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Pelosi Gets Into Heated Exchange With Reporter; U.S. House Panel Told To Draft Articles Of Impeachment; High Speed Chase; Tragic Test Flight Of Black Hawk; Suspects In Gang Rape And Murder Killed In Shootout; France Protest; Massive Demonstrations Over Pension Reforms; Countdown to Crucial National Vote; Climate Crisis; U.S. Considers Sending More Troops to Iran; Protest in Iran Continues; Giuliani Post Cryptic Tweets About Misuse of Funds in Ukraine; Nancy Pelosi Talks About Articles of Impeachment; Joe Biden Called a Vote in Iowa a Liar; Nancy Pelosi Lashes Out on Reporter. Aired 3-4a ET

Aired December 06, 2019 - 03:00   ET

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

[03:00:00]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: -- I did not accused you.

REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA), U.S. HOUSE SPEAKER: You did. You did.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I asked the question. Representative (inaudible) yesterday suggested that the Democrats are (inaudible), because they don't like the guy.

PELOSI: (Inaudible).

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think it's important --

PELOSI: I think the president is a coward when it comes to helping kids who are afraid of gun violence. I think he is cruel when he doesn't deal with helping our DREAMERS. I think he's in denial of that about the climate crisis. However, that's about the election.

This is about the -- take it up in the election. This is about the constitution of the United States and the facts that lead to the president's violation of his oath of office. And as a catholic, I resent your using the word hate in a sentence that addresses me. I don't hate anyone. I was raised in a way that is a heart full of love and always prayed for the president. And I still pray for the president. I pray for the president all the time, so don't mess with me when it comes to words like that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NATALIE ALLEN, CNN ANCHOR: Nancy Pelosi there at the end of her announcement. Well articles of impeachment against U.S. President Trump could be drawn up and approved by the end of next week. For more about it here's CNN's Phil Mattingly on Capitol Hill.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PELOSI: Today I am asking our chairman to proceed with articles of impeachment.

PHIL MATTINGLY, NEW YORK BASED CNN CORRESPONDENT: Twelve words for history. Speaker Nancy Pelosi making clear President Trump is almost certainly on a path to be impeach by the House.

PELOSI: It's heart breaking but the president gave us no choice.

MATTINGLY: Sources tell CNN, Democrats are considering articles including abuse of power, bribery, obstruction of Congress and obstruction of justice. Even as some Democrat sources say have told leaders they remain wary of expanding the scope beyond the Ukraine investigation and into elements of special counsel Robert Mueller's report. Pelosi today refusing to get into internal deliberations.

PELOSI: My chairman will be making recommendations.

MATTINGLY: But the timeline for a final vote coming more into view as the House Judiciary Committee announced its next impeachment hearing for Monday. The committee could consider articles of impeachment as soon as the end of the week. And final floor votes on the articles the week of December 16th. House Republicans continuing with complete unity to oppose each step of the process.

REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY (R-CA): Today with the speaker's announcement she has weakened this nation.

MATTINGLY: As their Senate counter parts met this week with the top White House lawyer to plan the president's defense. The actual structure of the Senate trial, though, still unknown.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's impossible to answer your question right now.

MATTINGLY: Senate leaders plan to meet and try to hammer out a bipartisan road map forward. There remains no guarantee one will come to fruition. Leaving open the possibility that a White House push for live testimony from people like Hunter Biden and the whistleblower may be subject to a simple majority vote in a chamber where Republicans control 53 seats, something one Democratic Senator told CNN would be like, quote, rolling a hand grenade into the chamber, the kind of institutional schism that is already firmly under way in the House. As seen on live TV where in a rare show of anger, Pelosi fired back on a reporter.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you hate the president, Madam Speaker?

PELOSI: I don't hate anybody. We don't hate anybody, not anybody in the world. So don't you accuse me --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I did not accuse you.

PELOSI: You did.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I asked the question. MATTINGLY: Walking back to the microphone to make her point for all

to hear.

PELOSI: As a catholic, I resent your using the word hate in a sentence that addresses me. I don't hate anyone. I was raised in a way that is heart full of love and always prayed for the president. So don't mess with me when it comes to words like that.

MATTINGLY: It was an extraordinary moment that you just saw in that press conference. But one of the key questions about the speaker and her caucus are going to have to get their arms around over the course of the next couple of days. The actual scope and scale of those articles of impeachment. Some are very well-known, some related to Ukraine are pretty much understood to be coming no matter what.

