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The Lead with Jake Tapper

Sen. Doug Jones (D-AL) is Interviewed About Risking Reelection with Impeachment Vote; Rivals Take on Buttigieg in Final Debate of the Year. Aired 4:30-5p ET

Aired December 20, 2019 - 16:30   ET

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

SEN. DOUG JONES (D-AL): It is not easy to do in the political divide we're seeing in this country today but the fact of the matter is that is what we're in the Senate to do and that is what we're supposed to do and that is what the oath requires.

[16:30:01]

And I think what we need to focus on is a process to give the president of the United States a full trial, fair trial.

He has been waiting, as he said, over and over and over again, for a fair trial in the U.S. Senate. But that fair trial is also got to be fair to the American public and not have gaps in the evidence.

You could still convict or find somebody not guilty with gaps in the evidence. But the fact is we need to know all of the evidence. We need to know from the people there, firsthand knowledge, the people that were in the room that could tell us one way or another, because all of these facts are coming out sooner or later, whether they get leaked out or whether they get FOIA-d or whether they're coming out in a book by one of those guys.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: To your point about getting out of your partisan corner, in the middle of this divisive impeachment it might really surprise a lot of people to realize that the president is signing the defense authorization bill today and it has a bipartisan fix to the kiddy tax and widow's tax which are penalties on Gold Star families and the benefits they receive for the loss of a service member loved ones.

You spearheaded this with Republican Senator Susan Collins and in order to get this, Congress had to reach a deal on a lot of issues the Democrats and Republicans don't agree on. Why can't there be more of this?

JONES: Well, I think there is a lot more going on than what people see. I think if you look at what happened in the last two weeks with the NDAA, there is a lot of things. There's the paid parental leave in the NDAA. There's modernizing the military. There's a 3.1 percent pay raise for our military families.

We've also did the FUTURE Act where we permanently fund HBCUs and minority serving institutions. There was a deal reached on USMCA where the president did a great job of negotiating that and Democrats in the House made it even better.

There is a lot of that that really goes on. It just kind of gets lost in the shuffle of mainstream media, as well as social media that we talk about the partisan divide. But the fact is, a lot of people reaching across the aisle right now to try to figure out the ways to get things done for this country, and I think if you look at what happened in the last two weeks, aside from impeachment, there was a lot of great things for the American people.

KEILAR: Senator Doug Jones of Alabama, thank you for joining us.

JONES: My pleasure. Thank you for having me.

KEILAR: Smaller stage, bigger fights. Why a battle over a wine cave took center stage in the Democratic debate.

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KEILAR: Mayor Pete Buttigieg taking some heat as a top tier candidate in the final debate and understandably so because polls show him with a good shot at winning Iowa. But as CNN's Jeff Zeleny reports another front-runner wants to box him out as the Democratic candidate to take on President Trump.

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JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The six-week sprint to the first votes of the 2020 campaign is on with Joe Biden all smiles today after emerging unscathed from the final debate of the year.

JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDNETIAL CANDIDATE: I do worry about this notion that the Democratic candidates spend a lot of time attacking one another. I've tried not to do that.

ZELENY: The field of Democratic candidates fanning out for one last burst of campaigning before the holidays with Amy Klobuchar opening a 27-county bus tour of Iowa where Pete Buttigieg is heading this weekend.

Today, this debate clash still reverberating, after Klobuchar aggressively challenges the qualifications of the 37-year-old South Bend mayor.

SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR (D-MN), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I have not denigrated your experience as a local official. I have been one.

MAYOR PETE BUTTIGIEG (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: You did denigrate my experience and I was going to let it go because we have bigger fish to fry here. But --

KLOBUCHAR: Oh, I don't think we have bigger fish to fry than picking the president of the United States. ZELENY: Buttigieg also coming under fire from Elizabeth Warren who

repeatedly questioned his fundraising practices, including a recent Napa Valley event.

SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN (D-MA), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Billionaires in wine caves should not pick the next president of the United States.

ZELENY: Buttigieg responding that he welcomes most donations because --

BUTTIGIEG: According to "Forbes" magazine, I'm the literally only person on this stage who is not a millionaire or a billionaire.

ZELENY: A night of fireworks on stage did little to settle one of the biggest questions weighing on Democratic voters, does a moderate or progressive stand the best chance of defeating President Trump? That divide is front and center on health care.

BIDEN: I've added to the Obamacare plan the Biden initiative, which is a public option, Medicare, if you want to have Medicare -- put your hand down for a second, Bernie, OK?

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I-VT), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I'm just waving to you.

ZELENY: It was the smallest debate lineup of the year, just seven candidates, offering a far different view of the field that was once the most diverse.

ANDREW YANG (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: It's both an honor and disappointment to be the lone candidate of color on the stage tonight. I miss Kamala. I miss Cory. But I think Cory will be back.

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ZELENY: Now, according to Cory Booker, he is campaigning in Iowa, he picked up an endorsement of a local county chairman. He said he is going to go all the way until those Iowa caucus, Brianna, now they're just 45 days from starting this campaign.

KEILAR: Oh, it's finally getting close. Jeff Zeleny, thank you so much from sunny L.A.

All right. Let's talk about Joe Biden, OK? He was largely gaffe- free, he pushed back on candidates who came after his record. Do you think the debate practice here, Melanie, paid off for him.

MELANIE ZANONA, CONGRESSIONAL REPORTER, POLITICO: Maybe. Finally. Biden no question had the strongest debate performance we've seen. I think he largely benefited from the fact that you had Warren and Amy Klobuchar going after Pete Buttigieg. So he was able to sort of sit back and avoid a lot of the incoming fire.

KEILAR: And he repeated a theme, right? He repeated a theme that he's hammered home. We saw him do this last night. The last few months are proof that he could work across the aisle to get things done.

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Let's watch.

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BIDEN: If anybody has reason to not want to work with Republicans starting with Trump and working their way down to some of the members of the House and the Senate, it's me. This is about a president has to not only be able to fight back, a president has to be able to unite.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: So on one hand looking at the dynamics, Chairman, of this. He's talking about being a uniter but he also has to beat Trump and that's incredibly important to Democratic voters. Does it make sense he could do both, do you think?

MIKE ROGERS, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY COMMENTATOR: I think he can. Listen, when I was chairman of the Intelligence Committee, I worked with Joe Biden quite a bit on pretty significant issues, Syria, other things, policy. Some we agreed on, some we didn't. But he is easy to work with in that environment.

And so, I think that is a strength and probably why he's doing as well even after this much time. He's defied the odds. A candidate that's out front doesn't last out front this long and so, I think that's a strength going into it, and he's very different from the other direction of the Democrat Party. And I think Peggy Noonan said it best, you can't beat Trump with crazy, and I think that was her way of saying, hey, you know, you're going to have to -- Democrats, if you want to beat Trump, you have to pick somebody who does know how to work, who has the experience and who is more centrist in his ability to kind of govern the country.

ZANONA: Yes, even though Biden has said I'm willing to work with Republicans even though they're coming after me, the question is, will Republicans be willing to work with him? You know, he is the source of the impeachment fight right now. You have a lot of Republican people in the House and Senate going after him and his son and you could see that if he becomes president, Republicans will probably be calling to investigate him and his son over the Ukraine matter.

KAREN FINNEY, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I think they might. But at the same time, he would be the president. So it is in their political interest to work with him. But let's remember that Mitch McConnell has a few tough races that he's looking out for as well. So we don't yet know how the Senate is going to play out.

The thing that Biden has done well, as you said, defy the odds. But also he's stood up. He and his son have both stood up to the criticism. His campaign has actually done a very good job keeping him atop of the polls and that is part of the test in a primary as well, by the way. Whoever becomes the nominee, I'm here to tell you, get ready because

it is a daily barrage like nothing you've ever seen. So the candidate has to be tough and I think he's shown durability but the campaign has to be able to withstand it as well.

