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Reports Say Giuliani Pressured The Ukrainian Government To Conduct Investigation Of President's Political Rival And Seeking Hundreds Of Thousands Of Dollars In Business From Ukraine's Government Officials; As Two Powerful Storms Come Through The Country, Travel Nightmare Begins; New 2020 Poll Result Show Joe Biden Holding Steady. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired November 27, 2019 - 14:00   ET

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

[14:00:09]

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN HOST: Welcome back. You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin. Great to be with you on this day before Thanksgiving.

Let's start with breaking developments today. New details on the President's personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani and his dealings in Ukraine, which is of course at the heart of this Impeachment Inquiry.

"The New York Times" is now reporting that as Giuliani was pressuring the Ukrainian government to conduct an investigation of the President's political rival, Giuliani was also seeking hundreds of thousands of dollars in business from Ukraine's government officials.

"The Washington Post" specifically reports that Giuliani was pursuing this employment contract with Yuriy Lutsenko -- he was the then top prosecutor in Ukraine who was known for his corrupt practices.

Here is what former Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch said under oath about Lutsenko.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DANIEL GOLDMAN, DEMOCRATIC COUNSEL: Who else was involved in this concerted campaign against you?

MARIE YOVANOVITCH, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO UKRAINE: There were some members of the press and others in Mayor Giuliani's circle.

GOLDMAN: And who from Ukraine?

YOVANOVITCH: In Ukraine, I think -- well, Mr. Lutsenko, the Prosecutor General, and Mr. Shokin, his predecessor, certainly.

GOLDMAN: And I believe you testified earlier that Mr. Lutsenko had a reputation for being corrupt. Is that right?

YOVANOVITCH: That's correct.

(END VIDEO CLIP) BALDWIN: Let's go to one of the reporters breaking this story, Matt

Zapotosky is the national security reporter for "The Washington Post." So Matt, nice to have you on. You tell me what you're learning about Rudy Giuliani and Mr. Lutsenko.

MATT ZAPOTOSKY, NATIONAL SECURITY REPORTER, "THE WASHINGTON POST": Well, basically at the same time that Rudy is working with Mr. Lutsenko on this effort to oust Ambassador Yovanovitch, to investigate the President's political opponents, Rudy is trying to strike up a business deal with him.

He is trying to arrange a contract where Rudy's firm will get $200,000.00 or $300,000.00 as a retainer fee, purportedly to do some work helping Lutsenko with an asset recovery idea he wanted to do in the U.S. A little confusing there, but the bottom line of this story is we're sort of learning what was in this for Rudy.

You know, he stood to make money getting in this business arrangement if it were to have come to pass with Mr. Lutsenko and this also would have given Mr. Lutsenko kind of a direct business tie to the President's lawyer. We already knew they worked together, but a financial tie is a little bit more significant.

BALDWIN: He would have made a couple hundred thousand dollars in exchange is your reporting for information on A, the Biden's and also information that it was, you know, part of this conspiracy that was Ukraine and not Russia, who interfered in our elections.

Matt, thank you very much for setting up the story. We're going to analyze it in just a moment here, but before the story on Giuliani and the Ukrainian prosecutor broke, the President was asked what Rudy Giuliani was doing in Ukraine on Trump's behalf.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Well, you have to ask that to Rudy, but Rudy, I don't -- I don't even know. I know he was going to go to Ukraine and I think he canceled the trip. But you know, Rudy has other clients other than me. No, I didn't direct him, but he -- he is a -- he is a warrior. Rudy is a warrior. Rudy went -- he possibly saw something. But you have to understand, Rudy has other people ..."

(END AUDIO CLIP)

BALDWIN: CNN White House correspondent Kaitlan Collins is with me now from Florida where the President is on his holiday. And so Kaitlan, that answer, you have to ask Rudy. I didn't direct him. It sounds awfully familiar. We've heard something similar from the President before regarding another attorney, haven't we?

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, it sounds a lot like what he said about Michael Cohen when he was asked on Air Force One in a clip that has now been played hundreds, if not thousands of times, if he had directed Michael Cohen to make those hush money payments to Stormy Daniels, something the President denied and said you would have to ask Michael Cohen about that because he is my attorney.

