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Donald Trump Faces Two Big Deadlines For Impeachment Proceedings; Rudy Giuliani's Journey To Center Of Donald Trump's Impeachment Battle; Michael Bloomberg's Record As New York City Mayor Under Scrutiny; Joe Biden To Blitz Iowa On "No Malarkey" Bus Tour; Vladimir Putin Polishes Image In New Calendar. Aired 7-8p ET

Aired November 30, 2019 - 19:00   ET

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

[19:00:00]

ALEX MARQUARDT, CNN HOST: You are live in the CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Alex Marquardt in for Ana Cabrera in New York this evening. The President has openly complained that the House impeachment hearings have so far been unfair to him and that he has not been allowed to participate.

But now the Democrats are allowing him a chance to call his own witnesses or present his own evidence, will he? House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler is giving the White House until Friday at 5:00 to decide, but there is a more pressing deadline. Tomorrow at 6:00 pm, rather, that's when the President has to decide whether he'll send White House lawyers to the Judiciary Committee's opening impeachment session on Wednesday.

CNN White House Correspondent, Jeremy Diamond joins me from West Palm Beach where the President is spending his holiday weekend. Jeremy, the White House is saying that they're reviewing those two letters from Jerry Nadler. How likely is it that they'll accept his invitation to participate?

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, as you said, Alex, we're still waiting on official word from the White House about which way they're going to go and that despite the fact that they're in the 24-hour range for the first deadline for the President to design whether he'll send an attorney to the impeachment hearing on Wednesday.

So far sources have indicated to us that it is unlikely that the White House will agree to do that. The bigger question though is whether they will send attorneys to impeachment hearings going forward and for that they need to make a decision by that second deadline on Friday.

The President, though, for now, Alex, he's kind of reveling in the contrasts of what's going to happen this coming week with that impeachment hearing on Wednesday. The President will be abroad in London for the NATO summit and he just tweeted a few moments ago, I will be representing our country in London at NATO while the Democrats are holding the most ridiculous impeachment hearings in history. Read the transcripts nothing was done or said wrong. The radical left is undercutting our country. He notes again, hearing scheduled on same dates as NATO. So the President here clearly reveling in the contrast and arguing that Democrats are hurting the country by doing this while he's abroad. This is a familiar theme and during the Mueller investigation the President was also quite concerned with the appearance that this was lending to allies who he's meeting with abroad while he's under investigation back in Washington.

MARQAURDT: And, Jeremy, the Georgia Congressman Doug Collins, he's a Republican. He sent a letter to Chairman Nadler asking him to make sure that the witness lineup in the Judiciary Committee is, "Fair and credible" so that the impeachment inquiry is not just political theater.

So clearly, the President and his allies or rather the allies of the President are lining up to support him in this next phase. What more do you think we should expect from these proceedings this week and in the coming days?

DIAMOND: Well, Congressman Doug Collins is the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee and clearly, he has already signaling that he will be a voice of support for the President. He has previously criticized this impeachment hearing and what he's asking now is for the Democrats to invite more expert witnesses to this impeachment hearing on Wednesday.

They're only scheduled to have four expert witnesses to discuss the historical and constitution basis for impeachment. Collins is saying that should be expanded for fold essentially to match what happened during the Clinton impeachment, but as you said, Alex, this is really a sign that you will see Republicans doing the President's bidding to a certain extent and certainly at least trying to raise these fairness questions and this is one way that they can do that.

It's similar to what we saw Congressman Devin Nunes on the Intelligence Committee do a couple of weeks ago when he was asking for a list of Republican witnesses including Former Vice President Joe Biden's son Hunter Biden. That, of course, did not happen. We will see here if the Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee feel that it's in their interest to exceed to some of those Republican demands, Alex.

MARQUARDT: All right. Well, under 24 hours to go for that first deadline for the President to respond to Jerry Nadler. Jeremy Diamond in West Palm Beach thanks very much.

Joining me now with more is Olivia Nuzzi she is the Washington Correspondent for "New York Magazine" and CNN's Senior Political Analyst Ryan Lizza who is also the Chief Washington Correspondent for POLITICO. Thank you both for joining me.

