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New Day Sunday
New Tape Reveals Trump Demanding Firing Of Ukraine Diplomat; Trump Defense Team Argues There Is No Evidence Of Wrongdoing; Coronavirus Outbreak, 56 Dead In China And More Than 2,000 Infected Worldwide; New Case Of Deadly Virus Confirmed In Orange County, California; Crews Race To Find Survivors In Turkey Following 6.7 Quake; Democrat Senators In Iowa Amid Break From Impeachment Trial; LeBron Passes Kobe For 3rd On All-Time Scoring List. Aired 6-7a ET
Aired January 26, 2020 - 06:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[06:00:00]
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D-CA), LEAD IMPEACHMENT MANAGER: The problem they have is they don't want to talk about the evidence.
PAT CIPOLLONE, WHITE HOUSE COUNSEL: They have the burden of proof and they have not come close to meeting it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The lawyers for the president were saying they have the burden of proof but we are going to block them from access to witnesses.
CIPOLLONE: I thank you for your attention and I look forward to seeing you on Monday.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Globally the coronavirus has been confirmed in more than a dozen countries and territories.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: U.S. officials are working to coordinate some sort of exit for some of the nearly 1,000 U.S. citizens within Wuhan.
DIANA ADAMA, AMERICAN LIVING IN WUHAN: I woke up feeling quite desperate. Sad, angry. Most of this is because of lack of information.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY WEEKEND with Victor Blackwell and Christi Paul.
CHRISTI PAUL, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning to you on this Sunday morning. We're glad to have you.
We now actually have the full recording of President Trump at that donor dinner in 2018 with Lev Parnas who is in attendance there. He's the indicted businessman who worked with the president's personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, and he's the man that the president claims he doesn't know. VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN ANCHOR: On the tape you hear the president ask how long Ukraine can last in a fight against Russia. But you also hear him order the removal of U.S. ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch.
PAUL: CNN National Correspondent, Kristen Holmes with us from Washington right now. The recording indicates, Kristen, that the president does know Lev Parnas. What more are you hearing there? Good morning.
KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Christi and Victor.
Well, that's absolutely right it does. And I actually want to pull up the top of the recording there. You showed it in the intro to me. But the reason being that I want to show viewers just how intimate this dinner was.
You can see there President Trump standing what seems to be around a very small table in a small room that is in the Trump hotel. Now, of course, this is a shaky cell phone video. But, again, this is really showing you what exactly this sit-down looked like.
And, again, the conversation shows another level of intimacy. You can hear one-on-one Parnas and President Trump discussing everything, including foreign policy, particularly in Ukraine. Take a listen to this snippet here.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LEV PARNAS, AMERICAN BUSINESSMAN: They have everything there they just right now are waiting for your support a little bit to make sure because obviously if they go on their own Russia won't let them do it. Because they'll cut off a lot of their revenue.
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: How long would they last in a fight with Russia?
PARNAS: I don't think very long. Without us, not very long.
TRUMP: Without us.
PARNAS: Without us. But Russia also keep in mind talks a big game but they're not ready to -- he's not -- they're not ready to play.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HOLMES: OK. So, let's break that down very quickly here. We see him saying how long could Ukraine last without U.S. aid and Parnas says not very long. That is at the heart of the entire case of impeachment about that abuse of power whether or not President Trump withheld aid to get an investigation into the Bidens. So, this really shines light on that.
But the conversation did not end there. It soon turned to the former ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch who we know Parnas was part of a smear campaign with Rudy Giuliani, the president's personal attorney, to get her out of office. Here the conversation, the back and forth, between Parnas and President Trump on this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PARNAS: That's why you're having such, I think if you take a look, the biggest problem there, I think, where we -- where you need to start is we got to get rid of the ambassador. She's still leftover from the Clinton administration.
TRUMP: What? The ambassador with Ukraine?
PARNAS: Yes. She's basically walking around telling everybody, wait he's going to get impeached. Just wait.
(LAUGHTER)
PARNAS: It's incredible.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She'll be gone tomorrow.
(LAUGHTER)
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So one of the things that will be now that we have a secretary of state that's --
TRUMP: Get rid of her.
