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White House Helped Arrange Call between Giuliani and Pompeo after Handover of Biden Allegations; House Democrats Move Closer to Articles of Impeachment; Bolton Says White House Blocked Twitter Account; Netanyahu Indicted on Criminal Charges; Hong Kong Prepares for Contentious Local Elections; USA Gymnastics Scandal; Trump-Ukraine Events That Led to Impeachment Hearings; Brexit and the U.K. Election. Aired 4-5a ET
Aired November 23, 2019 - 04:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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NATALIE ALLEN, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Emails just released show how the White House helped to coordinate Rudy Giuliani's efforts in Ukraine.
Also ahead this hour, a new accusation against one of Donald Trump's biggest defenders in Congress and his alleged role in trying to get dirt on the Bidens.
All of this as the House aims to hold an impeachment vote by the end of the year.
But what happens after that?
We break it down for you.
Welcome to our viewers here in the U.S. and around the world. We're coming to you live from Atlanta, GA. I'm Natalie Allen and NEWSROOM starts right now.
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ALLEN: Thank you again for joining us and our top story is this: newly released documents give us a clearer view of how President Trump's personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, coordinated his efforts in Ukraine through the White House and is coming directly from the U.S. State Department.
The information results from a Freedom of Information lawsuit filed by the advocacy group American Oversight. Emailed exchanges spell out how the White House helped arrange a phone call between Giuliani and U.S. secretary of state Mike Pompeo.
This took place the day after Giuliani handed over materials with unproven claims about former vice president Biden and his son, Hunter. Documents show Pompeo spoke with Giuliani the first time in late March, before Giuliani handed over that information. It was the second conversation that was facilitated by the White House.
For that conversation, Giuliani's assistant reached out to Madeleine Westerhout. Giuliani's assistant said she was, quote, "getting nowhere through regular channels." She then asked the State Department how to get Giuliani and Pompeo in touch.
If you're still with us, all of this comes as the White House is preparing for a likely impeachment vote followed by a trial in the U.S. Senate. We get the latest from Sara Murray in Washington.
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SARA MURRAY, CNN NATIONAL POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Democrats are bracing for a busy December with a possible vote to impeach President Trump before Christmas Day.
The House Intelligence Committee and two other panels are crafting a report to serve as the basis for articles of impeachment that the House Judiciary Committee will consider after Thanksgiving.
REP. ERIC SWALWELL (D-CA): We have to decide, what does it mean?
And once we conclude our investigation, if we decide that it means that the president should be held accountable...
MURRAY (voice-over): December will be filled with public hearings and a likely vote in the House Judiciary Committee before a full vote to impeach on the House floor which could come before Christmas Day, potentially making Trump the third president in history to be impeached.
House Democrats don't plan to wait for firsthand witnesses who have resisted testifying, like acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, secretary of state Mike Pompeo and former national security adviser John Bolton.
REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA): They keep taking it to court. And, no, we're not going to wait until the courts decide. That might be information that's available to the Senate, but we can't wait for that, because, again, it's a technique. It's obstruction of justice.
MURRAY: Then, in January, the impeachment battle is expected to shift to the Senate, where Trump's fate will collide with six Democratic senators looking to unseat him in the next presidential election.
SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN (D-MA), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I will be there for the trial.
MURRAY: But after weeks of hearings and impassioned arguments from Democrats...
REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D-CA): This president believes he is above the law, beyond accountability. And, in my view, there is nothing more dangerous than an unethical president who believes they are above the law.
MURRAY: -- even Republicans who have been critical of Trump don't appear convinced impeachment is the remedy.
REP. WILL HURD (R-TX): An impeachable offense should be compelling, overwhelmingly clear and unambiguous. I have not heard evidence proving the president committed bribery or extortion.
MURRAY: Now the White House legal team believes it is 100 percent in the president's interest to have this public trial in the Senate. We may soon see if that calculation is correct -- Sara Murray, CNN, Washington.
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ALLEN: A lawyer representing an indicted associate of Giuliani's says his client is willing to testify before Congress about the alleged role of Republican congressman Devin Nunes in trying to dig up dirt on the Bidens.
The attorney says his client Lev Parnas claims he helped put Nunes in touch with this man, disgraced Ukrainian prosecutor, Victor Shokin. CNN's Vicky Ward spoke about it with our Chris Cuomo.
