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Corey Lewandowski Stonewalls House Democrats at Hearing; President Trump Announces Plan to Increase Sanctions on Iran; Saudis to Present Evidence of Iran's Ties to Oil Attack Soon; Projections Show Netanyahu is Neck-and-Neck with Centrist Rival in Israeli Election. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired September 18, 2019 - 09:00   ET

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

[09:00:25]

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: A very good Wednesday morning to you. I'm Jim Sciutto.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Poppy Harlow.

It was political theater. A loyal Trump aide echoing the president's attacks on congressional Democrats and of course on the Russia investigation. Democrats had hoped to carefully build their case to try to remove the president from office. Instead, the president's former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski defiantly dodged, debated and mocked for the entire six hours.

SCIUTTO: But within the manufactured drama, keep in mind, Lewandowski is running for Senate as a Republican, was this perhaps undercovered headline. Lewandowski confirmed under oath that Trump asked him more than once to tell the sitting attorney general to rein in the Russia probe.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. HANK JOHNSON (D-GA): That's what he wanted you to deliver to Attorney General Jeff Sessions, correct?

COREY LEWANDOWSKI, FORMER TRUMP CAMPAIGN MANAGER: I believe that's an accurate representation.

JOHNSON: And he wanted you to deliver it to Jeff so that Jeff could say it to the people, right?

LEWANDOWSKI: I believe so.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: However, Lewandowski's grandstanding exposed a growing rift inside the Democratic Party. Now we're learning about harsh words from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on how her fellow Democrats are handling the start of an impeachment inquiry.

HARLOW: This is pretty startling. A new report in Politico this morning highlights the widening divide within the party that could end up costing them politically.

So let's talk about that with our congressional reporter Lauren Fox from Capitol Hill.

So, go ahead and leak this?

LAUREN FOX, CNN POLITICS CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: That's exactly what Pelosi said according to this report in Politico. Nancy Pelosi is arguing that the Judiciary Committee staffers are going far beyond where the caucus stands on impeachment.

We should remind viewers of course that a majority of Democrats now support moving forward with impeachment. But Pelosi is arguing that the Judiciary Committee is going much further than the rest of the caucus is. But this comes after an explosive day yesterday on Capitol Hill with Corey Lewandowski coming before the House Judiciary Committee, refusing to answer a lot of questions and just here is a taste of how contentious things got.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. JERRY NADLER (D-NY): The witness may answer the question.

LEWANDOWSKI: I don't believe that was a question.

NADLER: Very well.

REP. SHEILA JACKSON LEE (D-TX): Yes, there was.

LEWANDOWSKI: Could you repeat the question? I didn't hear it.

JACKSON LEE: I'd be happy to repeat the question.

LEWANDOWSKI: It's just a rant.

REP. ERIC SWALWELL (D-CA): Are you ashamed of the words that you wrote down?

LEWANDOWSKI: President Swalwell, I'm very happy of what I've written but you're welcome to read it if you'd like.

SWALWELL: Are you ashamed to read it out loud?

LEWANDOWSKI: I'm not ashamed of anything in my life, Congressman. Are you? It's not my privilege to waive.

SWALWELL: Well, I don't think it's anyone's privilege to waive because I don't think it exists, Mr. Lewandowski. I think the whole thing is imaginary. It's like the Tooth Fairy. You didn't work for the president in the White House.

LEWANDOWSKI: My children are watching. Thank you, Congressman.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FOX: And, obviously, this was a contentious hearing yesterday and it's just the latest in an episode where House Democrats are trying to get to the bottom of what was in the Mueller report, trying to bring it to life, and many of the president's former advisers either refusing to come before the committee or coming before the committee like Corey Lewandowski did yesterday, and refusing to answer many of their questions.

Lewandowski also was on CNN's "NEW DAY" this morning and also dodged quite a few questions from our anchors -- Jim and Poppy.

HARLOW: All right. Lauren Fox, thank you for the reporting.

Let's talk about this and more. Elaina Plott, White House correspondent for the Atlantic, joins us and former federal prosecutor and CNN legal contributor Elliot Williams.

