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Trumps Claims Peace Talks With Taliban are Back On; Trump Visits U.S. Troops in Afghanistan; House Judiciary Committee to Hold Impeachment Hearing Next Wednesday; Trump, Lawyers Face Sunday Deadline to Participate in Hearing; House Intel Panel to Release its Impeachment Report Soon. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired November 29, 2019 - 09:00   ET

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

[09:00:00]

AVLON: How about it?

CAMEROTA: That is a beautiful story.

AVLON: That's what we like. That's what makes America great.

CAMEROTA: John, thanks for being here. Great to work with you.

AVLON: Absolutely. Any time.

CAMEROTA: Have a wonderful weekend.

AVLON: Have a great weekend. Happy Thanksgiving and Black Friday, everybody.

CAMEROTA: All right. "NEWSROOM" with Ana Cabrera starts right now.

ANA CABRERA, CNN ANCHOR: Happy Friday. And welcome to this special edition of CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Ana Cabrera. Jim and Poppy have the day off.

And it's Black Friday. The rush is on with shoppers scrambling for deals in stores and online. And right behind them, this. Dangerous winter weather. A mix of rain, heavy snow, and high winds will impact millions. We'll show you exactly where and what to watch out for.

But first, this morning, President Trump is back at Mar-a-Lago after a surprise Thanksgiving trip to Afghanistan. It was his first trip there, and it sparked a second chance at peace talks with the Taliban months after they were scrapped.

Our team is covering this trip from start to finish. Let's take a look at the timing with Barbara Starr at the Pentagon -- Barbara.

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, good morning to you. The president yesterday in Afghanistan saying that the talks were back on with the Taliban, but a short time ago, the Taliban issued a statement out of Afghanistan saying, in part, if America wants, talks would resume. Not exactly a crystal-clear agreement with what the president had to say.

So here's where we are, which is we don't really know. Was the president ahead of the game or are there some very informal scene setting talks going on behind the scenes? Regardless, the situation in Afghanistan, the Taliban will know, President Trump wants to draw down troops from the current 13,000 to about 8600, and then eventually withdraw completely. So are they waiting out the president? Are they just waiting out this withdrawal?

One of the key issues right now is, would there be a cease-fire before they sit down to talk with the Afghans to all be part of that? All wars end at the negotiating table, getting this 18-year war over is something that everybody wants to see, but whether the Taliban are really committed to it certainly remains to be seen -- Ana.

CABRERA: Barbara Starr, at the Pentagon for us, thank you.

A hidden jet, shades pulled, the White House went to elaborate lengths to keep President Trump's Afghanistan trip under wraps.

Let's bring in CNN national correspondent Kristen Holmes live in West Palm Beach with more -- Kristen.

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Ana, so this level of secrecy is no real surprise. You're bringing the president into an active war zone. They are going to want to make sure he is safe. But what it is, is incredibly fascinating how they managed to get him to Afghanistan without really raising any antennas. I'm going to walk you through it. This is from a reporter who was on the trip. So essentially they snuck him out of Mar-a-Lago in the dark of night before Thanksgiving. It was Wednesday night.

We still don't know how he got to the airport or what airport he got to, but instead of taking his normal Air Force One, the plane he flew down here on, they left in a military plane. A plane that was unmarked and bare bones. According to the reporter, there was barely anything in it except for a few leather chairs and a Port-a-Potty that they brought in. So as this reporter and several White House top aides, before they even got on to the plane, their cell phones, all of their devices were taken.

So clearly here, really safety first trying to make sure this was as secret as possible. Now this military plane took them back to Andrews Air Force Base which of course is where President Trump usually takes off for on these kind of trips. And that is where he got into his official aircraft, Air Force One. But instead of seeing it with the lights and cameras and all of that, he got into it behind closed doors in a hangar and then they took off in the darkness of night.

They had all the interior lights off and the shades drawn so as not to draw attention to themselves. But I want to know one thing. What would you expect from President Trump when you have 18 hours or more? You'd expect probably some tweets, right? It's one of the things he's known for. Well, the White House took care of that. They didn't want anyone to raise attention for the fact that he wasn't tweeting, since he didn't have access to Wi-Fi. And they actually scheduled tweets to go out during the time he was in the air so that it wouldn't raise any suspicion -- Ana.

CABRERA: So interesting to hear that color of what was happening behind the scenes.

Kristen Holmes, thank you for that reporting.

Let's discuss with Josh Rogin, columnist for "The Washington Post," and Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt, former assistant secretary of State for political and military affairs under President George W. Bush.

And General, let me start with you. Just three months ago, you'll recall President Trump canceled all peace talks with the Taliban. How have the dynamics changed to perhaps allow these talks to resume?