(CROSSTALK)
TRUMP: Get her out tomorrow. I don't care. Get her out tomorrow. Take her out. OK. Do it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HOLMES: Well, there's quite different to hear that actual words, the words saying get her out of there, take her out, I don't care. And I just want to note that this release of this audio is coming at a time where Democrats are continuing to push senators to call more witnesses, to get more evidence. We heard from Parnas' attorney Joe Bondy last night about what he believes he and his client's role is in this process.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOSEPH BONDY, ATTORNEY FOR LEV PARNAS: I like to think that there will be still a vote in the Senate for there to be witnesses and evidence. It will be awful for me. I can't imagine there being trial without those things. It would literally be like a silent movie or a puppet show. And I like to think that we still, while we have a couple of days, can push that movement and effect change.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HOLMES: And if there is any indication of what can affect change, we also heard from Parnas' attorney that there are more recordings. [06:05:06]
Back to you.
BLACKWELL: And we know that Parnas' attorney says that he handed over this tape that we just saw to House intelligence. And we'll see what, if anything, they are going to do with the recording.
Kristen Holmes for us there in Washington. Thank you.
PAUL: So, President Trump's legal team is picking up his defense tomorrow. Yesterday's opening arguments made one thing very clear. We're going to see two different strategies here. Following 24 hours of opening arguments including witness testimony and evidence from the House Democrats impeachment inquiry, President Trump's team, they kept it short, they kept it sweet. They used two hours of its time.
Part of the defense, the president's lawyers argue that Democrats are trying to not only overturn the 2016 election but also 2020, keep him off the ballot and provide enough talking points to cover Republican senators who are likely already planning to acquit the president.
BLACKWELL: There's still the major question, will the president's team do enough to keep moderate Republican senators from voting to see new witnesses testify and to see new evidence? But Democrats claim the president's team opened the door for just that after it argued that House manager's case is weak because it lacks first hand witnesses.
CNN's Sara Murray has more on the defense team's first day of opening arguments.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CIPOLLONE: The president did absolutely nothing wrong.
SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICAL REPORTER (voice-over): President Trump's defense team took to the Senate floor arguing that Democrats have failed to make their case that Trump should be removed from office for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.
CIPOLLONE: Today we are going to confront them on the merits of their argument. Now they have the burden of proof and they have not come close to meeting it.
MURRAY: They accused Democrats of trying to overturn the last election and preempt the next one.
CIPOLLONE: They're here to perpetrate the most massive interference in an election in American history and we can't allow that to happen.
MURRAY: Trump's team aimed to poke holes in the arguments House impeachment managers presented, claiming the Democrats didn't provide context around witness testimony and using clips of witnesses from the House inquiry that bolstered Trump's defense.
CIPOLLONE: The fact that they came here for 24 hours and hid evidence from you is further evidence that they don't really believe in the facts of their case.
MURRAY: They insisted Trump never made a White House meeting and security aid for Ukraine contingent on Ukraine opening investigations into Joe Biden and the 2016 election, noting Trump never explicitly asked for such a quid pro quo in the call with the Ukrainian president.
MIKE PURPURA, DEPUTY WHITE HOUSE COUNSEL: The transcript shows that the president did not condition either security assistance or a meeting on anything. The paused security assistance funds aren't even mentioned on the call.
MURRAY: And they raised testimony from some administration officials, who believed Trump's call for investigations was simply a request rather than a demand.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you believe in your opinion that the President of the United States demanded that President Zelensky undertake these investigations?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, sir.
MURRAY: Trump's lawyers also made the claim that the president is legitimately invested in cracking down on corruption in Ukraine and taking a tough stance toward Russia.
CIPOLLONE: You will hear that President Trump has a strong record on confronting Russia. You will hear that President Trump has a strong record of support for Ukraine.
MURRAY: But there's little evidence of Trump's interest in corruption, save for the call of an investigation into the Bidens, which also directly involves the president's personal interests.
And while the administration has taken steps to crack down on Russia, Trump's public statements have undermined those efforts. Over the course of their brief two-hour arguments, Trump's lawyers took shots at Democrats' lengthy and often repetitive presentations.
