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Soon, House Oversight Panel Holds Biden Impeachment Hearing; Appeals Court Puts Texas Law Allowing State and Local Police to Arrest Migrants Back on Hold; Trump Suggests He Would Back 15-Week Federal Abortion Ban. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired March 20, 2024 - 10:00   ET

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

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[10:00:00]

JIM ACOSTA, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. You are live in the CNN Newsroom. I'm Jim Acosta in Washington.

And right now, House Republicans say they are going, quote, full steam ahead on their impeachment inquiry into President Biden. That's despite the fact that their case is largely based on discredited information tied to the Russians. Their previous star witness who prosecutors say admitted to having ties to Russian intelligence is in jail awaiting trial for lying to the FBI.

So, today, a different GOP witness will testify again, not on Capitol Hill, but from federal prison, where he's serving time for unrelated fraud charges.

Meantime former President Donald Trump, who actually was twice impeached, is searching for new ways to postpone his election subversion trial, asking the Supreme Court to delay the proceedings and doubling down on his claim of total immunity, arguing that rejecting it would be, quote, the end of the presidency as we know it.

But we begin with this morning's House oversight hearing on the impeachment inquiry into President Biden. CNN's Melanie Zanona joins us live up on Capitol Hill for us.

Melanie, what are Republicans trying to accomplish with this hearing?

MELANIE ZANONA, CNN CAPITOL HILL REPORTER: Well, initially, this hearing was billed as a way to highlight discrepancies in Hunter Biden's closed door testimony. Remember, this is only the second public hearing that house Republicans have had related to their impeachment inquiry and Hunter Biden has been at the heart of their probe.

But since Hunter decided to not show up today, Republicans are going to turn to other witnesses who claim that president Joe Biden was deeply involved in his son's foreign business deals.

But those claims have yet to be verified. And, in fact, many of those claims have been undercut by other witnesses. So, Jim, there are signs that today's hearing is shipping up to be more of a spectacle than any substance. For starters, I am told that there's going to be an empty seat with Hunter Biden's name on it. There's also going to be a witness testifying remotely, as you mentioned, from federal prison. And just moments ago, a Democrat on the committee, Jared Moskowitz of Florida, showed up wearing a Putin mask. So, just giving you a flavor of how Democrats are planning to handle today's hearing.

Meanwhile, we should also mention that Democrats are selecting Lev Parnas as their witness. He is a former Rudy Giuliani associate, someone who was tasked at one point with digging up dirt on the Biden family, but has since called those claims nonsense.

So, just a really not ideal situation for House Oversight Chair Jim Comer, who is leading this hearing today and facing many questions about where his impeachment inquiry goes from here.

ACOSTA: Yes. And, Melanie, I mean, one of the questions I assume we're going to hear from Democrats is where is the evidence that House Republicans are bringing forward to try to impeach the president. Do we have any sign of that?

ZANONA: Yes. Well, they have not been able to prove that in any of the hearings or in any of their closed door testimony that they've had so far. So, that is the very high bar that they are still trying to achieve. And because they have not been able to meet that bar, many Republicans inside the House say they are not ready to support impeachment articles. So, there are a lot of questions about where this impeachment inquiry goes next.

Comer has said that there's likely going to be criminal referrals and a final report at some point. But because there's not going to be impeachment articles, there is a serious debate inside the GOP about how and when they're going to wrap up this probe.

There's some in the Republican Party who say they just need to finish this now and try to turn their attention to other issues and trying to deliver for the American people ahead of November. But there are some Republicans who say they should drag out this inquiry as long as possible and try to politically damage Biden ahead of the November election, Jim.

ACOSTA: All right, empty chairs and Putin masks up on Capitol Hill. Melanie Zanona, it should be a lively hearing. Thank you so much.

Joining me now to talk about this, other perhaps more important matters, Colorado Democratic Congressman Jason Crow. He serves on the House Intelligence and Foreign Affairs Committees.

Congressman, I do want to start with this hearing. You heard the scenes that are there from Melanie Zanona. I mean, what do you think it says to the voters out there when we're a couple of days from a government shutdown? Yes, there appears to be a deal, but we're not out of the woods yet, and foreign aid for Ukraine remains stalled. And this is what we're seeing up on Capitol Hill. REP. JASON CROW (D-CO): Yes, Jim, you were right a minute ago. We are asking, where is the evidence? And the bottom line is there is no evidence. Unlike the twice impeached former president, Donald Trump, the first impeachment for blackmailing President Zelenskyy to assist him in his campaign, the second impeachment for inspiring and encouraging an assault on the U.S. Capitol and derailing the election, unlike those situations where there was ample evidence of malfeasance and high crimes and misdemeanors, there's no evidence here.

