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The Lead with Jake Tapper

House Judiciary Dems Prep for Huge Impeachment Hearing Wednesday; Trump Announces Resumption of Peace Talks With Taliban. Aired 4:30-5p ET

Aired November 29, 2019 - 16:30   ET

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

ALEXANDER MARQUARDT, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Across the board, Republicans have stood by the president and bashed the Democratic-led process.

[16:30:03]

SEN. JOHN KENNEDY (R-LA): This will be the first partisan impeachment in the history of our country. I think Chairman Schiff and Speaker Pelosi knew from the very beginning how they would vote and what they were going to try to prove.

MARQUARDT: Another of the president's efforts to defend himself is also eroding.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I want nothing. I want no quid pro quo.

MARQUARDT: Trump saying he told Ambassador Gordon Sondland on September 9th right before the military aid money was released, he wasn't demanding anything of Ukraine. But no other witnesses or records have confirmed that call took place.

And Sondland testified there was quid pro quo and, quote, everyone was in the loop.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MARQUARDT: So to be clear, Erica, there are now two deadlines the president has to respond to. One on Sunday, responding whether he will attend or participate with a lawyer in the hearings in the Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, and then there's that second deadline on Friday, December 6th whether he or his lawyers will participate in the proceedings going forward -- Erica.

ERICA HILL, CNN HOST: Alex Marquardt, appreciate it.

As we look at where we are at, at this point, it does seem perhaps unlikely that the president or his attorneys will participate, but Brendan, by ignoring this, can they still complain about the process? And if so, where is the win in that for the president, specifically beyond his base?

BRENDAN BUCK, EX-TOP AIDE, HOUSE SPERAKERS PAUL RYAN AND JOHN BOEHNER: Well, I know that they will, I don't know if it's rational, but they will continue to make the argument because it's one that's been working for them. If you have -- if you think about what their goal all along has been to hold the Republican base so you have zero Republicans voting for them. They've played victim the entire time. And frankly, it has worked.

I'm shocked if there is a single Republican who votes for impeachment because the president has been hammering the base saying this is an unfair process and his megaphone is much bigger than anything Democrats have been able to do and it has worked with him and he's going to get out with an entirely Democratic vote on this.

HILL: In terms of the process, as we look at where we go next, Karen, I understand why the point is to start the way that we're starting on Wednesday here. Where Democrats essentially want to prove there is a constitutional basis for what they are doing as they move forward here. But how does that play out with the public? I mean, how does that bring people in which they're still trying to do?

KAREN FINNEY, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, I think, look, there are so much information and disinformation coming from the White House and trying to muddy the waters and coming from the Republicans, again trying to argument about process, but not necessarily on the substance. So I think the goal here for Democrats is to try to re-set a little bit. So that everybody -- because when we're talking about a constitutional responsibility, when we're talking about a threat to our democracy, I think they feel it is important to, as I say, re-set and then go forward with the rest of the conversation and pointing out, you know, the various reasons for these various articles of impeachment.

HILL: What is interesting, as you point out, more facts, move forward talk about the process as Brendan points out, the president's megaphone is oftentimes much longer and, Ron, as you weigh those two things, how do you square those? Because as we've seen in a number of different situations, despite the facts being what they are, those are blatantly ignored sometimes and it is the made-up version that gets the attention.

RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, look, I think the key variable for the Democrats as the hearing moves into the next stage is the gap between the share people who said what the president did in Ukraine was wrong, which has always been share that said they support his impeachment and removal. And I think closing that gap, convincing more Americans that what he did crosses the threshold for the unprecedented action of removing -- impeaching a president, removing a president from office is, realistically, there is only so far they're going to go on that. I mean, don't forget, we're right around 50 percent of the country saying that he should be impeached and removed, that's higher than -- much higher than it ever gotten to Clinton, higher than it never gotten to Nixon until the very final poll before he resigned.

