is obviously still with the family. But the Queen doing this type of very visible support right now is significant.
She wants people to know that she is determined to keep that family together.
WHITFIELD: Wow. Everything very intentional. Nothing by chance or mistake as it pertains to the Queen, right?
CLEHANE: Right. Nothing by accident.
WHITFIELD: No. All right, Diane Clehane, thank you so much.
CLEHANE: Thank you.
WHITFIELD: All right, history on the Hill. Arguments in President Trump's impeachment trial get underway this week and his defense team is set, but what's the strategy? Will it work? A former Attorney for the White House weighs in, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[15:38:08]
WHITFIELD: All right, with just two days until arguments begin in the historic impeachment trial of President Trump, he has lined up a high profile team of TV savvy attorneys to defend him and make the case against impeachment.
On the Democratic side, the House Managers who will serve as trial prosecutors are pushing for witness testimony and new evidence.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SCHIFF: The threshold issue here, George, is will there be a fair trial? Will the senators allow the House to call witnesses to introduce documents? That is the foundational issue on which everything else rests and one thing that the public is overwhelmingly in support of, and that is a fair trial.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WHITFIELD: Jim Schultz is a former White House attorney for President Trump and a CNN legal commentator.
Jim, good to see you.
JAMES SCHULTZ, CNN LEGAL COMMENTATOR: Hi, good to see you.
WHITFIELD: All right, so the House Managers for the Democrats want witnesses to testify and be allowed to submit new evidence and are arguing it cannot be fair unless you have that. How do you argue otherwise?
SCHULTZ: Well, I think you've heard Ted Cruz the other day saying, look, if we're going to have witnesses, then we're going to have all the witnesses. We're going to have Hunter Biden, we're going to have perhaps former Vice President Biden, you know perhaps the whistleblower.
WHITFIELD: But then you've heard the counter argument to that, which is about witnesses that are relevant -- relevant to the accusations that the President was inviting a foreign country to interfere in the U.S. election.
SCHULTZ: Well, even Adam Schiff, right? How did this investigation begin? How credible is this investigation? You know, all of those things factor into relevancy because it goes to the credibility of the investigation that had started.
So yes, they become relevant as it relates to credibility of the investigation. So I think there is going to be some type of trade off if they're going to go down the route of witnesses.
That being said, I think the Republicans have --
WHITFIELD: Do you see that kind of compromise happening? Is that realistic?
[15:40:00]
SCHULTZ: No, I don't. No, I don't think it's going to happen. I think the Republicans on the other side of this are saying, look, I think that the Republicans have very strong arguments, just poking holes in what Schiff and the folks in the Democratic caucus did throughout this investigation process in the House.
I think they're very vulnerable because they didn't complete the investigation. It was incomplete. It was not thorough. They didn't follow through with where -- when they could have in terms of witnesses and going to court and gathering information and then you see --
WHITFIELD: Well, what do you mean by that? Because that is one of the Articles of Impeachment which is obstruction of Congress.
SCHULTZ: And then you see at the last minute.
WHITFIELD: Meaning the accusation is at the White House barred people who are being subpoenaed to actually show up or documents that were subpoenaed from being handed over. So hence the Article of obstruction of Congress.
SCHULTZ: Yes, that's a made up crime, quite frankly. It's something that made up -- made up in the context of this.
WHITFIELD: Well, how is that a made up crime? I mean that is what happened though, right? The White House did stop --
SCHULTZ: No, that's one that doesn't appear in any crimes code. No --
WHITFIELD: They did stop testimony from people who were subpoenaed.
SCHULTZ: No, let me finish. No, the White House took a position and took -- and have a strong legal argument that these folks didn't have to appear to testify. That's why we have a third branch of government in terms of the court system and that the Democrats didn't avail themselves of that.
So to say that, you know, when the Democrats are unwilling to go to court and fight for what they're asking for, and then come on back and say that there is obstruction there, that's just counterintuitive, it doesn't make any sense.
WHITFIELD: All right, except you heard their argument is, if they were to go through the court system, then of course, they wouldn't be able to protect the U.S. election, which is in November, which is at the core of the accusation of inviting a foreign country to interfere with the U.S. election in 2020.
SCHULTZ: Look, our constitutional processes are constitutional processes. And one, that's a bogus argument. Two, the fact that we are talking about --
WHITFIELD: Which part is the bogus part?