The witnesses have been shamed and discredited. They're digging. This is, frankly, a sideshow.

[10:05:00]

The Republicans should be focusing on governing, helping us pass a budget, helping to support Ukraine and the other important national security things that our nation faces, but instead, they're engaging in political theater.

ACOSTA: And, Congressman, I did want to ask you about this shutdown deal. I mean, there are members of the House Freedom Caucus grumbling about the deal. Are you concerned that this is going to pass in time to a verdict shutdown? I heard Manu Raju saying yesterday we might slip into a technical shutdown for a brief period. What's the latest, do you think?

CROW: Well, one thing that will always be true on Capitol Hill is that the House Freedom Caucus will always grumble about a deal, because these are people who don't believe in compromise. These are the people that don't believe in a system of divided government where you have to actually come to a bipartisan result to get something done. They don't believe that at all, right? Their view is it has to be all or nothing, in which case, if that's what happens, the American people in our country gets nothing.

So, you know, we're going to try to find a compromise. We're going to continue to push forward for our bipartisan deal, and we just have to frankly take those folks who aren't willing to finding the compromise and marginalize them, push them to the side, while the rest of us who want to figure out how to move forward do so.

ACOSTA: And where is aid for Ukraine right now? I mean, any signs of life there?

CROW: Well, I'm pushing very hard. I am working with a bipartisan coalition. I'm working with House Democratic leadership to put this forward and look at every potential avenue to get it done because time is of the essence here. The Ukrainians are fighting, they're dying. They have no shortage of current courage and resiliency, but they do have a shortage of ammunition.

And, listen, this is not charity. This is not something that we're just doing out of a goodness of our hearts. This is an American national security effort. It is in the best interest of America that we secure Europe. They are our number one economic trading partner, our biggest business partner. The breadbasket of the world is Ukraine. We have a hundred thousand service members and their families living in Europe. We have to secure Americans in Europe, have to secure our economy, we have to secure food supplies, and we will do that for less than five percent of our annual defense budget if we get this over the finish line.

But time is of the essence, so we're pushing very hard.

ACOSTA: And I did want to ask you about Israel. I mean, the president has invited a team of Israeli officials to Washington next week to talk about this impending offensive that may go into Rafah. And I do also want to make note the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, having a closed-door meeting with Senate Republicans or maybe speaking to a close-door meeting with Senate Republicans today. Your sense of all that?

I mean, it does sound as though the president and the prime minister are not really on the same page as much as they were in the days after October 7th. What would you like to see the President get out of this and do you think it's appropriate for the prime minister be talking to Senate Republicans today?

CROW: Well, for many months, I've joined with some of my national security focused colleagues to push this conflict in a very different direction. I am somebody who fought three times in Iraq and Afghanistan and what I know to be true after 20 years of hard-earned lessons that the United States gained out of our global war on terror is that you cannot completely defeat a terrorist organization with military force alone. You have to make sure you're meeting people's basic needs, that you're addressing humanitarian issues, that you are going to the root of terrorism, and that is hopelessness and fear. And right now, the strategy is not doing that.

30,000 civilian casualties is untenable. It's a moral failure and a national security failure. So, we have to have a very different direction here. And, frankly, an invasion of Rafah would be catastrophic for the 1 million Palestinians who are on the verge of famine. It does not serve American interests, it does serve Israeli interests.

ACOSTA: Yes. And, Congressman, I did want to -- I mean speaking of Israel, I want to play some comments that recently surfaced from former President Donald Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, talking about the war in Gaza, get your response to that.

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JARED KUSHNER, DONALD TRUMP'S SON-IN-LAW: Both sides are spending a fortune on military I think neither side really wants to have you know a terrorist organization enclave right between them and Gaza's waterfront property. It could be very valuable to -- if people would focus on kind of building up, you know, livelihoods, you think about all the money that's gone into this tunnel network and into all the munitions, if that would have gone into education or innovation, what could have been done?

And so I think that it's a little bit of an unfortunate situation there, but I think from Israel's perspective, I would do my best to move the people out and then clean it up.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: Yes. Congressman, I mean, Jared Kushner is saying, from Israel's perspective, I would have moved the people out to clean it up. Your response to that?

CROW: Well, I don't listen to Jared Kushner on any issues of national security or military strategy. He clearly has no idea what he's talking about. And like most of the folks in the Trump administration and the Trump family, they're always focused on money. They're always focused on what they can get out of it.

And let's not forget that Jared Kushner was supposedly the person that brought peace and tranquility to the Middle East.

[10:10:03]

Well, here we are. Clearly, they failed in that effort and we need a very, very different approach right now.

ACOSTA: All right. Congressman Jason Crow from Colorado, thanks very much for your time this morning. We appreciate it.

CROW: Thank you.