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VICKY WARD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: So, his lawyer says that Lev Parnas would like to come and speak to Congress and that he would say to Congress, were he given the opportunity, that last December, Devin Nunes, the senior Republican, presiding over the impeachment hearings, went to Vienna and met with Victor Shokin.
CHRIS CUOMO, CNN HOST: Victor Shokin, the person who was the prosecutor for Ukraine, that Ukraine and everybody in the United States, wanted out, for not investigating corruption?
WARD: Correct and who was fired in 2016, under pressure by many Western leaders, including our then vice president, Joe Biden. He has an ax to grind against the Bidens.
Victor Shokin is the man who has claimed to have dirt on Joe and Hunter Biden. He has claimed to have evidence that Ukraine meddled in our elections.
CUOMO: Reportedly met with Rudy Giuliani, Mr. Shokin.
WARD: He's -- absolutely. So, Shokin--
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CUOMO: Rudy Giuliani wanted to get him a pass to come to the United States and it was denied.
WARD: Absolutely correct.
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ALLEN: Nunes declined CNN's multiple requests for comment about this development.
A series of tweets on Friday from former U.S. national security adviser John Bolton attracted a lot of attention, both because of what they said and because Bolton has been mostly silent since leaving his White House post. CNN's Brian Todd is on this story.
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BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): He's been one of the ghosts of the impeachment hearings, on a list of key figures like Mike Pompeo, Rudy Giuliani and Mick Mulvaney, who didn't testify.
But former national security adviser John Bolton could know more than all of them about the allegations that President Trump abused his power to leverage the Ukrainians to investigate Joe and Hunter Biden.
MELANIE ZANONA, "POLITICO": John Bolton has been one of the most mysterious figures in this whole Ukraine saga. He was one of the biggest starring players in this whole episode with Ukraine and yet he was an offstage character almost the entire time in the impeachment probe.
TODD (voice-over): But on Friday, after more than two months of silence, a tease from John Bolton. In a series of tweets, he accused the White House of blocking his access to his personal Twitter account, which President Trump denied.
TRUMP: No, of course not. Of course not. No, I actually had a good relationship with John.
TODD (voice-over): In a tweet, Bolton asked whether the White House blocked his Twitter access, quote, out of fear of what I may say?
The specter of John Bolton loomed over the impeachment hearings in accounts his top aide, Fiona Hill, gave of Bolton's concerns about the Trump team's pressure on Ukraine.
HILL: He, then, in the course of that discussion, said that Rudy Giuliani was a hand grenade that was going to blow everyone up.
TODD (voice-over): Hill said Bolton physically stiffened at a July 10th White House meeting between U.S. and Ukrainian officials when E.U. Ambassador Gordon Sondland first linked a possible Trump meeting with Ukraine's President to Ukraine investigating the Bidens.
Hill said Bolton immediately walked out of the meeting and gave her an ominous directive afterward.
HILL: The specific instruction was that I had to go to the lawyers, to John Eisenberg, our senior counsel for the National Security Council, to basically say -- you tell Eisenberg Ambassador Bolton told me that I am not part of the -- this -- whatever drug deal that Mulvaney and Sondland are cooking up.
TODD (voice-over): And American diplomat David Holmes testified that Bolton met with Ukraine's President in August and warned him what it would take to lift a hold on U.S. military aid to Ukraine.
DAVID HOLMES, COUNSELOR FOR POLITICAL AFFAIRS, UNITED STATES EMBASSY IN UKRAINE: It would hang on whether President Zelensky was able to, quote, favorably impress President Trump.
TODD (voice-over): But Bolton could know so much more. Two weeks ago, his lawyer wrote a letter to congressional leaders saying Bolton was involved in, quote, many relevant meetings and conversations that have not yet been discussed in the testimonies thus far.
TODD (on camera): What could he have witnessed?
MICHAEL ISIKOFF, CHIEF INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT, YAHOO! NEWS: John Bolton would have had more communications directly with President Trump than any witness we've heard from to date. So anything the President said in John Bolton's presence about the pressure campaign on the Ukrainians would be enormously significant testimony.
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TODD (voice-over): Including one meeting that an aide testified Bolton had with Trump in August where the aide said Bolton tried and failed to get Trump to lift the hold on U.S. military aid to Ukraine.
TODD: Among the crucial looming questions are when will John Bolton reveal what he knows about the Ukraine dealings and in what forum?
Bolton's lawyer said he wouldn't testify at impeachment hearings unless a judge forced him to and he wasn't subpoenaed by House Democrats.
