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Don Lemon Tonight

Democrats Are Outraged Over Senator McConnell's Procedures; Lawmakers To Work Overtime; Americans Want To See Witnesses; The Trump Fact Check; The Impeachment Trial Of President Trump; Remembering Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Aired 11p-12a ET

Aired January 20, 2020 - 23:00   ET

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

[23:00:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

DON LEMON, CNN HOST: This is CNN TONIGHT. I'm Don Lemon.

It is the eve of a historic day on Capitol Hill and for the United States as a matter of fact, the impeachment trial of President Trump getting underway in earnest in the Senate.

And we begin with the breaking news. The release of the Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's resolution for how he wants the trial to proceed, including giving each side 24 hours over just two days to present their opening arguments.

President Trump's defense team filing a lengthy rebuttal to the impeachment charges, calling the attempt to remove him from office a charade and a rigged process, also arguing the president was well within his rights to attempt to get a foreign leader to investigate Trump's political rivals.

Tonight, we have a Trump fact check. CNN has tallied 65 ways the president has been dishonest about Ukraine and impeachment.

And also, ahead this hour, remembering Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and reflecting on the powerful words he used to fight racial injustice in the United States.

But first, our breaking news on McConnell's impeachment trial resolution which Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer is slamming as a national disgrace.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY), SENATE MINORITY LEADER: After reading McConnell's resolution it's clear McConnell is hell bent on making it much more difficult to get witnesses and documents, and intent on rushing the trial through. On something as important and serious as impeachment, Senator McConnell's resolution is a national disgrace.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: I wanted to bring in now senior national correspondent Athena Jones, national security and legal analyst Susan Hennessey, the co- author of the new book "Unmaking the Presidency: Donald Trump's War on the World's Most Powerful Office." Also here, CNN global affairs analyst, Max Boot. Good evening to one and all.

Athena, let's start with you. We are less than 24 hours until Trump's impeachment trial and Mitch McConnell wants to shorten opening arguments to just two days per side. Tell me why this -- why he's doing this and fill us in on the details for all of it.

ATHENA JONES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, hi, Don. As you said, he wants this to be over quickly, just like the president wants this to be over quickly. The president wants it to be over by February 4th, which is when he gives the state of the union.

So, here's what we can expect over the next few days. It's going to be a jam packed next few days. Tomorrow the Senate convenes at 1 p.m. And the first order of business is going to be debating these very rules that Senator McConnell put forward, the organizing resolution that lays out how the trial is going to be conducted.

And we also expect Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to offer what he said would be a whole series of amendments to, in his words, address the many flaws in this deeply unfair proposal.

So, we're talking about amendments to make sure that they could subpoena witnesses and documents. We've heard him list several of his issues that he has with this resolution. Then later tomorrow there's going to be a roll call vote on the resolution. They only need 51 votes to pass this resolution.

And we should mention that Senator McConnell has said that he already has the votes he needs to pass this resolution without any Democratic support and we know his staff worked very exhaustively with the staffs of these other Republican moderates to make sure the language was included that would make them happy to allow them to vote on this resolution.

[23:05:00]

Then of course we get to those argument Friday -- Thursday, Friday with -- or Wednesday, Thursday, I should say, with the Democrats and Friday and Saturday for Trump's team. So, a lot of action over the next few days here, Don.

LEMON: All right. That is jam packed, Max, for -- I mean, potentially going to one in the morning. I mean, what is going on here? Why is he pushing this through?

MAX BOOT, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Well, it's pretty clear that Senator McConnell is acting not as an impartial jurist he's sworn to be, but obviously as President Trump's chief advocate in the Senate and of course his hope initially, I think, was to dismiss the case with essentially no trial.

And that's impossible because there are enough Republicans who want to see at least a semblance of a trial. But so now Senator McConnell is trying to do the second-best thing, which is to dismiss it as quickly as possible and making it as hard as possible to have witnesses which is something that even several other Republican senators have said they want to have.

And it's clear it's not just the Republican senators and Democrats who want the witnesses, it's the public. I mean, there was a poll today from CNN that shows that 69 percent of the public says the Senate should have witnesses. So, there's a pretty clear and overwhelming public majority in favor of having more of a real trial.

And Senator McConnell keeps putting one roadblock after another in the course of trying to do that and he's a master of parliamentary procedure, and so he's basically just trying to make it as difficult as possible.