JAY SEKULOW, OUTSIDE LEGAL COUNSEL FOR PRESIDENT TRUMP: We're not going to play the same clips seven times. He said it. You saw it.
MURRAY: As well as House Intelligence chairman Adam Schiff.
CIPOLLONE: Do you know who didn't show up in the Judiciary Committee? Chairman Schiff.
MURRAY: They wrapped up just after noon, leaving senators enough time to escape for a bit of the weekend.
CIPOLLONE: I thank you for your attention and I look forward to seeing you on Monday.
MURRAY: Afterward, House Democratic managers argued the president's team did not refute the claim that Trump solicited foreign interference in a U.S. election. SCHIFF: What was most striking to me about the president's presentation today is they don't contest the basic architecture of the scheme. They do not contest that the president solicited a foreign nation to interfere in our election, to help him cheat.
MURRAY: The president's team has 22 more hours to make its case but says it's not planning to use it all.
[06:10:02]
Sara Murray, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BLACKWELL: With us now to talk Shan Wu, former federal prosecutor, and Karoun Demirjian, congressional reporter for the "Washington Post." Welcome back to both of you.
SHAN WU, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Good to see you, Victor.
KAROUN DEMIRJIAN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Good to see you, Victor.
BLACKWELL: Shan, let me start with you. The president's team presented the six points on which they say they will base their defense of the president and they started with the heavy emphasis on the summary of the July 25th call. Talking about, as we heard, from Sara Murray, no direct, clear quid pro quo there.
What do you think of day one and that framework?
WU: Well, I thought actually they were kind of weak on day one. Understandable, because they have a heavy handed client that they have to appease. And we have a client that's a real micro manager. A lot of your argument strategy gets eye hijacked. And, I think, that was reflected. They're kind of jumping all over the place.
I thought Cipollone was very weak opened up. He had to address the truth issue, meaning the president's telling the truth, he's innocent. But then he quickly kind of got sidetracked on process. Same thing with the six points. Six is way too many. It's like by the time you got to number four it's like your eyes are already glazing over.
So, I think, they did what they had to do. It's really important not to leave the weekend with the jury just having the other side, the prosecution's argument. So, they did what they needed to do. But I wasn't too impressed with the overall performance.
BLACKWELL: Karoun, the point that they made several times, although saying they weren't going to repeat themselves, what they repeated was what the House managers did not present. One thing they didn't talk about in the summary of the call was Rudy Giuliani, the president's personal attorney, five mentions in five pages. They will have to justify at some point his role, will they not?
DEMIRJIAN: Well, I mean, it's their time to determine who they want to talk about and what points of the call they want to highlight because that is the -- that five pages has been a central part of both the prosecution and the defense's arguments. So, if they want to kind of skip over the Rudy Giuliani stuff, there's nobody to actually hold them to task during the time that they have on the floor to do so.
It's possible to object. But we didn't see the Trump defense team object when the prosecutors were presenting their case. And it's unlikely we'll see the prosecutors object during the defense's time.
But in general, they're probably going to have to be ready to answer questions like this down the line. The senators will get a chance to ask direct questions. And you can be sure that you'll see a lot of cross currency for parts of the argument that each side feels was left out
But for the duration basically they are trying to make the case that anything that did happen was on the up and up and is being misinterpreted by the Democrats from the House who are -- there was an accusation yesterday that they are trying to be mind readers and put motivations into the president's mind and those of others that didn't exist there. And that is basically how they're approaching this.
Giuliani has always been a bit of problematic person for the Republicans to explain. But in general, the tact (ph) that the Trumps defense and his close confidantes have taken is, look, he can take advice from whoever he wants. And you don't have to -- you don't maybe agree with it, you don't like it, but he's allowed to solicit advice from whoever he thinks should give it. And that was something that was mentioned in passing during the defense's opening hours yesterday.
We'll see how far they choose to lean into that or if they just kind of choose to leave it at that level of you don't have the right to criticize the president, asking his lawyer what he thinks.