And of course, now, we know that Michael Cohen is in prison, serving three years for facilitating those payments and pleading guilty to violating campaign finance charges.

So a lot of the denials you're hearing from the President here as he is trying to put some distance between what Rudy Giuliani was doing in Ukraine and himself really echo what he said about Michael Cohen.

But of course, Brooke, here with the Michael Cohen situation, we later learned about the President's involvement and how he was directing Michael Cohen. We already know about it here with Rudy Giuliani, because one, you can read it in the transcript released by the White House of that July 25th call where not once or twice, but three times, Trump urges the Ukrainian President to work with Rudy Giuliani, telling him that he is going to have Giuliani give him a call and praising Giuliani at length.

And of course, there's in addition to testimony from officials talking about how they were instructed by the President to work with Rudy and essentially saying that they had no other option from that.

And even Mick Mulvaney, during that famed press briefing appearance, defended the President using Rudy Giuliani when it came to his dealings in Ukraine.

[14:05:06]

BALDWIN: Yes, so he name checks him a couple of times in the Zelensky phone call, and yet he is like, talk to Rudy. The other big, big story today is with the fact that we're learning more about what the President knew, when he did finally release the nearly $400 million in military aid to Ukraine and it upends one of the key defense points in this entire Impeachment Inquiry.

COLLINS: Yes, the timeline is a lot more complicated now that "The New York Times" has this new report out quoting two officials or two sources, who say that the President was briefed by White House attorneys back in August on that complaint from the whistleblower.

The whistleblower who is at the center of this Impeachment Inquiry and was the one alleging that the President was abusing his power when it came to what was happening with Ukraine and this hold on the military aid.

Now that puts two things into perspective. One, we know that the President knew about the whistleblower's complaint when he made the decision to release that aid, which didn't happen until September, we should know. And the fact that that attorneys briefed the President means that he knew a lot earlier than Congress did about that whistleblower's complaint.

But Brooke, it also puts into perspective -- remember that phone call where Gordon Sondland, the Ambassador to the E.U. called Trump to ask is there a quid pro quo ...

BALDWIN: There was no quid pro.

COLLINS: ... happening with this military aid. Exactly. And Gordon Sondland went back to people like Bill Taylor and other officials and said no, the President says there is no quid pro quo.

Now, we know that that language likely came from the President reading this whistleblower's account, essentially understanding what it was this official was accusing him of when he made that and that's been a big key defense for the White House, that conversation that he had with Sondland and now we know he knew about this complaint before they had that talk.

BALDWIN: We're going to analyze all of this. Kaitlan, thank you very much, in West Palm Beach.

Let's go to the experts. With me now, CNN Legal Analyst, Elie Honig. He is a former Federal prosecutor; also with us, CNN senior national security analyst, Sam Vinograd who served several senior roles on Obama's National Security Council.

So first, let's just peel back "The Washington Post" and "The New York Times" reporting on this former Ukrainian prosecutor who was maybe looking to do a deal with Rudy Giuliani. First to you, just the fact that it goes as far back as February that you know, he was going to make a buck potentially -- he being Giuliani -- in exchange for maybe some dirt on the Bidens and some information on Ukraine meddling. Why is this significant big picture?

ELIE HONIG, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: If you were going to tell the story of the whole Ukraine scandal, Chapter 1 would be Rudy Giuliani aligning with corrupt prosecutors like Lutsenko to get rid of Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch. She was known. She made her name as an anti-corruption crusader. She took on Lutsenko in Ukraine.

They knew, if we want to get anything done here, any of our business done --

BALDWIN: We've got to get her out.

HONIG: She has got to go. And that's sort of the original sin that kicked off this whole scandal.

BALDWIN: What do you think, Sam?

SAMANTHA VINOGRAD, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Well, I mean, U.S. Ambassadors were called so that Rudy Giuliani can get a client? I mean, even if there weren't signed contracts here, Rudy Giuliani was doing biz dev or business development by showing Lutsenko ostensibly how far he could work on behalf of his client?

But, Brooke, this really just speaks to the fact as to why we need U.S. government officials advising the President. When I worked at the White House, I had to go through ethics screening, and I had to disclose any potential conflicts of interest.

When I started looking for a new job, who was I talking to? Rudy Giuliani just walked into the Oval Office, and we don't know if he ever told President Trump that he had these conflicts of interest.

