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Judge Tells President Trump He Is Not King In Critical Court Ruling That Could Have Major Impact On The Impeachment Inquiry; First Lady Melania Trump Booed Today At A Youth Event In Baltimore; Trump Pardons Turkeys In White House Tradition. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired November 26, 2019 - 14:00   ET

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

[14:00:15]

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN HOST: Hi there. I'm Brooke Baldwin. You're watching CNN on this Tuesday afternoon. Thank you for being here.

A judge just told President Trump that he is not a king in a critical court ruling that could have a major impact on the Impeachment Inquiry.

As we learn what the judge concluded, breaking details are coming in now on the inquiry and the next steps Democrats will now take.

CNN Senior Congressional Correspondent, Manu Raju is live up on Capitol Hill and so Manu, Democrats just had a conference call. What happened?

MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, the House Judiciary Committee announcing its first steps in taking -- moving forward on impeachment proceedings for President Trump, another sign that the Democrats are moving to impeach President Trump as soon as this year - as soon as next month, likely Before Christmas.

The House Judiciary Committee announcing its first hearing that it's going to have next week on Wednesday. There's going to be a panel of experts who will discuss the constitutional grounds of impeachments.

According to a Committee aide, the hearing is going to be quote, " ... discussing the constitutional grounds for presidential impeachment." Various experts will testify on the application of the constitutional framework of high crimes and misdemeanors and see how that applies to the President's conduct in this case.

This case being what the House Intelligence Committee has been investigating over the last several weeks, which is looking into how the President handled the policy with Ukraine and whether or not he used his office to pressure Ukraine to announce investigations that would help him politically help his chances in 2020.

Now, essentially, the process is going to look like this. There is going to be a report that will be put out by the House Intelligence Committee next week, probably early next week. Then the House Judiciary Committee will take over from there. They will have their first hearing on Wednesday, the one with constitutional experts. There will likely be additional hearings after that.

At that point, expect Articles of Impeachment to be drafted by that Committee that will detail high crimes and misdemeanors that the Democrats are going to allege the President committed while in office.

The Judiciary Committee then will vote on those Articles of Impeachment, which will then go to the full House to be able to be considered and very likely, that's going to happen before Christmas, making Trump almost certainly the third President in history, who will be impeached.

Now also in this hearing, the President and his staff and his counsel will have the opportunity to participate in the hearing. According to a letter that the Chairman of the Judiciary Committee just sent to President Trump, he is inviting Trump or his counsel to come and participate in the hearing, question the witnesses.

The Democrats are saying, it is all part of an effort to show the President have some rights in questioning these witnesses, something the President has complained about so far in this process, but in the judiciary process going forward, they are going to allow the President to participate. We'll see if he ultimately does, but essentially what they're trying to do here is shift the argument away from the facts that have been collected by the House Intelligence Committee.

Now, the House Judiciary Committee will consider what remedies are needed, whether impeachment is needed, and that's going to be what the debate on that committee is going to be.

But all signs are pointing to the fact that the President almost certainly, Brooke, within weeks could be impeached by the House before the Senate would have to consider whether to remove him from office.

BALDWIN: Okay, so I heard two key dates: December 4th, House Judiciary first meets; and then December 25th, that is the deadline really for the entire House to vote on impeachment.

You also, Manu, have some crucial news in this whole inquiry, you know, regarding the $400 million that the President had withheld in military aid from Ukraine. So what's moved on that?

RAJU: Yes, that's right. The House Budget Committee provided a summary of documents that it received from the White House Office of Management and Budget about the $400 million in aid to Ukraine, and the questions about why it had been withheld.

According to these documents, it shows a timeline of how the -- why the White House took those steps to withhold military aid. It does not provide the exact and precise reasons why, but it provides interesting dates as part of this process.

One date in particular, July 25th. That is the day that President Trump told President Zelensky of Ukraine, had that phone call, urged Zelensky to open up an investigation into Joe Biden, into the 2016 election interference. That same day we are learning from these documents, that evening, a

White House official from the Office of Management and Budget, a career official by the name of Mark Sandy placed a hold on military aid to Ukraine.

Now, that came about a week after there was a conference call where this had been announced internally, but the first official action happened on July 25, and then subsequently over the next several weeks, a political official, a top political appointee at the White House Office of Management and Budget, Mike Duffy came in and placed subsequent holds through the course of the next several weeks before it was ultimately released in September 12th.

