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White House Review Reveals Efforts To Justify Ukraine Military Aid; Michael Bloomberg Officially Announces 2020 Dem Presidential Bid; Mike Pence Makes Unannounced Visit To Troops In Iraq; Ginsburg "Home And Doing Well" After Hospitalization; WAPO: WH Review Turns Up E- mails Showing Extensive Effort To Justify Trump's Decision To Block Ukraine Military Aid; House Dems Preparing Impeachment Report; Top 10 CNN Heroes; Schiff: "Overwhelming Evidence" To Move Impeachment Forward. Aired 4-5p ET

Aired November 24, 2019 - 16:00   ET

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

[16:00:01]

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN Breaking News.

MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN HOST: Hello, and thank you for joining me. I'm Martin Savidge and welcome to our viewers in the United States and around the world. I am in for Fredricka Whitfield. And we've got breaking news.

The "Washington Post" now reporting that a confidential White House review has uncovered hundreds of documents showing an extensive effort to come up with an after-the-fact justification for why President Trump decided to withhold military aid to Ukraine. The White House counsel's review of documents was triggered by the ongoing House impeachment inquiry.

According to the "Post" the documents include early August e-mail exchanges between acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and White House Budget officials after Trump already ordered the hold in mid-July. The report also says White House lawyers are expressing concern that the review has turned up some unflattering exchanges and facts that could, at minimum, embarrass the president.

Joining me now is CNN White House correspondent Jeremy Diamond. And Jeremy, any reaction from the White House about these new reports?

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: As of yet, Martin, we do not have a reaction from the White House. We've reached out for comments to the White House Press Office as well as the Office of Management and Budget.

We do have a statement, though, in this "Washington Post" report from a spokeswoman for the Office of Management and Budget, Rachel Semmel where she says there was a legal consensus at every step of the way that the money could be withheld to conduct a policy review. And she also notes that the OMB works closely with agencies on executing the budget.

But what this report reveals now which is a really interesting and kind of crucial to better understanding the motives behind the president's decision to withhold the security aid to Ukraine which of course is at the heart of the impeachment inquiry that is now threatening his presidency, it shows that weeks after the White House actually announced to other agencies on that July 18th conference call that the White House was putting a temporary freeze on that nearly $400 million of security aid to Ukraine, that weeks after that actually happened, OMB officials, the White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, were exchanging e-mails, still trying to figure out the legal rationale for that aid hold.

So it suggests that this was not a typical process for an aid to be -- a package of aid to be frozen and, in fact, that it was a presidential decision to withhold this aid for whatever reason and that after the fact officials at the White House, at the Office of Management and Budget, were essentially scrambling to come up with an explanation here, a legal rationale, and clearly in the e-mails that the "Washington Post" has either reviewed or that sources are describing to them, it indicates that, again, there was a conversation, there was a debate around this for weeks after that aid was actually put on hold.

So a very interesting new information. We'll let you know, Martin, as soon as we get a reaction from the White House.

SAVIDGE: Yes. Please do. Jeremy Diamond at the White House, thanks very much.

Joining me ow is Lis Wiehl. She's the former chief deputy investigative counsel for Democrats during the Clinton impeachment and a former federal prosecutor. And back with us again, Shane Harris, intelligence and national security correspondent with "The Washington Post" and a CNN national security analyst.

Thank you both again for being here.

Shane, tell us more about these reported e-mails.

SHANE HARRIS, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Well, it's very interesting. Now we see is -- and the timing really is sort of starting to take an interesting shape here as well. After the president decides that he wants to freeze the aid to Ukraine, we see this effort then by Mick Mulvaney, the White House chief of staff, acting, and the OMB director to try and come up with this rationale for doing so.

And what I think is another really interesting point in the story is that Mulvaney starts checking in on this, with people who are trying to come up with a rationale after the White House has been put on notice that the CIA employee has filed a whistleblower complaint. So it seems what the timeline would suggest is that Mulvaney understands that there is now mounting pressure to come up with some kind of legal rationale for what the president did in freezing the aid.

