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Interview with Rep. Mark Green (R-TN); Rudy Giuliani Traveled to Ukraine and Hungary This Week; Live Coverage of Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) Press Conference. Aired 10:30-11a ET

Aired December 05, 2019 - 10:30   ET

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

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR, NEWSROOM: -- it did a review, as required by law. It looked at corruption. And a letter was sent to all the relevant committees saying, we have looked at it and Ukraine is proceeding on anti-corruption efforts to our satisfaction.

So the Pentagon --

REP. MARK GREEN (R-TN), OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE: Sure.

SCIUTTO: -- which is closer to this issue than anyone, it had already certified that --

GREEN: Sure.

SCIUTTO: -- the money was going to the right place.

GREEN: Absolutely. And the Pentagon should have a say in that, but so should State. I mean, the Department of State should also have a say in that. And so I think the president was just listening to everyone and forming an opinion about whether or not, you know, it was going to go to the right place.

And, remember, the Ukrainians did nothing to get the aid started back again. So it started as soon as -- I think it was Senator Portman who actually went over and came back to the president and said, look, this guy is serious about addressing corruption in Ukraine. And very shortly after that conversation, the aid started back again.

SCIUTTO: Let me ask you this. Because you and I have spoken a number of times and --

GREEN: Yes, sir.

SCIUTTO: -- you're interested in fairness, you've made a lot of public statements about the fairness of this process.

GREEN: Sure, sure.

SCIUTTO: As you know, the White House has blocked from testifying, virtually all the senior White House officials involved in these decisions -- Bolton, Mulvaney, et cetera -- as well as refused to supply documents, e-mails, et cetera. Does that strike you as a fair participation in this process? GREEN: You know, I would like to see the president articulating the executive privilege and say, this is executive privilege. But he does have that right to say, hey, this is something that we believe could, you know, hurt the United States or hurt his discussions with his advisors. You know, courts have ruled in the past that the president can protect those conversations, so I'm supportive of that. I'd just like to see a little more, you know, articulation about the protection of those things.

SCIUTTO: Should it be -- as you know, the president's lawyers have claimed absolute immunity. I wonder, as a sitting member of Congress, would you be comfortable with a Democratic president claiming absolute immunity over all conversations that that president has with any advisor over anything? Is that a precedent we want for this country?

GREEN: Sure. I think it depends on how they articulate it, you know? I want to hear, OK, this is why I can't have this conversation released to the public. With that statement, I would accept it.

SCIUTTO: OK, fair answer.

Let me ask you this. Because at the heart of this, right, is an allegation that the president and his personal lawyer, central to it, was --

GREEN: Sure.

SCIUTTO: -- running, in effect, a shadow foreign policy and seeking to dig up dirt, political dirt on a possible opponent for the president in 2020. As we speak, it's notable that Rudy Giuliani is back in Ukraine, he's meeting with friendly former prosecutors, he's meeting with members of parliament there -- pro-Russian members of parliament, I should note -- in Ukraine, digging up political dirt again.

Do you believe --

GREEN: Sure.

SCIUTTO: -- that's where the president's personal lawyer should be now, and is that acceptable as we have an election coming?

GREEN: You raise sort of a point that is one side of the coin. The other side of that coin is, is you've got people like Vindman who really wants to push his agenda in foreign policy and not support the president's agenda. So why wouldn't the president kind of go around that and send his own voice over there to speak for him?

You know, he's the elected president of the United States, 63 million- plus people chose him and said, here, you direct the foreign policy of this nation. Yet we've got these bureaucrats who think they can just undo what the president is doing. So I have no problem with the president going around it.

You know, you look at what Khrushchev and --

SCIUTTO: But all those -- those --

GREEN: -- Kennedy did.

SCIUTTO: -- bureaucrats, you call them, as they testified, Vindman, Hill, it's -- you know, Bill Taylor, appointees of this president, I should note --

GREEN: Yes.

SCIUTTO: -- they were carrying out U.S. policy as stated not just by the president, but as authorized by Congress, which was to provide military aid to an ally. They weren't --

GREEN: Sure.

SCIUTTO: -- making this stuff up, you know. They weren't making it up for the hell of it.

GREEN: But -- but -- yeah, but if you go back and look at their testimony, Jim, I mean, it's pretty clear that their agenda was different than the president's agenda, and they were advancing their agenda. I mean, you can't look at their testimony and assume anything differently.

So I have no problem with the president saying, well, heck, I'm going to just send someone on my own behalf. I mean, Kennedy did that with Khrushchev and it worked pretty good. So, you know, I don't have a problem with that.

