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Cuomo Prime Time

Buttigieg Holds Lead in Iowa Caucuses with 97 Percent of Iowa's Precincts Reporting; Trump Acquitted; Divided Senate Acquits Trump of Impeachment Charges. Aired 12-1a ET

Aired February 06, 2020 - 00:00   ET

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

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CHRIS CUOMO, CNN HOST: Where does he go after this ode to electability?

Some of that will depend on New Hampshire. We'll talk about it.

Where does the country go?

The president of the United States was charged, he has been acquitted.

Now what is the impact on him and on the election?

One senator in his party voted to keep him in check.

How will that senator, Senator Mitt Romney, be remembered?

How will all of them be remembered?

What do you say?

Let's get after it.

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CUOMO: Breaking news once again on our midnight watch. Almost all the Iowa results are in. We're here in New Hampshire. You'll hear people breaking down the set from the town hall. Don't worry about it. It's taken two days but 4 percent left to go. We can report returns from 96 percent of the precincts.

The rankings haven't changed. Buttigieg is in the lead in the most important metric. Which, remember, it is just like the general election, the electoral college matters, the delegates matter. Not the popular vote.

You'll hear this acronym, SDE, the state delegates. Bernie Sanders, right behind him. The lead is tightening. But it's been just about like this since we started measuring.

Worth noting, Sanders still does maintain this big lead in the popular vote. It matters but it's not dispositive of victory. The delegates are.

As much of the story of who is on top is who is not, namely Joe Biden. Fourth place by a lot. He was doubled by Sanders. Here is what the former vice president said about the result there and what it means going forward in our CNN town hall not so long ago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, FORMER U.S. VICE PRESIDENT AND PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I think what happened -- look there are total of 44 delegates come out of that. And it looks like it will break down between seven and 15.

I expected to do better and I expected our organization would perform better. But the fact is, I'm happy to be here in New Hampshire.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: Well, he should be expecting to have a lot of people talk about what needs to happen here and in Nevada and South Carolina. Otherwise there're going to be a lot of negative expectations in coming his way.

But something else to tease into the show, I believe and I will argue to you that the former vice president had his best moment of the entire campaign to this point in the CNN town hall tonight.

What was it?

We'll get to it. Let's bring in the big guns, David Chalian and Abby Phillip.

So news on our watch, 96 percent in. Seems to stand the way we saw it which means it will be difficult for the picture to change. What made me most surprised is how we will learn about the remaining 4 percent.

In this age of technology and the app and all of this, how will we find out the rest of the vote?

DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Some of the precincts that haven't reported will mail in through the snail mail their final vote count. Right now the Iowa Democratic Party is doing this paper verification process. That's how they're ensuring the accuracy and reliability of the numbers.

We will get another data dump before we get to the final one. It may take another day or two because, in the very small precincts that are still outstanding, the party has to chase those, get them sent to them and do the paper verification.

As you noted that 0.7 percent margin Buttigieg has over Sanders in the delegates, I think Sanders would need to significantly outperform what he's at right now in order to overtake Buttigieg in the delegates. But there's still some vote out there.

CUOMO: Buttigieg had the media nipping at his heels about saying he was victorious. He was right to say it. He got denied the bump he should have gotten for winning Iowa. But he was right.

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: And talking to the Buttigieg campaign on the night of the caucuses, they kept telling me, here's what we know based on what we have been collecting from their precinct captains. They had about 75 percent of the precincts knowable in their world.

So that's why they felt so confident about the numbers. And the Sanders campaign on the other hand, everybody was trying to put out their own numbers. But even the Sanders campaign had a much lower percentage of certainty about their own numbers.

I think that was the reason for Buttigieg's confidence. But it wasn't just the media; Democrats were criticizing him for coming out and doing that on that night --

(CROSSTALK)

CUOMO: The audacity of hope, as it turns out, because now they all need to shut up.

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CUOMO: He wound up doing the best in Iowa as far as we know.