BLACKWELL: Arguments continue tomorrow and Alan Dershowitz, who's on the president's defense team, he spoke with Anderson Cooper last night, giving a bit of a preview of his framework and what he'll present. Shan, this question goes to you. Let watch the professor.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ALAN DERSHOWITZ, WHITE HOUSE COUNSEL: What I'm going to argue on Monday is that it's precisely what the framers did not intend, that is, to remove a duly elected president from office and prevent him from running again based on vague, open-ended and entirely subjective criteria like abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. The frame has feared that those kinds of open-ended criteria will turn us into a British-type parliamentary democracy.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BLACKWELL: Shan, vague, open-ended, entirely subjective criteria. You say what about that? His, for lack of a better term, framing of the framers.
WU: Well, he's prepared to get a law classroom lecture tomorrow. And he'll do fine with that. But in terms of his interpretation, I have to respectfully disagree. I mean, all the constitution does is it lays out a very specific mechanism. The House impeaches, the Senate tries. There's really no much else that can be discerned except from the legislative history.
It's clear the framers did not want the president impeach for maladministration. Meaning, doing a really crummy job. The rest of it is all Professor Dershowitz's spin on it saying this is too vague or ambiguous. It doesn't say anything like that in the constitution. It doesn't go, could you have witnesses.
[06:15:01]
It just gives that mechanism. So, he can give his views on it and he can spend as much time as he wants researching old dusty books, I think, as he put it. But that's not going to change what's actually in the constitution.
BLACKWELL: Karoun, let's talk about part of the argument that we know now will be coming and that is Ukraine potentially interfered in the 2016 election. At least, that's what we heard from the president's attorneys.
I want you to hear first from Jay Sekulow and then from FBI director Chris Wray. This was from an interview about six weeks ago about what the FBI found as it relates to their involvement in the 2016 vote. Watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEKULOW: The House managers in over 23-hour period kept pushing this false dichotomy that it was either Russia or Ukraine, but not both.
CHRISTOPHER WRAY, FBI DIRECTOR: We have no information that indicates the Ukraine interfered with the 2016 presidential election.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BLACKWELL: Now, Karoun, Senator Kennedy --
(CROSSTALK)
BLACKWELL: -- here on this Ukrainian interference theory, but for the rest of the Republican senators, what position does that potentially put them in if the team goes down this road?
DEMIRJIAN: I mean, look, Senator Kennedy was not the only Republican to say, look, we don't know if Ukraine interfered. Certainly, Russia interfered. I think you've seen the GOP rally around the idea that like don't tell us that we aren't saying Russia interfered. Yes Russia interfered in the 2016 election. But there's lots of interference that could have happened from others too just because Russia did it doesn't mean other didn't.
I think that you're seeing and equating here though when that argument is made between a fairly covert operation that the Russians did, it was planned out, it seemed to be orchestrated from very high up circles with Putin's blessing to opinions that -- heads of state and high ranking politicians in Ukraine were giving openly, which is kind of a different style of thing. But a lot of Republicans are saying, well, both count as interference.
I think that the issue that you're going to have right here is something that Chairman Schiff pointed out after the defense was done yesterday, which is just that if you're going to talk about interference and you're talking about the transcript, the reference that's being made by the president in the transcript is to the Crowdstrike server, which is the DNC which -- it's pretty clear that that was -- Russia and Ukraine was not involved in that.
So, it's going to be interesting to see how the defense makes the case that there could have been Ukrainian interference too that weighed on the president's mind when the president is raising an instance that was not Ukraine interference it was Russian interference. And I think you're going to hear a lot of talking about that outside the chamber, as well as inside too.
BLACKWELL: Karoun Demirjian, Shan Wu, argument continues tomorrow. Thanks so much.
WU: Good to see you.
DEMIRJIAN: Thank you.
BLACKWELL: And be sure to watch "STATE OF THE UNION WITH JAKE TAPPER." Senator James Lankford and Representative Zoe Lofgren, who's also a House manager on the show. That's "STATE OF THE UNION WITH JAKE TAPPER" today at 9:00 a.m. Eastern.
PAUL: We have details for you on that deadly coronavirus. Because the details are changing by the hour right now. Overnight, another confirmed case here in the U.S. We're going to tell you where and find out how the State Department is trying to evacuate U.S. citizens from China right now.