But he might have to testify at a Senate impeachment trial. Or Bolton's first revelations could come in a new book he's writing, which is due out next year sometime before the election -- Brian Todd, CNN, Washington.
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ALLEN: We're joined now by James Davis to talk about these developments. He's the director of the Institute of Political Science at the University of St. Gallen and he's a professor of political science with a focus on international politics.
Thanks for joining us, Professor.
JAMES DAVIS, UNIVERSITY OF ST. GALLEN: Good morning.
ALLEN: I don't know about you but my head is spinning. It's the Friday before a holiday here in the United States but Washington is having none of that so far. Let's look at these developments.
John Bolton, he could be a wild card still in play here and now Devin Nunes could be facing questions about his association, a meeting over Ukraine.
What do you make of these? DAVIS: You're right, this is head spinning. What it does show us is the story is far from over. The public hearings might be over but the information is going to continue to drip out. I think that is a reflection of the fact that this White House is not disciplined, the Republican Party has not shown itself to be disciplined in this impeachment process.
So I expect we're going to see a lot of information coming out between now and the impeachment vote and perhaps even before the Senate trial.
What I do think we can draw from these three stories, all of which are just emerging, is that Ambassador Sondland's claim that many people were in the loop, as he said, including the State Department, on the activities of Mayor Giuliani, I think that is now, once again, being backed up.
Because we see that there were these calls going from the White House to the State Department to secure a call between Giuliani and the State Department. We see Devin Nunes appears to have been meeting with Victor Shokin in 2018 in Vienna.
The activities of the Republicans to dig up dirt on the Bidens, if these stories are correct, seem to be wider than we thought. And it does seem many more people were in the loop than want to admit that.
ALLEN: That was a clear takeaway from his opening remarks, when he used that word in the loop. Let's back up and talk about the testimony that we saw in the past few weeks. And we know that it's been said an impeachable offense should be compelling, overwhelmingly clear and unambiguous.
Did the testimony live up to that, in your opinion?
DAVIS: People are going to look at the facts as they're presented through their own lenses. We have a classic situation, where people are going to be making sense of ambiguous information in terms of theories they already have in their mind.
So I fear the facts as they were presented are not going to change the mind of the president's supporters. And I fear that they're going to only enhance the conclusions in the mind of the president's critics.
But I'm not certain they're going to really change many opinions. Of course, the important group that we're looking at are the swing voters, the suburban housewives, the people who took a chance on President Trump because they thought this was going to be a president who would move things forward, move Washington beyond partisan politics.
But what we see is that, in fact, we're mired in partisan politics far more than we were before and so I think that is where we need to look. We want to see, is this moving the needle with the kind of middle of the road voter, because at the end of the day, whether or not the Senate moves toward a majority in favor of impeachment, which -- in favor of removal, isn't even enough on a simple majority to remove the president. You need a super majority. But if we're going to get above 50, we need to see some movement in
public opinion.
ALLEN: We will wait and see about that. In the meantime, President Trump, of course, remains defiant. He says bring it on. We'll see if he sticks to that. We appreciate your insights, James Davis. Thank you.
DAVIS: Thank you, Natalie.
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ALLEN: Next here, speaking of embattled and defiant, we turn to Israel. The Israeli prime minister faces the fight of his political life. We'll have a report about that.
Also ahead here, "numb, hurt and outraged," U.S. Olympian Simone Biles is speaking out. Why she's calling for an investigation into the organization meant to protect her.
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ALLEN: Welcome back.
Israel's prime minister has promised to accept any court decision he may face but Benjamin Netanyahu also claims investigators acted illegally. The country's attorney general announced multiple charges against Mr. Netanyahu this week. Paula Newton joins us from Jerusalem. She is on this story.
And, Paula, a defiant Netanyahu, there are charges and there are countercharges.
What is the latest?
PAULA NEWTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Israelis are obviously dealing with a new political reality. Two rounds of elections, this country is still in limbo. P
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NEWTON: Perhaps they will go into a third round of elections. Netanyahu becomes the first sitting Israeli prime minister to be indicted. Those charges are serious. At issue is how he reacted.
Beyond the fact he used Trumpian language, calling this investigation a witch hunt, saying he wanted the investigators to be investigated, many are now wondering while even a few within his own party say it might be better for him to step down, he remains ever defiant. Here, a lot of people want a break from the politics, right? Even if you don't agree on the kind of politics, you certainly agree that you wanted a break this weekend. Today is the holy day of rest and, given that, Netanyahu released a statement. He's talking about the indictments and says all of this process will eventually be decided in court and we will accept the court's decision.