PHILLIP: And by a hair. But even Sanders should know about that because he came extremely close four years ago against Clinton. This is a little bit of deja vu for him. But he understands even winning by a hair, the only thing that matters is winning. That's where the Buttigieg campaign is --

(CROSSTALK)

CHALIAN: -- That's why Bernie Sanders fought so hard to have Democratic Party release the popular vote total. It does give him a talking point. He's about 1,500 votes ahead of Buttigieg in the popular vote. I will note Buttigieg on the call with supporters said, this could get even tighter than now.

CUOMO: All I'm saying Buttigieg took a chance. Fortune favors the bold. He said I think we'll be victorious. It will be that way now no matter how it shakes out.

What other results come out?

Sanders is at the top of the ticket now. You have to say that. Coming in to New Hampshire he has the best chance of winning here and there's no funny system. There's no funny caucus system where how you play the game matters. There's a lot of talk from campaigns like Warren and Biden that they got outworked on the ground by the Buttigieg campaign.

That can't happen in New Hampshire.

So what are we thinking about here?

CHALIAN: Well, I think you are right, Bernie Sanders is the best positioned here six days out. We see things change in six days all the time. It is a dynamic moment in the campaign. I take your point that because of the delayed results out of Iowa and the president's impeachment trial in the Senate, it's a different kind of news environment than normally the all-encompassing focus on Iowa to New Hampshire.

I'm curious to see if that dampens the volatility we normally see. But Sanders is well positioned here.

What we don't know yet, does Buttigieg get any kind of bump out of Iowa?

We'll be on the lookout for that.

PHILLIP: His campaign said, in terms of fundraising, they had one of their best days if not the best on the day that the first set of data started to come in, validating his claim of winning the caucuses. Maybe the bump might be a little bit delayed or dampened.

But I do think New Hampshire voters are going to be looking to see what happened in Iowa. They are paying attention. These are high information voters in this state. So they're paying attention to who looks strong and who looks like they can win.

And right now it's Buttigieg and Sanders. Sanders has the advantage here because he's well known in the state as a neighboring senator.

CUOMO: From Vermont. If Bernie wins, if nothing goes crazy, if that's what happens, now you talk about, what is the rest of the lineup?

Sanders is on top. Let's say hypothetically. The reason it's OK to speculate here is the real race isn't about him, it's about who is second and third and fourth in New Hampshire. It will shape the race. Just as we're speaking, we're getting more new information.

What is it?

What have we learned?

Here, 97 percent in. Here are the numbers on the screen. It has contracted even more. Statistical dead heat at the top. Not for Warren or Biden. They remain back. Implications for both of them. One of the things that happens when you get results, is it's not just how you did, it's how it changes the talk in the media.

You're hearing Buttigieg, Buttigieg, Sanders, Sanders. But you're hearing about Biden mostly in the negative, Elizabeth Warren much less. So now, we come into New Hampshire. Whatever happens in Iowa happens.

If Bernie edges him out and Buttigieg goes in a second, he's a surprise finish. There's victory in that.

What has to happen here in terms of second and third in order to come out of New Hampshire with something other than a black eye? CHALIAN: The vice president said he took a gut punch in Iowa. He's

got to reverse that fortune. The position he's in is a defensive one out of Iowa. And he needs to move to offensive position, show he can take the gut punch and convince voters to still be with him.

CUOMO: Can he?

CHALIAN: We'll see.

(CROSSTALK)

CHALIAN: How am I going to predict -- ?

CUOMO: How's he looking in New Hampshire?

CHALIAN: It's a state that can work for him.

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CHALIAN: It's not an overly diverse state where he's strongest in places like Nevada and South Carolina and coming up through the South on Super Tuesday. They think that is a real strong suit.

But as you noted this is not the caucus system here. This is a primary. This is a place where independents can come over and participate. It may not be the strongest electorate that a Biden operation would want for after Iowa. But it is a place that he has been competitive in the preelection polling.

CUOMO: He doesn't have to win.

But what if he finishes fourth?

