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Officials: Video Shows Suspects "Targeted" Kosher Market in New Jersey, But Attack not Being Labeled Anti-Semitic; Small Group of Democrats Float Censure Instead of Impeachment; House Panel to Begin Debating Articles of Impeachment Tonight; Pelosi, Dems Hold Closed- Door Meeting Ahead of Impeachment Debate; Growing Divide Between Trump and McConnell Over Senate Trial. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired December 11, 2019 - 09:00   ET

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

[09:00:00]

CAMEROTA: I do. Sometimes. Yes.

BERMAN: She's making a giant difference, and people -- these kids notice her. She is inspiring them.

CAMEROTA: So you're pleased with this choice from "TIME" magazine?

BERMAN: That's my official statement.

CAMEROTA: OK.

BERMAN: Look, any time it's not you, I'm glad.

CAMEROTA: OK.

(LAUGHTER)

CAMEROTA: Very good. All right, big day.

BERMAN: "NEWSROOM" with Poppy Harlow and Jim Sciutto starts right now.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Good morning, everyone. I'm Poppy Harlow.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Jim Sciutto. Today one step closer to an impeachment showdown. Right now House Democrats are meeting behind closed doors just 24 hours after announcing those two impeachment articles against President Trump. They are abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.

HARLOW: And hours from now the House Judiciary Committee kicks off debate on those charges. It is the next step before their vote to move that debate to the floor.

Let's begin on Capitol Hill with CNN senior congressional correspondent Manu Raju.

Good morning, Manu. What do we know?

MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, formal proceedings expected tonight. Right now behind closed doors Nancy Pelosi is calling her caucus for a meeting, a closed-door meeting. We expect members to have questions to discuss whether in the (INAUDIBLE) to impeachment, why they ultimately came to the decision to settle on those two articles, abuse of power as well as obstruction of Congress, as they left out obstruction of justice which is something, of course, could have been detailed through the Mueller report but instead they decided to focus on the matters dealing with Ukraine and the Democratic allegations the president leveraged his office in pushing that country to open up investigations into his political rivals.

But tonight will be the first time that the House Judiciary Committee begins those formal proceedings to consider those two Articles of Impeachment. Expect all 41 members of that committee tonight to give their opening statements. Each about five minutes apiece. That hours-long session is expected to be contentious. Republicans are expected to object because they have not gotten their witnesses as they have demanded.

Democrats believe those witnesses are just simply without merit. There's no reason to bring some of those individuals in like the whistleblower. Nevertheless that's going to come up tonight. And then tomorrow is when we actually see the real art of legislating on Capitol Hill. The same committee, the House Judiciary Committee will actually consider votes on amendments to the Articles of Impeachment.

Republicans are expected to offer a flurry of amendments aimed at undercutting the articles, aiming to try to gut the articles but the Democrats are expected to beat back every single one of them. Those votes expected to be along party lines. Democrats won't offer their own but then ultimately will vote to approve those Articles of Impeachment. Expected tomorrow before we see that full House vote, historic vote next week, likely in the middle of next week, early next week to make President Trump the third president to get impeached by the House -- guys.

SCIUTTO: History in the making. Manu Raju on the Hill, thanks very much.

While impeachment still working through the process in the House, President Trump and Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell, they're already looking ahead to a likely trial in the Senate. However, the two are on very different pages over how that trial will unfold and when it will unfold.

HARLOW: It's interesting because you don't typically see them at least publicly on different pages.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

HARLOW: Our congressional correspondent Lauren Fox is on Capitol Hill. She has that reporting.

So what does the president want? What does McConnell want? LAUREN FOX, CNN POLITICS CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, you know,

no decisions have been made yet, Poppy, but at this point, there are really two different philosophies about how a Senate trial should be run. The president sees this as an opportunity to defend himself in a very public forum. Perhaps he wants to see some of those witnesses like the whistleblower. He wants to see Hunter Biden. He wants to see Adam Schiff. Potentially live witnesses in the well of the Senate. That, of course, would be a huge, huge moment in the Senate.