Ryan, I want to go to you first. "The Daily Beast" has actually quoted one Judiciary Committee staffer saying that about next week's hearing they are determined to keep things as dull as possible. So we know that on Wednesday that they're going to bring in legal scholars who will give the historical background on impeachment. Ryan, if public opinion wasn't swayed already by what we saw in the Intelligence Committee and all of that dramatic testimony, do you think that Democrats are simply just checking a box with this phase of the impeachment proceedings before it moves to the larger House vote?

RYAN LIZZA, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: You know, I think that public opinion is - it is pretty stuck, but we should point out depending on the poll, it's around 50 percent that wants the President impeached and removed from office. Historically speaking, that is pretty - that is pretty high.

[19:05:00]

LIZZA: It didn't get higher than that with Nixon until right before he resigned with Clinton, the - it was a majority against impeachment almost the entire time. If you look closely at the polls, there is this gap where people believe that what Trump has been proven of doing, inviting Ukraine to interfere in our election is wrong, but there are a high percentage of people who believe it's wrong, but not necessarily impeachable.

So I think these constitutional scholars - I don't know if being boring is what they need to do, but what they do need to do is lay out the case for why that is something that rises to the level of impeachment and to try and close the gap between people who think it's wrong, but not impeachable.

I think that's the job for the Judiciary Committee and the next two weeks for the Democrats and for the Republicans it will be to complain about the process and I think a few of them will try to make the argument that yes, what he did was wrong, but not impeachable.

MARQUARDT: Jerry Nadler of course is about to take the steering wheel from Adam Schiff. The spotlight was last on Nadler during the Mueller probe and he actually got some criticism for how those hearings went and that included Congressman Steve Cohen showing up with a bucket of KFC to mock the Attorney General Bill Barr essentially calling him a chicken and then this now infamous really moment from the hearing with the Former Campaign Manager, Trump Campaign Manager Corey Lewandowski. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Could you read the exact language of the report? I don't have it available to me.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't think I need to do that and I have limited time. Did you meet along with the President on that date?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Congressman, I would like you to refresh my memory by providing a copy of the reports so I can follow along.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: President Trump was hounding you about when you were going to deliver that message, correct?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Completely inaccurate, Congressman. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, he asked you about it a few times didn't he?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, he did not. The White House has said - it is not my privilege to waive.

UNIDENTIFIFED MALE: I don't think it's anyone's privilege to wave - I don't think it exists, Mr. Lewandowski and I think the whole thing is imaginary and like the tooth fairy.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My children are watching, so thank you for that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MARQUARDT: Olivia, what are the different pressures that Jerry Nadler is going to be feeling now?

OLIVIA NUZZI, WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT, NEW YORK MAGAZINE: I think that there is a kind of fatigue. The polls are pretty stuck, as Ryan said, it's 50 percent in favor and 50 percent opposed, but there is - depending on the poll you look at, one in five people say that they're open to changing their minds and I guess the question is what would make anyone change their mind at this point in the process?

The facts are pretty much established, unlike Watergate this process began with the smoking gun and the White House released their own transcript which pretty much established what the facts are and established what the President did wrong. At this point it seems unlikely that anything will be revealed that will really change hearts and minds.

And so I think perhaps the difficulty will be keeping people engaged and pressing the case that this really matters when people are so stuck. It seems like things are just going to continue apace.

MARQUARDT: And we'll have a much better sense in the coming hours really how this next week is going to go. You have these two deadlines that Nadler has sent to the White House and the first one tomorrow night, and the next one next Friday when it comes to deciding whether he and/or his legal team will take part in these proceedings. Ryan, do you think that they will partake?

LIZZA: I doubt it. I mean, the way the rules are set up if they want to play ball there are certain things that they need to do in terms of document requests and other requests from the committee. So that's how the rules are set up. If the White House wants to have witnesses, then the Democrats are entitled to some other things.

At some point the White House will have to engage. So there are two more opportunities and one is in the Judiciary Committee and then if they don't engage there obviously they're going to be clearly articles of impeachment passed out at judiciary and passed on the House floor, and you know, and then we'll have a trial in the Senate and you know, the White House will have to change their game plan once it gets to a trial.

I don't think they're just going to have an empty desk while the Democrats prosecute their case. So at some point, you know, this will look - this will be a much more solemn occasion with the Chief Justice presiding and this is why I just disagree with Olivia a little bit. I do think that the public, once it focuses on a clear argument for why this was impeachable.