PHILLIP: A fourth finish for a second time is not an improvement. He's already in fourth in Iowa. He has to show fight. One advantage of Biden's position out of Iowa is he gets to play the comeback kid.

When he came out fighting today against Buttigieg and Sanders, there was spunk in him. You could see excitement, that kind of grit they like to see in Biden. So liveliness was there again.

And perhaps it's not so much about how he finishes in New Hampshire but how he shows he can fight. By the time he gets on firmer ground, his supporters are not demoralized by the process that has been. This is a big risk for him.

Several consecutive bad losses for Biden is a bad narrative. He cannot risk losing that foundation of support he has in non-white voters in Nevada and South Carolina.

CUOMO: Inside secret: the first thing you'll hear if there's trouble is about fights within the campaign. Blames of people within the actual campaign team. Listen for that first. You won't hear bad things about the candidate. It will be the people around him and who's in leadership and who isn't. People will be swapped out.

The next phase is money. The third phase is people fall out of the race.

Let's take a break. Two other implications to discuss.

What does New Hampshire mean for Elizabeth Warren?

She was part of the town hall tonight with me.

What does she have to do here in New Hampshire?

What's the state of play for her?

What I have been teasing, I think Joe Biden had his best moment of the campaign in his lowest moment of the campaign. He connected with people here tonight on a very interesting level. We'll play it for you.

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CUOMO: All right. Brand new information here in the midnight hour. We're at 97 percent precincts reporting in Iowa. And you're not going to get that much more than that because we have learned some of the precincts have to mail in the results. I'm talking envelope and stamp action.

So what do we know?

It's on the screen. It has gotten tight. Buttigieg and Sanders: Sanders is declaring victory because he killed it in the popular vote. He'll split it on the delegates side with Buttigieg. For the mayor out of the South Bend this is still a huge event in his campaign that will be a catalyst.

I have David and Abby with me, joined with Aisha Moodie-Mills and Hilary Rosen.

We were talking what this means to us. Let's get a take from you two into the hunt here.

The returns in Iowa if they stay the way we see them now, what does it mean for the state of play?

AISHA MOODIE-MILLS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: The key takeaway for me is that the Democrats who are voting clearly want something new. I know a lot of people are talking about whether this is progressive versus moderate.

What I'm seeing is the candidates in the top three and certainly the top two are all inspiring in a way that they're saying we'll do something that's different than what the good old boys used to do. We're not playing the same politics in Washington. We want to in some way change the system or we'll offer fresh blood and fresh energy.

That's the resounding theme and what the primary is going to come down to.

Do we want to continue business as usual with the same characters in Washington or try something different?

That is what I'm seeing play out. I think that will continue to be the theme of the overall primary.

CUOMO: That's why we saw Joe Biden today. His staffers saying they saw spunk in him out of Iowa. They put out a tweet. I don't know he wrote it or not. But the idea of him saying to Buttigieg, he says I'm part of the old guard and responded to what you're saying. That is a point.

Hilary, you said something to me. I don't remember what night. My head is mostly sponge cake now. But it stuck with me. I was pushing you about Bloomberg and what does it mean about Bloomberg and he's moving up.

What happens on Super Tuesday and it's all muddled like this. You said Democrats have never had to go to someone who is not really a Democrat to draw Republicans to beat a Republican.

You still feel that way?

HILARY ROSEN, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: Well, I think Bloomberg is a Democrat. But what I --

CUOMO: He is now.

ROSEN: But it wasn't who was running, it was who was voting. I said Democrats don't need Republicans to win the presidency. And that's the key point. We don't need a candidate that appeals to Republicans to win the presidency. We actually have enough Democrats and independents across the country to win if you look at the states we lost in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

Plenty of Democrats didn't vote. I think the dichotomy of this race is that the number one focus for voters, as we saw in Iowa, everyplace I went this is what I heard, has been I want to beat Donald Trump.

But as they make the calculation there's no doubt you cannot win without vision and hope.