The big question though is about an obstruction of justice article related to Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report. Now, Democrats are signaling that they will in fact include elements of that report into an article of impeachment on obstruction of justice. It's something Democrats have cautioned against doing, Democrats who didn't come on board with the impeachment inquiry until it was explicitly and specifically about Ukraine. Still the negotiations are ongoing. They are very closely held. We'll just have to wait and see what they actually come up with. Phil Mattingly, CNN, Capitol Hill.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ALLEN: And just hours ago Nancy Pelosi appeared at a CNN town hall where she explained why the U.S. House must move forward with impeachment.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[03:05:00]

PELOSI: I believe that we should introduce articles of impeachment. This is a very sad day I think for our country. It's something that I would have hoped we could have avoided, but the president's actions made it necessary. You cannot violate the constitution in full view. The facts are clear, they were presented by the people who had access to the situation. The facts are clear. The constitution is clear. The president violated the constitution. And so I think it is important for us to proceed.

JAKE TAPPER, CNN CHIEF WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Earlier this year you talked about how you thought when you were opposing impeachment, you said you thought that the president was trying to go to the House into impeachment in order to rally his base. There's something different about this moment that makes you think that he's not doing that?

PELOSI: Well, his goading his one thing, his violation of the constitution challenging us to honor our oath of office. We take the oath as the first order of business. To protect and defend the constitution of the United States. The president's oath is to preserve, protect and defend the constitution. He's not doing that. And this is -- this is about our country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ALLEN: CNN legal analyst and former federal prosecutor Michael Zeldin joins us now. Michael, thanks for coming on.

MICHAEL ZELDIN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: My pleasure.

ALLEN: Well, it is looking like another U.S. President will likely be impeached. What are your thoughts on this moving forward as far as the effect on our country and where our country is right now?

ZELDIN: Well, it seems that we are going forward towards impeachment. Speaker Pelosi indicated today that she is authorizing the Judiciary Committee to return articles of impeachment if approved in the committee, which it will be because it will go on a partisan vote. They will then move to the House of Representatives for a full vote and they will pass the House of Representatives and that will go to the Senate.

And then the trial will take place in the Senate. And then the camps on each side will be armed to the teeth, fighting to the death about whether this is impeachable or not impeachable, it's not going to be pleasant.

ALLEN: Right, when you say a Senate trial, why is that phrase used? We've seen hearings, we've seen inquiries and now we have a Senate trial. How will that look as opposed to what we've seen so far in this process?

ZELDIN: So the constitution says that the House of Representatives has the right solely to level articles of impeachment, which are just charges. Once those charges pass the House of Representatives, then the constitution says those charges shall be tried in the Senate as a trial. And if 67 of the hundred Senators vote to convict, then the impeached party, in this case President Trump would be removed from office.

So it looks like a trial. The chief justice of the Supreme Court presides over the Senate. The Senators act as jurors hearing the evidence. And then after the evidence is presented and closing arguments are made, the Senators vote, convict or not convict.

ALLEN: All right, leading up to that meantime do you expect that Democrats will look beyond Ukraine in the articles of impeachment and look at the president's overall behavior in office? What else might that entail if they did?

ZELDIN: Yes, that's a terrific question. Some Democrats really want to keep the articles of impeachment narrowly focused on Ukraine. His abuse of office, the bribery, quid pro quo allegation that he held funding up to Ukraine until he got his investigation of the Bidens.

And then the obstruction of Congress, his refusal to allow anyone in the administration to testify before Congress or to produce documents to Congress. Some would like to add to that the obstruction of the Mueller investigation. So an obstruction of justice count saying that the president obstructed, interfered with, delayed the Mueller investigation, and he should be just like Bill Clinton was, charged with obstruction of justice.

There's no clear point of view on that. They're debating it now. The people who favored just Ukraine say it's a much simpler narrative for the American people to get and that the resurrection of the Mueller investigation allows the Republicans more ammunition to muddy the waters, but they've got to figure that out. And we'll hear in the next couple of days probably by the end of next week how they decide.

ALLEN: Well, as this moves forward and as you say it's going to get more rough and tumble moving towards the Senate, President Trump is saying hurry-up, do it, impeach. He wants it to get into the Senate. What do you think of his statement there, and do you have a concern that Democrats are moving too quickly as some people question? They didn't take this to the court, they did -- they had more investigations to do, but they keep talking about this random Christmas perhaps deadline.

