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Poll: Biden Leads, Sanders Steady, Warren Drops, Buttigieg Rises; Trump Administration To Cut Its Financial Contribution To NATO; Giuliani's Shifting Answers On Seeking Info On Ukrainian Oligarch; Ex- CIA Chief Pompeo Refuses To Dismiss Debunked Ukraine Claim; Younger Americans Dying Faster As U.S. Life Expectancy Drops; NYT: DOJ Review Of Russia Probe Expected To Undercut Trump's Claims FBI Spied On His Campaign. Aired 2:30-3p ET

Aired November 27, 2019 - 14:30   ET

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

[14:30:00]

MICHAEL SMERCONISH, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Because I must say, Brooke, and with the holidays coming, a lot of folks just aren't paying attention. But they will start paying attention when Americans start going 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 frontrunner? That's the issue.

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN HOST: That's what we watch for, for Joe Biden.

What about Elizabeth Warren, Michael? Slipping by five points. You can't help but notice it's as she's touting her Medicare For All plan. Maybe not connecting at all? Do you know how that is a reflection of how that plan being perceived or something else entirely?

SMERCONISH: You say, down by five. That's the CNN data. Quinnipiac analysis has her support having been halved. So there's confirmation between the two surveys that something's gone wrong with regard to Elizabeth Warren.

I know the conventional wisdom says it's Medicare For All and Americans being frightened over the loss of their private health insurance. I'll bet that's a large part of it.

But I wonder if attention to the impeachment hearings has also shown a light on electability in a way it hadn't before. Democrats are really now enraged at the president and want him off. There's a divide with Republicans on that. But I wonder if the impeachment process has somehow played against her.

BALDWIN: So to use that same theory, on electability coming out of impeachment, and looking at Warren's fall, but also looking at Mayor Pete Buttigieg's rise, is that connected? To what do you attribute that?

SMERCONISH: I think that Mayor Pete's rise is attributable to her fall. I think that he's been the beneficiary. And frankly, another interesting aspect of it. It does not appear to me at least that Bernie Sanders has been the beneficiary of whatever slide Elizabeth Warren has endured but rather it's Mayor Pete.

Here's the problem for Mayor Pete. Although he seems to have the wind at his back, he's got a ceiling. Like, there's only so high he can go, unless he can start to generate support among African-Americans. And that has not yet taken place.

You can't win the Democratic nomination unless you can generate significant black support.

BALDWIN: So what do voters think? We sent our correspondent, Vanessa Yurkevich, into the suburbs of your stomping grounds there in Philadelphia and she talked to a bunch of Democratic voters about impeachment. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RICHARD KASER, PHILADELPHIA DEMOCRAT: My -- I don't think he'll be convicted but it all needs to be laid out and the American people need to hear the full story.

It's not going to affect him. I think he'll remain in power and Republicans will remain in power and --

VANESSA YURKEVICH, CNN BUSINESS & POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: What is the point of an impeachment inquiry that ends in the Senate where you think he will be re-elected again?

KASER: I hear what you're saying and I wish I had an answer to it, other than we should be in search of truths.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: I ran into Vanessa today here and talking about voters and saying her takeaway is that these Democratic voters she talked to, not standing with their pitchforks, impeachment pitchforks glued to the hearing, we're going to get him. A lot of them saying, despite everything, Trump might get re-elected.

You're talking to folks. What are you hearing?

SMERCONISH: Same thing. Even though the impeachment hearings may have assembled a case, a decent case, according to observers, of the president, at a minimum, abusing his office, what you're hearing from certain folks is it doesn't rise to the level of an impeachable offense.

The problem for Democrats is this clearly gets pushed into 2020. I mean, the impeachment process in the House will probably run its conclusion right before Christmas. That means now into 2020.

I think the optics are bad for Democrats if Americans are voting in Iowa, getting ready to vote in New Hampshire and this is still going on, because people will say, hey, let's just resolve it at the ballot box.

BALDWIN: Michael Smerconish, always a treat to talk to you. And of course, we tune in every Saturday morning --

SMERCONISH: Happy Thanksgiving.

BALDWIN: -- at 9:00 a.m. Eastern.

Thank you very much.

SMERCONISH: You, too.

BALDWIN: Just into CNN, the Trump administration has moved to substantially cut its financial contribution to NATO. That is what several U.S. and NATO officials are telling CNN.

Ryan Browne is covering this for us at the Pentagon.

Ryan, what would that mean?

RYAN BROWNE, CNN PENTAGON REPORTER: Brooke, it doesn't have a lot of tangible effect. It's more of a symbolic impact. You know, NATO's budget is actually relatively small. It's about $2 billion to $2.5 billion.

But the U.S.-- planning on cutting its contribution fairly significantly. Currently, the U.S. pays for about a quarter of that budget. It's dropping it down to 16 percent.