SCHULTZ: The argument that they're protecting the election. They're not protecting the election, they're trying to undo an election that already occurred in 2016. But you know, they've been talking about impeachment since day one, so they don't have a lot of credibility on this topic whatsoever. And then they say, well, we have to hurry up. And then they had to
slow down again and then they hurried up again. It's just -- the whole thing didn't make sense. Oh, and then they leaked Lev Parnas just at the time they're letting the information -- they're going to send the Articles over to the Senate.
WHITFIELD: Well, he did the interview. I mean, he's done an interview and so thereby that's where information came from, from Lev Parnas.
SCHULTZ: Right, no, I understand but the information starts coming. Let's not act like they didn't know that that wasn't contrived from the beginning.
WHITFIELD: So let me ask you about this high profile -- let me ask you about these high profile lawyers, you know, the President has hired to defend him at the Senate trial.
You know, from a public opinion standpoint, Alan Dershowitz and Ken Starr have both defended some controversial figures that could affect how some Americans and senators in the jury view this trial perhaps.
Dershowitz, you know, helping to secure a plea deal for Jeffrey Epstein, for example. And today, he also spent a lot of time distancing himself as a full time member of the President's defense team. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DERSHOWITZ: I'm not involved in the day-to-day issues such as whether --
KEILAR: But you haven't argued on the floor of the Senate dozens of times or a dozen times?
DERSHOWITZ: No, I actually was on the Florida Senate once on behalf of Senator Alan Cranston.
KEILAR: Once.
DERSHOWITZ: Many years ago.
KEILAR: Okay, in this case, I --
DERSHOWITZ: But you know, very people have argued -- go ahead, yes.
KEILAR: I just -- I want to make this clear because I'm not seeing this clearly, Alan, who hired you?
DERSHOWITZ: I was asked by the President's defense team to become of counsel on the specific issue of the criteria, the constitutional criteria for impeachment. That's a very important issue.
I will be making that argument as an advocate, not as an expert witness. I will be advocating against impeachment of this President based on the constitutional criteria.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WHITFIELD: So Jim, is it at all odd that Dershowitz, his participation would have a narrow scope?
SCHULTZ: No, I don't think it's odd at all. Look, it's a large defense team and everybody brings something different to the table. In this case, Professor Dershowitz being a constitutional scholar, and quite frankly, a constitutional expert on those legal issues, brings a lot to the table and he has a very valid argument.
When he talks about, you know, the obstruction of Congress, for instance, the argument there is that the Founding Fathers didn't intend for impeachment to impede the Executive Branch from going about its business and the President of the United States from going about his business, you know, or being led around by Congress or have to be dictated to by Congress. That's just not --
We have three co-equal branches of government. He has a very strong argument there. So I see no problem with Alan Dershowitz being part of this legal team. I have no problem with the argument that he has a very narrow focus on it. He is part of the legal team. He said he wasn't a witness.
If he were a witness, he would have to be approved by the Senate. He is in fact a member of this defense team. And his -- the scope of his representation is on the constitutional issues.
WHITFIELD: All right. We'll leave it there, Jim Schultz, thanks so much.
SCHULTZ: Thank you.
WHITFIELD: All right, meantime we are right now following some breaking news in Hawaii. Smoke shooting into the sky, a police officer reportedly dead. The latest on a possible active shooter situation.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[15:49:26]
ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.
WHITFIELD: All right, this breaking news out of Hawaii where the F.B.I. is responding to a possible active shooter near Waikiki on the island of Oahu.
According to our affiliate there, two officers have been killed. Let's listen to reporters on the scene from KHNL and KGMB.
ASHLEY NAGAOKA, REPORTER, HAWAII NEWS NOW: Aloha, everyone. Ashley Nagaoka and Keahi Tucker here. We are in Kapiolani Park along Paki Avenue where at least two police officers have been shot at a home on Diamond Head -- in Diamond Head on Hibiscus Road.
Sources say one of those officers has died and the other is in critical condition. [15:50:06]
KEAHI TUCKER, ANCHOR, HAWAII NEWS NOW: Clearly a huge tragedy on this Sunday morning and the entire community has been shut down essentially.
You can see the neighborhood behind us. The flames, the smoke billowing. There are active fires underway and it appears the house where the fire started was fully engulfed and then the flames actually spread to the neighbors.