And remember, too, this aid had been appropriated by Congress and had already gone through some reviews to determine that Ukraine had met all the conditions necessary for receiving it so when the president decides in July to put this freeze on, there's no clear, at least stated reason for the record, as to why he's doing it. That appears to be what's being described in those e-mails now.

SAVIDGE: Lis, how damaging could this be to the Republicans in their case that President Trump did nothing wrong? I mean, does it show that the White House is trying to hide something?

LIS WIEHL, FORMER DEPUTY CHIEF INVESTIGATIVE COUNSEL FOR DEMS DURING CLINTON IMPEACHMENT: It could be extremely damaging. The timeline is very important here because the conversation is made in July. Then these e-mails that we've just discovered start coming out and the legality is debated behind the scenes. We're just finding out this now in July and August before of course the hold is then lifted in mid-September, and the defense is then being made behind the scenes.

Now, what's so important of course then is we've been hearing in the impeachment hearings where the GOP's congressmen and women were saying, you know, everything was normal about this freeze, right, as they were trying to pepper the questions of the diplomats who were testifying.

[16:05:16]

Everything is normal. These freezes happen all the time. It's in the normal course of business, correct, correct, correct. We heard this. That was sort of the mantra during the course of the investigation. This is just a normal thing, it happens all the time. Well, clearly what the lawyers were already saying, the legal -- the e-mails that were discovered here are saying is, no, that's not normal. We need to find a legal reason to be able to say it's normal, it's in the course of business, when they already knew that it wasn't.

They were trying to mount a legal defense already at that point before the freeze was lifted in mid-September. They knew it was wrong at the time.

SAVIDGE: Shane, if this aid was held up for political purposes and the White House tried to cover it up, remind us all what kind of risk this would pose to national security.

HARRIS: Well, the national security risk has really been articulated by career diplomats who testified last week I think pretty forcefully. We give money to the Ukraine, the United States does, to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars as a bulwark against Russia and Russian expansion into Europe. That has been the policy rationale behind providing this lethal aid to allow Ukrainians to repel Russian advances.

So as that is being held up, the necessary aid and the equipment that goes with is are not making its way to the front in Ukraine and it's putting Ukraine in the position of wondering whether or not they can count on the United States as a strategic partner and an ally in their fight against Russia, so there's sort of an immediate kind of tactical problem with the holdup but then there creates this larger strategic unease and then this question, too, about what exactly is the president trying to get from us. So, and really these are compounding problems that you see coming from

the president's decision to really stop this process that again had been approved by Congress and he had authorized in law and put this freeze in place.

SAVIDGE: Real human consequences sort of what you're describing here.

HARRIS: Yes.

SAVIDGE: Beyond just politics. Other stuff also today, we learned that the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Adam Schiff, said that the impeachment investigation may not be over. Here's what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D-CA): We don't foreclose the possibility of more depositions, more hearings. We are in the process of getting more documents all the time, so that investigative work is going to go on. What we're not prepared to do is wait months and months while the administration plays a game of rope-a-dope in an effort to try to stall.

We're not willing to go down that road and what's more, the evidence is already overwhelming. The remarkable thing about this, and we've done this with almost literally no documentary production from the administration, is the facts are really not contested. It's really not contested what the president did.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SAVIDGE: Lis, I believe that Schiff went on to say that this investigation is not going to end. That's actually what Republicans have always said, that the investigations never end. Democrats will always be coming up with something else. Do you think that this really could just, you know, bog down as far as the complicated legal and political consequences?

WIEHL: I don't think so. I think what's going to happen now is that a report is being drafted. It's going to be sent then and hopefully it will be a fairly concise report. It's going to be sent to the Judiciary Committee. The committee then will come up with some Articles of Impeachment, probably not that many, having to do with abuse of power -- not perjury.

Well, maybe perjury, obstruction of justice and bribery, and probably witness tampering. There'll probably be at least one witness tampering Article of Impeachment thrown in there. And they'll be narrowly drawn based on these facts.

Now, you know, the Republicans, as Schiff said, they didn't really attack the facts. What they attacked was the process. The process was the same as the process was in Clinton's impeachment, so they really didn't have much to attack there. They could make great sound bites for television and that's about it. They attacked then the credibility of the witnesses. That's an old

trial tactic to do. If you don't have the facts, then you attack the process. If you don't have the process, you attack the credibility of witnesses, the messengers.