The president should rely on actual experts who go through real screenings to get the job done.

BALDWIN: Let's pivot to the other huge item that Kaitlan was just reporting on. This is out of "The Time" today. So here are the three takeaways just so we're all on the same page. One, that military aid was withheld from Ukraine the same day as that July 25th phone call with Trump and Zelensky.

Two, that the White House was aware of the whistleblower complaint when the aid was released. And three, that the Department of Defense back in May said that Ukraine was making progress on corruption that they should get this military aid.

So you and I were chatting earlier and I was like, Elie, I need a great analogy for this. So hit me with it -- if I'm caught speeding.

HONIG: Yes, so let's say you -- I know you never would though.

BALDWIN: No --

HONIG: Let's say you were speeding in a car and a cop pulled you over on the side and giving you a ticket, and you decided against something you never do.

BALDWIN: Of course.

HONIG: Try to slide him a $100.00 bill -- bribe -- and the cop said, this is a bribe. You're trying to bribe me. Now, I'm going to charge you with bribery. And now you say, now that you're caught, which we now know that Trump was, you say, no, no. No bribe. I want nothing. No deal here. No exchange. I wasn't trying to bribe you.

BALDWIN: Yes.

HONIG: That statement you made is irrelevant. It's meaningless. It would not be admissible in a court against you.

BALDWIN: That doesn't -- that wouldn't clear me.

HONIG: No, it wouldn't. If it did, no one would ever be able to get convicted of anything because, guess what? Every defendant after they're caught claims they're innocent pleads not guilty.

And now we know the key fact is, he got caught and that's when he started giving these phrases of no quid pro quo. I want nothing. Use it -- you know, it's a great rallying cry, but it's totally meaningless as the facts go.

VINOGRAD: And it also discounts the original -- or I shouldn't say the original -- the defense that the G.O.P. has ginned up since they got caught, which is that this aid freeze was really because there was a review of foreign assistance.

We know from witness testimony that the President didn't hear from his experts about how much the Europeans were spending. There wasn't this actual review going on.

What we know is the President was aware of this whistleblower complaint. He was aware that this freeze was public. So the forcing mechanism here wasn't a policy briefing. It was concerns about the whistleblower complaint and bipartisan criticism.

[14:10:13]

BALDWIN: Just underlining again your point. Their main defense, I knew nothing. It's dead.

HONIG: It's dead. You can't -- anyone who tries to use that defense now. I know it fits nicely on a bumper sticker. I know it can be chanted at a rally, but it is nonsense.

Anyone who puts that defense forward should just be laughed at, ridiculed and scorned. It is counterfactual.

VINOGRAD: Right.

HONIG: It is a lie.

VINOGRAD: And the other defense -- and this came up yesterday -- with this O.M.B. official that testified is, well, this was just business as usual. Freeze happens -- freezes happen all the time. This was in Sandy's testimony that was released yesterday.

I worked with O.M.B. Foreign assistance is frozen, but guess what the justification for freezing the aid is given at the front end.

What we learned yesterday was that the justification for the aid freeze didn't come until September when the freeze had already become public and the G.O.P. has not answered the question about what the intent was behind the freeze.

They -- they've again, tried to say this was business as usual when in fact it wasn't.

BALDWIN: So why does it feel like -- again, you and I were chatting, you know, if you have the side of this administration who is saying no, no, the sky is red, the sky is red. Why -- why does the side that is saying the sky is red seem to be prevailing in their arguments?

HONIG: Politics. I think it's a failure of leadership by Republicans. I think anyone who understands -- and there's a lot of really smart, I would say all of them are really smart Members of Congress who are Republicans, but they're too scared to come out and say what everyone sees. They're afraid of getting attacked and tweeted at and primaried and they just don't have the guts to acknowledge what's real.

But they're going to have to come up with a real defense here soon because the facts are failing them, and ultimately, the only place they can hide and seek refuge is this idea of bad, but not impeachable. They want to make that argument. They can live with that. That's a

political argument. Ultimately, it's up to Congress to make that decision, but to continue to contest the facts, it's just a losing battle.

BALDWIN: I guess, last question is, thinking ahead to next week. It's the first House Judiciary hearing. How will the -- you know, the Chairman of both of these Committees and Speaker Pelosi take all of these new revelations and details and bits and pieces of testimony and put it together in such a cogent picture that would just make sense for the American people?