And I suspect at the end of the day we will probably still have a witness or two but as few as possible before the Republican majority can basically do what they want to do anyway, which is to acquit Senate -- President Trump without hearing the evidence and without giving serious consideration to all the evidence that he is in fact guilty as charged.

LEMON: Let's -- I want to dig into those numbers just a little bit, hang on, hang on, Susan, before I get to you.

Max, you mentioned that 69 percent said should the Senate -- the question was, should the Senate trial include testimony from new witnesses. And it was 69 percent. Twenty-six percent said no. But when you look at it, Democrats, 86 percent, right, said that they want it, independents 69 percent. When you look at Republicans. Republicans, 48 percent, I was actually surprised by that. I mean, that is a lot for Republicans.

So, most Americans want to hear from witnesses then. I think Americans know a fair trial when they see it.

BOOT: Right, I think that's putting pressure on wavering senators, especially those who face reelection campaigns this year, like Cory Gardner and Susan Collins, that they can't just railroad this through.

LEMON: Was that surprising that number when you saw it?

BOOT: I think it's, yes, it's pretty high but it's been consistently high. I mean, there has been that demand for a fair proceeding and to hearing witnesses, even from people who may not necessarily favor a conviction.

So, I think there is that overwhelming consensus that there should be at least a semblance of a fair trial and McConnell clearly does not agree with that.

LEMON: Interesting. Susan, what do these rules say, the Mitch McConnell's rules say about including evidence uncovered by the House -- do you think House managers they be able to present things that they learned from fact witnesses during those hearings, testimony from Fiona Hill and others? SUSAN HENNESSEY, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Yes. So, the House will be able

to present the record that it established while -- during those initial House impeachment proceedings and then there will be I think a pretty substantial wrangling that goes on particularly over the next 24 hours.

Keep in mind we're just getting this resolution now, about 18 hours before the proceedings are actually designed to begin. And so really this is, you know, Max mentioned that Mitch McConnell is sort of a master of Senate procedure, and he's also a master of political gamesmanship.

And so, certainly Mitch McConnell is motivated to want to get this trial over as soon as possible. But creating rules like 12 hours, beginning at one o'clock, at 1 p.m. in the afternoon, that's not just about getting the trial over as quickly as possible.

It's about having the trial go through the middle of the night so that the American public isn't going to watch it, so that he can actually exhaust the senators who are going to have to -- after going through this grueling marathon session whenever they then have to vote on hearing additional witnesses, having additional documents and evidence presented they are going to be exhausted at that point.

They are really going to want to be motivated to wrap this up quickly. And so, I think part of this -- part of this is a compromised document that Mitch McConnell knows he needs to give a few concessions to those moderate Republicans in order to get those 51 votes.

But this is also a document that shows the extent of sort of psychological sophistication and that Mitch McConnell's plan here is really not to do impartial justice. It's to run cover for the president of the United States.

LEMON: But nothing, since the president was impeached, nothing from the GAO, nothing from Parnas, nothing from media reports, nothing that -- so far, with these rules will be allowed.

[23:10:04]

HENNESSEY: Under the existing resolution as it's currently drafted, one question is whether or not we are going to see changes. We're certainly going to see a lot of fights over that, particularly in tomorrow's afternoon session.

LEMON: Listen, what about witnesses? How will that unfold, Athena, let's talk about that, what do you know? So, as I asked Susan, nothing would be allowed under these rules, that's the evidence coming in, but what about as far as witnesses, under these rules no witnesses as well, right?

JONES: Well, the witness question is going to be decided after the first two phases of the trial. And so, we know we had those same moderate Republicans that the McConnell's office was working with on this resolution who wanted to make sure there was going to be a chance to vote on witnesses and documents. Even those three or four people who said they were open to this didn't want to do it early in the trial. They wanted to do it after each side has presented their arguments and after the senators had the question period where they can ask questions of each side.

So that is when that is set to happen. It could come, you know, Saturday or Monday, at some point, after these two initial 24-hour periods. So, it is something that's going to come up.

Now, we know that Chuck Schumer wants to force this tomorrow, and even though it seems pretty unlikely he's going to get enough votes to be able to do that it's another way of highlighting the same point that Democrats have been making that a fair trial has to have witnesses and documents and not be rushed, otherwise it's a cover-up.

LEMON: Thank you all, I appreciate it.

With Mitch McConnell's rules likely to push the impeachment trial late into the night the president's defenders are arguing it doesn't matter if he did what Democrats accused him of doing. We're going to discuss that, that's next.