And we saw that play out here in a horrible way, attacking these diplomats, attacking their creditability. So we may see some more of that. I would imagine they use the precedent of the Clinton impeachment, we may see some constitutionalists, some experts who are constitutional scholars, testify about what the bar is for impeachment on a constitutional measure. We might see that. So we might see some panels like that, and who knows what other fact witnesses might testify, but Adam Schiff is right.

We don't have -- Democrats don't have that many documents to go on, although there may be some more coming forward as we're seeing today.

[16:10:05]

SAVIDGE: All right. Lis Wiehl and Shane Harris, thank you both. Appreciate it very much. We'll look forward to the new developments that are about to come even next hour. Thank you.

WIEHL: You got it.

SAVIDGE: Still to come, Michael Bloomberg. He's made it official. Why the former New York mayor says he's jumping into the presidential race now and we'll also find out what his fellow candidates think.

And this developing story, Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the road to recovery after another health scare.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SAVIDGE: There is a new competitor in the 2020 race for president. Today former New York City mayor and businessman Michael Bloomberg made it official, announcing that he is running for president. A late entry in the crowded field of Democrats to be sure, a crowded field of which numbers at 18 now. He's already getting a pretty rude welcome.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (D-VT), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We do not believe that billionaires have the right to buy elections. That is why multi- billionaires like Mr. Bloomberg are not going to get very far in this election.

JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Watch me, watch me. The idea that I'm not in better shape than Mayor Bloomberg physically and otherwise?

SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN (D-MA), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: This election should not be for sale, not to billionaires, not to corporate executives. We need to build a grassroots movement. That's how democracy is supposed to work.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SAVIDGE: With me now is Karen Finney. She is a former spokesperson for Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign and a CNN political commentator, and Maria Cardona, she is also a Democratic strategist and a CNN political commentator.

[16:15:12]

Nice to see you both. Thank you for joining me.

MARIA CARDONA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: You too, Martin. Thanks.

KARREN FINNEY, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Great to be with you, Martin.

SAVIDGE: Karen, let me start with you. Bloomberg decided to get in because he believes there is not a Democratic candidate in the field who can beat Trump. First of all, do you agree with that sentiment, and second, what is his path to victory?

FINNEY: I don't know that I agree with that, but certainly we've heard rumblings for several weeks now and concerns about Biden and Warren, and so it's been fairly clear, particularly from our CNN polling, that voters are still feeling very unsettled, and I think that's part of what he was trying to capitalize on.

I'd say his path to victory -- his entrance is very interesting. You know, the first four early states represent only about 10 percent of the delegates needed to secure the nomination. So, by skipping those four states he kind of changes the math for everybody because he's going to focus on those Super Tuesday states where you have a number of states like Texas and Florida that are big numbers to try to get there to make -- you know, get his way into the field and really rise.

So we'll see how he does with that. He's got a number of both structural challenges getting in late and he's got some -- although he's apologized, for example, for Stop and Frisk, I think that's going to be a real challenge for him.

SAVIDGE: And, you know, the first sort of deciphering that goes on here is if he's in, who gets knocked? Bloomberg is, you know, of course positioning himself it seems as a moderate in the Democratic Party. He thinks that Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren have gone too far to the left. Is he wrong, Maria, do you think?

CARDONA: Well, again, I think that remains to be seen. I think one of the things that he does here in terms of his getting into the race is he is going to make voters really think about where they are vis-a- vis the other candidates and him. Right now it doesn't seem like he has a natural base and I think that that is one of the concerns and I think it also is going to make people really think about the positions of the other candidates.

You know, one thing that I heard that I think could be true is that because now Michael Bloomberg is going to be one of the most moderate in the race, he could help Biden by making him seem more progressive to the rest of the Democratic base and that could help Biden in the end. The one thing that I don't agree with Michael Bloomberg on and we've seen this in the polls, is that there are many of our candidates right now that do beat Donald Trump and, frankly, Joe Biden, whether or not you look at him as a vulnerable frontrunner, he is still the frontrunner.