And this is coming just days before President Trump is going to travel to the London summit of NATO to celebrate the alliance's 70th anniversary.

Kind of a message. We're told this cost arrangement was adopted last week. The U.S. will give a lot less to the alliance. And the alliance now, other countries will have to kind of pick up the tab to pay for that.

President Trump has long criticized members of the alliance for not spending enough on their defense. That's separate. Not reaching that 2 percent of GDP defense spending target that the alliance recommends. President Trump has slammed countries in Europe, particularly Germany, for not meeting what the NATO obligations.

[14:35:07]

So this is one way perhaps the Trump administration is seeking to get a win on getting allies to do more and pay more. It seems like they were able to convince the other 28 members of the alliance to contribute more to that budget.

Again, it's not a huge budget. Only about $2 billion. Pays for headquarters in Brussels, pays for research, some military operations.

But a significant, symbolic victory for the Trump administration as it seeks to get other countries, particularly European nations, to pay more for the NATO alliance.

BALDWIN: Something he's talked about since the campaign really.

Ryan Browne, thank you for that.

BROWNE: Thank you.

BALDWIN: He's the former CIA director, currently secretary of state, but Mike Pompeo will not knock down one of the president's conspiracy theories and we want to know why.

Plus, as studious reports showcase Rudy Giuliani's actions in Ukraine, CNN shows how his answers have shifted on Ukrainian oligarchs.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:40:35]

BALDWIN: Just into CNN, the president's personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, contradicting himself again over how he sought dirt on the president's rivals from Ukrainian oligarchs.

Just two days ago, Giuliani tweeted he did not talk with Ukrainian businessman, Dmitry Firtash. He also told CNN back in October that he has, quote, "nothing to do with him." But Giuliani just entirely contradicted that in a text message exchange with CNN.

Andrew Kaczynski is our senior editor of "KFILE."

Back up. Dmitry Firtash, remind us who he is. And what is Giuliani now saying?

ANDREW KACZYNSKI, CNN SENIOR EDITOR, "KFILE": Dmitry Firtash is a Ukrainian oligarch. He made his money in the gas industry. He is fighting extradition to the U.S. on unrelated bribery charges from 2013.

Giuliani told us back in October, when we did a separate trip on Giuliani on a trip he took with his indicted associates to London, he said, I had nothing to do with Firtash.

We asked because, during this trip, he spoke to a Ukrainian charity group. And a former spokesman for this oligarch was actually there.

And he followed up with that saying he has been absent from Ukraine many years and never thought he had useful information for me related to 2016 or Joe Biden.

What he told us now is completely different. He told us that he met with a lawyer for this oligarch for two hours in New York City where he sought information on collusion and corruption in Ukraine.

So there's that conspiracy theory that Ukraine colluded in the 2016 election. And when we hear him talk about corruption, that's code for talking about the Bidens. Really interesting here is, he got a little angry when we asked him,

you know, did you mislead me, and he said, "Horse (EXPLETIVE DELETED), stop the trickery. You guys are so biased it's sick."

BALDWIN: That's what he said when you asked to explain the discrepancy?

KACZYNSKI: That was the first text message I received from him. We had a very long text exchange where we talked about, did he mislead me. I said, you told me you never sought information on this guy and you are now acknowledging this meeting, what's with the discrepancy.

BALDWIN: He's saying it's horse "you know what."

What's your biggest takeaway?

KACZYNSKI: The takeaway from this is on sort of the bigger picture, how Giuliani was reaching out to all of these Ukraine-connected individuals, including this oligarch fighting extradition to the U.S., and actually ended up hitting some attorneys he knows very well, how he was reaching out to all of these folks to look into his campaign to get dirt on Joe Biden.

And that sort of leads us all back to the impeachment thing and where we are now.

BALDWIN: Where we are now.

Andrew Kaczynski, thank you for that.

President Trump has also been known to push conspiracy theories, such as that Barack Obama wasn't born in the United States, and Ted Cruz's father as involved in the Kennedy assassination, that wind turbines cause cancer.

To succeed in the Trump administration means agreeing with not openly disagreeing with or not openly disagreeing with Mr. Trump even when his pronouncements involving serious claims.

Now Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is lending credence to the president's debunked conspiracy theory it was Russia -- excuse me -- saying it was Ukraine and not Russia that interfered with America's elections in 2016.

Although he never mentions Ukraine explicitly in his latest remarks, Secretary Pompeo leaves the door open to his boss' interpretation.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MIKE POMPEO, SECRETARY OF STATE: Any time there's information that indicates that any country messed with American elections, we not only have a right but a duty to make sure we chase that down.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: CNN's Kylie Atwood has more on the significance of Secretary Pompeo's remarks.

Kylie, in the past, he said he supported intelligence it was Russia who interfered. Intelligence that came from the CIA, which he used to be CIA chief. How is he trying to have it both ways?