So there is probably limited upside movement that's possible given the underlying division in the country, but I do think the key for them in the hearings is convincing more of the people who believe this was wrong and was acting in his personal interest, not the national interest, that in fact it crosses the constitutional threshold of high crimes and misdemeanors.

HILL: Sara, there's also these questions about Gordon Sondland now, which Alex talked about in his piece. "The Washington Post" pointing out it runs contrary to both Tim Morrison and Bill Taylor, writing specifically the confusion muddies the testimony of a key witness who's been cited repeatedly by both sides as they press opposing arguments about the president's actions.

The facts that he is this key witness, that both Democrats and Republicans have found something they really liked in his testimony, how significant is it that now it's all being called into question?

SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: I mean, I think it's somewhat significant but I also think that everyone knew that Gordon Sondland was a problematic witness. After he testified behind closed doors, he had to go, he had to amend that testimony.

[16:35:01]

When he showed up and he appeared before the cameras for that public testimony, he was pretty forthcoming about the number of things he suddenly did not remember, he pointed out that he's not a note-taker, he's never been a note-taker, and, of course, we all know that this is a, you know, a political person who was hand-picked by the president for the job he's in.

So, there are a lot of things that are already problematic about Gordon Sondland. I think what you have to do, though, is you have to look at the totality of the evidence that we've seen in these hearings and aside from some discrepancies of Gordon Sondland, you've heard a remarkably consistent story from all of these other witnesses who have come forward.

HILL: An excellent point.

Well, as we move forward, the president is now, we know, impeachment aside, teasing a possible deal with the Taliban. Here is the thing though -- it's a deal that only he seems to know about.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: We were getting close, and we pulled back --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:40:08]

HILL: In our politics lead, it turns out when President Trump announced to the world peace talks with the Taliban were back on, he may have been speaking a bit too soon.

CNN's Kaitlan Collins has more on the mixed messages.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): President Trump is back in Florida today after a top secret trip to Afghanistan.

TRUMP: The Taliban wants to make a deal.

COLLINS: The president was off the grid for hours, unnoticed until he landed in the combat zone for the first time, where he announced that peace talks with the Taliban are back on.

TRUMP: The Taliban wants to make a deal. And we're meeting with them. And we're saying there has to be a cease-fire.

COLLINS: Those talks collapsed in stunning fashion less than three months ago when he scrapped a secret meeting with Taliban leaders at Camp David.

TRUMP: They're dead. They're dead. As far as I'm concerned, they're dead.

COLLINS: Details about the revived talks are still spare and one official tells us CNN the U.S. is still in the process of even restarting them, while questions of a cease-fire go unanswered.

TRUMP: If they do, they do, if they don't, they don't. That's fine.

COLLINS: The Taliban seemingly caught off-guard by the president's announcement. A spokesman telling CNN: Our policy regarding peace talks is the same as it was.

Trump also telling reporters he wants to reduce the number of troops in Afghanistan to 8,600, down from the approximately 12,000 currently stationed there.

TRUMP: That day is coming, coming very soon.

COLLINS: The Thanksgiving visit could give the president a boost in military support amid strained relations with the Pentagon.

TRUMP: They wanted to take his pin away and I said, no, you're not going to take it away.

COLLINS: Trump clashed with military leaders after he intervened in several high-profile war crimes cases, including Eddie Gallagher's, the Navy SEAL who was convicted of posing with a dead ISIS fighter's body, but acquitted of more serious charges, including threatening to kill SEALs who reported him.

That episode led to the firing of the Navy Secretary Richard Spencer.

RICHARD SPENCER, FORMER NAVY SECRETARY: What message does that send to the troops? You can get away with things. We have to good order and discipline. It's the backbone of what we do.

(END VIDEOTAPE) COLLINS: Now, Erica, coming to an agreement between the U.S. and the Taliban was pretty complicated last time. So, now, what the president is saying that a cease-fire is on the table, there are more questions being raised because, of course, a cease-fire would be seen at a pretty big concession by the Taliban that they weren't open to less than three months ago, raising the question of why that is something that they would be amenable to now.