ACOSTA: All right. We'll be right back.

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ACOSTA: A controversial Texas immigration law is again on hold after an overnight ruling by a federal appeals court. This came just hours after the Supreme Court gave Texas the green light to put the law into effect. It allows state and local law enforcement to arrest people they suspect have entered the country illegally.

[10:15:00]

CNN's Ed Lavendera joins me live in El Paso. Ed, following all the twists and turns, you can get a little dizzy. But next hour, arguments are expected to begin over this law. How are local law enforcement agencies reacting to all of this? I mean, I suppose they don't really know what to do on a day-by-day, hour-by-hour basis because of all the legal back and forth.

ED LAVANDERA, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, the whiplash on this is quite consuming for many of the law enforcement agencies across the state of Texas, the local agencies that would be most directly affected by this. And so they're clearly watching this closely.

But in the few hours that this law was actually in effect yesterday, we did hear from a number of law enforcement departments across the state and trying to kind of encapsulate here what they said. But the bottom line is we didn't hear from any law enforcement agency that said that they would strictly be sending their officers out to enforce this law.

And what essentially this immigration law does is it gives local law enforcement departments and agents the ability to arrest people that enter Texas illegally. And it gives judges the ability to deport people back to Mexico if that's where they cross from.

But law enforcement departments, sheriffs and police officials are saying that they are not going to go out and specifically enforce just this. If the immigration status comes up in the course of another crime that is committed, they will enforce it then.

But, by and large, what we're hearing is a great deal of confusion about how exactly this law will be implemented on the ground on a day to day basis, Jim.

ACOSTA: Yes. And, Ed, do we know if anybody was arrested when the law was in effect for that brief period of time that it was?

LAVANDERA: Yes. We've been reaching out to local law enforcement agencies across the state as well as legal aid groups that have helped migrants in other cases. We have not heard of any arrests that were made yesterday on this specific new law.

We're still trying to put out feelers and calls to people across the state just to double check that. But so far, that hasn't happened.

We should also point out that, over the last few years, state troopers have arrested migrants for trespassing onto private property along the border. So, that has kind of gone on, has been going on for some time, but this new law is an escalated new level. Jim?

ACOSTA: All right. Ed Lavendera, thank you very much, down in El Paso for us. We appreciate it.

Turning now to Donald Trump's latest strategy to further delay the trial in his election subversion federal case here in Washington, the former president's legal team filed a brief arguing that the Supreme Court should send the ruling back to lower courts. Trump's lawyers also argued that if he isn't granted immunity, it would be, quote, the end of the presidency as we know it.

Joining us now is Senior Crime and Justice Reporter Katelyn Polantz. Katelyn, I mean, this is another delay tactic, obviously.

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE REPORTER: Well, it is, but he actually wants them to just totally dismiss the case against him. And he goes boldly in language he hasn't used before in this legal brief saying, essentially trying to scare the justices into protecting the executive branch, the presidency, with an immunity bubble that no one can break.

He says that there would be post-office trauma for anyone serving in the presidency. There would be de facto blackmail and extortion of people serving in office while they're president if there was the threat of prosecution after they left office. It would be, quote, the end of the presidency as we know it, if there's not immunity around the presidency.

And his lawyers point out that when the D.C. Circuit, the appeals court before this ruled against Trump and said, no, you don't have immunity for breaking the law while you're president, his lawyers are now saying that's particularly bad for Trump and gerrymanders a situation where it would deprive him specifically of immunity because you shouldn't have immunity fall away if you break the law because you want to remain in power. That's something that's especially bad for Trump in this situation.

So, he wants to be able to not just break the law as president, if you see fit as president, but also it doesn't matter what the motive is at all there.

ACOSTA: Well, and a lot of legal scholars, constitutional scholars, would say if you did have total immunity as president, that would be the end of the presidency as we know it.

POLANTZ: That's right. And the appeals court did say that, you know, the reason you have laws is it prevents people from wanting to break them, and in this case, it's prevented previous presidents before Trump from wanting to break the law.

On the delay tactic, that is something that they're floating to the Supreme Court. If the Supreme Court doesn't buy this big, bold argument of total immunity around the presidency, they're saying, we'll send it back to the lower courts to look at immunity in this particular, factual situation.

ACOSTA: And that would effectively -- I mean, that would effectively postpone things potentially for a very long.

POLANTZ: Lots more court proceedings before any trial would be to take place.

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ACOSTA: All right. Katelyn Polantz, as always, thank you very much.

Coming up, President Biden making a direct pitch to Latino voters, trying to use Trump's words against him, that's next.

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ACOSTA: Former President Donald Trump inching ever so closely to clarifying his position on a key issue in the 2024 elections. He is suggesting last night that he would back a 15-week abortion ban.