SCIUTTO: Congressman Mark Green, always good to have you on the program.

GREEN: Thanks, Jim.

SCIUTTO: We hope you get a weekend (ph).

GREEN: Sounds great. Thank you. You, too.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR, NEWSROOM: Sounds like they won't get much of a weekend.

All right. Joining me now to discuss is CNN political commentator, Democratic strategist Paul Begala. Good morning.

PAUL BEGALA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Good morning.

HARLOW: So nice to have you.

BEGALA: Thanks, yes.

HARLOW: You just heard that interview --

BEGALA: Up in the big city with you.

HARLOW: Up in the -- that's what I tell my daughter. We're going to the big city. Thank you for being here. So just your reaction to Nancy Pelosi

making that statement this morning, we're moving forward. But the way she did it, she started hearkening back to 1776.

BEGALA: I thought that was moving. Yesterday, I watched the whole hearing. But during a break, I watched the tape of Barbara Jordan in 1974. She was one of my wife's professors, she was one of my heroes. When I worked in the White House, I put a portrait of her in my office. I wanted Barbara Jordan in the White House.

[10:35:01]

Barbara Jordan did that in 1974, she went back to the founders. I think it's really important for the speaker to do that. This is a solemn, somber moment. I went through the Clinton impeachment, we felt like the Republicans were not rooted in the Constitution and that they were just being partisan, the country agreed with us.

I think in this case, the speaker is very aware that if her party is seen as too partisan --

HARLOW: Yes.

BEGALA: -- that's a really bad thing for her party and for the country.

HARLOW: Is it too late, though, to make that shift? Because you have the Al Greens, you have --

BEGALA: Right.

HARLOW: -- comments from a number, especially, of, you know, of some of the more recent but also in the more liberal districts, who have been calling for this for a long time.

BEGALA: Oh. There was one member -- I don't even think even sworn yet -- who said, impeach the guy.

HARLOW: It's true.

BEGALA: And used a very foul epithet --

HARLOW: Right. And so I just --

BEGALA: -- that's a very good point.

HARLOW: -- I wonder what you think. You're a Democratic strategist --

BEGALA: Yes.

HARLOW: -- you get paid to do this stuff. What is the --

BEGALA: Well, used to. I don't advise politicians for a living --

(CROSSTALK) HARLOW: -- but yes, used to. But what --

BEGALA: -- any more. I do it for free because I love them, but.

HARLOW: -- used -- but yes, used to. But what -- we just pay you to be here and be smart.

But what is the biggest risk for the Democrats, as they go into --

BEGALA: This is the biggest risk.

HARLOW: -- this next phase?

BEGALA: The Democrats' biggest risk is if they're seen as the party of impeach-the-blankety-blank, right? The Republicans' big risk is as the party of shoot-a-man-on-Fifth-Avenue-and-get-away-with-it. I think that the tone that the speaker has set has helped put some of her more radical members in line, right?

You interviewed Steve Cohen, much more liberal than most Democrats --

HARLOW: Yes, but not today.

BEGALA: That's right.

HARLOW: Not today.

BEGALA: He's following his leadership base (ph), he said to you about 11 times. So --

HARLOW: Yes.

BEGALA: -- I do think Speaker Pelosi's got her folks in line.

HARLOW: Did I ask one too many times? I was trying to get the answer.

BEGALA: No, I thought it was great. But this is the thing. I do think it's critical for the Democrats to root themselves in the Constitution, put that first. I think they tried to do that with the hearing yesterday, having constitutional experts come in.

I think the Republicans are making a mistake by being seen as too partisan, screaming and yelling in those hearings. It's not a good look.

HARLOW: You remember the Clinton impeachment well --

BEGALA: I do.

HARLOW: -- you remember Jerry Nadler being a vocal --

BEGALA: Yes.

HARLOW: -- opponent of it, defending the president, saying you don't have bipartisan support here, you don't have the majority of the country. He believed it and said it in the '90s --

BEGALA: Right.

HARLOW: -- he believed it last year in November, when he said it on MSNBC. Does he not believe it now?

BEGALA: I believed it too. I had this conversation -- I probably shouldn't say off -- a conversation with Nancy Pelosi right after the Democrats won the majority, said that too. You should impeach the president when the Republicans ask you to, and not before. It has to be bipartisan. And yet it's not.

I think the thing is, this Ukraine scandal is exactly what the founders talked about. It is a president influenced by foreigners to corrupt an election, allegedly. That's exactly what is in the Federalist Papers.