BLACKWELL: Plus, the countdown to Iowa. Find out why Senator Elizabeth Warren doing a little dance here. This is at a rally last night.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[06:22:26]
BLACKWELL: The coronavirus has killed at least 56 people in China. More than 2,000 people are infected worldwide.
PAUL: And last night a third case was confirmed in Orange County, California. Now a patient in Washington State and one in Illinois previously tested positive. That's one case there in Orange County, three total. Test depending on others patients though across the U.S.
CNN's David Culver is with us now. He is from -- he's with us from Beijing but the U.S. government, David, as we understand it says it's evacuating Americans who are living in Wuhan. What do you know? DAVID CULVER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: All right. Christi and Victor, let me walk you through the process here as U.S. officials have laid it out. And this just came up within the past several hours as to how they plan to do this.
There's roughly about 1,000 U.S. citizens according to U.S. officials in the city of Wuhan. That's, of course, the epicenter of this deadly coronavirus. Now they are planning to charter a plane that would leave from Wuhan on Tuesday and it would arrive at San Francisco's airport.
To get on that plane, they have to apply, U.S. citizens with a passport have to apply to get a seat on that plane. They're limited. And they're also giving priority to those who may be more susceptible to the coronavirus.
That being said you can imagine there's a lot of unease within the community. The ex-pat community in particular within those lockdown zones, which there are tens of millions of people impacted. Now I spoke to one of those U.S. citizens, an American woman who feels unease and uncertainty.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ADAMA: I woke up feeling quite desperate. Sad, angry. Most of this is because of lack of information and lack of knowing what's going on.
My mother is worried about me. I love her. She's 88-years-old. My sister, to let her know that -- things I'm doing here and I don't want her to worry anymore. I'd like to see her.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CULVER: A lot of emotion there. It's rather heartbreaking to have had that discussion with her.
Meantime, China's president is coming out strong here and really coming with some stern words towards the local leaders in particular. There's an urgency to his tone. He seems, quite frankly, frustrated.
He wants the spread of this virus to stop. And he wants medical staff to be protected and he wants supplies to get where it needs to go. There's also been a ban on the sale of wild animals that relates to the epicenter of this. A seafood market in which scientists believes snakes were sold and likely the source of this virus.
[06:25:02]
Now health officials held a press conference not too long ago and we are monitoring that. And they announced some incredible changes, with the numbers in particular. They're deploying some 1,600 medical professionals right now. They're headed down there. That's in addition to another 1,300 that are already on the ground in the Hubei province. And they've got another 1,000 standing by.
Now, Christi and Victor, listen to this. They know supplies are in desperate need. In fact, we have talked to health care workers for them in particular, including doctors who tell us they don't have enough hazmat suits. They need an estimated 100,000 hazmat suits. Each day they only produce about 13,000. So, what are they doing? They're bringing people off their vacations during this spring festival, putting them back into factories and starting production to get those cranked out.
PAUL: Wow.
BLACKWELL: Wow. So you were and the team, you were in Wuhan. Now let me preface this by saying --
CULVER: Yes.
BLACKWELL: -- we are not the story, you and the team are not the story. But I bring this up because you had to get out.
CULVER: Yes.
BLACKWELL: Walk us through that process of knowing in an instant I got to be on the move. What was it like trying to get back to Beijing?
CULVER: And, Victor, I appreciate you acknowledging that we're not making ourselves the story here. But by going there, we're allowing ourselves to connect with the folks who now we're still in touch with. So, that's the benefit of having been on the ground there.
It was obviously a lot of adrenaline that took days to subside for us to have to get out of there in such a quick fashion. But it's also a reminder of the benefits that we had in having that early detection in what a lot of Americans have now told us that they didn't know until they woke up. And it was too late to mobilize. And so that was really what stood out to me is that folks had no advanced warning on that and, you know, for them, it's now that they're waiting to see if they can get a spot on an airplane to get out.
BLACKWELL: And they have to apply. David Culver for us there in Beijing. David, thank you.
PAUL: Thank you, David.
BLACKWELL: Now let's go to Turkey. Rescue crews are pulling survivors, some of them just children, from collapsed buildings after a massive earthquake that hit Friday night.
(VIDEO PLAYING)
PAUL: Look, this is one of those bright spots. A five-year-old they found in that rubble. She is alive. She's breathing. You her crying there. I'm sure that she's scared. She spent hours under that rubble. The good news was obviously that they were able to get to her.