"There is no doubt about that. This is a framework, we will safeguard it and we will always in the end and in the beginning act by the rule of law."
And this means that those who did not act by the law, though, in the police and at the prosecution, there should be an examination. It should be dealt with and there should be a remedy.
It's interesting here because this is Netanyahu pushing back, saying, I believe this process, by which I was indicted, to be politicized. It's not just the language that he's using but he's actually taking a sledgehammer to a lot of the institutions here by which he was indicted. And that can lead to a lot more chaos especially in this kind of environment where Netanyahu remains the prime minister but one still with limited powers.
ALLEN: Thank you, Paula Newton in Jerusalem.
We're going to take a short break here. More news after this.
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ALLEN: In Hong Kong, police are bracing for unrest during local elections on Sunday. Over the past few weeks, we have seen brutal attacks on both pro-democracy and pro-Beijing candidates. Riot police are being deployed to polling stations as a precaution.
More than 4 million people are able to vote in the elections. For the first time, all of Hong Kong's district councils are being contested at once. The largest pro-Beijing party is fielding 179 candidates while another group of pro-democracy parties has endorsed 397 candidates.
Sunday's elections will follow some of the worst violence the city has seen since the protests began. Last week, clashes broke out when demonstrators occupied a university. CNN's Paula Hancocks spoke with some of the protesters who managed to escape and avoid arrest.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It was a dramatic escape caught on camera. Protesters fleeing Hong Kong Polytechnic University by rappelling from a bridge. Volunteers on motorbikes waited below to whisk them away. One of those who escaped tells us she would have done anything not to
be arrested by police and face a maximum 10 years in prison on charges of rioting. We're not identifying her to protect her safety.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): We were on the bridge and we heard someone shouting, don't look back. If you can escape, just leave. When the police seemed to step back a little bit, me and my friends decided to abseil without gloves.
HANCOCKS (voice-over): She has rope burns and bruises but she also has her freedom. She tells us she was on the front lines. Her job was to pour water on the tear gas canisters to stop the smoke. Like many protesters we speak to, she defends the violence.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): Protesters do not want to use violence but violence is a way to create large attention. Petrol bombs are not for attacking the police but for protecting protesters.
HANCOCKS (voice-over): On the phone, I speak to another woman who escaped. She doesn't want to be filmed and does not tell us how she escaped for fear police could identify her. She tells me she helped to make petrol bombs on campus.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): The protests will continue. Everyone has learned from the mistake this time. So they won't defend a university anymore because the importance of this protest is to be water.
HANCOCKS (voice-over): Some managed to escape through the campus sewer system, although others were arrested. The new police commission appealed to protesters again on Friday to leave the campus, hoping it will end peacefully.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): It is very dangerous inside. There are a lot of explosives and gasoline bombs. The environment is very bad there.
HANCOCKS (voice-over): For the parents of those refusing to leave, all they can do is wait and watch. Police have rejected their pleas to go inside on safety grounds. One pastor is going in on their behalf to try and convince the remaining protesters to leave.
So how are the parents coping?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They're quite nervous, sad and with a sense of despair and quite emotional.
HANCOCKS (voice-over): There are some under the age of 18 inside who police say they will not arrest, others who haven't slept in days and a growing sense of desperation to avoid arrest at all costs -- Paula Hancocks, CNN, Hong Kong.
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ALLEN: One of the world's most decorated gymnasts, Simone Biles, is outraged over the failure of USA Gymnastics officials to protect young athletes from sexual assault. "The Wall Street Journal" reports the Olympian was kept in the dark for years about an ongoing sexual abuse investigation of the team doctor. CNN's Brynn Gingras has the story.
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BRYNN GINGRAS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: In a recent tweet she said she's numb but as soon as "The Wall Street Journal" report came out, which I want to say was extensive, they talked to multiple sources, even congressional testimony, she sent out a tweet, retweeting the report and she says, "I can't tell you how hard this is to read and process. The pain is real and doesn't just go away, especially when new facts are still coming out.
"What is it going to take a complete independent investigation of both USOPC and USAG?"
She wants them to be investigated as a separate investigation, even though there was already an internal one and an FBI criminal investigation, which is something more than 200 women have also called for. So she's certainly not alone in that.