HILL: It is an excellent question. Kaitlan Collins, live for us, Kaitlan, thank you.

Three handshakes, two summits and no deal. North Korea continuing to test missiles and President Trump.

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[16:47:27]

HILL: In our world lead, it was just last month that Kim Jong-un praised his relationship with President Trump as special and close.

But now the North Korean leader seems to be singing a different tune, testing two projectiles from what has been described as a super large rocket launcher, sending a perhaps not-so-subtle reminder to Mr. Trump that he has just one month left to strike a nuclear deal, or negotiations are off the table.

Joining me now is Congressman Gregory Meeks of New York.

Sir, good to have you with us. You also serve on the Foreign Affairs Committee.

As we look at what is happening with North Korea, how would you advise the president to handle this looming threat?

REP. GREGORY MEEKS (D-NY): What the president should have been doing all along, instead of being friendly and saying that Kim Jong-un is his best friend, is working with all of our allies, particularly when you look at South Korea and Japan, et cetera, so that we could put mass force in regards to unity and putting North Korea on hold with anything, saying that -- putting the pressure on them, whether it is through trade and other matters, but working collectively together, as we did with Iran, for example, as President Obama did.

It was that collective pressure that made them decide that they were not going to deal with nuclear weapons. We need to do similar here.

Going it alone, saying that this ruthless dictator is our -- is his best friend and buddy, when he does nothing to step forward, has just put him in the limelight, giving him the national attention. In fact, he's used the president to gain that.

And nothing -- and so I also think that we should resume our mission of having war games in the area with our allies. I think that is important also, because the president has just continually delayed them. HILL: Really quickly, I'm going to give you a yes or no on this,

because I want to do sort of a rapid fire here.

Do you think there is a chance that the president would change course at this point?

MEEKS: With his behavior, no.

HILL: OK.

Let's move on now to Afghanistan and what is happening there, the president making a surprise visit to troops on Thanksgiving Day yesterday, but during that visit also surprising folks with the news that he had apparently reopened talks with the Taliban, which seemed to come as a surprise to members of his own administration.

As I mentioned, you serve on Foreign Affairs. You're a senior member of the committee. Were you aware of a restart?

MEEKS: No.

And you might not be surprised to learn that the president lies. And he lies to try to help his campaign. You hear the Taliban say that there is nothing there. And he's done this before. So the president, he lies. That is what he does.

[16:50:01]

He's lied over 10,000 times, according to "The Washington Post," and those of us who are just listening for ourselves. So, he lies and he lies and he lies, trying to fool the American people, which is endangering -- he's a clear and present danger to our diplomacy and our foreign policy.

HILL: I know you have a number of strong feelings about the president, as you just mentioned.

You also called him this week a mob boss. You have said he's involved in a cover-up.

Let's just get your take on impeachment quickly.

What are the conversations that you're having with your Republican colleagues at this point?

MEEKS: Well, if you talk to my Republican colleagues off the record, they're all very concerned.

Now, the only reason why you don't see more Republicans or any Republicans stepping up is that those that were in moderate districts that -- where folks will go swinging back and forth, we happen to have defeated them all as a result of Donald Trump in the '18 elections.

So, now they're in these basically gerrymandered all-Trump districts. So they're concerned about their own elections on the House side because they have virtually no Democrats or independents in them. They were all defeated.

And so, though -- they don't want to speak up. You only hear a few, because they know that the camera of history is rolling, and they don't want their voice to be heard. They think they can get away with just their vote trying to protect the president because of the gerrymandered district of which they represent.

But I tell them, the camera of history is rolling, and people will be watching 10, 15, 20, 25, 50 years ago to see how you voted to support this most corrupt mob boss and danger -- and clear and present danger to the American people as president of the United States.

HILL: Congressman Gregory Meeks, Democrat from New York, thanks for joining us today, sir.

MEEKS: Good being with you.

HILL: High on drama, low on direction -- why staffers and aides worry one Democratic campaign is swiftly unraveling.