You could get some minds changed. Could you get some minds changed where two-thirds of the senate votes to convict? That seems - that seems unlikely at this point, but I think - I think the White House's strategy is ignoring the House and when it gets to the Senate they'll have a slightly different game plan.

[19:10:00]

NUZZI: But there's this strange dynamic where the White House's strategy is to ignore the House and the President is pretty much live tweeting or live responding during chopper talk as I think Stephen Colbert calls it to what's happening and so they're not really engaging and yet he has kind of a running commentary on what's going on and they're in a strange juxtaposition as happens in other context as well between the White House response and Donald Trump's response.

MARQUARDT: And just turning - shifting gears a little bit. We've seen the President kind of distancing himself when it comes to Rudy Giuliani saying he didn't really know what he was doing in Ukraine. Giuliani said this week that he was joking when he said he had an insurance policy in case the President turned on him.

Olivia, you just had a great piece about texting with Rudy Giuliani. How did you take that joke and have you heard from him recently after he was such a bold-faced name in those proceedings in the Intelligence Committee?

NUZZI: I have heard from him. I talked to him a couple of days ago right before the holiday. He is pretty consistent in what he has to say, that he is just furious with the press. He thinks that the press is not giving him a fair shake it's not paying attention to the fact, but obviously what Rudy Giuliani says and what President Trump says changes all of the time.

So what he said was not particularly surprising or game changing, but he just continues to kind of pretend like it's not possible that the President would ever throw him under the bus even though it seemed like what he said the other day might be an indication that he's about to and that he, you know, doesn't think he did anything wrong and the real story is about the Bidens and their corruption, allegedly.

But I do think Giuliani is kind of having a difficult time as Donald Trump's story changes a little bit, he said that he send him over there to investigate anything and sometimes he seems to have difficulty keeping up with what Donald Trump has to say and seems as if he learns about it from reporters which doesn't strike me as an ideal way to conduct your defense of the President.

MARQUARDT: All right. Folks, we have got to leave it right there. Thanks so much for coming on tonight. Ryan and Lizza, thank you. As we mentioned earlier, President Trump appears to be distancing himself from his Personal Lawyer Rudy Giuliani, and that begs the question. Is Giuliani about to get the Michael Cohen treatment? We'll take a look at that next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:15:00]

MARQUARDT: As the impeachment inquiry hangs over the White House, President Trump seems to be distancing himself from his Personal Lawyer Rudy Giuliani as Giuliani's work in Ukraine gets more scrutiny. CNN's Tom Foreman has details.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Well, you have to ask that to Rudy, but Rudy, I don't even know--

(END AUDIO CLIP)

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: President Trump is putting distance between himself and his Personal Attorney Rudy Giuliani and all of the accusations of dirty dealings abroad. Never mind that Trump specifically told the Ukrainian President in that now infamous phone conversation "I will have Mr. Giuliani give you a call." now he says of Giuliani--

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: No. I didn't direct him, but he - he - he is a - he is a warrior. Rudy is a warrior. Rudy went and you have to understand, Rudy has other people that he represents.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FOREMAN: It's a familiar pattern. Trump praises his allies and friends effusively right up until they get into trouble and then suggests he never knew them that well and certainly not what they were up to. Take his previous Personal Lawyer Michael Cohen for two of the years worked hand in glove.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAEL COHEN, THEN-PERSONAL ATTORNEY TO DONALD TRUMP: They say I'm Mr. Trump's pit bull that I'm his - I'm his right-hand man.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FOREMAN: But when Cohen came under intense legal pressure about campaign funds and payments to women allegedly involved with Trump, charges that would eventually land Cohen in prison and suddenly Trump seemed to know nothing about what his lawyer had been doing.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