BRIGADIER GEN. MARK KIMMITT, FORMER ASST. SECRETARY OF STATE FOR POLITICAL-MILITARY AFFAIRS: Well, I think that everybody wanted these talks to happen. I would suspect that Ambassador Khalilzad, who is our lead negotiator, kept in touch with the Taliban throughout that time because we knew at some point in time the president would want to restart those talks for any number of reasons. He wanted to live up to a campaign promise that said I'm going to reduce the number of troops.

[09:05:05]

He saw an opportunity to strike a deal with the Taliban. So I think it's just natural that at some point in time we would turn these talks back on.

CABRERA: And yet this is a war that has lasted 18 years. And at least 21 U.S. service members have been killed in the war in Afghanistan this year alone. A U.N. report last month showing more civilians were killed or injured between July and September than any other quarter since the war started. Also we can't forget the Taliban's harboring al Qaeda and Usama bin Laden pre-9/11.

Josh, how trustworthy is the Taliban to actually get a deal done?

JOSH ROGIN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Not very trustworthy at all. And I think that was the problem initially with the deal that the Trump administration struck with the Taliban in September. We'll remember Taliban leaders were about to come to Camp David. It contributed to John Bolton resigning because he was so offended by the thought of having Taliban leaders at Camp David on 9/11. And the whole scheme is that we withdraw. They promise not to harbor terrorists.

And nobody really believed it, but it was sort of a fig leaf to allow the president to fulfill the campaign promise heading into his re- election. And I don't think there's any real notion that any of those dynamics have changed except that the president is now in his re- election campaign and he wants a deal or at least he wants negotiations to be going on so he can claim that this campaign promise, if not fulfilled it has at least not failed yet.

CABRERA: General, Josh mentioned the major backlash from both sides of the aisle when we learned of that initial plan in September to have the peace talks at Camp David with the Taliban leader. The president later calling off those talks because of an attack in Kabul that killed a U.S. soldier, is why at least the reason they gave. How might that now affect the planning of these talks?

KIMMITT: Well, first of all, I'd like to address Josh's point. He's absolutely right that the Taliban would never and can never be expected to live up to their obligation to keep the terrorists outside of Afghanistan. But I also know that the Taliban certainly should understand that we are not going to respect their right and sovereign control over the country if there are terrorists inside. So neither the Taliban are going to live up to their promise, neither is the U.S. going to live up to its promise. If there are terrorists that threaten the United States, it doesn't matter who is in charge in Afghanistan, we will go after them.

CABRERA: So do you see planning, though?

ROGIN: Well, I think that's the whole --

CABRERA: I mean, can you talk to -- speak to the planning of these talks given the backlash last time around? The president, you know, likes to have opportunities to make these deals face-to-face. That was part of this whole negotiating and the strategy with North Korea, right? With his summits with Kim Jong-un.

KIMMITT: That's right.

CABRERA: And now we have the Taliban. How do you see that factoring in here?

KIMMITT: Well, I think, again, this is just a return to the talks that have been going on for quite some period of time. Whatever caused the president to cancel them and whatever has caused the president to turn them back on again, I would agree with Josh that a lot of this has to do with campaign promises of ending dumb wars in the Middle East. That's really not as important as the fact that we're getting on with these talks.

We're going to reduce American forces. That's just an inevitability as you said. After 18 years, we ought to really start thinking about how much longer we're going to stay there. So the talks are back on. I would expect, as Josh does, that we'll see some sort of agreement before election time. And we will continue our slow, steady withdrawal to the point where I would expect, if there is a second Trump term, we will not see troops in Afghanistan other than perhaps counterterrorism forces within two years.

CABRERA: Josh, do you see it as an inevitability that the troops will come home before this president is out of office?

ROGIN: Some of the troops will come home, and what President Trump said in Afghanistan today was that -- or yesterday was that he wants to reduce the troop level. It's at about 13,000 now. It can go down to about 8600 according to the commanding general in the area, General Miller, without sacrificing the mission. We know that President Trump wants to withdraw all the troops from

Afghanistan because he says so all the time, but at the same time he's realized that doing so recklessly would be just as bad politically as not fulfilling his promise in the first place.

And I'd like to quickly address the point that the general raised about North Korea. You know, we're looking at an end-of-the-year deadline for the North Korea talks. And it's a very good possibility they could break down. And if you think about that, going into the re-election year, what can President Trump really point to as a foreign policy success? Not Iran. Not North Korea. Definitely not Syria. Definitely not the Middle East.

So he's grasping for something. And, you know, it's not clear to me that these talks are back on. The Taliban seemed willing to play along if Trump wants to say that they're back on. But none of the fundamentals have changed. And we still have a weak position in Afghanistan. Withdrawing is -- does not strengthen our negotiating position.