All right. I know you guys will answer our questions. So thank you for being here.

Elaina, let's just -- we'll get to Lewandowski in a moment. But let's just begin with this Politico reporting. I mean. I find it startling that someone so seasoned like Nancy Pelosi who's been through, you know, tough debates getting people in her own party on board before, you know, felt the need to, apparently, according to Politico, say to those in the room, you know, go ahead and leak this. Just showing how wide the divide is between Nadler and those on his team and the impeachment front and those siding with Pelosi.

ELAINA PLOT, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Right, Poppy. So yesterday I think pretty unambiguously was a circus. That hearing with Corey Lewandowski. But I don't think that all falls on Mr. Lewandowski. I think that Democrats, and especially senior Democrats, feel that because the caucus lacks any unity when it comes to what they want to pursue in terms of impeachment, if they did, in fact, go down that path, what they would want to impeach the president for.

I mean, you have to remember, Poppy, this is something that Democrats -- you know, take away the question of impeachment, but even those who want to impeach the president, they don't necessarily have a cohesive understanding of what it would be for. Would it be for something like emoluments?

HARLOW: Right.

PLOTT: Or would it be for obstruction of justice?

[09:05:03]

And I think all of that was laid bare yesterday in that hearing. So while you have Corey Lewandowski, you know, obstructing, stonewalling, following the White House playbook every step of the way in the last year, you also saw Democrats kind of showcase the fact that they have a lot of work to do within their own caucus in terms of unity on so many different questions. And I think what, you know, Pelosi's agreeableness when it comes to leaking this really does hint at the frustration that they're feeling in the different ranks of the party. SCIUTTO: OK, Elliot, but you had a close adviser to President Trump

under oath admit, confirm that the president asked him to tell the sitting attorney general to rein in the Russia probe. Multiple times. And, yes, you have the division but why is that headline confirming evidence of obstruction that was contained in the Mueller report, why is that getting lost in this?

ELLIOT WILLIAMS, CNN LEGAL CONTRIBUTOR: Right, because what we're seeing is a congressional hearing in the age of the viral video and what people are latching on is sort of the circus of -- and it was a circus. I will point to Elaina's comment that it was a circus yesterday and bad sort of optically for the Democrats. But let's break down what happened. He said, Mr. Lewandowski said that the president of the United States directed him to tell Jeff Sessions to curtail the investigation. That met, and this was in the Mueller report, all three elements of the crime of obstruction of justice.

HARLOW: Right.

WILLIAMS: You had an attempt to obstruct, you had corrupt intent and you had an official proceeding. That right there. So we can disagree as to whether you ought to charge the president. We can disagree as to whether you ought to impeach the president but it's clear and, look, I signed a letter with a thousand other federal prosecutors -- former federal prosecutors saying this was a crime. This is a chargeable criminal offense. And so, you know, if Congress wishes to proceed with impeachment or, you know, if a future prosecutor wants to go down this road, they are free to.

But, again, that's what came out of this hearing. You corroborated, you know, evidence of a serious offense committed by the president.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

HARLOW: And that's a really good point and, Jim, I'm glad you highlight that because it is getting lost in the coverage. The headlines are a circus. The headlines aren't, wow, Lewandowski just said this and confirmed this under oath.

And to that point, Elaina, I think, you know, how Jamie Raskin put it, who's a Democrat who sits on the Judiciary Committee, maybe explains part of it. Quote, "Nadler is talking about law. Pelosi is talking about politics." And they -- the party has to make this fundamental decision. Do they want to go after, you know, these points of obstruction or do they want to go after it on the emoluments front, or are they looking at the polling that shows that the majority of the American people aren't there on impeachment yet?