TRUMP: I haven't spoken to Mike in a long time. He's a weak person and not a very smart person. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Have you talked to President Trump in the last week

or two?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FOREMAN: Cohen's successor Giuliani insists he and Trump are tight.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RUDY GIULIANI, PERSONAL ATTORNEY TO DONALD TRUMP: You can assume that I talk to him early and often.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FOREMAN: Amid the allegations, Giuliani was making a sneaky end run on official U.S. foreign policy, Giuliani tweeted, the investigation I conducted concerning 2016 Ukrainian collusion and corruption was done solely as a defense attorney to defend my client against false charges, but that doesn't say Trump ordered it, and the Acting Chief of Staff's assessment?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICK MULVANEY, ACTING WHITE HOUSE CHIEF OF STAFF: It's not illegal. It's not impeachable and the President gets to use who he wants to use.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FOREMAN: Still, Trump is leaving room for doubt that he was using Giuliani or aware of his actions.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: He's done a lot of work in Ukraine over the years, and I think - I mean, that's what I heard.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MARQUARDT: I think that's what I heard. As the President attempts to keep Rudy at arm's length and damaging allegations pile up about Giuliani's activities abroad, it is worth pausing to note that this was once the man known as America's Mayor in the post-9/11 trauma, Giuliani was both comforting and inspiring in what really was a moment of extreme crisis.

"Time Magazine" named Giuliani its person of the year in 2001, and the article then named clear that his history was complicated and that's something my next guest understands better than most in 2000. Before 9/11, Andrew Kirtzman wrote "Rudy Giuliani, emperor of the city," and it detailed Giuliani's political fortunes rather, his marital misfortunes and details of his turbulent years as the big apple's mayor, and clearly Giuliani's story did not end there. Andrew Kirtzman joins me now. Andrew, great to have you with me. You are working on a new book about Giuliani.

ANDREW KIRTZMAN, AUTHOR, "RUDY GIULIANI: EMPEROR OF THE CITY": That's right.

MARQUARDT: You started covering him as a City Hall reporter in the '90s?

KIRTZMAN: That's right.

MARQUARDT: is this where you saw his story going?

[19:20:00]

KIRTZMAN: No. No, I mean, Giuliani was always kind of a risk taker and kind of a combustible kind of public figure, but he always had kind of a discipline, and so he picked his targets very carefully and kind of aimed his fire very carefully here. There seems to be kind of a more undisciplined quality.

Also, you know, the risk he has taken in the last few years has been of a whole other proportion to what he had done in the past. I mean, looking for dirt on Joe Biden in Ukraine was remarkable enough, but now it seems as though there was a financial incentive as well and the people in Ukraine he was speaking with and he had a political task but also, he wasn't talked according to "The New York Times" that made hundreds of thousands of dollars from him?

MARQUARDT: So how do you explain this change?

KIRTZMAN: Well, I mean, something has happened. He's become a far more materialistic. I mean, he owns six homes. According to the times 11 country club memberships. I mean, finances are obviously, a much larger pressure Giuliani than they were back in the '90s when he didn't seem to care at all about money.

MARQUARDT: In your first book about Giuliani, you wrote is Rudy Giuliani a hero, a danger or both? How would you answer that now?

KIRTZMAN: I don't think it's for me to decide whether he's a danger or not. He's clearly in the middle of a constitutional crisis that could bring down a President, you know, once again, his judgment has always been something they think his aides back in the City Hall days were kind of very adept at kind of keeping under control, and I don't mean to overstate the fact that he was at times an absolutely brilliant mayor and an enormously competent and smart person, but his judgment has opened himself up to questions recently.

MARQUARDT: More than questions and he's actually being investigated by the Southern District of New York which is an office that he once ran?

KIRTZMAN: That's right.

MARQUARDT: How do you reconcile that?

KIRTZMAN: Well, I - you know, he seems to be okay, kind of flirting with disaster. Like he - I'm not a lawyer. I don't know whether he's broken laws but he seems to be kind of comfortable going right up to the line in the kinds of things he's doing in Ukraine.

MARQUARDT: There have been some who have questioned his mental capacity. Let's take a quick listen to some of that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN HOST: So you did ask Ukraine to look into Joe Biden.

GIULIANI: Of course, I did.

CUOMO: You just said you didn't.

GIULIANI: And you want to cover some ridiculous charge that I urged the Ukrainian government to investigate corruption. Well, I did, and I'm proud of it!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MARQUARDT: So the question some have asked is crazy or crazy like a fox?

KIRTZMAN: I don't - you know, I'm not a psychologist, and he seems out of control on television often. I mean, he seemed to be someone who at least is not practicing a lot of discipline on national television and seems to contradict himself and has often said things on television that he's had to kind of roll back. There is kind of a disinherited quality to him that has a lot of people kind of scratching their heads.