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LEMON: More now on our breaking news. the Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell laying out rules for the impeachment trial in the Senate. He wants to give both sides 24 hours just two days to present their opening arguments.

Why the rush? Well, let's discuss. Contributing op-ed writer for the New York Times, Wajahat Ali, and Scott Jennings, a formal special assistant to President George W. Bush, as we like to say W. Good evening, gentlemen, so good to have you.

Rudy Giuliani was on Fox News tonight. This is what he had to say about Lev Parnas. Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RUDY GIULIANI, PRESIDENT TRUMP'S LAWYER: I will tell you that he, in very large part, did not tell the truth. He said that he was part of a meeting that he was called into during a Hanukkah party at the White House and the president and during that meeting deputized him and told him that he was going to be like his representative.

There were four people in that meeting. The four people in that meeting, myself, his former partner, Igor Fruman, and two others, say that it's absolutely untrue. The meeting never took place. The records demonstrate the meeting never took place.

LAURA INGRAHAM, HOST, FOX NEWS: So that would indicate that he wasn't being -- that he wasn't being directed by the president through you --

(CROSSTALK) GIULIANI: No, no, it indicates that he lied.

INGRAHAM: -- to do what he was doing.

GIULIANI: No, no, it indicates that he lied, misrepresented it. Like Michael Cohen did.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: So Waj, now he's a liar, like they say about Michael Cohen.

WAJAHAT ALI, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Yes, I think we should believe Rudy Giuliani, of course, he takes photos with a lot of people. He seems to take photos of people that were indicted like Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman. And now we're supposed to believe that Lev Parnas just on his own just decide to, you know, go attacked Marie Yovanovitch, the ambassador to Ukraine.

And somehow Rudy Giuliani is not part of this, quote, unquote, "drug deal." That's not my words. That's allegedly the words of John Bolton, and somehow this drug deal that everyone was a part of, that's not my words, that's Ambassador Sondland, Trump's pick to the E.U. who said that everyone -- everyone was in the loop when it came to this drug deal, when it came to Trump abusing his power to push Ukraine to investigate into Joe Biden and interfere in the U.S. elections. One of the two articles of impeachment for which he is the third president to ever be impeached.

So, I think we should trust Rudy Giuliani here. He is a man of good moral character. And when he says he doesn't know Lev Parnas, we should believe him, because he takes photos with everybody, Don.

LEMON: So, all right. So, Giuliani, is Giuliani admitting that he's hanging out with liars, or he is -- I mean, he's hanging out with a lot of shady characters, Scott.

SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes. Look, I mean, I think two things can be true. Number one, it was a galactically bad idea to have Rudy Giuliani in the middle of foreign policy here. He was not part of the U.S. government, he's not appointed, not confirmed by the Senate.

I mean, it's been clear all along having Rudy in the middle of this was bad. And number two, it's also, you know, probably true that Lev Parnas is saying whatever he can say to save himself. So, I think both of those things can be true.

I don't have any particular reason to believe what Lev Parnas says but I also don't have any particular reason to believe that it was a smart idea to have Rudy in the middle of this. In my opinion, it's been the single worst fact for the president throughout these things, is having Rudy, and Lev and Igor in this sort of non-governmental shadow foreign policy apparatus operating alongside your normal chains of command.

LEMON: OK. Let's turn to Mitch McConnell now. So, it seems like McConnell is determined to key most Americans from seeing this trial for themselves. That's what it looks like on the surface. What is he trying to hide? Is he trying to hide something?

JENNINGS: No. I think he's trying to get on with it. I mean, they're going to give both sides time. The Senators are going to get chance to ask questions. And the Senate is going to decide whether they need to hear more or not.

So, I don't have a particular problem with these rules. I think everybody is going to get to hear from what the Democrats have to say, they're bringing the case over, we're going to hear what the president's lawyers have to say, and if we have to stay up a little later to hear it, I don't -- I think people are making too much of this.

I think by this weekend we're going to know whether the Democrats' case is persuasive at all. My hunch is it's not going to be very persuasive but we'll know by this weekend whether it is or not.

LEMON: So, if he wants 12 hours, why not do six hours one day and six hours the next day?

JENNINGS: I mean, why not do three hours, and then three hours and then three. I mean, you could cut it up any way you want but what's the -- what is the big deal?

LEMON: Come on. I mean, don't be facetious, Scott. If you can do six hours and six hours, why get people to one in the morning. I mean, let's just be honest.