PLOTT: Unfortunately, you can never quite separate law and politics I think in a moment like this. Throughout the course of my reporting the last couple of months, as the Mueller report has come into public view, what's become clear to me is that, you know, Bill Barr really got the first and, thus, final word on this report which is to say -- when he came out that day at that press conference and said pretty plainly, no collusion, no obstruction, that was the sound bite that got played endlessly the rest of that week. That was the thing that, you know, you go to a town hall, say, in Grand Rapids, Michigan. You had a woman tell NBC News, I had no idea there was anything in this report that was damaging to President Trump. I thought, you know, he was totally exonerated.

So, in that way, you are contending with politics. So even though, as Elliot said, we have probably the clearest, most televised moment to date of an ex-aide to this president admitting that he did in fact pursue obstruction of justice for this president, you know, it's not even -- it doesn't even feel as earth shattering as it should because you have the attorney general quite aptly at the beginning of this whole process set the tone, set the narrative.

SCIUTTO: Right.

PLOTT: And that's what Democrats are always going to be fighting against.

SCIUTTO: And listen, you know, impeachment by its nature is a fundamentally political process because you need political votes to proceed to impeach and convict a sitting president. But, Elliot, you know, the Democrats, they know that, right. They know they're not going to kick the president out of office because you need two-thirds in the Senate. It's controlled by Republicans. Their calculation here is keep the inquiry going up until Election Day just to remind people whenever you can of what they believe the president did wrong. Does that strategy work? Does that help them?

WILLIAMS: Yes, because I think we're seeing this -- we're seeing the world as impeachment or no impeachment, forgetting that Congress has a powerful oversight authority. They can call witnesses. They can subpoena witnesses and, frankly, they haven't started suing to hold people in contempt because, until they do that, they're going to continue to get appearances like you saw yesterday. And, look, this isn't just limited to this Mueller sort of Russia stuff. In the context of the Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross literally didn't show up to a hearing that he didn't feel like.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

[09:10:04]

WILLIAMS: This is pervading the entire relationship between --

HARLOW: Right.

SCIUTTO: Across --

WILLIAMS: Yes. So --

SCIUTTO: Or the ODNI, you know, having to inform Congress of a whistleblower complaint involving sensitive intelligence.

HARLOW: Right. Right.

SCIUTTO: It's across the board.

WILLIAMS: Right.

SCIUTTO: Ignoring both law and precedent in these cases.

Elaina Plott, Elliot Williams, great to have both of you on.

HARLOW: Thank you, both.

WILLIAMS: Thank you.

PLOTT: Thanks, guys.

HARLOW: So moments ago, just really a few minutes ago, the president announced that he will impose new additional sanctions on Iran. Let me read this tweet to you. "I've just instructed the secretary of the Treasury to substantially increase sanctions on the country of Iran."

SCIUTTO: This is interesting because it raises the possibility that this is the response to the attack on the Saudi oil facility.

HARLOW: A diplomatic, right.

SCIUTTO: And not military. And not military.

HARLOW: Right.

SCIUTTO: We don't know. It could still change but it raises that possibility.

HARLOW: That's a good point, though.

SCIUTTO: In the next hour, the Saudi Ministry of Defense will hold a press conference announcing the results of its investigation into the attack on those oil facilities. They say they will present material evidence that Iran was behind the bombings. What does Saudi Arabia do?

Let's get to CNN's Nick Paton Walsh. He is in Tehran.

Nick, Iran is already under some pretty punishing sanctions. They can't sell oil. That's their only way really of making money. What's the reaction there to this latest round?

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It's literally just come out, but as you well know, the major tenet of Iran thinking about talking to the United States has been a softening of sanctions. And here we are going in the opposite direction. Fair to say after the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei said talks weren't going to happen any time soon.

But you raised an important point there, Jim. What is left to sanction? You mentioned oil. Well, you know, there has been talk of the sort of gray market where Iran may use separate corporate vessels, may use ship-to-ship transfers possibly around the world to enable it to continue to trade oil. It says it's still legally allowed to do that under the so-called JCPOA, the nuclear deal, because it rejects the U.S. unilaterally pulling out of that. So possibly what Donald Trump may be talking about is a tightening

around that mechanism. But frankly, they're already doing everything they possibly can to make that difficult. Recall how they seem -- the State Department level to be offering cash rewards to captains of ships that are piloting oil around the world that may be in violations of sanctions. They've already put the Revolutionary Guard Corps designated as a foreign terrorist organization. That makes it basically toxic for anyone to touch in the international financial markets.