[09:10:04]

The Taliban know that. We have the watches. They have the time, et cetera, et cetera. The greatest likelihood is that they will continue to press us for concessions while dangling peace in front of us and President Trump will go along with that because it's good for his re- election prospects but it doesn't actually solve the problem of conquering terrorism or providing for a stable Afghanistan.

CABRERA: General, how much of a security risk is it for the U.S. if President Trump pulls out troops too hastily from the region?

KIMMITT: Well, first of all, I don't think it's going to be too hastily. But let's acknowledge the fact that the major effort why we're in Afghanistan from the beginning is over. Osama bin Laden is dead. Terrorism is still there. But terrorism is also in about 28 other countries around the world. And I think this administration and the military would tell you we don't need to be in 28 different countries.

We've got to be selective about where we are. Strategic about where we are and candidly, Afghanistan may not be as strategic now as it was 18 years ago. There are other places we need to focus on that have terrorist elements in there. And that may be a better use of our resources.

CABRERA: There was the Eddie Gallagher situation that we've reported on. You know, the unprecedented tensions recently between the commander-in-chief and some of these senior military officers.

General, what does this surprise trip to a war zone and Trump interacting in that setting with the troops do to help these tensions?

KIMMITT: Not at all. I would suspect that every troop has already made up his mind about the Eddie Gallagher case and the other cases. And I would say in the majority, most of the American soldiers that I've talked to and would have commanded would probably say that was an unnecessary intervention on the president. It affects the military chain of command. It weakens the military chain of command. And hopefully this will be the last time that he does it.

CABRERA: Got to leave it there, guys. Josh Rogin, Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt, great to have both of you here with us.

KIMMITT: Sure.

CABRERA: Thank you for spending your Friday morning here.

ROGIN: Thank you.

CABRERA: Coming up, the high stakes week in the impeachment investigation. The clock is ticking for the White House to decide whether it will participate in the next hearing. We're on that.

Plus, who needs sleep? Bargain hunters storming retailers for deals today. We're in the middle of it.

Plus, if you are planning to travel back home after the holiday, Mother Nature might get in your way. What you need to know.

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[09:15:00]

ANA CABRERA, ANCHOR, NEWSROOM: In just five days now, the House Judiciary Committee takes over the impeachment probe. It's Wednesday when you can watch for the high stakes hearings set to move Democrats one step closer to a potential vote on charges of high crimes and misdemeanors against President Trump.

With us now, Errol Louis; CNN political commentator and Michael Gerhardt; law professor at the University of North Carolina. Gentlemen, great to have you. Michael, these two Judiciary Committee hearings will be a lot different from the Intel committees. What can the American people expect?

MICHAEL GERHARDT, LAW PROFESSOR, UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA: Yes, I agree, this will be a lot different. I think here, we no longer have fact witnesses. The experts that will be called by the House Judiciary Committee are not there to talk about facts. What happened on -- when and who did what. But instead, they're there to talk about the law, whether or not in particular, the constitutional standard for impeachment. So, there will be a great deal of focus on that, which is a different focus, radically different focus of course from the Intelligence Committee.

CABRERA: Errol, what will you be watching for?

ERROL LOUIS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: It's a much bigger committee. You've got 41 members of the Judiciary Committee and how Jerry Nadler, the chair of it runs that committee is going to really be crucial. Think about those five-minute brief questioning periods that the Intelligence Committee allowed. Well, for 41 people, you're talking about three hours worth of that

stuff. We don't know if Jerry Nadler is going to allow that or what kind of rules he's going to sort of put in place. But it's going to be much more drawn out. And just as the professor suggests, a lot of this is going to be up for dispute, open disputes.

So, while we can expect a lot of distractions, the Republicans, many of them, they've decided that politically, that is their job to try and talk about Hunter Biden and sort of throw fairy dust over the proceedings even though the facts are not really in dispute. There's also going to be a lot of room for true constitutional debate.

So, I think it's going to be very acrimonious because it's a much bigger committee, and has a lot of rambunctious members. Jerry Nadler is going to have his hands full, trying to keep the whole situation under control.

CABRERA: And the president will have the opportunity to have representation himself, should he choose to take them up on it. At this point, it doesn't look like that's going to happen. Would that be a missed opportunity, Michael, if he doesn't have a lawyer representing himself there?

GERHARDT: I'm not really sure whether it's a missed opportunity. The president's focus up until now has largely been on the politics of impeachment and undercutting the legitimacy and credibility of what the Democrats are doing. It's not -- he's not really making legal arguments in response to it.

So bringing the lawyers in may actually confuse or complicate his message, and may -- he may prefer a simpler sort of position which is just simply to argue as he has, that this is not legitimate, it's just a political ploy.

CABRERA: Impeachment is expected, of course, the Democrats have the majority. But removal from office is not because that requires at least 20 Republican senators to break party lines. At this point, not a single Republican in the House or Senate for that matter has publicly wavered.