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ROSEN: People need to feel that vision and hope even with the candidate they feel settles in the most comfortably to beat Donald Trump. That is Joe Biden's biggest challenge here. He can't just be about beating Donald Trump.

He has to think about what is it about Sanders and Pete Buttigieg that are actually giving voters a level of enthusiasm that I need to think about. CUOMO: Energy, the energy. That's very interesting. What Hilary is

saying cuts against what Buttigieg's argument is largely out of Iowa. The pivot counties, where there are a lot of people who voted for Trump, I can get them. That's an attractive appeal but Hilary's point is provocative also. We need the Democrats to come out.

PHILLIP: Are those people from the pivot counties Democrats?

Or were they Republicans all along?

These are people who voted for President Obama, sometimes twice, in 2008 and 2012 and in 2016 they moved over and voted for Trump.

So were they Democrats?

Or were they voting for the first black president twice because it felt good?

But ideologically they are Republicans. The Buttigieg campaign believes these are people in our tent already, not Republicans we're bringing into the party necessarily. These are actually people who were part of the party for eight years.

Then there's others who argue, maybe they're not. Maybe the people we need are who stuck with us time and time again, who came out in 2018 and powered Democrats to victory.

(CROSSTALK)

CHALIAN: To Hilary's point about needing -- Joe Biden needing something more than electability. This was the danger, the big danger. If you make just electability -- he started advertising in Iowa in the summer, ads included graphics of poll numbers of general election matchups for an election 15 months away.

This was a message of electability. When that gets pierced, as it did by coming in fourth, that becomes a problem, which is why at the end in Iowa -- I'm curious to see if he brings it around in the closing sale -- he included that character message again about trying to -- this was the piece he was trying to use for inspiration for Democrats, which was you have to think about the character of the person who sits in the Oval Office.

He launched that ad and I think their goal didn't work all that well in Iowa, to try and layer that into in addition to the, I'm best position to win.

(CROSSTALK)

ROSEN: It is important to remember --

CUOMO: I want to play you sound -- go ahead.

ROSEN: New Hampshire and Iowa were never Joe Biden states. We added Nevada and South Carolina in 2008 for a reason. I think what is instructive is where -- who New Hampshire counts out and does this race start to winnow from other people like Elizabeth Warren, is probably more in jeopardy in New Hampshire than Biden is.

CUOMO: That's right. All the big brains say Iowa may not pick your winner. But it certainly picks losers. That's something you have to add into the calculus.

It was strategic for Joe Biden to say we're not looking at Iowa. I used to tell coaches, 3-point shooting is not my thing. I stunk at it.

When we come back, I want to get to the moment about Joe Biden. And we have to talk about what happened -- just think about this. This election is looming so large that we still haven't spoken about the acquittal of the president of the United States in an impeachment trial.

One key point, he was acquitted. They're saying he was exonerated. One of those is true. The other is false. Let's discuss with veteran newsman Sam Donaldson next.

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CUOMO: The president of the United States was acquitted today. That's the equivalent of being found not guilty on both charges in his impeachment trial. There was one GOP senator, Mitt Romney, who voted guilty on the first article of impeachment, abuse of power, not on obstruction of Congress.

Those two things are not necessarily contradictory. What is contradictory is breaking with the strongest grip on a party that I have ever seen in a president. My perspective is limited. The man who has ultimate perspective is legendary anchor at ABC News, Sam Donaldson, my mentor.

Always good to see you.

SAM DONALDSON, FORMER ABC NEWS ANCHOR: How are you, my son?

CUOMO: Better than I deserve.

(CROSSTALK)

CUOMO: Better than I deserve.

Can you hear me?

DONALDSON: You have a right to be tired. I can hear you.

CUOMO: All right, good.

Tell me, how do you see the events of today in terms of how they'll be remembered? DONALDSON: The fat lady has not sung. It's not over. He was acquitted and that's fine. But the very things people said they didn't like about him are still there.

He's not a likable man. I'm not borrowing a line. I'm simply saying he's not someone that you admire. You may fear him. The Republican senators clearly fear him ,those up for reelection.