VINOGRAD: Well, I think that they will likely try to break this down into what's digestible to the American public, which is that private business interest represented by Rudy Giuliani walked into the Oval Office, and the President was involved in leveraging those business interests and his personal needs to get dirt on his political rival.

And I think what they'll do is walk through the myriad ways that he did that over the course of the summer. That is the clearest argument, Brooke. And there's so many twists and turns that we talked about, but that's the bottom line.

BALDWIN: Perfect. Sam and Elie, thank you very much.

HONIG: Thank you.

BALDWIN: And I never speed, thank you very much.

HONIG: Or bribe.

BALDWIN: Or bribe. Speaking of Rudy Giuliani, CNN's KFILE has some new reporting on some shifting answers he has given about Ukrainian oligarchs. See what we dug up.

Plus, he is the head of the State Department and the C.I.A., so why is Mike Pompeo refusing to knock down the President's conspiracy theories?

And as two powerful storms come through the country, the travel nightmare begins standing in the way of millions of Americans heading home.

You're watching CNN. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:18:07]

BALDWIN: Welcome back. You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin. Severe weather on both coasts of the country is affecting Thanksgiving Day travel. You have snow and rain and hazardous road conditions and of course flight delays. Airport cancellations are rampant in certain areas and they're all creating a mess for travelers just trying to get out of town. This weather disruption could also affect the decades-long

Thanksgiving Day tradition here in New York City, the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.

The threat of high winds could ground those spectacular balloons. Brynn Gingras is our CNN national correspondent along the parade route and Brynn, you know, I feel like every year, it is like, how's the wind going to be and how high are the balloons going to fly? And you know, we end up seeing them, so what's the story so far?

BRYNN GINGRAS, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Brooke. You know what? You just said it right there that you've proved to me that you're pretty much a New Yorker now because you said how high are they going to fly? That's really the key.

They're always -- and you know, I say that with a caveat, but usually they fly. It's how high are they going to fly is really what it comes down to. That's what the NYPD kind of makes the determination on.

So I don't want to freak people out and tell them they're not going to fly. It's very rare that that it happens. It has only happened once in the history of this long parade. Very likely, we'll see them fly.

But hey, I've got to show you them first, Brooke, and I'll get into the numbers with you. This is Snoopy all blown up. I can't even compare to even the size of his foot, Brooke. Look at this. I mean, this is enormous.

And this is just one of the balloons. There are 16 in all. Look at all of them. Whoop. I'm tripping here. Look at them all that are still being blown up or inflated rather in the process right now as a million people come out to see this happen.

Okay. The numbers, Brooke, about what NYPD tracks while this is going on -- 23 and 34. Twenty three miles per hour, sustained winds, 34 mile per hour wind gusts. That's what the NYPD tracks as they make the determination of how high these balloons are going to fly on Thanksgiving Day tomorrow.

And basically, these handlers that are blowing them or inflating them -- I keep saying the wrong word -- they walk with NYPD officials along the parade route and they will actually have little machines in their hands that track wind gusts as the parade goes on.

[14:20:13]

GINGRAS: So they make determinations all through the entirety of the parade tomorrow. But hey, a million people here, Brooke.

I've been talking to people from all over the world who come here to see tonight happen, see this inflation, and I've got to tell you, a lot of kids are excited. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GINGRAS: Your favorite balloon? UNIDENTIFIED GIRL: Well, Snoopy.

GINGRAS: Which character are you most excited to see and why?

UNIDENTIFIED BOY: Snoopy because he looks -- he's just majestic.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GINGRAS: I was speechless. Majestic -- that's how he described it. But Snoopy is a crowd favorite. I've got to say, I have a stepson who is in love with Pikachu, so I'm going to make my way down there to see if that one is blown up or inflated. Gosh, I keep saying the wrong words -- Brooke. Inflated.

BALDWIN: But you've got this. You've been here a long time, you know, my favorite was Garfield. I had like this giant stuffed Garfield and I remember coming up to New York like in the fourth or fifth grade with my family to see that parade and mwah, it was spectacular. "Majestic" to quote our little friend. Brynn Gingras, thank you for the update. Good to see you.