MARQUARDT: What did you make of that joke and he's made it a couple of times now that he's got insurance in case he gets thrown under the bus.

KIRTZMAN: Right. Again, I don't read Rudy Giuliani's mind. He obviously, you know, he's - he's got concerns. He's got a lot of problems on his hands right now and one of the many problems he has is whether or not Donald Trump is going to stick with him, right? And you just saw some evidence that Trump could finally part with him and it almost seems inevitable and does Giuliani have some dirt on Trump himself that could protect him? You know, possibly.

MARQUARDT: How would you characterize the growth of their friendship before all of this? They're obviously longtime New Yorkers. You were probably well aware that they knew each other and were friends. How did that friendship evolve?

KIRTZMAN: I don't think they were particularly close during Giuliani's Mayoralty though I think that they were all kind of simpatico in their style. I think what's happened now - fast forward a few decades is that Giuliani has taken on the role more of a protector than just an adviser, right?

I mean, he is obviously he'll go to the ends of the earth to defend Donald Trump and often seems like he'll defend the indefensible and I think that's why Trump has kind of stayed with him a lot longer than what Trump has stayed with a lot of other aides who have caused him embarrassment. I don't think that any single aide has been more loyal to Donald Trump than Rudy Giuliani.

And I think Trump appreciates that, it could get to the point I mean, Giuliani is on the brink of indictment according to some reports.

[19:25:00]

KIRTZMAN: At some point Trump will have to cut him loose and then it will be interesting because Giuliani won't go quietly.

MARQUARDT: Andrew Kirtzman, thank you very much and good luck with your next book?

KIRTZMAN: Thank you.

MARQUARDT: All right. Well, Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has launched his 2020 campaign with a $58 million ad buy. Will it be enough for him to capture the nomination? And a Bloomberg Senior Campaign Adviser joins me next to discuss that.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MARQUARDT: The newest Democratic Presidential Candidate Michael Bloomberg is now spending nearly $60 million on TV ads to launch his campaign, but in this city that made him famous, CNN's Jason Carroll shows us how Bloomberg's record as a three-term Mayor is under new scrutiny.

[19:30:00]

JASON CARROLL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: New York City, not a place known for its shortage of opinions and there are many when it comes to its Former three-term Mayor billionaire Michael Bloomberg.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAEL BLOOMBERG, (D) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The good news is we have won.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARROLL: His 12-year record a mixed scorecard and supporters applaud him for improving quality of life while critics say his policies disproportionately harm people of color and the poor. One of the most controversial aspects of his legacy, a policy called stop and frisk, a practice of temporarily stopping, questioning and at times searching civilians. Earlier this year Bloomberg saying the practice had helped reduce crime.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BLOOMBERG: Kids who walked around looking like they had a gun removed the gun from their pockets that stopped it and the result of that was over the years the murder rate in New York City went from 650 a year down to 300 a year when I left.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARROLL: In 2012 murders in New York City fell to 419, making it, at the time, the safest big city in America but at what price? Opponents of stop and frisk say it unfairly targeted the African-American and Latino communities where it is still a sensitive topic.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I mean, certainly stop and frisk was very controversial for me as a man of color.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It was embarrassing to educated black people and people with good job.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARROLL: Now after all these years, Bloomberg, the Presidential Candidate, has changed course and apologized for stop and frisk.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BLOOMBERG: I got something important really wrong. I didn't understand that back then, the full impact that stops were having on the black and Latino communities. I now see that we could and should have acted sooner too little, too late so says New York City's Mayor Bill De Blasio.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARROLL: Stop and frisk was discontinued in 2014 when he took office. Statistics show crime continued to drop even after he ended it. He called Bloomberg's apology an attempt to score political points.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAYOR BILL DE BLASIO, (D) NEW YORK: People are not stupid. They can figure out whether someone is honestly addressing an issue or whether they're acting out of convenience.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARROLL: There are Bloomberg critics for how he credited him for how he handled the city's economy during his tenure. In 2002 when he first took office New York was in a recession, still reeling from the September 11th terror attacks and by the end of his term Bloomberg was applauded for getting the city back on his feet, rebuilding once discarded sections of New York, places like the waterfront and Brooklyn and Queens.