You may want him to do the things that he says he'll do: build a wall, throw them out, rain terror on North -- North Korea, all of those things, but you don't really say, This is my guy. This -- oh, boy, I like this man, and he still has that against him.

[00:30:22]

And as far as Mitt Romney goes, he walked out of the chamber today and into the pages of history. The next book you read that has the title "Profiles in Courage," the first chapter is Mitt Romney. I think he gained more, that he says he feels about himself, and about doing the right thing. And he was never president, but you've heard the old expression, Chris, it's better to be right than to be president. And so I think Mitt Romney gets a star.

But as far as Donald Trump is concerned, it's not over. I think he knows it. You saw that speech last night, the other night. There he was campaigning hard, effectively, to some extent, certainly for his base, the rah-rah crowd. And I hadn't seen that in the chamber, and neither had you, since Joe Wilson, a congressman from Texas some years ago, when Barack Obama was giving a State of the Union speech, yelled out, "You lie."

CUOMO: Yes.

DONALDSON: Well, thank you very much for decorum, but that compared to the other night, was child's play.

CUOMO: Well, I'll tell you what, though, Sam. When he screamed out, "You lie," nobody removed him. When one of the father of one of the kids who was shot at Parkland, Fred Guttenberg, spoke out when the president was saying something about the Second Amendment, they pulled him out of there, which I also thought was not a great exercise of decorum.

Let me ask you this. The president just tweeted that, "Had failed presidential nominee Romney devoted the same energy and anger to defeating faltering Barack Obama as he sanctimoniously does to me, he could have won the election. Read the transcripts!"

Now, let's deal only with the last part of that, because the rest of it is just absent invective. Enough people learned about the transcripts within his own party that, even though they voted to acquit him, Sam, they say what he did was inappropriate. Or what he did was wrong. Or what he did was impeachable, and multiple GOP senators say, I would not have done what he did.

And that's why you cannot say he was exonerated. Exoneration, in the law, is we found that you are innocent. You should have never been charged. You didn't do it. He did do it. He did it for the reasons that we know he did it. He just wasn't punished by his own. Important distinction.

DONALDSON: I think that's right. I mean, can you imagine a jury at a petit trial, a criminal trial in a court of law, and they come back to the jury room, and the judge says, Well, what is your verdict, and they said, Well, you know, we think he's a bad man, but gosh, I don't know. And someone else says, Hmm, I don't think it rises to being able to say he's guilty. That's ridiculous.

These senators had the obligation to look at all the evidence, look at their conscience. Mitt Romney said perhaps pray to their God, and then make a decision. And many of them, didn't do that. You know that. It's not a question of that.

And then to say, Well, yes, he had said something inappropriate. Well, all it was was of course, seek the help of a foreign power in his reelection campaign to dig up bogus dirt on a potential opponent. Now if that isn't an offense in our democracy, and in our system of government, which requires free and open elections by U.S. citizens who have the right to vote, and who have a right to then put their hands on the mechanism of the election, I don't know what is.

But these senators didn't. And they're going to have to live with that, and history will judge them harshly, I think.

CUOMO: Well, let's talk about why you think that, given that the latest numbers for the president have him at some of his highest numbers. Of course, polls are just snapshots of a suggestion of a moment, but he's getting close to being 50/50. As a first-term president with a strong economy and no imminent threat abroad, his numbers therefore look pretty good, historically, in terms of getting reelected. Why do we believe they'll be judged harshly when his polls are up?

DONALDSON: Well, we have to go on what we think we know about the American people. Now, I'm not a great expert. I proved that in -- if any proof was needed -- in 2016. I didn't think until about three weeks before the election that this man was going to be elected president, so forget my instincts.

But you know, Lincoln once said a lot of things that are sensible, I think; that the American people will eventually do the right thing. Eventually. And I think in this case, as you say, these momentary polls come and go. He was down low. Now he's high. He may go a little higher.