This was a 6.7 magnitude quake. Officials say at least 31 people have died. More than 1,500 are being treated for their injuries.
The president's lawyers are preparing to knock down the House managers' argument that President Trump is guilty. The question is will they convince enough senators there's no need for more evidence? We're going to talk about that with constitutional law attorney and Trump 2020 senior legal adviser Jenna Ellis.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[06:30:00]
BLACKWELL: President Trump's defense team will be back on the Senate floor tomorrow after previewing their arguments Saturday. Two made points we're likely to hear again. One, that Democrats are trying to tear up 2016 ballots and keep the president off the 2020 ballot and that there is no evidence that the president did anything wrong.
PAUL: One of the biggest questions is what still remains to be answered. Will the president's defense team do enough to convince moderate GOP senators to vote against new witnesses and evidence.
We have with us Jenna Ellis. She's a constitutional law attorney and a senior legal adviser to the Trump 2020 campaign. Good morning to you, Jenna.
JENNA ELLIS, SENIOR LEGAL ADVISER, TRUMP 2020 CAMPAIGN: Good morning. Thank you so much for having me.
PAUL: Absolutely.
We are hearing and we heard from Alan Dershowitz last night on Anderson Cooper, we're also hearing from others who are saying there is an expectation the Bidens are going to be part of this defense come Monday. Do you have any idea -- give me a percentage of how much they're going to lean on the Bidens or this defense.
ELLIS: Well, I think that certainly we're going to see an argument and a robust argument from the legal team that is constitutional in nature broadly and then also specific to this instance. And so we're going to see from the legal defense team that the Constitution here provides that Article II, section 1 vests all executive authority in a president of the United States, not in anyone else in his subordinance and certainly not 535 members of Congress.
And so here, there is a clear argument that the articles of impeachment fail on face because the abuse of power and obstruction of Congress simply aren't impeachable offenses. And then the legal defense team will go into the specifics of this instance, which is that the uncontested facts here that President Trump provided more military aid than the previous administration, including lethal aid, and within the fiscal year that it was appropriated for. And those are the uncontested facts.
And so whether or not how much they're going to rely on the Bidens, I'm going to leave that up to the legal team. But I think that you're going to see a very robust and articulate defense not only of the constitutional law but also the fact that President Trump simply did nothing wrong and this absolutely is just the Democrats trying to campaign for 2020. PAUL: The legal standard begins and ends with the burden to prove the case failing squarely on the Democrats. We know that. On shoulders of House managers, that is. But I want to listen to what may be one of the most compelling points of evidence for Democrats in this case.
[06:35:01]
Let's listen here to the testimony of President Trump's appointee, Ambassador Gordon Sondland.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GORDON SONDLAND, U.S. AMBASSADOR TO THE E.U.: Mr. Giuliani's requests were a quid pro quo for arranging a White House visit for President Zelensky. Mr. Giuliani demanded that Ukraine make a public statement announcing the investigations of the 2016 election DNC server and Burisma. Mr. Giuliani was expressing the desires of the president of the United States and we knew these investigations were important to the president.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PAUL: It's important to point out, he says he believes that the suspension of the aid package wouldn't occur until public statement from Ukraine, so not really decisive on that, but very decisive on the White House call and the White House visit. How do you argue that that's not an abuse power?
ELLIS: Well, so Sondland also walked back his testimony and he said that it was just his speculation and presumption. And the facts, the uncontested facts are that there was no pressure on Ukraine. Both President Trump and President Zelensky have been very clear on the record about that.
And the record also shows that President Zelensky and Ukraine had multiple meetings and calls without any announcement of any investigation or any advancement of that. And so the record and the uncontested facts are very clear that that's just simply false and that's not true.
And so while the Democrats are trying to manipulate the narrative into an abuse of power and they're trying to create the facts that go into their narrative, the uncontested facts in the record are very clear that this simply didn't occur in the way that Gordon Sondland presumed and his beliefs are just simply not true.