KYLIE ATWOOD, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY REPORTER: Brooke, let's do a little comparison here to understand how the secretary of state, once the CIA director for the Trump administration, has evolved on this topic.

So that quote you just played from the secretary yesterday, in which he left open the door to the possibility that Ukraine was the one who messed with the U.S. elections in 2016, he was specifically asked, does he thinks that the U.S. and Ukraine should be investigating the fact it was Ukraine and not Russia, OK -- given the chance there -- who hacked the 2016 DNC server and release those emails?

[14:45:15]

That is when he gave that answer that you played, leaving the door open to the possibility that it was Ukraine.

Back in 2017, he discussed this specifically. He was then the CIA director. He had seen the intelligence that all -- completely made the case that it was Russia that interfered in the elections.

I want to read what he said. He said, "In January of this year" -- this was Pompeo speaking in 2017 -- "our Intelligence Community determined Russian military intelligence has used WikiLeaks to release data against the DNC committee."

There, clearly saying it was Russia. Yesterday, not squarely saying it was Russia.

This is really important. We have to consider what is at stake here. President Trump is coming out again getting behind this debunked theory that Ukraine was behind any of this meddling. But we have seen U.S. officials go before Congress in the past few weeks and call that a totally fictitious narrative.

BALDWIN: It was Russia. It was Russia. It was Russia.

Kylie Atwood, thank you for that.

Disturbing news about living and dying in the United States. Average life expectancy is dropping, and not as many new Americans are being born. Why we're no longer keeping up with other high-income countries. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:51:31]

BALDWIN: For decades, Americans enjoyed a steady streak of living longer but a new study reports that is changing. The life expectancy in the United States is on a steady decline. Elizabeth Cohen is our CNN senior medical correspondent and is with me

now.

This is not the kind of thing we want to hear.

DR. ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: This is not great news.

BALDWIN: Why is this happening?

COHEN: Look at numbers that helps explain. When you see the dates, it might mean something to you. Look at life expectancy in 1959, 69.9 years. In 2014, 78.9. That's amazing, right? What a huge jump. But starting in 2014, it plateaued. In 2017, dipping 78.6.

Small change you might say. But, Brooke, what's disturbing is this piece of news, which is that biggest mortality rate increase, the death rate increase is among people 25 to 64, relatively young people. Up 6 percent from 2010 to 2017.

There's a lot of reasons driven by drugs, alcohol, suicide. That's what's getting us. This country has some of the greatest medical care in the world. That's no it. It's drugs, alcohol, suicide.

BALDWIN: Any good news for me today?

COHEN: I do have some.

(LAUGHTER)

COHEN: The day before Thanksgiving, give thanks for this little piece of news. It's mixed. I'll start with the positive part. When you look at fertility rates, those declining in the U.S. They're seeing birth rates are actually going down. In 2018, a record low, down 2 percent from the previous year.

This is the good news. It's that a lot of that is driven by teen pregnancy going down.

BALDWIN: Oh.

COHEN: That's a good thing, right? There's a huge effort to curtail teen pregnancy. And to a large extent, it's worked. So good for us.

BALDWIN: Elizabeth Cohen, thank you very much.

New revelations in the impeachment inquiry. Pressure is on. Rudy Giuliani has details unfold that undercut the Republicans key defense of the president of the United States.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:58:12]

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

BALDWIN: You are watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin. Thank you for being here.

We begin with a major blow to an accusation President Trump made most of his presidency, that the FBI spied on his campaign. Now the "New York Times" is reporting that a long-awaited internal review found no evidence that the FBI attempted to place undercover agents or informants inside the Trump 2016 campaign. That conclusion reportedly comes from the inspector general, Michael Horowitz.

Let's start there. Jennifer Rodgers is a CNN legal analyst and former federal prosecutor, and CNN correspondent, Josh Campbell, is a former FBI supervisory special agent.

Jennifer, let me jump to -- I have "The Times" piece in front of me. Here are the three takeaways.

One, that the I.G. found no evidence that the FBI attempted to place undercover agents or informants inside the Trump campaign.

Two, that Horowitz found FBI leaders did not take politically motivated actions in pursuing a secret wiretap on former Trump campaign adviser, Carter Page.

And three, Mr. Horowitz will sharply criticize FBI leaders for handling of the investigation.

Which, Josh, I'll ask you about in a second.

Number one, how much does his Horowitz report undermine the president's arguments?

JENNIFER RODGERS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, it really should be the death knell for these arguments, which never had any real factual basis and were just conspiracy theories to drum up support.

I hope that now Michael Horowitz, who is a non-partisan, non-political appointee with a sterling reputation for integrity, has come out with his conclusions after an exhausted investigation, that people will now finally accept that the investigation was started in good faith using the right methods and that none of these conspiracy theories about wiretapping, putting spies in this camp had anybody merit in the first place.