Incomes for the wealthiest New Yorkers rose quickly coming out of the recession, giving rise to greater income inequality but on the whole, the city's recovery was robust.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There are some areas that he does deserve really high marks and the economy is one of them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARROLL: Eleanor Randolph is the author of the biography "The Many Lives of Michael Bloomberg".

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He handed the next Mayor a balanced budget with plenty of money to spare.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARROLL: Bloomberg's legacy is also one of a Mayor who wanted the city that never sleeps to get healthy. He built bike lanes and banned smoking in public places and banned Transfats and required calorie listings in chain restaurants, but he failed at prohibiting large, sugary drinks such as big gulp sodas. His actions prompted some tweekism of trying to turn New York into a so-called nanny state.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: North Carolina and Mississippi they passed law what they called Anti-Bloomberg laws so that local governments could not limb the amount of Coca-Cola you could get.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARROLL: Bloomberg's achievements and failures now debated on the national stage. Jason Carroll, CNN, New York.

MARQUARDT: Tim O'Brien is the Senior Adviser to the Bloomberg campaign and joins me now. Tim thanks so much for coming on tonight. I want to talk to you about something that Jason brought up there. Do you think that Mayor Bloomberg has to do a better job of addressing parts of his record if he'll bring voters to his side?

TIM O'BRIEN, SENIOR ADVISER, BLOOMBERG 2020: Clearly stop and frisk has gotten a lot of attention and the Mayor apologizes for it. He recognizes that it was a failed policy. He doesn't think that's the end of the discussion. He said he wants to earn back the trust of the Latino, Hispanic and African-American communities but the totality of his record as Mayor wasn't just stop and frisk.

Incarceration rates dropped dramatically, over 30 percent when he was Mayor. There's no not big city that had that, can claim that kind of a number and during that same time crime dropped. So they weren't - Mike Bloomberg wasn't lowering crime rates by incarcerating people.

MARQUARDT: But is that part of what's going to be doing now and explaining and justifying his record?

O'BRIEN: I don't think he needs to justify his record. I think he just needs to explain his record. Net-net Mike Bloomberg is one of the most successful Mayors in New York City history.

[19:35:00]

O'BRIEN: He ran a bureaucracy that is bigger than all but in five states. He diversified the police force. He made great strides in education and addressed homelessness and of course as your segment noted the economy rebounded during his term.

MARQUARDT: Let's look at some of his spending. He is self funding this campaign. He has just spent $58 million on TV ads. You can make the argument that he's starting late so he's got to get out there and blanket the airwaves but how do you avoid the perception that this is not a billionaire trying to buy the nomination.

O'BRIEN: Well, because Mike Bloomberg isn't just a billionaire he is a self made man. He is somebody who put himself through college and working as a parking lot attendant and he had loans. He needed to get through college. He was one of the most successful philanthropists on the planet. And as your segment noted, he was a successful Mayor.

I think what this is about isn't about buying an election and it's about having the platform and ability for Mike Bloomberg to tell voters who he is and what he can do for them. Spending obviously affords him the ability to do that and this is much more than that, this is really Mike bringing his story to a broad audience.

MARQUARDT: This obviously makes him a prime target for Senators Warren and Sanders who argue there are too much money in politics and too much power among the wealthy. How do you - how does Mayor Bloomberg look at this race and see that this is the moment in the Democratic Party that voters want a billionaire to participate in?

O'BRIEN: I think this is a moment in the Democratic Party where Democratic voters have to make sure that they can get behind somebody who can beat Donald Trump. That's why Mike Bloomberg is in this race. He respects the other Democrats who are running but he's coming out of the gate viewing this as him versus Donald Trump and he thinks of Donald Trump as the biggest exist earn threat the country's faced in his lifetime and that's why he's in this race?

He could have gone earlier, and he chose not to but I think as time went on he began to ask some doubts about whether Democrats can coalesce in the right way in the general election to defeat Donald Trump and that's why he's in it.

MARQUARDT: Well, the Democrat who was leading at least in national poll, Joe Biden he is just launched an eight-day bus tour of 18 counties in Iowa, but Mayor Bloomberg from the get go said he was skipping Iowa and New Hampshire. So how does skipping those first in the nation states line up with his claim that he is all in this race?