If you look at his numbers, especially in the early states and frankly in national polls, he is still at the top. Yes, he's -- you know, he's gone up, he's gone down. Warren has gone up, has gone down, so has Sanders, but he is still at the top of that race. And so ultimately because of all of the attacks from Trump in this whole impeachment proceeding, that all could have helped Biden.

Bloomberg's entrance into the race in a weird way could also help Biden, so we'll see. I think that what he might do is focus on enthusiasm in the race and he's also going to spend money on voter registration, and all of that is a great thing for the whole party.

SAVIDGE: It is. It is indeed.

Karen, you know, the winner, as we know, of the Democratic primary will have to face President Trump and today Kellyanne Conway, the counsel to the president, had this to say about what Bloomberg's run means for Democrats. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KELLYANNE CONWAY, COUNSELOR TO THE PRESIDENT: It means that the Democratic field is underwhelming, even to someone like Michael Bloomberg. There are 18 Democrats still running for president of the United States, Margaret, with probably another 10 or 12 already dropped out of the race, and it's Michael Bloomberg coming in saying I don't think any of you can beat Donald Trump.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SAVIDGE: She's implying that, you know, this --

FINNEY: Yes.

SAVIDGE: This demonstrates a weakness here.

FINNEY: Yes.

SAVIDGE: And Karen, I'm wondering, is she right?

FINNEY: I think those are great talking points for Kellyanne and we surely haven't seen her out there in a while.

CARDONA: Right.

FINNEY: But I think they're just talking points. I mean, look, people -- again, polling shows people are excited about the candidates. It's just that they're sort of -- you know, I likened this part -- it's like dating, right?

CARDONA: Right.

FINNEY: People are kind of trying on different candidates to see who they like, who they don't like, and particularly in states like Iowa, and New Hampshire and South Carolina and Nevada, where, you know, the process really is open to that where, you know, candidates are coming through so often, voters really do get to kind of, you know, go to different events and hear from different candidates.

CARDONA: Right.

FINNEY: I just want to pick up on something that Maria said, too, which is, you know, some of the issues that Warren has been out there talking about, universal child care and some of the conversation we're having about Medicare for All and sort of, you know, the relationship between Wall Street and main street. You know, those are ideas that people have been getting excited about and hearing about and questioning for several months now. Bloomberg is going to be held to a standard that says, you've got to have answers for these questions.

CARDONA: Right.

SAVIDGE: Right.

[16:20:03]

FINNEY: And that may end up being too moderate for some people because remember the Democratic Party primary for the presidency is a lot more liberal and progressive actually even than New Yorkers are.

SAVIDGE: Right.

CARDONA: Exactly.

SAVIDGE: I think there will be an appetite for ideas, not just the fact he's got a lot of money.

Karen Finney, thank you very much. Maria Cardona, good to see you as well.

CARDONA: Thank you, Martin.

FINNEY: Thanks.

SAVIDGE: Up next, Mike Pence makes a surprise visit to Iraq and weighs in on the impeachment inquiry. We'll talk with a reporter who was on the vice president's secret trip.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SAVIDGE: Vice President Mike Pence making an unannounced visit to troops in Iraq this weekend. Pence and his wife Karen served an early Thanksgiving lunch to service members at the Al Assad Air Force Base. There was no meeting with Iraqi leaders. There was a phone call but Pence did have a face-to-face with Kurdish leaders in northern Iraq.

Francesca Chambers is the White House correspondent for McClatchy D.C. and she was one of only 11 people to go on that trip.

Welcome.

[16:25:00]

FRANCESCA CHAMBERS, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, MCCLATCHY DC: Thanks for having me.

SAVIDGE: So what was this trip all about for the vice president?

CHAMBERS: Well, I think it was threefold. First of all, it was to serve that turkey that you showed to the troops and to thank them on behalf of the United States government for their service over the Thanksgiving holiday, but you also mentioned the meeting with the Kurdish president of the semiautonomous region of Kurdistan in Iraq and there he also expressed gratitude for what the Kurds have done.