PAUL: So there are some people that would say witnesses would clear a lot of this up. President Trump has stated a couple of times that he's open to witnesses. Here's one of those moments.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: I would rather go the long way. I would rather interview Bolton. I would rather interview a lot of people. The problem with John is that it's a national security problem.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PAUL: What is your expectation for witnesses here, Jenna?
ELLIS: That will be fully up to the Senate. But the president is absolutely right, that executive privilege and national security interests do need to come into play with this.
And so if we look back at the Clinton impeachment, for example, no new witnesses were called before the Senate that were not already part of the House inquiry and had taken depositions. But what I find most interesting here is that the Democrats in their 24-hour presentation only talked about 17 witnesses. There was actually an 18th witness. That was Inspector General Michael Atkinson. And Adam Schiff has characterized that that testimony is simply a briefing to keep it classified.
But Representative Radcliffe, as well as the ranking member, Devin Nunes, on the House Intelligence Committee has said that that testimony was actually very damaging to Adam Schiff for the inception of this House inquiry. And so the fact that Adam Schiff is not calling a vote to declassify that testimony and allow the Trump legal team access to that is very telling about what they're hiding. And so there is a cover-up. But that's actually Adam Schiff. That has nothing to do with President Trump here and any wrongdoing.
So I think that that testimony absolutely should come forward because that was part of the House inquiry that we haven't seen. There was an 18th witness.
PAUL: Okay. Well, we do know though, witnesses are witnesses. So there will be witnesses on both sides if they are available. Jenna Ellis, we appreciate you being here. Thank you so much.
I want to go to Shan Wu real quickly.
Shan, your reaction to her arguments there?
WU: Well, I think that Jenna's position is very much the problem that the Trump defense has, which is it's all well and fine to rely on constitutional notions like a presumption of innocence, but anyone who has done criminal defense work, we're analogizing this to a criminal trial, they know you can't just sit back and take potshots at the prosecution's case and rely on reasonable doubt. That's a good way to get your client convicted. You must present a coherent theory of innocence.
So they're spending a lot of time saying what the president did not do wrong. They need to present clearly what he did right. What was he legitimately doing here? And they're not presenting that. There are hints of maybe what he was doing.
There's some hints maybe the Democrats just have a bad motivation. But they haven't delivered that yet. If they don't deliver that while they don't have to worry about the president being convicted by the Senate, that's the foregone conclusion they'll acquit. They do have to worry about how that comes across to the American public. PAUL: All right. Shan Wu, always appreciate your expertise, sir. Thank you.
WU: Sure do.
BLACKWELL: Still to come, Senators Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Amy Klobuchar left Washington, back now in Iowa between the impeachment trial.
[06:40:03]
Their last pitch to voters ahead of Democratic caucuses, we'll talk about it next.
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BLACKWELL: Just eight days before the first votes are cast in the Iowa caucuses. The Democratic presidential candidates are making last minute pitches to the voters.
PAUL: Former Vice President Joe Biden, in fact, kicked off his final swing with a rally in Polk County last night drawing a stark contrast between himself and Donald Trump.
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JOE BIDEN (D), FORMER VICE PRESIDENT, PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I don't believe we are the dark, angry nation that Donald Trump tweets about in the middle of the night. I refuse to believe that we're a nation that condones putting children in cages on the border. I refuse to believe that we're a nation that build walls with the hysteria over immigration. I don't believe we're a nation that embraces white supremacist and hate groups. I don't believe we're a nation that bows down to Vladimir Putin. I will not.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PAUL: Sometimes you have a brutal schedule. Senators Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar were back in Iowa after being in Washington for the impeachment trial right on the plate (ph).
BLACKWELL: And sanders was joined by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. This was at a rally in Ames. He pitched himself as the best candidate to beat the president in November.
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SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I-VT): If you look at the structure of our campaign, our ability to mobilize millions of people all over this country, our ability to raise funds from the grassroots, not from the wealthy and the powerful. Our ability to put together an agenda that reaches out and speaks to the working class of this country in a unique way, I think you'll conclude that our campaign is the strongest campaign to defeat Trump. (END VIDEO CLIP)
BLACKWELL: And look at this. This is the moment that Senator Elizabeth warren found out that she was picked as the recipient of the endorsement of the Des Moines Register's editorial board.