[03:10:15]

ZELDIN: Yes, it's very complicated. In an ideal world if it was just a normal prosecution against an ordinary citizen you would not bring the charges at this point. You would fully investigate, you would make sure that all the witnesses that you needed to testify were allowed to testify and then you'd make a conclusion.

But in this case, because the election of 2020 is so close that the Democrats feel that if they wait for the courts to make a decision, they will not get an answer as to whether these crucial witnesses can testify until after the election. And they feel that it is important constitutionally, as a matter of principle to sanction the behavior of the president now.

And you know, we'll see whether that works or doesn't work, but that's the debate. You know, if you've got this conduct which is impeachable and you've got sufficient evidence before you, do you wait until you get more evidence, or do you just go with what you've got knowing that if you go with what you've got you get a trial now. If you wait until the courts decide it might not be until 2021 that all the litigation is resolved.

ALLEN: Right. That would be kind of a catch-22 would it not to this process? Michael Zeldin, we really appreciate your insights. Thanks so much.

ZELDIN: Thanks, Natalie.

ALLEN: Staying with the U.S. now, a high-speed chase in Florida left two suspects dead as well as two people tragically caught up in the gunfire. The FBI says after a jewelry store was robbed on Thursday, two suspects hijacked a united parcel service truck, kidnapped its driver and led police on a chase.

On the highway police exchanged gunfire with the suspects. Both were killed there in that truck, but also dead are the UPS driver and a bystander. The FBI says it's investigating whether they were killed by gunfire from the hijackers or from the police.

Also three U.S. National Guard members died in a black hawk helicopter crash in Minnesota. The governor said the crew was conducting a maintenance test flight Thursday afternoon when they lost contact with air traffic control. Nearly an hour after they went missing the chopper was found tangled in trees on a farm. Investigators are expected to arrive later today to try and determine the cause of the crash.

We are following breaking news out of India where four suspects who confessed in the high profile gang rape and murder case apparently were killed in a shoot-out with police. For the latest let's go to Vedika Sud, she's in New Delhi. What can you tell us about what just transpired?

VEDIKA SUD, JOURNALIST: Natty, the details are limited as we speak but what I can tell you is that I've spoken with the police here back in India. They claim that this was an incident of crossfire, not an encounter as many are suspicious it could be. And also the police officer I spoke to has gone onto tell us about the four men accused in this case. They were taken to the crime spot earlier this morning between 3:00 and 6:00 a.m. And they apparently snatched the revolvers out of the hands of the police officials on the spot.

How many of them, there's no clarity on that yet, and they began to shoot at the police personnel. It's then when the police officials also fired back at the men accused and they died on the spot. They had called for an ambulance. I even asked the police representative form Hyderabad, on whether they died on the spot. He said, well, yes, they died before the ambulance could get there.

Now, this issue has also been taken up in parliament. Politicians are divided over it. You have a lot of the opposition leaders talking about how this is something that the law should handle and not the police. There is criticism coming in the wake of the Hyderabad police, but you have a lot of other politicians also lording the incident and the killing of these four men accused on the roads of Hyderabad.

There are people celebrating this incident. They claim this is instant justice. Also word on the family of the rape victim, they have lorded the Hyderabad police for taking this step. Well, we are waiting the press conference. That's where most of the clarity over this incident will -- we will be able to obtain from the press conference. But as of now those are the limited details we have for you. There has been this incident that took place between 3:00 and 6:00 this morning. The police not giving us too much yet on it. That press conference should yield a lot more.

[03:15:00]

ALLEN: All right, we'll wait and see what they say. Vedika Sud, for us there in New Delhi, thank you.

Ahead here, a nationwide strike in France disrupts the country. Trade unions hope it can persuade President Macron to back down from his pension reform plans. We'll take you there live for the latest.

Also the countdown is on in the U.K. as voters head to the polls in less than a week. Coming up, we're live from London with a look at where the candidates stand ahead of this general election.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ALLEN: Tensions and anger are flaring on the streets of France as thousands of workers strike over President Emmanuel Macron's plan to overhaul the retirement system. The walkout has crippled France's transportation system, but Mr. Macron vows to push ahead with the reforms. How will he do that? CNN's Jim Bittermann is joining us now live from Paris. Hello, Jim.

JIM BITTERMANN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Natalie. Things are a little bit better this morning but not much better. In fact, the overall transport picture looks a little bit worse in some areas if you're commuting by car, for instance, it was more difficult this morning and about 50 percent longer traffic jams around the Paris area.