It was to reassure them that the United States still remain with them after the United States president, President Trump, said that he would be pulling American troops out of Syria, but of course playing in Washington this week were those impeachment hearings and it certainly changed the conversation about those for Vice President Mike Pence.

SAVIDGE: Yes. I believe it did and I can understand why, because while the vice president was in Iraq he took a swing at Congress when he was talking about the delayed pay raise for members -- service members and let's listen to that first.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MIKE PENCE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We need Congress to do their job. My fellow Americans gathered here, the truth is Congress should have finished their work on Defense appropriations months ago, but you all know that partisan politics and endless investigations have slowed things down a bit.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SAVIDGE: But while Pence was making that criticism, you had Ambassador Gordan Sondland who was testifying that he was expressing concerns to Pence about aid to Ukraine and he was being tied to, you know, this overarching investigation, this impeachment process in a way that we hadn't heard Pence's name being mentioned before.

Do you think it's going to have a lasting impact to the vice president?

CHAMBERS: Well, the vice president declined to make public comments about Gordon Sunland's testimony and the rest of the testimony that we heard on Capitol Hill this week, but he did, as you showed, mention the, quote, "endless investigations" as he called it in that speech to the troops which was a little bit surprising that he brought the subject up at all. He said in the speech not specifically Democrats but he called on Congress, his words, to do their job.

He brought it up in the context of giving the troops a pay raise and said that because of the impeachment process that's why there had not been the passage of Defense spending.

SAVIDGE: Mm-hmm. And you were there, what was the reaction of the troops?

CHAMBERS: The troops said, USA, USA, they were shouting at him and they all were very respectful and they seemed grateful to have him there.

SAVIDGE: Well, a sign of respect for the duty they serve to us.

Francesca Chambers, thank you very much.

CHAMBERS: Thanks.

SAVIDGE: Coming up, she beat cancer four times. But this weekend Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was back in the hospital. New information on her illness and recovery. That's coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:31:53]

SAVIDGE: Developing now, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is recovering at home after spending the past two days in a hospital. The 86-year-old was admitted to Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore Friday night after she experienced chills and a fever.

The court spokeswoman says that Ginsberg is, quote, doing well after receiving IV antibiotics and fluids. CNN Supreme Court analyst, Joan Biskupic joins me now.

And Joan, you know, this is Ginsberg's fourth health scare in just over a year and every time we have one of these there are concerns that she may consider retiring from the bench, correct?

JOAN BISKUPIC, CNN SUPREME COURT ANALYST: That's right. But she is not going to go without a fight. I don't think that she -- she has said that her work energizes her. She feels a sense of mission at the Supreme Court.

But Martin, there are two elements to your question. First of all, Democrats especially are nervous about whether she might need to step down in any way. And those kinds of concerns have been around since 1999 actually when she first survived a very serious cancer scare. But she keeps coming back.

And what's different this time around is where we are in America. Her -- if she were to leave, Martin, President Trump would have a third appointment to the Supreme Court, and this one would be far more consequential than the first two.

In fact, I would compare it to 1991 when Clarence Thomas succeeded Thurgood Marshall. It would be such a contrast in the ideal ideologies of the two justices. And then, we're about to go into an election year. So, the politicking around any kind of confirmation battle would be so ratcheted up. And if you recall back in 2016 when Antonin Scalia suddenly passed away and President Obama tried to name a successor, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell blocked that nomination. This time around though, Martin, he has said that if President Trump tries to put a third justice on the Supreme Court, he would ensure that that individual went through.

SAVIDGE: In the meantime, we wish her good health. Joan, I imagine that she is a woman -- I don't know her personally, but that she thrives on doing the job she does.

BISKUPIC: She does. In fact, what she said is that - in two ways. First of all, she feels a real sense of mission. She's always been like that. She came up first made a national name for herself as a woman's rights advocate. She's now been on the court for 26 years. And she has talked about how reading briefs, doing the work of the Supreme Court has actually helped her recover along the way.

So, this is her life. She lives for this. And she is not going to go willingly. She's not thinking, well, maybe it's time for me to step down. She's saying maybe it's time for me to keep fighting.