[23:19:59]

JENNINGS: Well, a, we don't know if the presentations are going to last that long. I mean, they may not take all of that time. But b, it's the Democrats who have argued that it is urgent to get the president out of office. You're arguing for a longer period of time here. I mean, McConnell is actually getting us closer --

(CROSSTALK)

LEMON: I'm not arguing for anything. I'm just wondering --

(CROSSTALK)

JENNINGS: McConnell is getting us closer to the question than the Democrats.

LEMON: N. I'm just wondering why do you have to work people until -- until one in the morning? I didn't -- there was -- I don't really see why.

JENNINGS: Well, I think you work until midnight every night.

LEMON: But I don't work -- I don't work 12 straight hours.

JENNINGS: You do, you work -- people -- look, these people are capable of sitting still for that long. And they are capable of listening. These are smart people. By the way, they took phones away from them. They're not allowed to talk.

LEMON: Well, I think that's a great idea.

JENNINGS: It is a great idea. They are more than capable of digesting this information.

(CROSSTALK)

ALI: Just the thoughts.

LEMON: Yes, I think that's a great idea.

JENNINGS: These are smart people.

ALI: You know in James Bond movies when the villain just shares his flat openly --

LEMON: Yes.

ALI: That's what Mitch McConnell did. He has openly admitted.

LEMON: Listen, I have nothing against Congress and senators or the Congress meaning the senators and congressmen, and women working 12 straight hours. Right? I think that that's -- but I don't understand the --

(CROSSTALK)

ALI: But you're for transparency.

LEMON: Right.

ALI: You're for -- any person -- and you don't have to go to law school to know that there are witnesses in trials. if you've seen "Perry Mason," "Ally McBeal" and "Law and Order," I just took it back for the baby boomers and gen X and anyone else who is in the TV show with lawyers, where you want witnesses.

Seventy percent of Americans want witnesses, and Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader has openly said repeatedly --

LEMON: Yes.

ALI: -- he is in lockstep with the president, he is biased, that means the judge and the jury foremen are literally working with the defense counsel.

So, Mitch McConnell -- this is what I said to Donald Trump. You have said your phone call was beautiful, it was perfect, you have nothing to hide. If you have nothing to hide you have nothing to lose, share the witnesses, share the evidence. Why are you rushing through everything?

Bring Mick Mulvaney, bring Rudy Giuliani who offered to be a witness, bring Perry, bring Pompeo, bring Bolton, who again, told everybody, hey, if you bring me to the Senate I'll come and testify, why is Mitch McConnell bum rushing this, because democracy dies in darkness.

LEMON: To that point tough, don't you want people to see what's going on? Don't you want transparency?

JENNINGS: This is an eloquent case for why the House short of circuited this in the first place. They never even bothered to subpoena John Bolton. And now they want the Republicans in the Senate who didn't think by the way the president should have been impeached in the first place to do all these things that they should have and could have done.

And so, look, if you want all these folks, I would be advocating not for Mitch McConnell to do something. I would be advocating for the House to go back in and do their job. There's nothing stopping them from continuing. Why aren't they?

ALI: Obstruction of Congress, two articles of impeachment, abuse of power, the second one was obstruction of Congress. Because Donald Trump, unlike even Richard Nixon, literally withheld everything, no evidence, no witnesses. They couldn't get anybody.

In fact, the people who had to come they had to subpoena them just to get their -- because some of those people were existing members of the administration, who were still working there like Vindman and Fiona Hill. Right?

So, my take is, if Bolton has openly said I will come and testify, Senate. Who has the majority in the Senate? Republicans. If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to lose. Donald Trump himself, Don Lemon, has said it was absolutely perfect and beautiful phone call. I have nothing to hide. Let's do it.

All the witnesses, all the evidence. The last time I checked two articles of impeachment, abuse of power, obstruction of Congress.

LEMON: But they also said they didn't want Bolton to testify either, the Congress. They were -- they wanted a subpoena for Bolton to testify and now Bolton is saying even with the subpoena he would -- the only way he would testify is --

JENNINGS: Yes.

ALI: And he went to the court.

JENNINGS: I'm dubious over Bolton. I mean, he's -- they have no leverage on this guy, if he wanted to write everything down on a napkin and send it over to Congress tonight, he could.

LEMON: And now they're saying -- now they're saying they don't want to do it in public. And also, we have to remember too --

JENNINGS: I know.

LEMON: -- even the Parnas documents, he didn't -- like during the Congress, when the Congress was doing their impeachment, he didn't have his documents, he didn't have his devices. He had no evidence. ALI: He have no evidence.