[03:20:04]

There are a few more regional trains running, but they're the long- distance trains is still only about one out of 10 long distance trains are running. And some strikers have backed off a little bit, the schoolteachers for example there's only about 10 percent of them that are on strike this morning. Probably because the ministry of education has announced that it's going to improve the pay pacts of the teachers somewhat, and that's kind of reduced the tensions there.

In any case there's still a long way to go, and I think one of the questions is how long these strikes are going to go on. The unions are looking at that today. They're certainly going to go on at least until Monday in some sectors and beyond that it's another question. One of the paradoxical things about this whole affair and this country is full of paradoxes is that the government has yet to announce exact details of the pension reform plans.

And the strikers that are out on the streets basically based on the worst-case scenarios that they've been presented with by their unions, and as a consequence a lot of people are upset and perhaps unnecessarily so if the government announces something somewhat less in the worst case. Natalie.

ALLEN: All right. And we're looking at a live video of a very quiet train station there. Jim Bittermann following developments there in Paris. Thanks, Jim.

With less than one week to go before the U.K. general election, candidates are not wasting time trying to get out to vote. And that means ensuring voters know where they stand on key issues such as you know it, Brexit. Scott McLean reports for us from London.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) SCOTT MCLEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Jo Swinson may be a boxing novice,

but she's taking a big swing at Brexit. Despite the unmistakable message voters sent to Westminster in 2016.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Fifty-two percent to 48 percent nationwide in favor of Brexit.

MCLEAN: Swinson the fresh faced leader of the centrist liberal Democrats is aiming to capitalize on the central issue of the election campaign, Brexit. She's courting the 48 percent who voted to remain by pledging to cancel Brexit altogether, revoking the article 50 process. No debate, no vote.

JO SWINSON, BRITISH LIBERAL DEMOCRAT LEADER: This is a Democratic election now and people can make a choice. And if they want to stop Brexit as liberal Democrats, we are standing up from what we believe is the right position.

MCLEAN: Do you not respect the 52 percent of people who voted to leave the E.U. or you just think that you know better than them?

SWINSON: I respect them and I respectfully disagree.

MCLEAN: Swinson's Party is pulling a distant third nationally, but hopes to do better after making a pact with two smaller pro-remain parties who agreed not to stand against each other in 60 constituency all to consolidate the remain vote. The Green Party is part of that pact, but candidate Caroline Lucas is no fan of Swinson's plan to cancel Brexit without a vote.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (Inaudible) I want to play you a clip.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You want to send a message to 17.4 million people but you don't give a (BEEP) about what I just said.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Caroline Lucas, you pussy mouth.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: In my defense I didn't realize that it was being recorded. So, although I standby the sentiment.

MCLEAN: On his call and radio show host Ian Dale regularly gets an earful from voters who feel like it's the political establishment and the country's elites calling the shots, not them.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There are reason to recent (ph) to last party that has betrayed the vote that the referendum campaign (inaudible). The people who lost the referendum can't really bear it. They think the people who voted for Brexit were stupid, thick, racist, whatever. And they just haven't come to terms with that result. And I'm afraid I don't think they ever will.

MCLEAN: And it's not just Swinson, Dale thinks politicians of all stripes have spent the last three years only pretending to move ahead on Brexit.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What they're actually doing is subverting democracy and it's a very dangerous game that they're playing.

MCLEAN: But they are not very subtle anymore.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Some of them were subtle than others.

MCLEAN: Subtly it seems is no longer required. Only one major party, conservative, has promised to follow through with Brexit. The Scottish national party has vowed to remain and the opposition Labor Party wants a second referendum. So, while Swinson's odds of becoming Prime Minister are long. She doesn't need to win outright to derail Brexit.

I wonder what kind of precedent you think that's sets for democracy.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There will be a lot of people that withdraw from the Democratic process altogether. They will think what is the point of voting if the politicians and the elites in Westminster don't respect that vote?

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ALLEN: That story from our Scott McClain who joins me now live from London. Good morning to you, Scott. Question for you following your report. Is there any effort to get labor involved in this cooperation deal?