Again, this report was so incredibly explosive because it also points to a timeline, right?
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GINGRAS: In 2015 is when, according to the report, Biles and two other gymnasts brought their concerns about Larry Nassar up the chain of command in the USA Gymnastics and it was ignored. Her name was never mentioned in the internal investigation. It was never brought to FBI investigators initially who were doing that criminal investigation.
And, again, 2015, right before 2016, when the Olympics were coming out in Rio, where she was supposed to be a standout star and was a standout star, winning four gold medals, it wasn't until after she returned from Rio that she was finally alerted to all these investigations.
So she didn't know anything of this until 2016, even though she was bringing up concerns way before that. Certainly you can imagine how she is feeling numb and it's disheartening for not only her but all these other women who have been involved.
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ALLEN: A former Penn State assistant football coach has been resentenced for sexually abusing 10 boys. Jerry Sandusky's original sentence of at least 30 years was overturned earlier this year in a dispute over mandatory minimum sentences.
Friday, Sandusky learned his new sentence, 30 to 60 years in prison, the same penalty that was previously overturned. Sandusky was convicted seven years ago for child molestation. The former coach still claims he's innocent.
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ALLEN: Rudy Giuliani has been a key figure in the Trump-Ukraine scandal from the very start. CNN's Tom Foreman shows us exactly how Giuliani was involved and how his actions helped launch the impeachment inquiry.
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TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Spring 2019: as Volodymyr Zelensky is winning the presidency of Ukraine, a widely respected U.S ambassador to that country is losing her job.
Marie Yovanovitch, according to testimony, was called home following a month's long smear campaign suggesting she was disloyal to President Trump.
Behind it, Trump's personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani.
MARIE YOVANOVITCH, FORMER AMBASSADOR TO UKRAINE: I do not understand Mr. Giuliani's motives for attacking me.
FOREMAN: But now, testimony tells us Yovanovitch was simply in the way because she wouldn't buy into a disproven conspiracy theory Giuliani was pushing.
RUDY GIULIANI, TRUMP'S PERSONAL ATTORNEY: The facts are stubborn and, eventually, this is going to have to be investigated.
FOREMAN: Giuliani wanted the Ukrainians to investigated debunked allegations of corruption in Ukraine tied to the U.S. Democratic Party in the 2016 election, Joe Biden, a potential rival to Trump for the presidency and Biden's son.
Giuliani insisted it had nothing to do with Trump's re-election plans and there is nothing illegal about it. And soon, Trump was saying, if a foreign country offered dirt on a political foe --
TRUMP: I think I'd want to hear it.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS, ABC NEWS HOST: Do you want that kind of interference in our elections?
TRUMP: It's not interference. They have information. I think I'd take it. If I thought there was something wrong, I'd go maybe to the FBI.
FOREMAN: Summer, Team Trump keeps pushing for an investigation, a murky unofficial channel appears to be opening between the White House and Ukraine, as the U.S. ambassador to European Union, Gordon Sondland, becomes more involved in it, those on the official side grow alarmed, including Trump's then National Security Council Director for Europe and Russia, Fiona Hill.
HILL: Because he was being involved in a domestic political errand and we were being involved in national security foreign policy and those two things have just diverged. FOREMAN: Ukraine has previously concluded there is nothing to the allegations of meddling in the U.S. election and the claims against Biden. They initially appear reluctant to dive into America politics.
Then the White House unexpectedly suspends nearly $400 million in military aid to Ukraine. A visit to the White House, which the new president wants, is on hold too. Trump gets on the phone with Zelensky and drives the message home.
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FOREMAN (voice-over): "I would like you to do us a favor."
He personally asked for an investigation. He mentions Biden by name. The next day, the Ukrainians commit. Sondland calls Trump with a message.
DANIEL GOLDMAN, HOUSE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE LEAD LAWYER: President Zelensky, quote, loves your ass, unquote. Do you recall saying that?
GORDON SONDLAND, U.S. AMBASSADOR TO THE E.U.: Yes, it sounds like something I would say.
FOREMAN: Trump's defenders say this was all about fighting corruption in Ukraine. But Sondland now says everyone knew it was really about pushing for a public announcement that Biden was under suspicion.
REP. SEAN PATRICK MALONEY (D-NY): Who would benefit from an investigation of the Bidens?
SONDLAND: I assume President Trump would.
MALONEY: There we have it. See?