LEMON: He have no evidence.

JENNINGS: There's nothing stopping him from waking up in the morning and holding a press conference and telling us everything he knows. There's a reason he hasn't --

(CROSSTALK)

LEMON: lev Parnas or Bolton?

JENNINGS: No, Bolton. And I think he is trying to have it both ways.

LEMON: But he didn't do it last time.

(CROSSTALK)

JENNINGS: He wants to appear -- he wants to appear like he wants to testify but he's hoping that he never actually -- it never actually --

(CROSSTALK)

LEMON: I agree with you with that.

JENNINGS: And so --

LEMON: Because he didn't need a subpoena to do it last time.

JENNINGS: Of course, he's got books to sell.

ALI: Yes.

JENNINGS: And he has --

LEMON: I agree with you on that.

JENNINGS: Yes.

LEMON: Thank you both, I appreciate it.

How many different lies and false statements has President Trump told about his impeachment and dealings with Ukraine? Sixty-five according to CNN's Daniel Dale and he's going to explain with the Trump fact check. That's next.

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LEMON: Now to the Trump fact check, CNN has compiled a list of 65 different false claims that President Trump has made about Ukraine and the impeachment process.

Let's bring in our fact checker extraordinaire, Daniel Dale. Hello, Mr. Dale. DANIEL DALE, CNN REPORTER: Hi, Don.

LEMON: Today the president tweeted about Senator Schumer's call for fairness in the Senate trial. He claims the House wasn't fair but a lot of what he says about how this all played out is entirely false. Correct?

DALE: Correct. And his claims have been laughably, obviously false. He said things like Republicans were unable -- prevented from asking questions in the closed-door impeachment inquiry hearings. They came out to those hearings and said no, we alternated the questioning with the Democrats. Or he'll say after the public hearings Republicans were prevented from having a lawyer.

Well, anyone who watched that hearing who know that lawyer Steve Castor questioned witnesses on behalf of Republicans. He even said at one point, Don, that people try in the Salem witch trials received more due process than him. That might have been a nonliteral claim but as a factual matter it's very clearly absurd.

LEMON: And Daniel, looking at your list this is what he has the most false claims about when it comes to his impeachment, the process, 15 different lies. So, he's focused not on his own actions but the Democrats.

[23:05:06]

DALE: Yes, that's exactly right. And I think this is something we see consistently with Trump. One of his favorite tactics is that when he is facing accusations, he turns those same accusations on other people.

So you accuse him of abuse of power, he will say this whole process isn't abuse of power. You accuse him of corruption, he will accuse Joe Biden of corruption. And so, I think, this is Trump returning to one of his favorite time-tested playbooks.

LEMON: He has famously called his call with Zelensky as perfect, but he is still telling a bunch of lies about it for some reason. Why is that?

DALE: Very clearly, Don, he knows somewhere inside him that many people do not believe it's perfect. And so he'll say things like Zelensky brought up -- out of the blue -- former ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, when in fact it was Trump who brought up Yovanovitch on that call.

He has made false claim after false claim about what exactly occurred between him and Zelensky. I think that says something about how perfect many people actually see that.

LEMON: He also makes claims about how the public is perceiving his impeachment, but he is skewing that, too.

DALE: Yeah. So Don, there have been some pretty good polls for Trump on impeachment, especially from key swing states such as Wisconsin. But Trump has consistently exaggerated how good the polls have been. So at one point, he was claiming polls have turned so strongly against impeachment that it was 75-25 in his favor.

I looked really hard. There were just no 75-25 polls. We have another poll now today from CNN showing that 51 percent favor his removal. And so that's not quite a fact check of that previous claim because the times don't match up. But that's in the ballpark of what we were seeing even then.

And so what we see with Trump is that even when he gets good news, he's not content with that. The truth is not sufficient. He needs to add a few digits or a few tens of digits.

LEMON: Daniel Dale, thank you, sir.

DALE: Thank you.

LEMON: A huge day tomorrow in the impeachment trial. We're going to tell you what you should be watching for, next.

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[23:35:00]

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LEMON: Throughout the impeachment proceedings against President Trump, we have heard a lot of mistruths and distortions from the president and his allies. So, with the trial about to get under way in earnest, well, here's CNN's Tom Foreman with a look at the events at the center of the scandal.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Spring 2019, as Volodymyr Zelensky is winning the presidency of Ukraine, team Trump sees a possible win of its own, according to congressional witnesses.