O'BRIEN: Well, you know, because he entered late it would be hard for him to really stake the claim of any of those states to begin with. Also remember, only about 4 percent of the delegates are in play in those first four states. The Democrats who are there have to be there because they need the time, they need the exposure and they need to fund raise.

There are no Democrats right now making a big push in the swing states. We're already there and swing states are where Democrats need to be if they're going to beat Donald Trump.

MARQUARDT: You, yourself, have written a lot about Donald Trump so how much of your role in this campaign is helping the Former Mayor understand the President who would be - his would-be opponent and the President's voters?

O'BRIEN: Mike Bloomberg is a veteran New Yorker and New Yorkers know Donald Trump's story very well each without me having to tell them and what we have to do is tell the nation why Donald Trump isn't Mike Bloomberg. Everything that Donald Trump says he is and he actually isn't a long term, successful businessman, someone who has created jobs rather than destroyed jobs and someone who knows how to manage and administer a sophisticated bureaucracy.

Trump has not been successful in any of those things Mike Bloomberg has and one of the things we're going to do throughout this campaign is pause how Mike Bloomberg would deliver to the country, the things that Donald Trump said he would or couldn't.

MARQUARDT: And it's just been reported by "POLITICO" that your campaign hired a former staffer from the Kamala Harris campaign, and a Senior Adviser who famously went out with a scathing resignation letter. She was very frustrated with her treatment. She was working in Iowa for them. Why make that higher?

O'BRIEN: Well, I think the Bloomberg campaign is going to hire great people so we can win this election and that's not a complicated answer and I think the fact that senior members of other campaigns want to come into the Bloomberg campaign right now and be a part of what we're doing I think says a lot about the campaign.

MARQUARDT: All right, Tim O'Brien, thank you so much.

O'BRIEN: Thank you, Alex.

MARQUARDT: Take care. As recent polls in Iowa show him losing support in the key state of Iowa Joe Biden is kicking off his no-malarkey bus tour. Will he be able to capture the momentum? We'll take you live on the campaign trail. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:40:00]

MARQUARDT: Democratic Presidential hopeful Joe Biden is on the move this Saturday canvassing Iowa as he begins his 18-county no malarkey bus tour with just 65 days left until the caucuses. Recent polls have shown Biden trailing Mayor Pete Buttigieg in that state and now Biden is trying to turn that around.

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: President Biden.

(LAUGHTER)

JOE BIDEN (D) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: You better - you have to come to mine.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I campaigned for Obama. I'm yours!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MARQUARDT: CNN's Arlette Saenz is on the road with Biden in Denison Iowa. Arlette, Biden is comfortably in the lead nationally in the latest CNN polls but slipping in Iowa according to our latest poll, so is the campaign banking on this bus tour to try to help close that gap?

ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN POLITICAL REPORTER: Alex, what the campaign is saying that this is really the next phase of the Presidential campaign, when voters are just starting to tune in a little bit more after the Thanksgiving holidays and so you have Joe Biden who will be barnstorming the state over the next eight days.

[19:45:00]

SAENZ: And as you mentioned, Pete Buttigieg is the leader right now according to the polls here in Iowa and Joe Biden is battling it out for second place with Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren and I asked him after his event in council bluffs earlier today about this bus tour and what this means for his campaign and take a listen to what he had to say.

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SAENZ: This bus is going to turn things around for your campaign tour?

BIDEN: I think our campaign is going fine, and I think it's going to help--

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Can you win the nomination without winning in Iowa?

BIDEN: Yes, but I'm going to win Iowa.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What do you want to tell voters?

BIDEN: Have you got an hour?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SAENZ: Well, Biden insisting there that he is going to win the caucuses here in Iowa in just a little over 60 days but there is a larger concern about his standing in the state and that is something that he's going to try to really focus on over these next days here in Iowa.

MARQUARDT: And Arlette, this is 8 day tour is taking him to about one- fifth of the state. We noted rather that he's going to 18 counties and that means he's skipping about 80 percent of them plus Des Moines. Why these 18 counties? Why has he chosen these areas to campaign in?