[03:25:00]

MCLEAN: Yes, so Natalie actually just this morning a collection of pro-E.U. groups in this country have written to both Joe Swinson and the labor leader Jeremy Corbyn, urging some level of cooperation and for them to back each other candidates in a handful of high profile districts including Boris Johnson's constituency as well. The trouble is this unite to remain effort as I talked about in the piece there has already tried to broker some kind of deal with labor to try to get them to stand down in some seats to prevent vote splitting, (inaudible) the conservatives from winning, but for labor standing down in any seat was really a nonstarter.

ALLEN: All right, we're just days away from the general election, and everything day will bring something new perhaps. All right, Scott McLean for us there in London. Scott, thank you.

Well, climate activist Greta Thunberg, has just arrived in Madrid's Spain for the U.N. climate conference. The Swedish teenager took the train from Lisbon Portugal. There she is in the white hat. She is scheduled to speak at COP25 later Friday before joining a planned march through the Spanish capital in the name of climate change.

In Michigan one 5-year-old boy is getting the ultimate gift this holiday season. A forever home, but Michael Orlando Clark, Jr. wanted his friends to take part in the moment as well. So he invited his entire class into the courtroom to watch the adoption ceremony. His adopted parents said they knew Michael was the right fit for their family, 36 other children were adopted as part of the county's annual adoption day. We liked that one.

For our international viewers, African Voices change makers is next. For viewers here in the U.S., I'll be right back with more news.

[03:30:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

NATALIE ALLEN, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back. I'm Natalie Allen at CNN Center in Atlanta. More news for you from the Middle East which could soon see an increase in U.S. forces.

U.S. Officials tell CNN the Pentagon is considering sending more troops to the region to deter Iranian threats. The United States believed Iran has placed short range missiles in Iraq and says the move could threaten U.S. forces stationed there.

For more CNN's Ben Wedemen joins me now live from Beirut with reaction from the region and what more do we know about what Iran may be doing there, Ben.

BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, it's not altogether clear what Iran may be doing. These are claims from Pentagon and intelligence officials in the U.S. that Iran is moving short range ballistic missiles into Iraq. There's been no confirmation obviously from Iraqi officials to these claims.

Now, you'll remember back on the 14th of September, there were those attacks on Saudi oil facilities that left half of Saudi production basically halted. And it was believed briefly that perhaps those missiles even though it was claimed by the Houthis that they fired the missiles at those Saudi oil officials. It was briefly claimed that perhaps the missiles were fired by Iranian proxies from Iraqi territory.

So, now, the United States is considering the possibility of sending as many as 7,000 additional troops to the region. It's not quite clear what they'll be doing.

Perhaps, they'll be bolstering American air defenses in the region keeping in mind, of course, that after those attacks on the Saudi oil facilities the United States talked a lot about acting against Iran or its proxies but never actually did anything that went a long way to damaging the deterrent capabilities or reputation of the United States in the region.

And it's not quite clear if this additional dispatch of American forces is going to do much to repair Washington's image in the region. Natalie?

ALLEN: Right. The president has made a move to get out of Syria. And now, here we are, considering more troops to the region now. Meantime, Ben, on another front involving Iran, what's the latest on the protests that have been ongoing in Tehran?

WEDEMAN: Well, in Iran, in fact, more than a hundred cities across the country these protests began on November 15th when the Iranian authorities dramatically raised the price of fuel. Now, yesterday, we heard Brian Hook, the special representative for Iran, and the U.S. government saying that perhaps more than a thousand demonstrators have been killed.

Now, his sources on this information, he said, were social media, intelligence and independent reports. Now, this claim of more than a thousand people being killed comes at a bit of a surprise. Even Amnesty International has said that they can only document at this point the death of 200 protesters, although they say it's possible more were killed in these demonstrations, which have petered off somewhat since their peak.

Now, the problem is, of course, that for quite a long time if the Internet was blocked in Iran, so it was difficult to get information out of the country. It appears the Internet is back online, so slowly information is coming out. But certainly this claim by Brian Hook of more than a thousand dead took many people by surprise. Natalie?

ALLEN: All right. Ben Wedemen for us the latest from Beirut. Thank you.

Well, just hours ago President Trump's personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, sent out a cryptic tweet. It concerns an alleged misuse of U.S. funds in Ukraine under the Obama administration. The tweet saying, "the Obama embassy urged police not to investigate," and then say, "stay tuned to find out why."

[03:35:00]

Giuliani made a surprise visit to Ukraine this week to help defend his client, President Trump. CNN's Rene Marsh has more details on Giuliani's extraordinary move as Democrats move closer to impeaching Mr. Trump.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RENE MARSH, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): As the president is on the cusp of being impeached, his personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, hops on a plane to Europe, not to avoid scrutiny, but he says to save his client, the president, from impeachment.