Now, all of this information is preliminary. This is coming from witnesses at the scene and officers who are still trying to get a handle on the situation.
The one thing we are unable to report right now is that we're in an all clear. We have not heard anything about the suspect, who apparently shot these officers and lit this house on fire.
WHITFIELD: So again, now according to our affiliates, two officers now have died as a result of what is happening there. We will continue to monitor the situation and bring you the latest as we learn it. Thanks to our affiliates KHNL and KGMB for that report. We're back in a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[15:55:45]
WHITFIELD: All right, this next story might make your skin crawl or maybe it excites you. This is like something out of a sci-fi movie.
Scientists have just created the world's first living self-healing robots using stem cells from frogs. They're called xenobots, but they're not robots in the traditional sense.
Instead, they're more like a tiny blob of moving pink flesh, and soon they could be used to carry Medicine inside the human body.
Joining me right now is Joshua Bongard. He is one of the lead researchers working on this technology at the University of Vermont. This is out of this world, Joshua. Congrats on what you're doing. But I've got a lot of questions. Tell us exactly, you know, these xenobots. What are they? How do they work? And what do you hope they'll do?
JOSHUA BONGARD, ROBOTICS EXPERT, UNIVERSITY OF VERMONT: Sure. Fredricka. I'm happy to do so. Thanks for having me on the show. So these xenobots start their life by being created in a supercomputer. So unlike some other robots that are out there that are being created out of DNA and other living tissues, our xenobots are designed by a supercomputer.
We tell the computer what we would like the xenobot to do, and the supercomputer then goes to work for a week designing these devices and at the end of that week, it gives us back the best design that it came up with.
And our colleagues at Tufts University then build these small xenobots cell by cell, we put them in a petri dish, and lo and behold, these xenobot moves along the bottom of the petri dish in the way that the computer predicted.
WHITFIELD: Wow. And so these cells derived from frogs.
BONGARD: That's right. The nickname for these little guys is xenobots from Xenopus laevis which is an African clawed frog. So basically, they're bundles of frog skin cells and frog muscle cells.
So the muscle cells are like little pistons, and allow these little creatures to move.
WHITFIELD: Oh, my gosh, so then you mentioned this, you know that eventually, or at least your hope is that humans would be able to use these xenobots in some way. Is it to ingest medicine, you know, orally? Is it to implant into the body somehow? How does it work?
BONGARD: Yes, so at the moment in this first study, we just wanted to demonstrate that this new technology is possible and we're hoping to then work with our medical colleagues to figure out medical applications.
And as you mentioned, one likely scenario might be eventually that instead of building these biobots out of frog cells, we would make them out of human cells and actually out of the cells of the human patient themselves.
They might eventually swallow these xenobots in pill form, and the xenobots in that case might be able to find a cancerous tumor and deliver drugs or scrape plaque from the inside of an artery. And by being made out of the cells of the human patient themselves, we can sort of bypass all the immune response challenges brought about by other kinds of delivery technologies.
WHITFIELD: Wow, multifunctional. So how does artificial intelligence play a role here? Is that where the computer comes in, or?
BONGARD: That's right. So it turns out that for human, it's extremely difficult to design one of these xenobots to figure out how to put together the various kinds of frog cells to make a xenobot that does what we want it to do.
So the AI has to spend a lot of time performing a trial and error process where it's looking for a design that will give us the function that we want. That's how the AI comes into this.
WHITFIELD: Wow, fascinating stuff. How excited about this are you?
BONGARD: We couldn't be more excited. We were pretty surprised that this was possible. It's been a great collaboration with Tufts. We're looking to team up with other groups and see how far we can push this technology. WHITFIELD: All right, well, you know, I can't help myself, I think of
that image from the matrix, you know, and the thing that goes in this -- in the belly button, not an insult, but you know, it's a huge departure from that, right?
BONGARD: We hope so.
WHITFIELD: Just checking.
BONGARD: Obviously, there's a lot of public concern about this technology, and we're definitely working with our regulatory colleagues to make sure that this technology is used well.
WHITFIELD: Amazing. Brilliant minds for you to put all of this together. Congratulations to you, Joshua Bongard.
BONGARD: Thank you.
WHITFIELD: Thanks so much. We've got so much more straight ahead in the NEWSROOM and it all starts right now.
[16:00:07]