Perhaps the new Ukrainian president can be persuaded to launch an investigation that might help the U.S. president, a probe into alleged corruption in Ukraine involving U.S. Democratic Party, Joe Biden, and Biden's son.

RUDY GIULIANI, ATTORNEY TO PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP, FORMER NEW YORK CITY MAYOR: The facts are stubborn and eventually this is going to have to be investigated.

FOREMAN (voice-over): The president's personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, insists it has nothing to do with Trump's reelection plans and there's nothing illegal about it. The Ukrainians have concluded this conspiracy theory about the Democrats and the Bidens is unfounded. Nonetheless, Trump is soon saying if the foreign government offers dirt on a political foe --

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I think I'd want to hear it.

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS, ABC NEWS ANCHOR: You want that kind of interference in our election?

TRUMP: It's not interference. They have information. I think I'd take it. If I thought there was something wrong, I'd go maybe to the FBI.

FOREMAN (voice-over): Summer, the White House unexpectedly suspends nearly 400 million in military aid to Ukraine on immediate to fight the Russians. A visit to the White House by the new Ukrainian president is on hold, too.

Then Trump gets on the phone with Zelensky. "I would like you to do us a favor." Trump personally asked for an investigation into the 2016 election conspiracies and another into Biden.

Trump's defenders say this was all about fighting corruption in Ukraine. But the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, Gordon Sondland, a Trump ally, now says it was really about securing a public announcement that Biden was under suspicion.

REP. SEAN MALONEY (D-NY): Who would benefit from an investigation of the Biden?

GORDON SONDLAND, UNITED STATES AMBASSADOR TO THE EUROPEAN UNION: I assume President Trump would benefit.

MALONEY: There we have it, see.

FOREMAN (voice-over): According to the testimony of other career democrats, Sondland would know.

FIONA HILL, FORMER OFFICIAL AT THE NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL SPECIALIZING IN SOVIET, RUSSIAN, AND EUROPEAN AFFAIRS: Because he was being involved in a domestic political errand, and we were being involved in national security foreign policy, and those two things had just diverged.

FOREMAN (voice-over): Remember, this was all happening largely behind the scenes. Then --

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: We now know the whistleblower --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The whistleblower complaint --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The whistleblower scandal --

FOREMAN (voice-over): An anonymous whistleblower files a report, pushing the story into the open, reflecting widening concerns about the call between the two presidents.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was improper for the president.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It involved discussion of what appeared to be a domestic political matter.

FOREMAN (voice-over): Congress starts buzzing. Did Trump use tax dollars to coerce a foreign government to investigate a political rival? As the scandal boils, Trump releases that military aid and goes on defense.

TRUMP: You take a look at that call, it was perfect.

FOREMAN (voice-over): His acting chief of staff seems to confirm pressure was applied to Ukraine.

MICK MULVANEY, DIRECTOR OF THE OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET, ACTING WHITE HOUSE CHIEF OF STAFF: We do that all the time with foreign policy. I have news for everybody: Get over it.

FOREMAN (voice-over): But then he walks it back.

[23:40:00]

FOREMAN (voice-over): Autumn, facing an impeachment inquiry, Trump orders officials to defy congressional subpoenas to explain what happened, and he insists there was never any kind of deal.

TRUMP: There was no quid pro quo.

There was no quid pro quo at all.

I want no quid pro quo.

FOREMAN (voice-over): But Sondland says otherwise.

SONDLAND: Was there a quid pro quo? As I testified previously with regard to the requested White House call and the White House meeting, the answer is yes.

FOREMAN (voice-over): Winter, in the democratic-controlled House, the gavel falls and Trump heads into Christmas as only the third president in U.S. history to be impeached.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FOREMAN: And now comes the trial in the Republican-controlled Senate, where the odds for conviction seem long and the time until the next election is growing short. Don?

LEMON: All right. Tom, thank you very much. I appreciate that. Joining me now to talk about how to watch and what we can expect from the impeachment trial this week are Brian Stelter and Elie Honig. Wow, we got a lot to talk about.

(LAUGHTER)

LEMON: Good evening, gents. Thank you so much. So Brian, impeachment, very rare, it has only happened what? The last time it happened was 20 years ago. What do you think people should be looking for, both from the Democrats, the House managers, and from the president's folks?