KEILAR: Seung Min, he did benefit, as Melanie said, from Senators Warren and Klobuchar going after Pete Buttigieg last night. They're trying to make him not a guy of the people but someone who is taking bill dollar donations, doesn't have enough experience. Do you see -- 45 days out from Iowa, do you see that being something that sticks? Is that something that resonates and will be bad for him?

SEUNG MIN KIM, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: It will be is interesting to see how much that ends up sticking. And remember that Pete Buttigieg will have one advantage over the two senators who attacked him last night, he gets a chance -- he gets a lot of time and a lot of chance to campaign in Iowa while Senators Warren and Klobuchar will be stuck in Washington for the Senate impeachment trial. So he could directly make that case to the voters that he's electable, that he has a policy vision that is reflective of the Democratic Party.

I just find -- I found Klobuchar interesting last night too because she does consistently have greet debate performances but still stuck in the middle/lower tier. I think she's constantly looking for that breakout moment and Iowa is key. But again, she's going to be stuck in Washington for the Senate impeachment trial.

KEILAR: Well, here is something you don't see every day. President Trump attacking a popular evangelical publication, and the reason that it is calling for Trump to be removed from office, next.

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KEILAR: The president in a new fight with an evangelical magazine founded by the Reverend Billy Graham, the editor of "Christianity Today" publicly saying that President Trump should be removed from office.

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MARK GALLI, EDITOR IN CHIEF, "CHRISTIANITY TODAY": The question is, when does his behavior, which is described as immoral, accurately, rise to the level where he's no longer fit to serve office?

And, to me, we crossed that line with the impeachment hearings.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: The president firing back at the publication on Twitter, calling it a far-left magazine or very progressive.

Well, we should point out it's not. It's not those things. This is actually a centrist evangelical publication.

Is this going to win over any evangelicals, do you think, Seung Min?

KIM: It depends.

I mean, clearly, it is a very influential publication within the evangelical world. But the president throughout his presidency and even during the campaign has had a very tight grip on the evangelical vote.

You had exit polls showing 80 percent of white evangelicals backed Trump in the 2016 elections. You have a recent Marist poll saying he has the support about 75 -- he has the approval -- 75 percent of evangelicals approve of him, whereas it's hovering in the low 40s overall

Evangelical voters have largely looked to, if not the behavior, the policies of this administration. And what we saw from the campaign statement that was released just by the Trump campaign on this editorial, they have emphasized the president's support for Israel, his support for judges who uphold religious liberty, his abortion policies.

And I think, for now, those policies are the ones that that section of voters have looked for.

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KEILAR: And here -- look, here's a campaign statement that we just had.

This is something that the president is tweeting about a ton. The son of the late Billy Graham slammed the magazine.

Now the campaign sending out this statement. I wonder how much this shows you about how nervous they are about this, Melanie, especially because they're trying to get the backing of Graham family members here, including with that statement.

ZANONA: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

And this was a key voting bloc for Trump. This is a key part of his coalition. He needs to hold on to them to be able to win reelection in 2020.

But the fact that you have Graham's family members coming out and rallying behind him, I think, shows how strong the support is. And if the evangelicals didn't leave Trump after the Syria decision, where they pulled out and left our Kurdish allies to be slaughtered, if they didn't flee him after the "Access Hollywood" tapes, after all these things, I don't think this editorial is going to do very much.

FINNEY: But I think that's exactly the point.

I think part of the point -- as a Christian, part of the point of the piece was to say, enough is enough. There's enough. And they have got the judges, right? So there's -- to some degree, that's what he campaigned on in 2016. They have gotten their judges. And maybe the point is that the constant immoral behavior, in addition

to all the other tenants of Christianity, welcoming the stranger, being good stewards of the earth, which have all been thrown out the window, enough is enough.