What happens if the stock market bubble bursts? It will, I can't tell you when or I'd be rich. But it will. You know that. What if it bursts well before election day? What if some economists say we have five indications already of a recession, right in the horizon. Others disagree, that's true.

[00:35:10] But these things will change. And I believe fundamentally that

American people have taken his measure. His base will never depart from him. He is giving them what they want. He's given them a poke in the eye of us elites. I was born in the Depression on a farm, barely had something to eat. I'm an elite, of course. An enemy of the American people once, but now I'm retired.

But the point is, I think the American people will not reelect him. I could be wrong.

Now you talked about someone a moment ago I think is emerging very strong in the Democratic Party, and that's Mike Bloomberg. He's got the money, and money counts in an election. He's on one side. Sheldon Adelson and the fat cats that are supporting the president through Citizens United on the other side. Bloomberg is supporting himself.

And he's got the kind of record of mayor as New York. Some controversies there, of course. Who doesn't? But he's a steady guy who has a record of performance, and if you wanted to ask me who's going to take on Donald Trump if he gets the nomination -- I don't know that he will get the nomination -- I think it would be Mike Bloomberg. The fact that Iowa has muzzled it --

CUOMO: All right. So let's do this.

DONALDSON: -- and that Biden, who is the centrist in the party. You know, it gives him the opportunity.

CUOMO: So let's do this. We're going to know better in a couple of weeks, and I'm going to come back to you. And maybe it'll be out there by Nevada, and I'll come see you. And we'll sit down, and we'll talk about the state of the race, and we'll talk about what it's going to mean for journalism, because this is the most empowered president that I think either you or I have seen as journalists.

And now that his party has said it's OK for him to do whatever he wants, you know that people like us have a huge target on our backs.

So I want to talk to you about that and the state of the race. Thank you, as always, for being a very trusted voice. Sam Donaldson, be well.

DONALDSON: See you, Chris.

CUOMO: All right, bud.

So Mitt Romney is a hero to some on the left, turncoat to many on the right, the president's son saying that he should be kicked out of the Republican conference. Everyone can agree, though, we've never heard a senator tear into the leader of his own party like Romney just did. What does it mean, next?

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[00:41:12] CUOMO: Last night at the State of the Union, the president reminded us to remember our virtues. Brought in a Tuskegee Airman, families who were struggling, kids that are trying to overcome the gentility and the collectivity of our compassion that is what makes America her greatest. You remember those moments. They resonated.

And what was the question? The question was, who will he be tomorrow? Well, you know who he is? He is the same man who attacked the one senator in his party that said what so many of them believed, and decided to vote his conscience over his fear of consequence. That senator was Mitt Romney. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. MITT ROMNEY (R-UT): I knew from the outset that being tasked with judging the president, the leader of my own party, would be the most difficult decision I have ever faced. I was not wrong.

I will tell my children and their children that I did my duty to the best of my ability, believing that my country expected it of me. I will only be one name among many, no more, no less. To future generations of Americans who look at the record of this trial, they will note merely that I was among the senators who determined that what the president did was wrong, grievously wrong.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: All right. So he acted on his conscience. Now, as I've argued to you many times, most politicians act out of fear of consequence more than they do out of good conscience. And you saw that with this party. It's very hard to square voting to not have witnesses with thinking that the president did something that was impeachable.

And you heard that from at least one senator in Florida, Senator Marco Rubio. He said it to you. We've had many others say it to us but not want to go on the record about it.

Now, for all the talk that maybe one or two Democrats would vote to acquit, none did. Several Republicans have said that this president did things that were wrong. One voted that way. It is the first time we've seen a senator go against a president of their own party.

What does it mean? Laura Coates, Paul Begala, and Scott Jennings join us right now. Thanks to each and all, especially the hour.

Laura Coates, I lean on you for your superior legal acumen often. The president's people are arguing, he was exonerated, he was exonerated. I say no, he was acquitted. Is it a distinction with a difference, counselor?