SAENZ: Well, a lot of these stops, Alex, are in rural communities like here in Dennison. So it's getting him out into areas that he hasn't been to so far in campaign. So a lot of these campaigns they focus on Des Moines and Cedar Rapids and this is getting him into other areas of the states to connect with voters, and it's going to be a mix of stops and he'll have a formal event here in a short while where the Former Governor Tom Vilsack and his wife Christi Vilsack which are big endorsements, they announce that they're supporting Joe Biden last week.

But Biden also will be meeting in events like this but also making local stops in fact just a short while ago he stopped at a gas station with a few reporters that were with him and he bought some cough drops and he stopped to watch the football game. That's one thing that the Biden campaign is really hoping could come across during this week- long trip.

What they believe is that Biden's ability to connect with voters is a key strength for him heading into the caucuses and that's something that they want to put on display as one campaign official said to me, the more one-on-one interactions Biden has with voters the better it is for his campaign Alex.

MARQUARDT: He's been talking a lot and he'll need those cough drops and you'll be with him every step of the way. Arlette Saenz, on the road with Joe Biden in Dennison, Iowa, thanks so much.

Now it is that time of the year again. Russian President Vladimir Putin and his annual calendar spread are out but one classic pose that you might recognize from past years is missing.

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[19:50:00]

MARQUARDT: Another year another calendar spread for Russian President Vladimir Putin. CNN's Brian Todd reports.

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Vladimir Putin's image making machine kicks into high gear. The Russian President's 2020 calendar is out predictably with pictures depicting him as a vital strong man, weight lifting with a cable pull, cuddling with a dangerous cat, and firing a high powered rifle. What we don't see in this year's edition, the classics Putin shirtless. No images of a bare-chested Former KGB Colonel on a horse, fishing or sun bathing.

ALINA POLYAKOVA, THE BROOKINGS INSTITUTION: Even now we get these images of Putin working out. But they're quite different. We no longer see bare chest of Putin. Putin is 67 now we have to remember that. So maybe the era of his physical strength as being something you show off is also coming to an end.

TODD: On the same day we saw Putin's new pictures President Trump tweeted a superimposed image of his head on rocky Balboa's body. Putin decidedally more conservative, the shirtless photos replaced with scenes of him with other world leaders like the Saudi Crown Prince, French President Macron and German Chancellor Merkel and this picture of Putin walking ahead of the much taller Donald Trump with Putin appearing deceptively tall. Analysts say the new images are crafted to project Putin as a statesman and play on Russians' new sensibilities.

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POLYAKOVA: This bare-chested nationalism which is represented by literally a bare-chested Putin is no longer really capturing the people's imagination. The Russian economy is in decline. Standards of living are slipping. You feel that. Russian people feel that.

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TODD: While Vladimir Putin doesn't flex as much physically he still pops his military muscle. According to the Kremlin backed news agency Interfax the Russian military has allowed U.S. inspectors to see one of Putin's newest and most dangerous weapons. The Avant-Garde Hypersonic Missile which Putin says can fly about a mile per second.

JEFFREY EDMONDS, FORMER NSC OFFICIAL: The real challenge posed is the speed at which it moves and the fact that it is maneuverable and also difficult to detect. You have something coming in very fast that is able to evade defenses that you may not know about until the last minute and that really poses certain, a very real challenge for U.S. defenses.

TODD: The Kremlin says the Avant-Garde which could carry a nuclear warhead will be ready for combat deployment by New Year's Day. Avant- Garde was part of a battery of sophisticated new weapons that Putin unveiled last year including an underwater drone that could carry a nuclear warhead from a submarine. Not all of these weapons have been completed but experts say their reflection of Putin's ambitions is unmistakable.

EDMONDS: To communicate with the United States I am a nuclear actor, a great power, and you have to deal with me on a global stage.

[19:55:00]

TODD: Vladimir Putin has run into trouble with his ambitious new weapons program. In August an explosion during what U.S. officials believe was a test of a missile with a small nuclear reactor onboard killed five scientists and caused a brief nuclear spike. Analysts say like the North Koreans, the Russians learned from their mistakes in these tests, and those mistakes will not stop the Russian President from charging ahead and developing even more weapons that can threaten the U.S. Brian Todd, CNN, Washington.

MARQUARDT: Thanks to Brian Todd. That's it for me. I'm Alex Marquardt. Thanks so much for joining me. I'll be back tomorrow at 5:00 p.m. Eastern Time. Coming up next is the CNN Film "Three Identical Strangers".

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