And she has talked about how she wants to still get out there, give speeches, travel. She's not going to hole up in her apartment here in Washington D.C. and hope she stays healthy. She's going to go out and still live her life and do her work as a justice.

[16:35:06]

SAVIDGE: Yes, work for her is the cure.

BISKUPIC: That's right.

SAVIDGE: Joan Biskupic, thank you very much for joining us. We'll be right back after this.

BISCUPIC: Thank you.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SAVIDGE: If you're just joining us, there are new details breaking on the White House reaction to the impeachment inquiry. "The Washington Post" now reporting that a confidential White House review has uncovered hundreds of documents showing an extensive effort to cover up or rather, I should say, come up with an after-the-fact justification for why President Trump decided to withhold aid to Ukraine, military aid.

According to the Post, the documents include early August e-mail exchanges between Acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney and White House budget officials after Trump already ordered the hold in mid-July, you remember.

The report also says, "White House lawyers are expressing concern that the review has turned up some unflattering exchanges and facts that could, at a minimum, embarrass the president." That was a quote. Joining me now is Democratic Presidential Candidate Michael Bennet, senator from Colorado, who is on the intelligence committee in the Senate.

And Senator, first, I know it's very soon that these details have come out. But I just would like to see your reaction to what we're hearing about these documents.

[16:40:17]

SEN. MICHAEL BENNET (D-CO), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Well, Martin, obviously there's more for us to learn and there's more for the American people to learn that if history is any guide it's the cover up that gets you. And we're just going to have to wait and see what comes out in the coming week. But the White House can't be happy with the reports that are coming out this evening.

SAVIDGE: Do you think that you'll be able to get access to these documents rather than just read about it in an article? So far, the White House has blocked any of these attempts.

BENNET: Oh I certainly -- yes. Yes. It's not helping the president's case when they, day after day after day, they stonewall the legitimate oversight that the House and Senate has to do. I mean, if there's nothing to hide, they should be producing the documents and sending them over to the Congress, the House, and Senate Intelligence Committee.

They shouldn't be withholding -- they shouldn't be withholding testimony of course and this just makes them look guiltier and guiltier. And we've seen this movie before when administrations start to stonewall and they start to cover up what's happened after the actions have already been taken. It rarely leads to a good place for the White House.

SAVIDGE: As you run as a candidate, you're also in this very unique position that you're in the Senate and there will presumably be a trial in the Senate I think. What does that mean as far as witnesses we might hear from? I'm talking about those that so far have not come forward or the White House has blocked, like Acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney. Do you think that he would appear?

BENNET: These people have an obligation to appear. And if they don't appear, I wouldn't be surprised to see articles of impeachment that include the obstruction by the White House. So, I'd much prefer that they did appear. And if the White House doesn't believe anything wrong happened, I don't -- for the life of me, I don't know why they wouldn't send them to appear.

But I can tell you, Congress is not going to be happy if these witnesses that are completely legitimate witnesses to testify in front of congress don't -- are not heard by Congress. And I don't think the American people are going to be satisfied by that result either.

SAVIDGE: You supported the launch of the impeachment inquiry back in September. And with everything we've heard in the public hearings, do you support the removal of President Trump?

BENNET: Well, everything that I've heard justifies what the whistleblower said. By the way, that whistleblower needs to be protected from this president. But we have not heard any contrary evidence. All the evidence is pointed in the same direction, which is that President Trump solicited a foreign power, Ukraine, to interfere in the elections by investigating Joe Biden.

So, we're going to have to wait until the impeachment is done and the vote comes over to the Senate. But so far, there hasn't been a shred of evidence to contradict what the president himself said about what he had done and what the whistleblower had said.

So, I think this is an important moment for Americans to reassert the importance of the rule of law. And that nobody, including President Trump, is above the rule of law. And today, I spent much of the day knocking on doors in New Hampshire.

My family was here, my wife and one of my daughters. And we heard from people who said we need to make sure that you guys do your job on oversight. But they also are reacting just to the general chaos of the Trump Administration and saying that we have real concerns about an economy where we're working really hard but we can't afford housing or healthcare or higher education. We can't buy preschool for our kids. And it's not clear to us that Donald Trump is helping us do any of that stuff either.