I have to say, there are still moments where it appears parts of the world are simply ignoring the U.S. threats and of course much of this depends on how avidly the United States tends to prosecute or pursue those who violate their sanctions. The premise really is that if you do business with the things we sanction in Iran, then you cannot do business with the United States. And that's always been a problem under the nuclear deal where there was meant to be an awful lot of things that were suddenly possible to do in Iran if you are, for example, a European company.

Well, when Donald Trump came to power and said he didn't like the Obama nuclear deal, people got concerned and began to get allergic towards the idea of going back into business in Iran in case it jeopardized their access to the U.S. market.

The devil really is in the detail here. And as we know the president of the United States isn't always a massive fan of digging into the weeds about what these sanctions might actually mean and what they might actually do but that's the key thing here and of course, too, implicit within this tweet is Donald Trump perhaps for the first time directly saying that there's something to perhaps react towards Iran for. Maybe this is the beginning of him directly saying he believes Iran is behind these Saudi attacks.

HARLOW: Yes.

PATON WALSH: We simply don't know -- Jim.

SCIUTTO: Good point.

HARLOW: Very good point. Nick Paton Walsh, thank you for all of that, live from Tehran for us this morning.

We'll talk more in a moment with our global affairs analyst Jason Rezaian. Of course he was held in Tehran. Used to run the "Washington Post" bureau there. We'll get his take on all of this.

SCIUTTO: And still to come this hour, elections in Israel still too close to call. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu fighting to hold on. What's it look like there? We're going to be live in Israel next.

Plus, former president Jimmy Carter says he does not think an 80-year- old person could manage the duties of the office of president, saying he hopes there is an age limit. So how does he feel about Joe Biden?

HARLOW: Right. Or President Trump? And later today, the Trump administration is set to revoke

California's authority to set its own vehicle emissions standards. This would actually impact then a dozen states. It's a big deal. We'll explain it, ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:15:00]

POPPY HARLOW, CO-ANCHOR, NEWSROOM: Moments ago, the president announced that he'll be imposing new sanctions on Iran. Obviously, this comes as it seems like a pretty clear response to the very likely possibility, according to the administration, that Iran was behind the recent oil field attacks in Saudi Arabia.

Let's talk about this with someone who knows so much about this regime. Jason Rezaian; "Washington Post" opinion writer and CNN global affairs analyst. He was also formerly the Tehran Bureau Chief for the "Washington Post" and held there for 544 days. You wrote the book "Prisoner", thank you very much for being with us.

JASON REZAIAN, OPINION WRITER, THE WASHINGTON POST: Thanks for having me on, Poppy.

HARLOW: So, do you read -- Jim and I were just talking about this. Do you read the president's response this morning of increased sanctions on Iran as a sign that the response once again to Iran, just as it was to taking down the drone is going to be diplomatic, going to be sanctions led rather than military?

REZAIAN: Yes, I mean, I think this was the most predictable response, sort of had to happen. I think that there will be other responses in the coming days. But I think from the Iranian side, this really forces the Iran issue as top of the agenda for the UN meetings coming up next week.

[09:20:00]

JIM SCIUTTO, CO-ANCHOR, NEWSROOM: Jason, you saw Lindsey Graham's very open, rare public criticism of the president saying, and I'll read the tweet, "the measured response by President Trump regarding the shooting down of an American drone, that of course in June was clearly seen by the Iranian regime as a sign of weakness." If the president again balks at military retaliation, if it's determined definitively that Iran is behind this, how does Iran read that?

Do they read it as being given license here? Do they read it as the U.S. blinking on this?

REZAIAN: I think that they look at it as a bit of both. And you know, the likelihood of them to continue to provoke is really high. But as we know in this attack, there were no casualties. It was a huge loss financially for Saudi Arabia. But I think that this president, President Trump has made very clear, that he doesn't want to get the United States into another war in the Middle East or anywhere in the world. So, I think that there is a real pursuit for fresh talks with Iran.