PAUL: The newspaper says Senator Warren will, quote, push an equal America in the right direction. While on the trail in Iowa last night, she talked about how she plans to beat President Trump.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN (D-MA): I believe that organizing is how we're going to win in 2020. That's how we make it happen. You bet. And when I say win, I don't just mean win the White House. It's how we're going to win up and down the ticket. We have to invest in our county parties. We have to invest in our state parties. We have to invest in Democrats. That's how we're going to win.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PAUL: All right.
And to the sports arena from the political arena, LeBron James making history last night. What do you think, Coy?
COY WIRE, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Passing Kobe Bryant for points scored. Good morning, Christi and LeBron -- you're LeBron in my book, Victor.
BLACKWELL: I'll take it.
WIRE: LeBron James further cementing himself as the greatest of all time by surpassing one of the greatest of all time. But what role did the universe play in all of this according to LeBron. That's coming up.
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[06:50:00]
BLACKWELL: LeBron James --
PAUL: Not him.
BLACKWELL: Not me. I was called LeBron but(INAUDIBLE) it was cool. He now has the third most points in NBA history, passing Kobe.
PAUL: And he did it in Kobe's hometown.
WIRE: Yes.
PAUL: Coy, that had to hurt a little bit, a little bit of a sting.
WIRE: You would think. But two things really stood out. One, the serendipity of all this, because Kobe was born in Philadelphia, it's where he grew up, played high school ball, and it's where LeBron was given a pair of shoes by Kobe 18 years ago as a high schooler, and also the respect that you amongst these two legends, and you'll see how here. LeBron needs just 18 points against the Sixers to surpass the Mamba, written on his shoes, Mamba for Life. That is respect, right?
And here it is in the third quarter, driving to the hoop, a layup, it's not flashy but still historic. During the next break, a standing ovation, LeBron surpassing Kobe Bryant for number three on the all- time scoring list, and he does it in Kobe's hometown while playing for the team Kobe played for. It's like it was written for a movie script.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LEBRON JAMES, LOS ANGELES LAKERS FORWARD: It's just surreal. It doesn't make no sense. But the universe just puts things in your life and I guess when you live in the right way or you're just giving everything to whatever you're doing, things happen organically. And it's not supposed to make sense, but it just happens.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WIRE: LeBron finishing with 29 in a loss. Kobe tweeted, continuing to move the game forward. Much respect my brother. 33,655 points in LeBron's hall of fame career, only Karl Malone and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar have more. LeBron needs about 5,000 more points to past Kareem.
Now, let's go to Coco Gauff. The 15-year-old's magical run at the Australian Open coming to an end when fellow American Sofia Kenin beat here in the fourth round, both of them in tears, hugging each other, emotional after the match.
Now, Kenin, she is just 21 years old. She's advancing to her first ever grand slam quarterfinal. So we'll be keeping our eye on her down under.
49ers CEO Jed York has a big surprise for his employees, all of them. He's flying hundreds of employees cross-country to Miami for the Super Bowl even the interns. He wants to make sure that they're there to help celebrate the moment. San Francisco looking to win their first Super Bowl since 1995 when they faced the Chiefs next Sunday.
All right, now to an incredible feat, actually two of them. Soaring 13 feet in the air kicking and breaking this board. This is Kang Wan-Jin (ph) of South Korea's taekwondo national team. According to his Instagram page, I mean, this is absurd. That's three feet higher than a basketball hoop, you guys.
[06:55:01]
Look at his head over the person who's holding that pole. It's just absolutely absurd.
BLACKWELL: I'm trying to understand the physics of this. What -- play the video again. What gives him the momentum to get that high, is it the kick, is it the push off the ground? WIRE: So he's running full speed and kind of like a gymnast, right? There's a little bit of spring to this floor. But if you look at this guy, this is the front page (ph), they are doing incredible acrobatic- type maneuvers that are just mind-blowing. This is just one of them. So we'll be sure to tweet that out from @newday.
BLACKWELL: That's fantastic.
PAUL: Coy, thank you.
BLACKWELL: Thank you, Coy.
PAUL: And we hope you make good memories today.
BLACKWELL: "INSIDE POLITICS" with John King is up after a break.
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