FOREMAN: Then everything blows up.
CUOMO: We now know the whistleblower --
WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: The whistleblower complaint --
JOHN BERMAN, CNN HOST: The whistleblower scandal --
FOREMAN: An anonymous whistleblower files a report reflecting widening concerns about the call from a decorated military officer.
VINDMAN: It was improper for the president.
FOREMAN: From an aide to Vice President Pence.
JENNIFER WILLIAMS, AIDE TO VICE PRESIDENT MIKE PENCE: It involved discussion of what appeared to be a domestic political matter.
FOREMAN (voice-over): News of the suspended military aid erupts, Congress starts buzzing, did President Trump coerce a foreign government to investigate a political rival? As the scandal boils up, Trump releases the military aid, a rough transcript of the call and goes on defense.
TRUMP: You take look at the call, it was perfect.
FOREMAN: Even as his acting chief of staff seems to confirm pressure was applied.
MICK MULVANEY, ACTING WHITE HOUSE CHIEF OF STAFF: We do that all the time with foreign policy. And I have news for everybody: get over it.
FOREMAN: He walks it back.
Autumn, facing an impeachment inquiry, Trump orders officials to defy congressional subpoenas to explain what happened. And he insists there was never any kind of deal.
TRUMP: There was no quid pro quo.
There was no quid pro quo at all.
I want no quid pro quo.
FOREMAN: But his own ambassador, Sondland, under oath, says otherwise.
SONDLAND: Was there a quid pro quo? As I testified previously, with regard to the requested White House call and White House meeting, the answer is yes.
FOREMAN: The president and many Republicans have dismissed all of this as yet another conspiracy, an illicit effort to push him out of office after he was duly elected.
But one after another, witnesses have said, no, there really was an improper deal to benefit Trump politically by using U.S. power abroad -- Tom Foreman, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ALLEN: And as we've reported, a House impeachment vote could come by Christmas. So we went out and asked voters what they think of all of this. Vanessa Yurkevich brings us some opinions from across the political spectrum in the swing state of Pennsylvania.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DOUG STIRLING, RADIO HOST, WCHE: And good morning, everybody. Talking a little politics. We want to know what you think about the impeachment hearings.
VANESSA YURKEVICH, CNN BUSINESS AND POLITICS CORRESPONDENT (voice- over): The morning rush to Philadelphia with impeachment on the mind.
STEPHEN DIBONAVENTURA, PENNSYLVANIA REPUBLICAN: It's a big show and I think they're just wasting taxpayers' money.
YURKEVICH (voice-over): No matter their political party, voters here in the suburbs are paying attention from the airwaves --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It would be thrown out in any courtroom, put it that way.
STIRLING: Nothing there, there, huh?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No.
YURKEVICH (voice-over): -- to the railways.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm totally convinced that he's committed a crime.
YURKEVICH (voice-over): A narrow victory in Pennsylvania helped deliver the White House to Donald Trump in 2016. Democrats here now on offense with strong voter turnout in local elections earlier this month, helping them score victories in three suburban Philadelphia counties.
STIRLING: Now that we are a thoroughly blue county for the first time 150 years, that may portend trouble for the president next year.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, there we go.
YURKEVICH (voice-over): Jane Young and her friends have been glued to the hearings for the past two weeks.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: For the opening statements, we're not talking.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, that's not going to happen. You invited the wrong person.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK, shh, shh. YURKEVICH (voice-over): At her watch party in Delaware County, four Democrats and one Independent all believe the president has committed a crime.
ADRIAN MILLER, PENNSYLVANIA INDEPENDENT: And we're talking about what -- acceptance of law and we're determining what our laws are now.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Wait.
MILLER: So are we going to accept that this is practice now or are we not going to accept this is practice now?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And that's -- I think that we're ahead of the congressional hearings. We believed it before they walked in the room and produced the witnesses.
ALEXO BELL, PENNSYLVANIA REPUBLICAN: Thank you.
YURKEVICH (voice-over): Across town, Alexo and Valerie Bell.
VALERIE MORGAN BELL, PENNSYLVANIA INDEPENDENT: It's not supposed to be a few people picking your leaders of the country.
A. BELL: Right.
YURKEVICH (voice-over): Alexo, a staunch Trump supporter.
[04:40:00]
YURKEVICH (voice-over): His wife, Valerie, an Independent who is not a fan of the president.
YURKEVICH (on camera): Have you discussed the impeachment inquiry?