[09:20:00]

Given that, Errol, what will define success for Democrats in this next step of the process?

LOUIS: I think -- look, if they get through it without it becoming a complete circus, that will be a victory. If they get conveyed from the Intelligence Committee, a sort of summary of some of the facts that they think will form the basis for impeachment, that will be a victory. If they can identify and convey to the public the constitutional principles involved here, that obstruction, that the high crimes and misdemeanors, however they choose to define it represent something that's serious enough that they have to take action.

That's really what their goal is here. And that's really what their role is here, frankly. The politics of impeachment, that's somebody else's problem. For this very narrow band of the inquiry, it's really all about sort of establishing that the facts we all know about, that again are not in dispute constitute the basis for them to move forward.

CABRERA: Do you have any reason to believe, Errol, that this hearing or this part of the process would be more persuasive to the American public than the past hearings that we saw when the facts were all laid out through those witnesses?

LOUIS: You know, it's an interesting question because a lot of political pundits are sort of hanging their analysis on that. The reality is, 50 percent of the public says that he should be impeached and removed. By comparison, you go back a couple of decades with Bill Clinton, it was never higher than 29 percent, the comparable number, and he actually got impeached.

So, there is a very high number, unprecedented in our history of people who say, not only that the president should be impeached, but that he should be removed. Now, what happens from there is somebody else's question. I guess specifically, the Senate and we can't necessarily anticipate that. But there's a high percentage of Americans who understand the situation, who have watched these hearings, who know all of the facts and who have decided they think there's a real problem here.

CABRERA: And while Democrats are plowing forward in the Judiciary Committee, Michael, the Intel Committee's investigation is not over, and we keep seeing more details emerge. Do you think there will be more fact witnesses called?

GERHARDT: I think there may be an effort to get more fact witnesses deposed. Obviously, there's not going to be a public hearing or at least it seems highly unlikely there'd be any other public hearing from the Intelligence Committee. We learn from the Intelligence Committee hearings that there are a number of other White House officials that know something about this, participated in this.

So, the Intelligence Committee understandably would want to try and reach them, get to them, ask them questions, depose them. If it can't, then we just move on from there with the Judiciary Committee. If the Intelligence Committee can gather more facts, that will be helpful to the entire process.

CABRERA: Errol, you talked about the theatrics that the Judiciary Committee is known for. You know, Democratic Senator Jon Erpenbach recently said, "people may not like impeachment simply because it adds to the drama of his presidency. And impeachment is not a high priority issue among voters."

In fact, our recent CNN poll showed it was near the bottom of priorities whereas the economy, which the president is, you know, singing as his strength, is up at the top.

LOUIS: Well, that's right. And then look -- and that's exactly what you would expect. Most people are concerned about their household, their family, what they're going to do at work and sort of move things forward for themselves personally. However, this is really important stuff. And honestly, I think we're going to hear the argument this week that this is not a responsibility that Congress can duck or dodge.

So, even if the Democrats who run the House of Representatives wanted to ignore this for political reasons, they don't really have that option. The actions are so egregious. The constitutional reading, as I understand it, is really pretty clear. They're going to debate it, but I don't see any way it comes down, other than this is stuff that is not supposed to happen.

You know, I mean, we have a black letter law in the constitution saying bribery is grounds for impeachment. And it says that Congress shall impeach. Not that you can think about it or if it's politically convenient, you can go in that direction. It says you have to do it, and I think that's really what we're going to see happen.

CABRERA: I'm going to give you a real quick last word, Michael since you're a legal scholar. Do you agree with that assessment?

GERHARDT: I do. I think it's a good way to put it. I think that there's probably more consensus than not on what the facts are on what the misconduct may have been. There also may be a fair degree of consensus on whether it rises to the level of impeachable offense. The politics of it are obviously in dispute, but the law I think is going to be much clearer than the politics.

CABRERA: All right, Michael Gerhardt, Errol Louis, it's great to have both of you here, thank you so much and happy Friday. Holiday bargain hunters are out on this Black Friday looking for door busters and deals. But can the in-store experience, again, going to the store, remember when you used to do that, can that compete with shopping online?

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CABRERA: We have breaking news right now out of London. Police confirming they're dealing with some kind of an incident at London Bridge. I want to go straight to Max Foster in London for us. What have you learned, Max?

MAX FOSTER, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Very early stages of this, Ana, but we know that the bridge that we're talking about here, the one next to Westminster in parliament, quite a well-known bridge, is on lockdown. And the sort of information we're getting, the confirmed information is that the police are dealing with an incident at London Bridge.

They're standing by in fact to give out updates. But there was a "BBC" reporter on the bridge at the time. And he is reporting that he saw a group of men involved in a fight on the bridge.

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