Giuliani's secret mission started in Budapest this week and then he was off to Kiev, the place where the impeachment campaign at the heart of the inquiry began. He's tried to be coy.

RUDY GIULIANI, PRESIDENT TRUMP'S ATTORNEY: I'm not going to tell you where I am, and I am gathering evidence -- I am gathering evidence that is going to blow up Tony Schiff's case. It's going to blow up in his face just like the last one did.

MARSH: But a fringe Ukrainian lawmaker who has been pushing for an investigation into the Biden family posted these photos on Facebook, saying, he met with Giuliani on anti-corruption Thursday in Kiev. The trip is part of a documentary series to air on a pro-Trump network.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Rudy Giuliani debunks the impeachment hoax. MARSH: The doc features Giuliani interviewing three former Ukrainian prosecutors with checkered pasts and suspect motives and described as corrupt by witnesses in the impeachment inquiry. They've been pedaling the conspiracy theories about Biden's family.

Giuliani tweeted Thursday this evidence will all be released very soon. His latest move at the height of the impeachment inquiry shows an extraordinary effort to double down on the narrative that the president did nothing wrong but his political rivals did.

REP. KAREN BASS (D-CA): Rudy Giuliani right now is over in the Ukraine. Who knows what he's doing. They might still be attempting to interfere in this election.

MARSH: Giuliani is central to the impeachment inquiry and faces scrutiny of his own in the pressure campaign to convince Ukraine to announce investigations into the Biden family in exchange for a White House meeting and military aid. Giuliani also remains under investigation by New York prosecutors over his business dealings.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are you in Ukraine also gathering evidence to support your own defense?

GIULIANI: I didn't do a darn thing wrong. Every single thing they write about me is a lie.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ALLEN: CNN's senior political analyst, Ron Brownstein, joins me now to talk about all things politics. Ron, thanks for coming on. Good to see you.

RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Thanks for having me.

ALLEN: Well, let's start with Rudy Giuliani's mission to Ukraine. What do you make of his travels and his statements about it?

BROWNSTEIN: You know, the whole thing has been so extraordinary from the beginning. I mean, you know, even going back to his last spring, his initial trips. I mean, part of the strategy, if there has been one in the Trump presidency, has been to take things that would have been unimaginable to do before, do them in front of everybody, and say, well, what's the problem? I mean you can see what I'm doing. I mean -- and that's what Giuliani has continued to do.

I mean idea of someone representing himself as the president's lawyer openly going to foreign countries and trying to enlist political figures there to provide him or create for him dirt on a potential rival -- I mean if he was not putting this out in public and we learned about it, it would be a giant scandal.

And of course, it ultimately turned out to be one when we learned about the president's involvement. But just the brazenness of it in some ways is the most remarkable part of this.

ALLEN: That's right. That mirrors what our reporter said that he is undeterred. Brazen is a good word.

Let's move onto what happened on Thursday. Nancy Pelosi, talking about the articles of impeachment. She said it on a CNN town hall that this isn't about politics, it's about patriotism and honoring the oath of office. Do you think the process has risen above politics?

BROWNSTEIN: Well, it can't in modern America. I mean, you know, we are not in a position we were in Watergate where -- you know, 45 years ago where there were people in both parties who were genuinely interested in understanding what happened before they reached their conclusion. Even in the Iran contra in the '80s, there was, you know, a substantial number of Republicans who wanted to at least understand exactly what happened.

Here we've never been able to kind of get past square one. I mean if you watch those hearings in the House Intelligence Committee, there wasn't a single Republican member who seemed genuinely interested in understanding what the president did. Their goal was to defend him from the get-go.

And I think the shortsightedness on the part of the Republicans here is that if nothing else Donald Trump is a student of power and a student of weakness above all.

And if every Republican in both chambers says there is nothing to sanction here, there's nothing to raise an alarm about here, they're going to get more behavior like this, and perhaps behavior even more extreme and egregious than this. Because one thing we know he keeps pushing the boundaries until he's stopped, whether it's by political pressure or a judicial ruling.

[03:40:06]

And I think if every Republican in both chambers basically votes in a way that says, this is fine with them, they may find themselves defending things even more difficult to explain down the road.