So that, of course, Brooke, central to this investigation as well. Why was that aid withheld and was that used for political reasons -- Brooke.

[140:05:03]

BALDWIN: Yes, Manu, thank you so much. Manu Raju on the Hill.

To this court ruling now, a Federal judge just reminded President Trump that quote, "Presidents are not kings." Those are words that came from this pivotal decision by U.S. District Court judge Ketanji Brown Jackson as she ordered that President Trump's former White House counsel, Don McGahn must go before Congress to testify.

The White House, as you well know has been blocking his appearance based on what they've referred to as absolute immunity.

So here's what the judge says about that, quote, "To make the point as plain as possible with respect to senior level presidential aides, absolute immunity from compelled congressional process simply does not exist. Indeed, absolute testimonial immunity for senior level White House aides appears to be a fiction."

Now while the law is on Congress's aside, time is not. There's no telling when Don McGahn might testify. He is, of course, appealing, so is the Department of Justice. Plus the House has even agreed to wait a week as appeals are filed.

And the President of the United States, he is tweeting. He says that, quote, "Fighting for future presidents," but that he would actually like people to testify, including Mike Pompeo, Rick Perry, Mick Mulvaney, the members of his tight inner circle, who likely have direct firsthand testimony to offer.

Now through this latest ruling, could they go before the house whether the President quote "likes it or not"?

Let me bring in Kan Nawaday. He is a former Federal prosecutor and Melissa Murray is a professor at NYU School of Law. And wow, let's start with the judge, and everything she said, right, including her point about absolute immunity, which she says clearly in no uncertain terms that the White House can't claim.

What do you make of how she went about this? And what about these officials who refused to testify?

MELISSA MURRAY, PROFESSOR, NYU SCHOOL OF LAW: Well, the first thing you should know about Judge Jackson is that she is a really good and respected judge. She is an Obama appointee, but she is related by marriage to former Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan.

So she has bonafides on both sides of the aisle. She is a very meticulous judge. She wrote 120-page opinion. She spelled it all out. There has never been such a sweeping interpretation of presidential immunity, and she is exactly right.

The idea that the President could preclude all high level White House officials from testifying is an absolute fiction, and that's what she said.

BALDWIN: On her point, she noted that, you know, let's use Don McGahn as the example, Kan. So it's about the physical appearance before Congress, right? So he needs to physically appear and testify before Congress. This is how I interpreted it, but that, could he not sit there and say, you know, executive privilege, executive privilege, I'm not answering this. I mean, how do you thread that needle if you're Don McGahn?

KAN NAWADAY, FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR: And you're absolutely right, that in some ways, this is a very sweeping opinion, but it's only about whether he is going to show up.

BALDWIN: Right.

NAWADAY: So all the Judge said is, you've got to show up. All the other privileges still apply. He could take five. He could assert executive privilege.

So this is just another step in this chess game that's going on, this procedural chess game. So it's going to end up in litigation. They're already -- they've said they're going to appeal. There's going to be a stay, and I think that's where it's headed.

BALDWIN: There's a bigger issue here. She also wrote, " ... it's hard to imagine a more significant wound than such alleged interference with Congress's ability to detect and deter abuses of power within the Executive Branch for the protection of the people of the United States."

I mean, if this ruling were to be overturned, what would this mean for the balance of power in government in the United States of America?

MURRAY: I think she is exactly right, and the whole purpose of Congress's oversight function is to serve as a check on the other political branch, the President.

If Congress cannot call witnesses and compel them to testify under subpoena, then it is completely hobbled in exercising that oversight function and basically prostrate before the Executive. It really creates an Executive that looks more like a monarch, which is what our constitutional order was trying to avoid. BALDWIN: D.O.J. and McGahn, as you point out, Kan, are appealing.

They say that there is, quote, " ... a significant chance McGahn would win an appeal." Do you agree?

NAWADAY: I disagree. I would not want to be on that side of the argument. The House has the way better argument. The District Court Judge's opinion follows clear precedent. And so I don't think that's going to happen.

I think if anything, what would happen is there will be a delay in the process, which is part of the chess game that's going on back and forth, or maybe let's call it checkers, because it's let's subpoena, okay, say no, okay, let's appeal.