HARLOW: Then why is it not bipartisan in support?

BEGALA: You've got to ask the Republicans that. I am stunned --

HARLOW: Oh, we invite tons on our show every day --

BEGALA: Right.

HARLOW: -- good for Mark Green for coming on.

BEGALA: But they're shooting (ph) a (ph) man (ph) on Fifth Avenue. I think Professor Gerhardt had it right yesterday. If this not impeachable, what is?

And I think -- I don't mean to speak for Nadler or the speaker, I think they're as shocked as I am. I thought that there would be -- there would be some, several, dozens probably, of Republicans who said, look, we have to look into this.

HARLOW: Finally this. John Dean --

BEGALA: Yes.

HARLOW: -- saying on Twitter -- and a few other people are echoing it -- go ahead and impeach him in the House, don't move it to a Senate trial, keep investigating. Good strategy?

BEGALA: I think it has -- if they impeach him, I believe impeachment is self-executing. As soon as the House votes, the Senate has no choice but to hold a trial. They must continue investigating anyway.

I hate to say this, but I think this is not the first impeachment of Donald Trump. I think he is a -- I think he is a one-man crime wave. I think he is a recidivist. As soon as Mueller finished testifying, he gets on the phone and tries to shake down the Ukrainians. I don't believe that's the only time he's ever done it. I think criminals commit crimes.

And so I think the Democrats have to continue oversight. They may have to continue impeachment investigations. It strengthens their legal hand as well, to try to compel testimony of the people who were actually involved in this that the president's blocking from testifying. If there's an open impeachment investigation, I think that allows them to do that.

HARLOW: Paul Begala, thank you.

BEGALA: Thanks, Poppy.

HARLOW: Good to have you --

(CROSSTALK)

BEGALA: Good to see you in person.

HARLOW: -- in person, in the big city.

[10:38:53]

Rudy Giuliani is refusing to confirm that he went to where this week? Ukraine. But a Facebook post from a Ukrainian lawmaker suggests, yes, he was there. What was the purpose of the trip?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SCIUTTO: The core of the impeachment inquiry is that the president subjugated U.S. foreign policy, U.S. national security for a domestic political errand using his personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, in Ukraine.

Well, today, Rudy Giuliani's apparently back in Ukraine. A lawmaker there says that he met with the president's personal attorney in Kiev, the capital, this week -- there's a photo there -- claiming that they're working on anti-corruption efforts.

But this comes after "The New York Times" reports that Giuliani also traveled to Hungary as well as Ukraine, to meet with former prosecutors in an effort to defend President Trump and dig up political dirt on his opponents. CNN reporter Michael Warren is following this.

I mean, this is truly remarkable. As the House proceeds with the articles of impeachment against the president, it appears the president's personal attorney is back in Ukraine, possibly doing similar work to what started this whole thing.

MICHAEL WARREN, CNN REPORTER: That's right. Almost a year after he began speaking with Ukrainian officials, the "Times" reporting that Giuliani traveled to Europe, sort of working with "One America News," which is this pro-Trump cable channel.

SCIUTTO: Right, even more pro-Trump than Fox.

WARREN: That's right. And of course, Giuliani told our colleague Dana Bash he wouldn't confirm where he is. But we have this Facebook post from this Ukrainian politician, who -- SCIUTTO: Pro-Russian politician, we (ph) know (ph).

[10:45:00]1

WARREN: That's right. And sort of engaging in these conspiracy theories. But, look, he's -- they apparently talked about corruption. We know what corruption has been a byword for, sort of in the Giuliani-Trump world, which is these investigations that Trump has wanted into both the Bidens -- corruption cases with the Bidens -- and also whether or not the Ukrainians, some Ukrainians were involved in interfering in the 2016 election on behalf of Democrats.

No charges have been -- you know, no evidence to either of those, but of course those are the two sort of issues that Giuliani has been pushing for about a year, again, to the president, that have landed the president in this ongoing impeachment inquiry.

SCIUTTO: And the folks he's meeting with there -- I mean, you mentioned pro-Russian politicians, fired prosecutors, right? Who -- do they have credibility in terms of actually going after corruption as the president and his allies have claimed is the real focus of this?

WARREN: Well, Giuliani has certainly been pushing this idea that these were both -- that the first one, Viktor Shokin, was pushed out sort of at the behest of Joe Biden. There is no proof of that. In fact, many Western governments were trying to get Shokin pushed out of that top prosecutor (ph) role --

SCIUTTO: Precisely because he was not pursuing corruption aggressively enough, right? Yes.