LAURA COATES, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, it is if you consider what the trial really was. If you're judging up by a trial being what one would think about normally, a trial involving witnesses, involving documents, involving a journey that takes place, and saying, Look, we're going to have the evidence first and verdict next. But you can't really qualify it as a true trial that he actually was in, and therefore, even an acquittal doesn't quite feel right.

Exoneration no, because you had many of the senators coming forward, even saying that they believe what he did was wrong. It wasn't whether he said did what the House impeachment managers said. It was what they were going to do about. That's not a true exoneration of his actual conduct.

CUOMO: Hmm. Exoneration is innocence. And here, we have anything but innocence.

So, brother Scott Jennings, I skip over Begala to come to you for a moment. You and I had our disagreement last night about whether this would be bipartisan. I think if one or two Democrats had voted to acquit, that's not bipartisan. This is partisan with a couple of cast- offs, which you see from time to time.

But you have more Republican senators who say this president did something wrong, then you had any Democrat coming even close. What does that say about what your party did here?

SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, look, I'm not surprised that several senators expressed some levels of dismay with what Trump did. I mean, you had some that didn't care at all. You had some that, like Lamar Alexander, that had serious concerns. I believe that was going to be the case all along.

[00:45:03]

I mean, yes, I'll admit I was surprised that Romney voted to convict today, and I really thought a Democrat or two might come our way.

You know, back home, we used to say you could wish in one hand, and Mitt (ph) in the other and see which one fills up faster. Well, we got Mitt today.

But if you're Donald Trump, if you're Donald Trump, I guess the net result of this, though, since it's a political process, is what are the political situation I'm in now. He's got the highest approval ratings of his presidency. He's got Democrats in disarray.

So I think he's probably pretty mad about Romney tonight, but the net result for him right now to me, doesn't look all that bad.

CUOMO: Even though he got his acquittal, Paul Begala, it took him less than one day to show that he's not who we was last night in that State of the Union. He's trash talking Romney, the guy who was the standard bearer for his party. He's gone back and forth on Romney, as his political favor has. And tonight you saw who he is. He attacks anyone who's a perceived opponent, calls them an enemy. That's not who he was last night.

PAUL BEGALA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: No. No, but what he is, was, and always will be is a crook. He's crooked. He's a criminal.

The day after Robert Mueller testified, the day after, he got on the phone and was shaking down the president of Ukraine. Tomorrow is the day after this vote in the Senate. What do you think

he's going to do? Do you think he's going to reach out across the aisle? Do you think he's going to try to heal the country? Not a chance. Because he knows. You know, the scripture talks about being convicted by your conscience. He has none.

But those Republican senators do. They're mostly good people. They love their country. But they're so cowed by Trump you can hear them moo. And it's just disgraceful.

Mitt Romney, he was governor of Massachusetts. Now he's a United States senator. He was the party's nominee for the presidency. Those eight minutes he had today on the Senate floor, that's what history will remember him for. Because, as they say, one person with courage makes a majority. It was a remarkable moment.

And I don't want to forget those Democratic like Joe Manchin, West Virginia. Trump carried his state by 43 points. Joe Manchin said no, he's a criminal; he's got to go.

Doug Jones, the senator from Alabama, who took on the Ku Klux Klan and convicted those murderers from the Klan, his state went for Trump by 28 points. He voted to convict.

You know, if you look at Jon Tester from Montana, 20-point victory for Trump in that state. Tester didn't flinch.

So I'm very proud of my Democrats. They showed a lot of courage and conviction. And Mitt Romney is the only Republican I can say that about today.

CUOMO: Hey, Laura, give me a quick feel for something. You know, when you would be prosecuting cases, and you are arguing that it had to go a certain way, because of continuing threat, the Democrats argued that here. What would be the argument that these senators who voted to acquit will have to remember about what comes next with this president?

COATES: Well, the idea of a continuing threat here is one that's loomed really large over this entire process, frankly, from the 2016 election on, when we confirmed that there was the attempts of Russian interference into our election. And to this day, we still don't have all the tools if you're a member of Congress, is what Adam Schiff spoke about.