MURRAY: I think it's clear, the procedure is the punishment for Congress. They are on the better side of the argument as Kan said, but the fact that this will be litigated and indeed what will be testified, too, will be litigated. That just slows everything down and it slows down the momentum.

BALDWIN: Let's move to Lindsey Graham. Judiciary Chairman, Lindsey Graham says the impeachment trial should follow Federal trial rules. Here he was.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-SC): Well, if you have a trial, what are the rules of the trial? Here's a good rule to start with. The trial in the Senate should merit trials all over America. Hearsay is not admitted, unless there's a valid exception in any trial in America.

So let's apply the Federal rules of evidence to the trial in the Senate and let the Chief Justice of the United States rule on whether or not evidence is admissible.

My belief is that 90 percent of the testimony being used by the House violates the hearsay rule.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[14:10:19]

BALDWIN: So Melissa, just back to you. I mean, isn't impeachment a purely political process like this is not a criminal trial. So how can -- how is it valid for him to say that?

MURRAY: Well, the House senators or the senators can come up with rules for how the trial will be conducted, and there's plenty of case law that makes it clear that they can do that. But you're right, this isn't like an ordinary criminal trial where the standard rules of evidence would apply.

But even if it were, it means -- it should be said that a lot of the evidence presented in the public hearing was not hearsay testimony.

It was not hearsay when Mr. Holmes heard that conversation on the balcony of the restaurant in Kiev. But you may quibble about what he heard and whether he heard it and it was loud enough for him to hear it with any veracity, but he heard it firsthand.

BALDWIN: Right. That first week of witnesses, you know, Republicans argue hearsay but that --

MURRAY: Right. There was plenty of firsthand cites.

BALDWIN: That doesn't -- worked in the second week of everyone who was testifying. The President tweeted that he would like all the witnesses to testify, right, so this is what he is saying, but that he is, quote-unquote, "fighting for future presidents."

My thing is, I mean, they could show up tomorrow and say, ready to testify, right. But it's this administration, Kan, that's keeping them from doing so.

NAWADAY: And that's a perfectly fair point, and it's true. And ultimately, I think, actually, what Lindsey Graham is saying, hey, let's have the Federal Rules of Evidence apply. Those rules are pretty permissive.

And actually, all the evidence that's already been gathered, all that evidence is coming in if you do it under the Federal rules that apply now.

BALDWIN: Okay, Kan and Melissa, thank you very much.

Now, this, a swing-state Democrat is now walking back comments that she had favored censuring the President instead of impeaching him, so who got to her?

And First Lady Melania Trump was booed today at a youth event in Baltimore. We'll show you what happened. You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin. We will be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:17:10]

BALDWIN: We're back. I spy a turkey. Back at the White House, President Trump is preparing for the annual White House tradition of pardoning a pair of turkeys. This year's birds are named appropriately, Bread and Butter.

CNN's Kate Bennett is there for us, and Kate while we wait for the action, so to speak, let me just ask you about First Lady Melania Trump. She was in Baltimore today attending this Youth Opioid Summit and she didn't have the most favorable reception and it just got me thinking you've been covering her since the get. Has she ever been booed publicly before?

KATE BENNETT, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: No, Brooke, to my knowledge and in all the events I've gone to and of course, the First Lady has given these opioid awareness speeches, a number of times maybe 10 to 15 times across the country, always well received. She has never faced anything like she faced today with a really an abundance of booing and negativity. There was talking throughout her speech.

I think we've got a little bit of sound to listen to just exactly what happened with Melania Trump today in Baltimore.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MELANIA TRUMP, FIRST LADY OF THE UNITED STATES: We join you today for such an important event centered on opioid awareness.

Hello, everyone. Thank you to DEA 360. Be safe. May God bless you, your families and United States of America. Thank you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: So, there was a mix. We could hear some cheering. Obviously, she carried. At one point in the beginning, she did try to say hello, you know, pay attention.

But basically there was a lot of negativity. This is Baltimore, of course, where the President has openly disparaged the city and talked negatively about it.

So in this room today with these high school and middle schoolers, she was met with quite a negative response, but she carried on and this is a first for her -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: So it was high schoolers and middle schoolers? It was kids doing the booing.

BENNETT: It was. It was. This youth opioid event took place at a university in Baltimore, but it was focused on high schoolers and middle schoolers.