SCIUTTO: Right --

REZAIAN: Iran understands that very well, and their plan is two- pronged approach of provocation and at the same time, demanding new talks.

HARLOW: So Jason, you make a really important point, which is that, Saudi Arabia and just Arab kingdoms in the Persian Gulf in general now see the real threat that Iran poses. But you also say at the same time that, the chances of a war breaking out between Saudi and Iran for example is just incredibly slim. Help us understand that.

REZAIAN: Look, I think that this slow conflict has been brewing for many years. It's been fought by proxies in Yemen, in Syria and other parts of the region for a long time. But that waterway of the Straits of Hormuz --

HARLOW: Yes --

REZAIAN: Is so sensitive globally, Iran and Saudi Arabia are so close geographically that the impact of a larger direct conflict between the two countries would be catastrophic for everybody. And I also think that other kingdoms in the gulf understand very well that Iran has the ability to be very destructive in the UAE, in Bahrain, in Kuwait. And nobody wants to rattle that cage.

SCIUTTO: Jason, it's good to have you on, it's fascinating to watch in these coming days, and I'm sure we'll have you back.

REZAIAN: Always a pleasure.

SCIUTTO: Also --

HARLOW: Thank you, Jason --

SCIUTTO: In the region this morning, the Israeli elections still too close to call. The latest projections though show Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu trailing his opponent, former military chief Benny Gantz by one seat. That could be enough.

HARLOW: Yes, it could. Still, though, you got neither candidate with a certain path to forming a ruling coalition. The second national election, this one is five months after Netanyahu failed to form a governing coalition, following the April vote.

Back with us again this morning, our senior international correspondent Sam Kiley in Jerusalem. You have these two men neck- and-neck with very different views about the path forward for Israel. And now, if this thing plays out the way it's looking, they're going to have to come together and form some sort of unity government.

SAM KILEY, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, that's certainly the preference of Benny Gantz and Yair Lapid; the leaders of the Blue and White Party. They are making a direct appeal, if you like, below the head of Benjamin Netanyahu to his Likud Party followers, particularly those who will be getting elected as a result of these elections, to form a national unity government.

But they are saying that they want to do so without Benjamin Netanyahu because he has these three corruption court cases looming over him that could start to come to ahead just as the coalition talks, if they ever happen, will be going ahead. This presents Reuven Rivlin; the Israeli president with something of a conundrum.

You have these two parties, each with 32, 31 seats potentially. They're based on exit polls that we should say can be very unreliable. And then they have a number of possibilities of knitting together coalitions either with the center left or from Likud's perspective with the more religious parties.

None of them getting to that key figure of 61, no guarantee that they're going to get 61 seats in the 120 Knesset. So, ultimately, it's going to be a lot of horse trading with no real sale necessarily at the end of it. Poppy and Jim.

SCIUTTO: Just quickly. The president now has a choice of asking one of these parties to attempt to form a government. Since Blue and White has this one-seat advantage, does that push the president to ask him to give Benny Gantz the first shot?

KILEY: Well, if that were the official results, then he would still not be under an obligation to do that, Jim. There has been one case, I believe in the past when he hasn't asked the leader of the biggest party with the greatest number of seats in the Knesset.

[09:25:00]

What he'll do is spend a week canvassing opinion from all of the different leaders and parties within the 120-seat Knesset, and then appoint somebody who he thinks is most likely to succeed in knitting together a coalition --

SCIUTTO: Right --

KILEY: To have a crack at it, and they'll have six weeks to do that.

SCIUTTO: All right, lots ahead, counting to come --

KILEY: Yes --

SCIUTTO: Sam Kiley on the ground there in Jerusalem, thanks very much.

HARLOW: Former President Jimmy Carter saying there should be an age limit for U.S. presidents, saying he could not have managed the office at age 80. Well, you've got President Trump, Joe Biden, they would be 80, we'll discuss, next.

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