So, I think it's both dimensions of this, what he's done that's been unlawful that's now being investigated and the fact that he really hasn't acted for a single day in the interest of the American people since he's been president. Sooner or later, it's going to catch up to him.

SAVIDGE: I can't let you go without asking your thoughts on now multibillionaire, Michael Bloomberg entering the race officially. What do you think?

BENNET: No, I appreciate it. I'm glad he's running. He's done a lot of good work over the years on education, on guns, and on climate. I think the American people are looking for a new generation of leadership. And I think that it's been interesting -- it's interesting to me that he's skipping the early states.

We are knocking on doors as I said earlier today in a blinding rainstorm in New Hampshire. And I think that's the way the nominee is going to earn the election beginning in these early states in New Hampshire.

So, I wish him well. But I still think I'm the best person to take on Donald Trump in a general election. I intend to stay in this race to demonstrate that.

SADVIDGE: Candidate and Senator Michael Bennett, thank you very much for joining us today.

[16:45:03] BENNET: Thank you very much for having me, Martin. Have a great evening.

SAVIDGE: Thank you, you too. Happy Thanksgiving. Up next, Adam Schiff opens up about the president's future.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. ADAM SCHIFF, (D) CHAIRMAN, INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE: Well, I certainly think that he's committed the most grievous misconduct.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SAVIDGE: But first, Detroit remains the poorest big city in America. According to the census bureau, more than one-third of Detroit's residents and nearly half of the city's children live in poverty. But one of this year's top ten CNN'S "Heroes" is working to change that. She is a nurse who found her mission while making a house call more than 20 years ago. Meet Najah Bazzy.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NAJAH BAZZY, CNN HERO: Working as a nurse, I went to visit this Iraqi refugee family and an infant that was dying. And there at the house, they absolutely had nothing. There was no refrigerator. There was no stove. There was no crib. The baby was in a laundry basket. I decided that this wasn't going to happen on my watch.

How's your apprenticeship going?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Pretty good.

BAZZY: Nurses are supposed to fix things. We are healers. And this is a place that heals the world.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SAVIDGE: Najah has helped more than 250,000 women and their children in need in Detroit. To vote for your favorite top ten hero, go to cnnheroes.com.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:60:15]

SAVIDGE: After five days of televised testimony showcasing dozens of witnesses, the Democrat who has been leading the impeachment inquiry of President Trump told our Jake Tapper this today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAKE TAPPER, HOST, STATE OF THE UNION WITH JAKE TAPPER: Do you think President Trump should resign?

REP. SCHIFF: Well, I certainly think that he's committed the most grievous misconduct. I would hope that there will be republicans who will be willing to step forward and say whatever the political consequences. If this was Barack Obama had done this, they would have voted to impeach him in a heartbeat with fraction of the evidence. It shouldn't matter this is a Republican president.

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SAVIDGE: It shouldn't. But does it? Douglas Brinkley is CNN presidential historian. He's also a history professor at Rice University. And he's written books on Presidents Ford and Kennedy among others. So, Doug, good to see you. Thanks for being here.

DOUGLAS BRINKELY, HISTORY PROFESSOR, RICE UNIVERSITY: Thank you.

SAVIDGE: There's never been an American president convicted after impeachment. Andrew Johnson, I believe was acquitted by one vote. So, how likely is it really that Trump will be the first president to be removed from office by impeachment?

BRINKLEY: It's extremely unlikely that Donald Trump will be removed. He just has to kind of bore down and endure this process in Congress right now. The fact that you just need a majority, meaning Nancy Pelosi had a vote count. She knows she has the votes. She's working on a very quick timeline on the holiday -- Christmas holiday is coming fast.

So, there probably is going to be a vote in Congress before Christmas. Otherwise, it drags on to an election year and things could go helter- skelter. As it looks now, the Democrats will impeach him in Congress. We'll have a Senate trial. Perhaps Mitt Romney or one or two other Senators may stray from the GOP flock.