How do you have the tools to even legislate to close the gap between what ought to be illegal and what is allowed. Between what conduct is essentially wrong and inappropriate, but yet not perhaps impeachable or removable for members of Congress.

And so when you don't have all the information, when you don't have access to -- with the subpoena power, meaning essentially nothing, you run into the problems of not being able to fully look ahead to the future to deter the behavior, which is all what laws are about, Chris, deterring behavior. And as a prosecutor, I couldn't possibly have been in a position to be

able to deter, which is one of the aspects of our justice system, to prevent certain conduct from happening, and also to punish, if I didn't have all the tools at my disposal to demonstrate what the wrong was.

And just from the point of Mitt Romney, it cannot be underscored enough, Chris, what it was he was doing. He didn't just go against his party. He went against every single aspect of the Trump defense team. Every single one. From the idea of not having -- have a vague abuse of power, all the way through why an election was not good enough to wait for. That's what he'll be remembered for.

CUOMO: Hey, thank each and all of you for making the arguments, and I'm going to take a break right now. I'll tell you what. The president mentioned, Hey, you know, Romney could have beaten Obama. I'll tell you something. He can talk about President Obama, and he loves to talk about him. I would have loved to have seen that matchup. And you know who would've loved it even more? Barack Obama. I would have loved to have seen that campaign.

But now what does what just happened mean for this campaign? You've got a great, great window into what may be the Democrats' best hope to beat this very powerful president. Tonight in a CNN town hall, Joe Biden showed something that I don't think he has showed this way, to this point, and it could be the key to his campaign. Next.

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[00:54:11]

CUOMO: All right. Joe Biden had a moment tonight in the town hall. I want you to listen to it.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: And I'd get up in the night, in the middle of the night with a flashlight, and I'd look in the mirror, and I would try to memorize what I could, another small book on Emerson quotes. I remember the first one, looking in the mirror with a flashlight in my face, because you get embarrassed, because you can -- you contort your face. And it's embarrassing.

And so I'd stand there and say, "Meek young men grow up in libraries, believing it their duty to accept the views of Cicero, Bacon and Locke, forgetful that Cicero, Bacon and Locke were only young men in libraries with their selves -- themselves."

Or, you know, "History teaches us not to hope on this side of the grave, but then once in a lifetime, that longed for tidal wave of justice rises up, and hope and history rhyme."

I would practice and practice and practice, because I was determined, determined to overcome it. I was led to believe I could. And I basically did what. What's the one thing you're concerned about most when you have a real

problem, and it's devastating to you? And someone comes up and says, I know how you feel. And you know they have no idea how you feel. But someone who comes up to and says, I've been through this. I can tell you I know you how you feel, you immediately say, Tell me, because all people are looking for is to say, you made it. It's possible to make it, huh? Is it possible to make it?

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CUOMO: Now here's what I would ask you to do, all right? If you are open to anything Democratic, OK. If you made up your mind and you're going to vote for Trump, that's fine, and you're just following us to see who you're against. That's fine.

Go online and find this moment of Joe Biden and watch it unfold, OK? The key to Joe Biden's campaign has always been what he just did in that moment. When people come up to you and say, I know what you're dealing with, often you know, no, you don't. Joe Biden's message is, I know what your struggle is. I am here for you. His empathy has always been his advantage against the rest of the field.

You remember that. You remember that with what was said about him in the beginning, and how people seemed to feel about him. That's been lost to this point in the campaign. It's all about electability.

That moment he had tonight, I'm telling you, I was behind the stage. I was able to look at the audience. He got reaction from people that I have not seen him get anywhere else.

And the idea for Joe Biden is, can he communicate on the campaign trail, that Joe Biden is there for you? That he feels your pain? That is the empathetic opposite to what President Trump is. That may be the Democrats' best choice. But you only know it if he shows it. But it was a moment worth talking about tonight.

Let's get a break in. We'll be right back with CNN's continuing coverage.

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END