You cannot lead this country and offer moral leadership when you lie every day, all the time, and you behave the way he does. Maybe that's the point.

KEILAR: Yes, we're well into his presidency at this point. You were referring to that.

And the magazine addressed why they did this now.

Here's what they wrote: "We have reserved judgment on Mr. Trump for years now. Some have criticized us for our reserve. It's time to call a spade a spade. We are playing with a stacked deck of gross immorality and ethical incompetence."

What do you think about -- what do you think about the timing of this?

ROGERS: Well, I'm not sure about the timing.

But this is a crack, the first real crack that I have seen, because that coalition is so important. And when I was in office, I had a pretty simple rule. People can disagree with your policy, as long as you're engaged, you talk about to them.

When you embarrass the people that vote for you, that is a different game. And I think what happened, over time, it was getting harder and harder. And I'm not talking about the policy issues, even impeachment necessarily.

It was when you attack people, and using the power of the presidency to attack individuals so viciously and personally, over time, that is just not what Christians will accept as good behavior.

And I think that loss of that, that he didn't grow into the office, he kind of doubled down on what got him there, and I think that's what you're seeing in that article, is some confusion, some disappointment, and some of these folks saying, maybe we need to rethink this.

It's not that he can't get over this, but I do think it's a crack that they're going to have to pay attention to.

KEILAR: Coming up, a Republican state rep accused of domestic terrorism -- the Trump-like defense he's using as he refuses to resign.

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KEILAR: In our national lead, if impeachment wasn't enough to convince you how divisive and divided politics has become, a Washington state Republican lawmaker is accused of domestic terrorism. As CNN's Sara Sidner reports, he's refusing to resign. And he's using

President Trump's impeachment tactics as his defense.

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MATT SHEA (R), WASHINGTON STATE REPRESENTATIVE: Thank you, Madam Speaker. This just seeks to put this to a vote of the people.

SARA SIDNER, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: In a stunning finding, this Washington state Republican lawmaker is facing accusations of domestic terrorism against the country he swore to serve.

And that's according to an investigation commissioned by the Washington state legislature.

REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA): Article one is adopted.

SIDNER: And the state rep is using President Trump's impeachment as part of his defense. The state has now forwarded the report against state House Representative Matt Shea to the FBI and U.S. attorney.

The five-month-long probe found Shea participated in an act of domestic terrorism against the United States, engaged in and supported the training of youth and young adults to fight a holy war, and advocated the replacement of U.S. democracy with a theocracy and the killing of all males who do not agree.

The investigation also cited Shea's engagements with the Bundy family anti-government activists who call for armed resistance and the takeover of federal lands. The report list Shea's militant actions across three states, in 2014 in Bunkerville, Nevada, in 2015 Priest River, Idaho, and in January 2016 in Burns, Oregon.

Shea engaged with militia members in the planning of an armed takeover of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. That incident ended with federal and state law enforcement moving in to remove armed militia members and ultimately killing militia member Robert LaVoy Finicum after a police chase.

Last night, Shea defended himself in a statement on Facebook, saying, in part: "Like we are seeing with our president, this is a sham investigation." He added: "I will not back down. I will not give in. I will not resign."

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SIDNER: So, House Republican leadership has suspended Representative Shea from the caucus and removed his ranking position on a key committee, the Republicans saying and noting that investigators mentioned that he didn't respond to their request for an interview for their report.

He also did not return CNN's calls -- Brianna.

KEILAR: Sara Sidner, thank you so much for that report. And be sure to tune in this Sunday morning for "STATE OF THE UNION."

The guests, 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Senator Amy Klobuchar, Republican Senator Roy Blunt, and Democratic Senator Dick Durbin. That is at 9:00 a.m. and 12:00 p.m. Eastern on Sunday.

And our coverage on CNN continues right now.

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