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[16:56:22]

HILL: In our 2020 lead, you can't run the country if you can't run your campaign.

That's how one former aide describes the struggles facing Senator Kamala Harris' 2020 bid, just one of dozens of sources who tell "The New York Times" the Harris campaign has no clear strategy to win and is grappling with multiple issues, including infighting, power struggles, and a shrinking bank account.

Ron, as we add all of this up, and also put out there that we also learned in the piece that they apparently haven't even had the cash to do their own polling over the last couple of months, which makes it tough to find a focus in many ways...

RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes.

HILL: ... what do you do with all of that leading into Iowa?

BROWNSTEIN: Well, it's a remarkable story, first of all.

And I think for all of the tactical mistakes that are laid out in there, there was a bigger structural strategic mistake in this campaign.

Kamala Harris could have run as a centrist former prosecutor. Instead, she bet that the Warren-Sanders wing of the party was ascendant, tried to move in that direction, and then has spent really the whole campaign kind of stumbling over herself trying to get back to closer to what she has been throughout his career -- her career.

And, as a result, I think voters on kind of both sides of that ideological divide have not felt fully comfortable with her. It's tough to kind of recover from that. But, look, she's all in, in Iowa. And that is probably the reality that she faces, a decent showing in Iowa or not much to go on beyond that.

HILL: We will see how it goes there.

Sara, we're also learning from our own Arlette Saenz today from the Biden campaign that they are entering a new phase at this point, this eight-day bus tour focusing on Iowa. And polls show that Biden is actually losing support there, but they're saying, "We feel like the more Joe Biden is one-on-one with voters, the better that is for us."

Basically, Joe Biden needs face time, Sara.

SARA MURRAY, CNN NATIONAL POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes.

And I think that's right. I mean, one of the problems that Joe Biden has is, he tends to put his foot in his mouth. But one of the things he's really, really good at is retail politics. He has this innate ability to connect with people on a deep level when he's -- the first time he meets them.

And it is really stunning for people who watch him on the rope line. They say this over and over again. And so this does seem like it is a good use of his time, although certainly alarming to be someone like Joe Biden and to have your fortunes shifting the way they have in Iowa.

HILL: And, Karen, as we look at this, and Mayor Pete Buttigieg is out with a new ad, where he is going after candidates like Warren and Sanders, talking about college for all.

His more centrist approach is actually helping him a lot in Iowa.

KAREN FINNEY, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes, it really is.

I mean, look, he saw the opening, and he has gone for it, right, in terms of trying to be that moderate sort of candidate. He saw the others going to the left. He kind of -- he saw Kamala Harris wasn't able to pick that up. And so he just kind of went for it.

And it's working for him. But I do we're going to continue to see a bit of volatility in Iowa and the other four early states, because voters had -- as our own poll showed this week, voters are still not quite sure who they like the most.

HILL: Still a lot of questions there.

And, Brendan, one thing we touched on briefly this week, but what's fascinating, even as we look at Joe Biden, he continues to be the main target in many ways for the president, for a lot of Republicans.

So, they clearly see something in Joe Biden, even if maybe Iowans do not.

BRENDAN BUCK, FORMER ADVISER TO PAUL RYAN: He is certainly the person that, if you're Donald Trump, you don't want to have to face. He can run down the middle in a way that really none of the other candidates can, maybe other than Mayor Pete. But he can't get any votes from African-American voters, so that's going to be a tough road for him.

HILL: So much to come. And we're, what, is it 60 -- now I lost count. Thanksgiving turkey.

(LAUGHTER)

HILL: I lost count of how many days until Iowa, but it's in the 60s. I know that.

Thank you, all. Appreciate you joining us on this Friday afternoon.

Be sure to tune into CNN this Sunday for "STATE OF THE UNION."

Democratic Senator and 2020 candidate Amy Klobuchar joins the show, as well as Judiciary Committee member Democratic Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren, all that happening at 9:00 a.m. and 12:00 p.m. Eastern.

Our continuing coverage on CNN continues right now.