BRIAN STELTER, CNN CHIEF MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: Look for a well- reasoned rhetoric versus just pure rage against the process. What we're seeing from Trump world so far is just pure spitting rage against the process, claiming that it's somehow illegal, it's a sham and it's a charade. Try to tune that out because that's just noise. Look for the well-reasoned arguments from all sides and see who wins.

LEMON: That's going to be tough.

STELTER: It is.

LEMON: Let's look at the president's defense team. I mean, it is a made for TV defense team. Let us put them up here. Kenneth Starr, Robert Ray -- they were prosecutors for Bill Clinton impeachment --

STELTER: Right.

LEMON: Alan Dershowitz, who, of course, is involved in O.J. Simpson trial of the century, fixture on cable television, now defending President Trump through these various legal woes. Is he trying to be the executive producer of his own impeachment?

STELTER: He is. I would say it's more of a made for Fox News legal team. You know, the arguments that work really well for the president's base may not work for the majority of the American people who are opposed to this president. We've seen that again today in CNN's polling today.

This will not just be on cable news. This will be on broadcast. This will be on PBS and C-SPAN. People who have not been paying attention up until now may be tuning in for the first time on Tuesday. So let's see if Trump's defense team makes an argument to the 100 percent of the people or just to the 40 percent.

LEMON: And the president -- I mean, they seem to be -- the response filed by the president's legal team, they seem to be more focused, Elie, on the process rather than the substance. What's going on here?

ELIE HONIG, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Of course. First of all, they're focused on the process because it gives them something to rail about. But if you look at that brief that came in today, from one to 10, that's turned up to 11. The rhetoric is hot. The denials are angry. To me, I don't think they're just looking for an acquittal. Look, all odds are in favor of an acquittal. It is very, very unlikely that 20 Republicans --

LEMON: This is the court of public opinion.

HONIG: Yeah.

LEMON: If you look at what Brian said. Brian said pay attention to substance. You're saying, you know --

HONIG: Court of public opinion matters a lot here and court of historical opinion. I think the president wants to give his most ardent supporters a hook to look back and say not only was he acquitted but the impeachment itself was invalid. There's a lot of language along those lines in the brief.

STELTER: He can say he wasn't really impeached at all.

HONIG: He's already tried, right? The groundwork is already there. This is illegitimate.

STELTER: That's fascinating.

HONIG: This is invalid. So, I think, long term, he wants to be able to get out there on the trail and whenever his time in office is done and say, that impeachment -- I shouldn't even be listed with Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton.

LEMON: That's why they want -- you think that's why Mitch McConnell is saying, you know, you get 12 hours, you get 12 hours. They want it just to be a blip. Is that what is happening?

HONIG: I think the 12 hours thing is really designed to sort of lose an audience. Look, I've tried cases. It's hard to keep a jury's attention, even if it's an interesting case, a murder case, a mob case, the kind of things I used to do.

When you get into hour six, seven, even in the most interesting case, jury starts drifting on you, especially when it's 1:00 in the morning, 2:00 in the morning, which I never did.

LEMON: That's why I asked Scott Jennings. I said, you know, they're doing 12 hours each, right?

HONIG: That's McConnell's proposal.

LEMON: Why not just do six hours? If you want to limit it to 12 hours, why not say we will do six hours today, we will six hours tomorrow, why not do that?

HONIG: Very smart. I think from a prosecutor's perspective, I would recommend that. You don't have to take all 12 hours.

LEMON: Right.

HONIG: Just do four. Just do five. Cut it.

STELTER: But it's symbolic in the Trump era where everything is overwhelming. So much is happening all at once. You said the word "blip." You know where we were a year ago today? We are in the middle of a government shutdown. Who remembers what was going on a month or a year ago? Everything in the Trump era is a blip. The president wants impeachment to just be a blip.

[23:45:00]

STELTER: Can the Democrats make it more than that? That's up to the Democrats.

LEMON: OK. Speaking of that, all right, so you said where we were, I can't even remember.

STELTER: Yeah. LEMON: Every night, I come up here and I say, what did we cover last night? What did I cover in the last hour? But think about this.

STELTER: Yeah.

LEMON: They have to sit there for 12 hours.

STELTER: Without their phones?

LEMON: Without them. And they can't talk.

STELTER: That's the thing. Let's remember, all these big names in the Senate we're used to hearing a lot from -- Cory Booker, Elizabeth Warren and Lindsey Graham -- dead silent. They are not going to be speaking in front of the cameras in the well of Senate. They will run to Manu afterwards and give him statements.