A. BELL: I know where she stands, you know what I mean? She would like to see him get the boot, you know and I wouldn't. So it's kind of a moot point to even talk about it.
YURKEVICH (voice-over): While respecting each other's opinions is key to their marriage, there's no love lost on their distinct views on impeachment.
A. BELL: I think the Democrats are grasping at straws wherever they can.
V. BELL: I just think you have to hold the president to a higher standard and I think it doesn't look good. It doesn't have good optics.
YURKEVICH: The vast majority of voters we've spoken to here in Pennsylvania say they don't think the president will be impeached but that the 2020 election will determine his fate. We only found one voter who knows who they'll be voting for, a Republican who will be voting for President Trump. Everyone else is still very much undecided -- Vanessa Yurkevich, CNN, Swarthmore, Pennsylvania.
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ALLEN: Here is another avenue for you to think about. Questions are growing over the extent of the U.S. secretary of state's involvement with Ukraine. Next here, what the president says his close ally should do next.
Also, coming up, move over Brexit; Britain's National Health Service is starting to look like the most contentious topic of the U.K. election. More about that, coming up.
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ALLEN: While U.S. secretary of state Mike Pompeo may know a lot about president Donald Trump's involvement with Ukraine, he's staying loyal and silent on the matter. However, Mr. Trump now seems to be giving him an exit from the whole mess. CNN's Kylie Atwood takes a look at Pompeo's involvement.
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KYLIE ATWOOD, CNN U.S. SECURITY ANALYST (voice-over): It's a subject the secretary of state has repeatedly dismissed.
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POMPEO: Even while all this noise is going on, you all are fixated on this.
I'm not going to get into the issues surrounding the Democratic impeachment inquiry.
ATWOOD (voice-over): But now one of his own ambassadors has placed him squarely in the middle of the story.
GORDON SONDLAND, U.S. AMBASSADOR TO THE E.U.: Everyone was in the loop.
ATWOOD (voice-over): Gordon Sondland, U.S. ambassador to the E.U., told lawmakers Pompeo knew about the quid pro quo with Ukraine and claimed he did nothing to stop it.
SONDLAND: We kept the leadership of the State Department and the NSC informed of our activities and that included communications with secretary of state Pompeo.
ATWOOD (voice-over): Sondland came with proof, multiple emails he sent to Pompeo. In one, he laid out a plan to get President Zelensky to commit, quote, "on those issues of importance to POTUS and the U.S.," meaning investigations that would politically benefit President Trump.
Sondland hoped, he told Pompeo, that this proposal could, quote, "break the logjam."
Pompeo replied, "Yes."
While Sondland delivered testimony in Washington, Pompeo was in Brussels, expressing disinterest.
POMPEO: I didn't see a single thing today. I was working. Sounds like you may not have been.
ATWOOD (voice-over): A State Department spokesperson put out a statement, denying Sondland's allegations.
"Gordon Sondland never told Secretary Pompeo that he believed the president was linking aid to investigations of political opponents. Any suggestion to the contrary is flat out false."
But in October, Pompeo admitted he was listening in on the now infamous Trump-Zelensky call on July 25th, where Trump made that ask.
Pompeo, an ardent defender of President Trump, saw nothing wrong with that call and has alleged election interference by former vice president Joe Biden based on no evidence.
POMPEO: America cannot have our elections interfered with. And if that's what took place there, if there was that activity engaged in by vice president Biden, we need to know.
ATWOOD (voice-over): Last month, when asked about holding up foreign assistance for a political initiative, the exact thing that Sondland believes Pompeo knew about, Pompeo says this.
POMPEO: I never saw that in the decision-making process that I was a part of.
ATWOOD (voice-over): Pompeo has made the decision not to defend career foreign service officers by name, even after Trump smeared Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch with a tweet erroneously claiming that everywhere she went turned bad.
POMPEO: I don't have anything to say. I'll defer to the White House about particular statements and the like.
ATWOOD (voice-over): One possible off-ramp for Pompeo --
TRUMP: They love him in Kansas.
ATWOOD (voice-over): The president appearing to give Pompeo an exit strategy, adding to the speculation that Pompeo will leave his job to run for Senate.
TRUMP: If he thought there was a chance of losing that seat, I think he would do that and he would win in a landslide.
ATWOOD: Republicans are fearful that they could lose that Kansas Senate seat to the Democrats if secretary of state Mike Pompeo doesn't jump in the race. Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell has been very up front about the fact that he wants Pompeo to run.