ALLEN: Yeah. And meantime, President Trump is saying bring it on -- . BROWNSTEIN: Yeah.

Allen: Go ahead, impeach me. Let's see what happens in the Senate. What do you expect from the Senate trial, and what do you think about how the president is approaching this right now?

BROWNSTEIN: Well, first, I don't think the Senate Republicans will be exactly the same as the House Republicans. You know, it's not clear whether any or how many -- certainly 20 Senate Republicans will not vote to remove him from office and probably every Democrat won't vote to remove him from office. We've never removed a president from office. It's probably not going to happen now.

But that doesn't mean the Senate Republicans are going to be as acquiescent as the House Republicans were and as compliant in defending everything the president did. I think there are going to be more Senate Republicans who are going to understand there are legitimate reasons to be concerned here.

If a president believes that he has the impunity to use Americans military aid and the diplomatic recognition of a White House meeting as a point of leverage on an ally that is facing an ongoing Russian invasion to try to leverage them into providing help for his campaigns.

So, I think it could unfold in unpredictable ways and ways that could be more complicated for the White House. The way the president is responding, Natalie, is the way he responds to everything. I mean, his goal is, above all, to animate, energize, mobilize his base. There have been very few arguments aimed at reaching persuadable voters. There have been very few arguments from the House Republicans aimed at reaching persuadable voters.

It's all about creating a narrative of unfairness and victimization that allows him to consolidate the base, which will help him to avoid impeachment certainly but, again, runs the risk of reinforcing what the voters uneasy about him consider most unacceptable about his performance in office. Thanks for having me.

ALLEN: All right. We appreciate your insight as always. Political analyst, Ron Brownstein, for us. Thanks, Ron.

BROWNSTEIN: Thanks for having me.

ALLEN: Meantime, back on the campaign trail, Democratic hopeful, Joe Biden, got into a heated exchange.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, 2020 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: You're a damn liar, man. That's not true.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ALLEN: Why he snapped at a voter in iowa, that's next.

[03:45:00]

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ALLEN: Welcome back. U.S. Democratic presidential hopeful, Joe Biden, got into a heated exchange with a voter in Iowa. It was over his son, Hunter Biden's work in Ukraine, while Biden was vice president.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You're selling access to the president just like he was.

BIDEN: You're a damn liar, man. That's not true and no one has ever said that.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I didn't say you were doing anything wrong. I said -- BIDEN: You said I setup my son who works in an oil company. Isn't that what you said? Get your words straight, Jack.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ALLEN: Well, that voter later said if Biden was the nominee, he would still vote for him. This coming amid signs that Biden and other moderates are showing renewed strength in the race for 2020.

Here's Jeff Zeleny with more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MAGGIE WILLEMS, IOWA DEMOCRAT VOTER: I identify as a Democratic socialist. Progressive policies speak to me and that's what I prefer.

JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Maggie Willems is a proud liberal. But two months before the voting begins, she's in a moderate mood.

WILLEMS: I also understand I'm not representative of the whole electorate, and we need to be sure to select a candidate that can defeat Donald Trump.

ZELENY: Here in Mount Vernon and in towns across Iowa, Williams and others are thinking about electability as they search for the best candidate to defeat President Trump.

For most of the year, the Democratic race has been driven by left- leaning proposals from the Green New Deal to Medicare For All to free college.

SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN (D-MA), 2020 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: When we give up on the big ideas, we give up on the people.

ZELENY: But in the final weeks of 2019, moderates are fighting back. Like in this ad from Pete Buttigieg where he takes a thinly veiled swipe at Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren's plans.

PETE BUTTIGIEG (D-IN), 2020 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: There are some voices saying, well, that doesn't count unless you go even further, unless it's free even for the kids and millionaires, but I only want to make promises that we can keep.

ZELENY: Worried about Trump winning an election, a pragmatic awakening is underway for some voters like Willems, a teacher who once thought she might support Warren.

WILLEMS: I would see that politically I agree with nearly everything that Warren has to say.

BIDEN: You think I can do this?

ZELENY: When we first met Willems on Labor Day, she was weighing two options.

WILLEMS: Biden would be my pragmatic choice and Warren would be a bit of a leap of faith in my heart.

ZELENY: But now she's ruled out both, souring on Warren's embrace of Medicare For All and skeptical of Biden's appeal to younger voters. She's leaning towards Buttigieg.

WILLEMS: He has an ability to maybe talk across the aisle that more overtly progressive candidates might not.