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DONALD TRUMP (R), FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT, 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The number of weeks now, people are agreeing on 15, and I'm thinking in terms of that, and it will come out to something that's very reasonable.

[10:25:04] But people are really, even hardliners, are agreeing, seems to be 15 weeks seems to be a number that people are agreeing at. But I will make that announcement at the appropriate time.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: Now, this comes after Trump said last month that he was undecided about backing a federal abortion ban but had been, quote, hearing about 15 weeks, that's a quote from Trump.

Let's discuss that and more with CNN Political Commentator, Republican Strategist Michael Singleton and CNN Political Commentator and former Senior Adviser to Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign Karen Finney.

Karen, let me let me start with you. I mean, the more Donald Trump talks about abortion, the more I think Democrats probably like hearing it, right? I mean, because this is going to be a potent issue.

KAREN FINNEY, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Absolutely. And early on, he was trying to walk away from the issue. Remember, he was trying to back away, and I think he saw the backlash. And in that comment, here's what's to remember. How many times have Republicans tried a 15- week abortion ban in special elections and it failed, right?

And think about the state of Ohio, where we just saw a Trump candidate win. Well, remember, in Ohio, in a special election, how overwhelmingly the abortion ban was defeated, all those voters are now open to a Democratic message that says, if this person is in the Senate, you're going to see a 15-week abortion ban.

ACOSTA: Shermichael, I mean, how do you, as a Republican strategist, navigate this issue?

SHERMICHAEL SINGLETON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I mean, look, you look at the poll in Gallup, had a poll that came out last year, 63 percent of Americans actually agree that a 15-week ban is appropriate. If you look at studies from the Center for Disease Control, what you find is that most abortions are typically around nine, ten. It's early. It's within 15 weeks when you look at data from the Center and Disease Control.

And so, as a strategist, that tells me looking at those metrics that Republicans taking that position, they actually aren't far off where most people are who go through this process or even people who don't go through the process say, hey, I think this was pretty reasonable.

I think the question becomes, how do you message this to the average voter, particularly those independent swing voters? And I think Republicans have to do a better job on the messaging front.

ACOSTA: You know, and it depends on, I mean, if he gets back into the White House, what a Congress would do with something like this, because, I mean, how do you get something like this out of the Senate with a Senate that's almost 50-50? I mean, it's just going to be very, very difficult. Instead of Trump, Trump, Trump all the time, I want to ask you, Karen, about President Biden's campaigning out west. He's trying to make the case to Latino voters. This is such a big, big issue for the president running for re-election right now.

Let's listen to how he characterized Trump talking about this issue and talk on the other side.

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JOE BIDEN, U.S. PRESIDENT: Well, you know, I need you. I need you badly. I need the help. Kamala and I desperately need your help.

In 2016, he called Latinos criminal drug dealers and rapists when he came down that escalator. Now, he says immigrants are poisoning the blood of our country. What the hell is he talking about?

He separated kids and parents at the border and he kills the children. This guy despises Latinos.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FINNEY: Yes.

ACOSTA: I mean, undercurrent here, Karen, is that the president, and I've talked to a lot of Democratic strategists about this, people in the Latino community, he is really underperforming with the Latino community right now in a way that, I mean, is raising alarm bells in states like Nevada, which if he doesn't win Nevada, then the map starts to become very complicated in the Electoral College.

FINNEY: Yes, absolutely. Look, I think the campaign is taking it very seriously. That's why he is on this trip. But I think there's a couple of dynamics we also need to look at that tells us what is open to President Biden in this election.

Number one, this Texas law, remember what happened with Arizona, with SB1070, and in Alabama with their legislation. Once people realize that essentially you're talking about codifying racial profiling, there was a huge backlash.

And one of the things that we see, immigration reform, absolutely important issue to the Latino community. It's one of the things people talk about. But a majority of Americans, including Latinos, want humane immigration reform.

And so messaging to those folks that it's not just that that former President Trump calls you these vile names at the same time, they're talking about being inhumane treatment of immigrants in this country.

ACOSTA: Oh, sure.

FINNEY: And so I think part of it is teasing out what kind of immigration reform.

And then the other thing I think is really important to remember with the Latino community, they care about a whole range of issues. And so just like other voters, the president is going to have to continue to have a conversation about all the issues. They care about education actually being one of the top issues.

ACOSTA: But let's put -- if we put that poll number back on screen, the preference among Latino voters, I think it's at 46 percent --

FINNEY: Yes.

ACOSTA: -- Donald Trump, 40 percent, Joe Biden.

[10:30:00]

Shermichael, how did this happen?

SINGLETON: I mean, look, to the point that the Latino community cares about or about other issues as much as immigration, I think, is an important one.