And Pompeo came into the State Department promising to revitalize the department and boost the morale. But there are fears that if he leaves now, his failure to defend career foreign service officers amid this Ukraine impeachment inquiry would have an outsized impact on his legacy as secretary of state -- Kylie Atwood, CNN, Washington.
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ALLEN: Next, we take you to the U.K., a grilling from voters, there the two main contenders in the U.K. general election face tough questions from the audience, what that is about, next.
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ALLEN: Ahead of the U.K.'s election on December 12th, voters got to face the leaders of the four major parties and ask questions. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn here called for a new Brexit referendum to find out what the people want and promised to remain neutral.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson says voters need to give him a Parliament that will approve Brexit.
As Brexit and the British election both loom, the fate of the U.K.'s National Health Service is dominating the headlines. The prime minister and Corbyn are trying to outdo each other with plans to protect and fund Britain's most cherished institution. Our Scott McLean reports from London.
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JEREMY CORBYN, LEADER, U.K. LABOUR PARTY: You're going to sell out to the United States.
BORIS JOHNSON, U.K. PRIME MINISTER: This is an absolute invention. It is completely untrue.
SCOTT MCLEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): With the U.K. election in full swing, there are warnings of an American invasion of the British health care system, the NHS.
The Labour Party's shadow trade secretary, Barry Gardiner, and leader Jeremy Corbyn say America wants to use a long-promised post-Brexit trade deal to force the NHS to pay more for the U.S. drugs it already buys, costing the NHS more, to the benefit of American pharmaceutical companies.
President Trump believes that if other countries like the U.K. pay more for U.S. drugs, it will lower prices for Americans, who pay vastly more than the British.
TRUMP: This is wrong, this is unfair and together, we will stop it. I'm asking Congress to pass legislation that finally takes on the problem of global freeloading.
MCLEAN: In Washington, Congress has already proposed the Fixing Global Freeloading Act. But the president himself has made conflicting statements about whether he would insist the NHS is part of a future trade pact.
TRUMP: And we can quadruple our trade with U.K. and we can, I think, really do a big job.
JOHNSON: Always remembering that the NHS is not for sale.
MCLEAN: Drug pricing experts like Professor Martin McKee take issues with the president's logic.
If other countries pay more for drugs, will Americans pay less?
MARTIN MCKEE, LONDON SCHOOL OF HYGIENE AND TROPICAL MEDICINE: No, I don't think they will. The objective of any company is to maximize its profits. And it's not at all clear to me why if it can make more money in another market, it should cut its prices in its home market.
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MCLEAN (voice-over): A trade deal may not help bring down U.S. drug prices but it seems Labour is hoping the threat of the NHS for sale will help them get elected.
CORBYN: His toxic Brexit trade deal with Trump could hand over 500 million a week of NHS money to big drug corporations.
MCLEAN (voice-over): But that scenario is a highly unlikely one. The stunning figure, 500 million pounds per week, is based on a worst case scenario from researchers who roughly calculated the cost to the NHS if it paid American drug prices.
Their so far unpublished work was featured in a British documentary.
MCLEAN: Do you think that's likely?
GARDINER: Well, it won't be with the Labour government, of course not because we would oppose that. We would never agree to a trade agreement that did that.
MCLEAN: But Boris Johnson says he opposes it, as well.
GARDINER: No. Boris Johnson has used weasel words, as he always does.
MCLEAN (voice-over): Boris Johnson compared Labour's claim to the Loch Ness monster. Professor McKee doesn't buy it, either.
MCKEE: I don't see how that is going to happen. The money is simply not there. There may be some increase in expenditure but we're not simply going to translate American price to here.
MCLEAN (voice-over): Because that, he says, would sink the British health service and perhaps the chances of any trade deal at all -- Scott McLean, CNN, London.
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ALLEN: We have this one before we go this hour. If you ever wanted to dress like Batman or Robin, get your wallet out. Full costumes from the iconic '60s "Batman" TV show are going up for auction next month in Los Angeles.
The wardrobe comes complete with capes, masks, boots, gloves and tights. Of course the tights. And it is expected to launch up to $150,000 to $200,000. Actors Adam West and Burt Ward wore the Batman and Robin costumes in the series.
So good luck with that one. Another hour of CNN NEWSROOM is right around the corner. I'm Natalie Allen. See you in a minute.