BIDEN: Let me tell you, if they can't bring the country together, we're in real, real, real trouble.

ZELENY: While Sanders and Warren are still electrifying the party's liberal base, Buttigieg, Joe Biden and Amy Klobuchar are steering the conversation to the middle, saying it's critical to appeal to a broader swath of voters.

SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR (D-MN), 2020 PRESIDENTIAL CADIDATE: You want to put someone on top our ticket that brings people with them and doesn't shut them out.

BIDEN: Not a joke.

ZELENY: The message is resonating with Katie Haverkamp, an independent voter who plans to take part in the Iowa caucuses for the first time because of her disdain for Trump.

What kind of Democrat are you looking for?

KATIE HAVERKAMP, IOWA INDEPENDENT VOTER: I'm looking for someone that is moderate, that is strong leader and has integrity.

ZELENY: She and her mother came to see Biden when his bus tour passed through Iowa Falls. They hope to check out Buttigieg soon.

Back in Mount Vernon, Willems' social studies classroom is decorated with posters from campaigns gone by. She said finding a candidate to motivate Democrats and win over Trump voters is her chief concern.

How often do you think ability electability?

WILLEMS: Often. And I try and think of that middle third and how they might be persuaded to vote for the Democrats ticket.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ALLEN: Well, let's move now from what can be the ugly world of politics to something beautiful like art. Well, sort of beautiful. Take a look. People are going bananas for a piece of art in Miami during the very popular Art Bssel Art Show. So, check out this piece of art.

It's entitled, Comedian, and it is, yes, as you can see, a banana bought in a grocery store duck taped to a wall. Now, if that appeals to you -- get it -- you can buy it for $120,000. There are three editions of the piece by artist, Maurizio Cattelan. We don't know his inspiration. [03:49:59]

But according to art market website, Artnet, two have already been sold. But of course, a warning to potential buyers, there's no clear instruction on what to do when that banana starts to go bad. Beautiful.

A heated exchange at the U.S. Capitol after the House Speaker is asked if she hates the president. You'll see how Nancy Pelosi answered that.

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ALLEN: U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had a stunning response to a reporter who asked her about -- a question about Donald Trump. Our Jeanne Moos shows how that moment went viral.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEANNE MOOS, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It was a seven-word question that stopped speaker Nancy Pelosi in her tracks.

JAMES ROSEN, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Do you hate the president, Madam Speaker?

REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA), SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES: I don't hate anybody.

MOOS: Speaker Pelosi did so much angry pointing that it made her previous feigned point directed at President Trump seemed like a minor wag. She then marched back to the microphone.

PELOSI: And as a Catholic, I resent your using the word hate in a sentence that addresses me. I don't hate anyone.

MOOS: Buckle your seat belt reporter James Rosen from the pro-Trump Sinclair Broadcast Group.

[03:55:02]

PELOSI: So, don't mess with me when it comes to words like that.

MOOS: She then turned and stomped out.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Wow. But Wow.

MOOS: It was the tirade that launched a thousand hashtag don't mess with mes, oh, snap. Pelosi's own daughter tweeted, Don't mess with Mama.

But not all Catholics took the high road or even the high and mighty road. "Speaker Pelosi is better Catholic than I am. I hate Trump with every bead of my rosary."

Fans said of Pelosi, she is magnificent. Critics said, this woman is a loon. President Trump tweeted, "Nancy Pelosi just had a nervous fit."

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yeah. I think that's going to be a historic Pelosi quote for decades.

MOOS: Her latest quote resurrected quotes about her.

PELOSI: If you think a woman can't beat Donald Trump, Nancy Pelosi does it every single day.

MOOS: It brought forth the speaker's most favorite GIFS, dawning her power sunglasses, wielding her giant gavel, clapping at President Trump, owning her the SNL nickname --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Nancy "Madame Clap Back" Pelosi.

MOOS: Conservative Laura Ingram tweeted, "Imagine if a male GOP House Speaker told a female reporter, don't mess with me. Responded someone, like I don't know, Trump?"

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: What a stupid question that is, but I watch you a lot and you ask a lot of stupid questions.

MOOS: And speaking of hate, wouldn't you hate to be him?

PELOSI: So, don't mess with me when it comes to words like that.

MOOS: Jeanne Moos, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ALLEN: And that is "CNN Newsroom." Thanks so much for watching. I'm Natalie Allen. Next here is "Early Start." Have a good day.

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END