But for the time that they're in the well, they're not going to be talking. It's going to be the lawyers that we saw before for both sides. Combine that with having no phones, they're going to lose patience quick.

LEMON: What does that do for the president, though? He can't be in communication with the people who are there, the folks who are representing him and the senators. He has a television mindset and --

STELTER: And a Twitter mindset at the same time. He thinks he can control the news cycle and control the outcome of events through Twitter. Impeachment is the ultimate test of that kind of power, whether he really has hat power or not.

LEMON: Are the ground rules for the press a little bit different, right?

STELTER: There have been some strange restrictions on the press, yes. Reporters on Capitol Hill who are used to being able to freely move around the Senate, there are a lot of restrictions going into place. It does seem as if the Republican senators are trying to restrict the movements of journalists to make it harder to ask them questions.

Now, they say it's all about security. There may be some truth to that. But the bottom line is reporters are the eyes and ears of the public. When reporters are restricted, the public is restricted as well. Perhaps that's because Republican senators don't want to be asked difficult questions about this process.

LEMON: I'm wondering if this may backfire in any way, because if they're trying to somehow restrict the press and restrict the coverage, if they move this to 12 hours, are they inadvertently pushing it into prime time?

(LAUGHTER)

STELTER: That's a good point.

LEMON: And pushing the networks into covering it in prime time?

STELTER: Good point, 8:00, 9:00, 10:00, 11:00 --

LEMON: Instead of having it in the afternoon when people are at work, they are pushing it in prime time for people, like, hey, at night, the networks are forced to covering it, then they're getting --

STELTER: Both the Democrats and Republicans. What arguments are they going to be making in prime time? The reason why prime time matters is television viewing levels are the highest, so at 8:00, 9:00, 10:00 p.m. People are actually at home and watching television. That does matter. We will see if these politicians and lawyers think about that.

This will be, at the end of the day, be a television show. "Law & Order" only lasts an hour. "Judge Judy" lasts 30 minutes an episode. If this goes on 12 hours, it is going to be a burden. But I do think many Americans sense this is an important historic moment and do want to see how it works. I don't think people can remember the Clinton impeachment trial from 20 years ago. This is going to be fresh in people's minds.

LEMON: As the White House turns.

(LAUGHTER)

LEMON: Thank you both. I appreciate it. It is just hours to go until the Senate gets down to the business of impeachment trial. CNN has a special coverage all day. Make sure not to miss it, a moment from the Capitol. Make sure you watch it, "The Impeachment Trial of Donald J. Trump." Complete coverage on CNN tomorrow.

But today is the day that we observe the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. We'll remember him, next.

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[23:50:00]

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LEMON: Tonight before we go, a moment to reflect on the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The fight he left for equality and racial justice lives on. But a look back at his words gives us all an opportunity to understand where it began.

In his letter from a Birmingham jail, Dr. King wrote this. "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly." Dr. King's observation that inequality and injustice, no matter who it affects, affects us all, is just as real now as it was then, in 1963.

Former President Barack Obama remembering Dr. King today says that he often rereads that very letter, emphasizing that King's moral clarity and test of conscious still reverberate today. The former president is correct. Inequality and injustice also still exists in the United States of America today. America has not delivered on its promise that all men are created equal. Black people around our nation still feel unequal.

Take, for example, a new Washington Post/IPSOS poll which finds that 65 percent of African Americans say it is a bad time to be black in America. That same poll finds that a mere 16 percent of black Americans believe that most black children born in our country today have a good opportunity to achieve comfortable standard of living. Those are not statistics that represent a nation where there is equal justice and equality for all.

Today, President Trump and Vice President Pence made a non-scheduled, an unannounced visit to the King Memorial on the National Mall to pay tribute to the civil rights icon.

And speaking of president, that same poll that I mentioned also found that more than eight in 10 black Americans believe that President Trump is a racist, and that he has made racism a bigger problem in this country.

Those numbers are not a real surprise, at least not to black folks because this president has shown us that his idea of equality and justice is not the universal and fair one of a Dr. King.

[23:55:03]

LEMON: It is not the selfless one of a Dr. King. If it was, he would not have tried to make today of all days about himself by tweeting about the low black unemployment rate that actually started under the black president before him which is Barack Obama, who as I mentioned earlier, rereads Dr. King's letter from a Birmingham jail.

That same letter says this. "We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntary given by the oppressor. It must be demanded by the oppressed."

Thank you for watching. Our coverage continues.

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