Let's talk weather though. Ivan Cabrera is our CNN meteorologist. He is tracking the systems on both coasts. And Ivan, dare I ask who gets the worst weather?

IVAN CABRERA, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yes, I think a little bit for everybody. It's nice to see by the way, the new generation enjoying the Snoopy like I did back in the day.

BALDWIN: You like that? You like that?

CABRERA: Maybe they are Generation ZZ, I don't know what you would call a seven-year-old at this point. But hopefully they will fly high enough where everybody will be excited here. And I think we have a good chance of that.

But we do have to get through storm number one. Oh, and then there's storm number two, which I think is going to be a mess for your way back from Thanksgiving Holiday. Right? So we're talking Sunday and we'll get to that in a second.

But let me show you storm number one. It's kind of fizzling out as far as the rainfall and the snowfall. Not much more to come, but it's the wind that's still going to be a problem here.

We still have wind advisories and wind warnings for a good chunk in the area and I'll show you the current wind gusts. You can see, this is actually happening; however, incredibly checking in with O'Hare, they are not reporting significant delays despite the 53 mile an hour wind gust that they reported last hour. That may change later this afternoon and evening.

So if you are flying through Chicago O'Hare right now that may get a little hairier as we hit through the afternoon and evening.

Watch the slug of moisture coming out of Mexico into Arizona, New Mexico and into Colorado. That's going to set up that moisture with the second low that's already crashing into California and all of that will combine to make for quite a big snowstorm here.

Winter storm warnings are already posted. That's number two, right? And it's not going to stay out west. Everything has to move. By the way, this is how much snow they're going to be getting.

Eventually we're going to track this storm, Brooke, and it will -- watch the clock here -- by Black Friday, a lot of rain getting involved in the midsection and then heading into the Midwest.

On the backside of it, it is going to be a big deal for the Dakotas, into portions of Minnesota. The same areas that got hit with this number one storm -- a lot of snow there.

And then this could be the big problem for Sunday -- everybody trying to get back. If you're doing that from the Midwest or West Coast, you're fine. It's the East Coast, the busiest airports here that could be hit with heavy rain, wind, and potentially, Brooke, even some snowfall from Massachusetts and into interior New England.

So we have a lot to get through. But hopefully, we'll get those balloons up in the air tomorrow. Thank you.

BALDWIN: Hopefully so. Ivan, thank you very much.

CABRERA: You bet.

BALDWIN: Just in. New CNN reporting from the Pentagon and why the Trump administration is planning to cut a financial contribution to NATO.

Plus, new 2020 poll results, Joe Biden holding steady; while another candidate is certainly showing some positive movement. We'll talk about the changing numbers with Michael Smerconish.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:28:23]

BALDWIN: CNN has just released new national poll numbers showing Joe Biden leading the Democratic field by double digits. He is at 28 percent. Elizabeth Warren has lost some of her footing from October in a close battle for second with Senator Bernie Sanders at 17 percent and 14 percent, respectively, and South Bend Indiana Mayor, Pete Buttigieg is rising a bit up to 11 percent.

So, Michael Smerconish is with me, CNN political commentator and host of CNN's "Smerconish" and Michael, happy day before Thanksgiving, friend. Nice to have you on.

MICHAEL SMERCONISH, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR You too. Thank you.

BALDWIN: So let's start with Joe Biden because it seems with, you know, each debate, whatever flub, analysts keep predicting Joe Biden's demise but he continues to stay strong, maintain a lead. What do you make of that?

SMERCONISH: It's interesting that there really hasn't been a significant shift away from Joe Biden despite some of the negative reports that you're referring to.

If I'm Joe Biden, the former Vice President Biden, then my glass half full says look at this, nationally, I remain the front runner. The glass half empty analysis says we don't nominate based on national surveys, take a look at what's going on in those first few states and he has got a problem in both the Iowa caucus and New Hampshire primary.

Here's how I see the issue. Should he lose the Iowa caucus and the New Hampshire primary, will there be a momentum shift? Because I must say, Brooke, with the holidays coming, a lot of folks just aren't paying attention.

But they will start paying attention when Americans go to the polls. Can he sustain back-to-back losses, still go into Nevada, still go into South Carolina with a head of steam from being the front runner?

[14:30:09]