But in the end, Donald Trump will be president and he'll be dented, even damaged in history wherein the eye on is just the fact that he was impeached, joining Bill Clinton and Andrew Johnson, and in some ways Richard Nixon. But alas, he'll still be president of the United States.

SAVIDGE: John Dean, who was the star of Watergate, believes that if Richard Nixon were going through impeachment today and the inquiry, that he probably would not have resigned from the presidency. I -- that's a marvelous sort of piece of mind candy of history there to think about. Do you agree with that?

BRINKLEY: In a lot of ways, I do, you know, because what happened out of Watergate in the demise of Nixon and it has a lot to do with also the birth of the EPA and clean air and water and endangered species act of the early 70's, there became a conservative movement against federal regulation.

The federal government became demonized. And we heard this during the Reagan years, I mean that the government is the problem. Get out of the -- get the government out of your lives.

And at this point in time, there's a whole other alternative infrastructure going on within conservative circles including "Fox News", "American Enterprise Institute", "Cato Institute", "Heritage Foundation", all the social media, right wing talk show, Rush Limbaugh, one can go on and on. Nixon didn't have that.

SAVIDGE: No.

BRINKLEY: Nixon had moderate senators like Howard Baker who said, you lied to me, Mr. Nixon or President Nixon. I'm now breaking from you.

SAVIDGE: Real quick here, less than a minute, what do you make of these polls that now show that the public attitude does not increasingly seemed to be in favor of impeachment but rather seems to be fading in interest. Should the Democrats be worried?

SAVIDGE: I wouldn't be worried if I were the Democrats. Let's be clear, Nancy Pelosi had no choice but to move forward with impeachment. I mean, otherwise, it would look like any president could make deals abroad, hold up foreign military aid like he did with Ukraine.

So, there was a sense of defending the constitution by the Democrats. But we live in a very fast society just like I have a minute to wrap up. Everything in American life is very quick. So, impeachment right now has to go quick. It doesn't have that wallop of the Watergate era when it can drag on for two years and everybody's watching it on three mainstream TV stations.

SAVIDGE: Right. And how crazy is this, I got to tell you, we're out of time. Doug Brinkley, thank you for coming on today. We appreciate it.

BRINKLEY: Thank you.

SAVIDGE: Well, this weekend, CNN is taking a closer look at "All the President's Lies". Our Jake Tapper talks with the fact checkers, the historians, the scientists, the pundits about Trump's falsehoods on ISIS.

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DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: But what I have done is I've defeated ISIS. We have defeated ISIS essentially. We defeated ISIS.

GLENN KESSLER, THE WASHINGTON POST, THE FACT CHECKER: ISIS was never really defeated.

TAPPER: When the U.S. president lies on the world stage, he is doing more than trampling truth.

[16:55:03]

PRES. TRUMP: We captured many, many ISIS fighters, most of them came from Europe.

TAPPER: He's upending world order.

RICHARD HAASS, PRESIDENT COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS: The United States has essentially gone from what I would describe as the principal architect and the principal general contractor of the world, the preserver of the world, to now we've become the principal disrupter.

TAPPER: Trump's lies are a big part of that disrupting. Richard Haass of the Council on Foreign Relations believes there are two kinds of Trump lies.

HAASS: One is to only present one side of a story.

TAPPER: Such as hailing the end to the recent Turkish assault on the Kurds in Northern Syria.

PRES. TRUMP: By getting that ceasefire to stick, we've done something that's very, very special.

TAPPER: Instead of explaining that he helped facilitate Turkey's attack by withdrawing the U.S. troops who, as part of their duties, were protecting the Kurds, a U.S. ally.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE).

HAASS: And then, you have situations like we saw more recently in the wake of his decision with Turkey and Syria where the president stands up and basically says this is a great success.

PRES. TRUMP: And now people are saying, wow, what a great outcome.

HAASS: Well no, that's not the case.

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SAVIDGE: I would really encourage you not to miss this special report, "All the President's Lies" airing tonight at 9:00 Eastern right here on CNN. Thank you for joining me. I'm Martin Savidge. We have much more just ahead in the "NEWSROOM" with Ana Cabrera right after this quick break.

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