WARREN: Exactly. And then his successor, Lutsenko, who Giuliani's supposedly also meeting with, was of course talking with Giuliani at a time when Ukraine was having his own presidential election. He was trying to hold onto his job as well, he's now out as well.

A lot of Ukrainian experts say both of them are pushing these sort of conspiracy theories that, again, not based in any fact. But Giuliani and a lot of sort of his supporters and associates in conservative media have been pushing for the better part of a year. And again, of course, has reached the president of the United States.

SCIUTTO: And -- well, you wonder, was there any lesson learned by this? Does the president feel that his personal attorney, he can get away with this? We'll see. Michael Warren, thanks for digging deep for us -- Poppy.

HARLOW: OK. President Trump and his allies have repeatedly claimed U.S. intelligence agencies tried to spy on his campaign. A new watchdog report, we have details from this coming report, undercutting that.

And any minute now, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will take reporter questions on a big day. We're on it. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARLOW: Let's listen to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi taking questions.

REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA), SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: -- having listened to our constituents and, again, working on our For the People agenda. During the election of a year ago, we promised a For the People agenda. And part one of that was to lower the cost of health care for all Americans by lowering the cost of prescription drugs.

This week, we will be bringing to the floor -- next week (INAUDIBLE), we'll be bringing to the floor H.R. 3. It is the most transformative legislation to affect Medicare since Medicare's founding. It helps all people, though. It will -- American seniors and families won't have to pay more for medicines.

As you know -- or as you probably know, it gives the secretary the authority to negotiate for lower drug prices. It does so in a way that also enables prices in America to be more commensurate with the cost of the drug as reflected in what is paid for overseas. So we can go into that if you have more questions about it. But we're very excited about H.R. 3.

This week, we will have H.R. 4 on the floor. H.R. 4 is the Voting Rights Advancement Act. Since the Shelby decision, Supreme Court decision on voting rights, 23 states have enacted voter suppression laws that deny millions of Americans their voice -- their vote.

Now, 55 years after the passage of the Voting Rights Act, we must protect the bedrock power of the ability of people to have the right to vote. So that will be on the floor this week. H.R. 3, H.R. 4. There are other legislation on the floor. I hope that you observe it -- one of it to address the insider trading that is coming up this week as well.

[10:50:03]

And then just to say, we have 275 bills. Let (ph) me (ph) emphasize (ph) that to you. Legislate, investigate, litigate. In our legislation, we have 275 bills that are bipartisan on Mitch McConnell's desk. The Grim Reaper says all we're doing is impeachment? No, we have 275 bipartisan bills on your desk.

Among them are background checks. This week, as soon as we got back, we had a vigil. I have these, these are bullets, one from a survivor. And last night, we had a vigil of our -- all this number of years since Newtown. And every year, we have this vigil.

But every day, we pray that Mitch McConnell will pass that legislation because it will save lives. Twenty-five thousand people have died since we sent the bill over, since we sent the bill over. Not all of them would have been saved, but many of them would have.

We have Paycheck Fairness for women, we have Equal Pay for Equal Work, Paycheck Fairness, Violence Against Women Act reauthorization, issues that relate to raising the minimum wage. Thirty-plus million people will get an increase in their pay if we raise the minimum wage, 23 million of them women.

The Equality Act to end discrimination against LGBTQ community; Dream and Promise Act, keeping our promise to our precious Dreamers; SAFE Act, saving our federal election system, that they don't seem to be interested in doing. The list goes on and on.

And the Climate Action Now, H.R. 9, that was legislation that we talked about last weekend, when I took a delegation -- there were 14 of us -- to Spain for the COP25. We were very well-received there.

Our message was, we're still in even though the president has opted out of Paris, the Paris accord. We are there, saying in the House of Representatives, in state houses, in governors' mansions, in city halls across the country, in the private sector and in the public sector, Americans are still in.

Our children know better than some of the leaders in Washington, D.C., the urgency of the climate crisis. It's a public health issue -- clean air, clean water, food safety -- it's a jobs issue, it's an economic issue. Jobs, jobs, jobs, good-paying green jobs, keep America number one, pre-eminent in the green technologies. It's a defense issue because the world is in peril from the climate crisis.

If you were there, you would have heard very dire comments. A recent U.N. report explaining how close to a real problem we are. I mean, it's -- the clock is ticking.

As you know, we have a great deal of exuberance in our caucus on this subject, and we want to work together under the leadership of Kathy Castor, our chair of the Select Committee on Climate, as well as the other committees of jurisdiction.