So most of the people in the audience, about a thousand people were mainly high school age or younger.

BALDWIN: Kate Bennett, thank you very much. We will come back to the turkeys as soon as we see more happening there at the White House. Thank you for that.

One democrat says censure President Trump, but don't impeach him, and now she is walking that back.

Plus, as pressure mounts on Rudy Giuliani with prosecutors looking at his businesses, we will talk to one reporter who described the surreal experience of texting with Giuliani -- all the time.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:24:35]

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: ... was the first President to spare a Thanksgiving turkey at the request of his son.

In 1947, President Harry Truman accepted the first Annual National Thanksgiving Turkey. In the decades that followed, Presidents from Kennedy to Reagan would show mercy. See. Wow, that's a strong bird.

So they are birds. But it was George H.W. Bush who first issued an official pardon.

[14:25:06]

TRUMP: In keeping with that tradition, today, I will issue a pardon to a pair of very handsome birds, Butter, and his alternate, Bread. That's true. Look at you.

Their names were chosen by the students of Harrells Christian Academy in North Carolina, a great state.

Bread and Butter were raised in Tar Heels State by farmer, Willie Jackson, who is here with us with his wife, Tara, and their lovely family and I want to thank you very much. Great job. Great job. Thank you very much.

Thankfully, Bread and Butter have been especially raised by the Jacksons to remain calm under any condition, which will be very important because they've already received subpoenas to appear in Adam Schiff's basement on Thursday. It's true. Hundreds of people have.

It seems the Democrats are accusing me of being too soft on Turkey, but Bread and Butter, I should note that unlike previous witnesses, you and I have actually met. It's very unusual. Very unusual.

In any event, I expect this pardon will be a very popular one with the media. After all, turkeys are closely related to vultures. I don't know if I like that line, but there is a little truth to it.

But today after the birds will retire to Gobblers Rest at Virginia Tech -- great college -- where they will be cared for and enjoy a terrific life.

This Thanksgiving, we bow our heads in gratitude for the newfound prosperity and spirit that's taking place all across America, the country has never been more successful.

Our military has been rebuilt. We captured the number one terrorist in the world and killed the number one terrorist in the world, al Baghdadi. And I want to thank our military because there's nothing like our military.

I want to thank Almighty God for the shedding his grace on our nation. Our nation is special and we especially send our love to members of the United States Armed Forces serving all over the world. We're forever thankful for those who wear our nation's uniform and the families who support them. The families are so important. It can never be the same without those great families.

Because of their selfless service, millions of our fellow Americans are celebrating another wonderful Thanksgiving in safety and in peace.

And just a very special country. A very special place, the Rose Garden at the White House. If you're looking back here, that's the Oval Office. Some of you haven't been here before.

But every time we walk onto the grounds of the White House, we realize how special it is.

So now we reach the moment, Bread and Butter have been waiting for, so patiently, their presidential pardons. Melania and I wish you all Americans, a very happy and blessed Thanksgiving. We love you all.

Butter, let's talk to you for a second because I'm going to do something that you're going to be very happy about. That looks like a dangerous bird. It just escaped.

BALDWIN: Ladies and gentlemen, he presents Bread and Butter. Listen, I've been I've been doing the show nine years. That's a lot of Turkey pardons and there's always some cheesy humor, but what did he say?

TRUMP: A complete pardon.

BALDWIN: Oh, a complete pardon. Oh, so many -- so many things to say. Let's just -- let me just -- Kate Bennett, I'm bringing you back in. I know you're at the White House.

I mean, turkey impeachment humor on behalf of this current President.

BENNETT: Yes, with a little --

BALDWIN: Yes.

BENNETT: Right. With a little discussion about having met witnesses and being part of Schiff's testimony.

BALDWIN: Basement?

BENNETT: I mean, it was very -- yes, basement, right? Very sort of current events related turkey pardon this year.

The President, you know, that was a pretty jokes-filled speech there. I don't think anyone was anticipating it. It looked like Melania Trump really enjoyed it. She was smiling pretty largely there.

But yes, certainly tinged with a little bit of a very real news and real happenings and perhaps his way of blowing off steam before he pardoned butter.

BALDWIN: Yes. Yes. Somehow working in Adam Schiff and Baghdadi there on -- in the turkey --

[14:30:10]