The last point I'll make is that if you do believe, as I, that this is God's creation, we have a moral responsibility to be good stewards of it. If you don't believe that it's God's creation, you must agree that we have a moral responsibility to pass it on to future -- the planet on to future generations.

So let's legislate, investigate. As I have mentioned this morning, we've heard from patriotic public servants, some of them appointed by President Trump, present the facts. And they're -- they are just undeniable, the facts of the president's actions. I won't go into it unless you ask.

You heard yesterday in the Judiciary Committee, the scholars present the Constitution and how the facts and the Constitution give us no choice but to impeach -- move forward with impeachment of the president. And so I'm ready for the chairs -- we have six chairs, the relevant committees -- to make recommendations about articles of impeachment.

Legislate, investigate, litigate. We're winning every court case, whether it's Deutsche Bank with the president's records, Mazar case for the president's records. The list goes on, but they keep -- they keep bumping it up to a higher court. Now some of it is approaching the Supreme Court level. And so we're waiting to see if the court will even take up something that is so in defiance of their precedents -- precedent, that says, yes, Congress has the right to subpoena and oversight over the executive branch.

[10:55:21]

In that regard, I just want to say this to you, my friends in the press. When you keep asking, why don't we wait for these court cases? The president's actions in sending all these -- taking these things to court and then bumping them up in court is an obstruction of justice. And so we're not going to be accomplices to his obstruction of justice. We have our constitutional responsibility, we have our facts and we will act upon them.

And as the courts act -- since (ph) we're operating in the Congress and in the courts -- and as the courts come forward with their decisions, whenever that may be, the president will have to be held accountable for that at that time.

Any questions?

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You've been -- you've been hesitant for weeks to make this move, and cautious to make this move to impeach. Was there an aha moment for you personally, a piece of evidence or testimony that swayed you now to take this step?

PELOSI: Well, of the -- I'm glad you asked that question because all I hear from the press is that I'm moving so swiftly that it's like a blur, going by. This has been a couple of years -- two and a half -- since the initial investigation of the Russian involvement in America's election, which started much of this and then led to other things.

But I do think the aha moment for the country was the -- the action taken by the -- President Trump appointee, the inspector general of the intelligence community, who said that there was a credible report from a whistleblower of grave concern, and that Congress should be aware of that.

And that is -- the facts of the Ukraine situation just changed everything. The polls went from 59 opposed to impeachment, 24 in favor, to about even.

And let me just say this. This isn't -- we are saying that Ukraine -- the Ukraine was the vehicle of the president's action, asking a president of another country to make an announcement that he was investigating the president's political opponent and withholding military assistance that was voted by the Congress of the United States unless and until he did so, the president did so.

But this isn't about Ukraine, this is about Russia. Who benefited by our withholding -- withholding of that military assistance? Russia, it's about Russia. Russia invading eastern Ukraine. Over 10,000 people died, now maybe 13,000, some of them in the absence of our conveying that military assistance that was voted in a bipartisan way by the Congress of the United States.

So sometimes people say, well, I don't know about Ukraine, I don't know that much about Ukraine. Well, our adversary in this is Russia. All roads lead to Putin, understand that.

And so that was the aha moment, where we had -- see, in all the other cases, we had the obstruction of justice, but we didn't have as much information as to what he was obstructing justice on (ph) because the White House was withholding the information and not enabling us, that even Richard Nixon enabled us to have, the grand jury testimony. That was a --

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You mentioned this previous investigation. Do you want to see elements of the Mueller report or these other investigations --

PELOSI: Not going to talk about that, OK? I'm not going to be talking -- my chairman will be making recommendations as to what the -- the -- our counsel, our lawyers, our chair, the staffs of the committees have been sensational. And we look to them for their judgment about what the articles of impeachment -- with all due respect to your question, I'm not here to talk about that because that -- that's what they'll be working on.

And let me just say, in that regard, what was really remarkable in the course of these weeks is, people have heard us talk about this. They hear about the I.G. (ph), this and that.

[10:59:39]

A few weeks ago, for two weeks, under leadership of Adam Schiff, a former -- extremely proud, we're working with Adam Schiff and Eliot Engel, our beloved Elijah Cummings, whom we miss terribly but is and continues to be an inspiration to us, and now Carolyn Maloney. The three committees of jurisdiction -- Intelligence, Foreign Affairs, and Government Reform -- had hearings bringing in, again, patriotic Americans, some appointed by the president -