Meanwhile, McConnell sort of wants to go at this in a much more subdued way. Essentially let the House managers make their case. Let the president's lawyers make their case. And then potentially just have a vote to dismiss it or have a vote on those articles and move on. That could be a much shorter process. So Majority Leader McConnell and some of the senior Republicans, they want to avoid a circus-like atmosphere in the Senate.

Meanwhile, the president sees this as a big opportunity to defend himself. There is a little time in between now and when that Senate trial would begin. Majority leader McConnell said yesterday that it would begin after the new year when the Senate returns in January.

SCIUTTO: Yes. You said after the bowl games. No one wants to miss college football for this.

Lauren Fox on the Hill, thanks very much.

Joining us to discuss, CNN legal analyst Jennifer Rodgers, former federal prosecutor, and Jeff Mason, White House correspondent for Reuters.

Jeff, forgive me for jumping ahead a bit here but just because Lauren brings up this idea of how the Senate trial would play out here. You know, the president seemed -- well, he says publicly he's looking forward to it. And he and his allies seem to think that they could make -- take some advantage of this perhaps. Call witnesses, focus on Joe Biden who may very well be his opponent. Is that, do you think, the prevailing White House view?

JEFF MASON, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, REUTERS: I think that's a good -- a good chunk of it. Yes, I do, Jim. And for a couple different reasons.

[09:05:02]

Number one, you know, this is a president that we all know likes a show. He comes from a reality TV background. Likes to have cameras around him when he's at the White House. I think right now he also wants to see, once that trial comes in the Senate, a show take place in which he can finally feel like he's defending himself or his lawyers are defending himself. One big issue that the White House has raised and believed has been unfair this entire time is that Democrats have focused on witnesses that they have brought and Republicans have charged that they're not allowed to bring in their own.

That would change in a Senate trial in which the White House could put on that sort of counter show with a focus on Joe Biden, with a focus on Hunter Biden, and sort of play that out for his supporters.

HARLOW: You know, Jennifer, we've seen how chaotic many of these House hearings have become. Right? Lack of substance. A lot of infighting. Buckets of chicken brought to some. The Senate is known for very different. Is it going to be different this time? Meaning, will it be more orderly? What will the decorum be like?

JENNIFER RODGERS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, I think that's what McConnell wants, for sure. They are -- they pride themselves on having more decorum, right, than the House does. So I think he wants it to be orderly without all the shouting that we've heard from the Jim Jordans and the Matt Gaetzs. And I think that that will benefit the Republicans ultimately. You know, the president wanting all these witnesses and wanting it to devolve into kind of a reality show chaos situation.

I think that's where they really get into a danger zone, to be honest with you, because if we have all these witnesses coming in, we have people start talking about maybe John Bolton comes in, start talking about things other than the Ukraine scandal under cross-examination, that's when all sorts of things should come out. And that might start shifting people's minds instead of what we're hearing is this mindset of Republicans now.

SCIUTTO: So, Jeff Mason, before we get to the Senate, of course we have a lot still to go in the House. Next week, you have some talk about -- among moderate Democrats about other options. I mean, still there's still this option of censure instead of impeachment. Doesn't look like that's going anywhere. But you have some moderate Democrats discussing the idea of voting up on the abuse of power article, down on the obstruction of Congress article just as a way to say to voters in their districts, you know, I looked at this in a measured way. Right? I wasn't fully on board.

Where do we think this ultimately is going to end next week in the House? I mean, is it going to be an overwhelming Democratic vote for one or two or is it going to be a muddy result?

MASON: Well, it's a good question. I mean, we won't know until next week, obviously, but I think that the points you raise shows that there is still some division within the Democratic caucus. Certainly some concern among those moderates that you mentioned which is why the discussion came up about censure. These are moderate Democrats who don't want to use their seats in 2020.

And you can also tell and see from the president's comments that the rally that he held last night, that he will try to exploit that as much as he possibly can.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

HARLOW: To the point that was made by Manu, Jennifer, about what we're going to see happening basically tonight into tomorrow morning, and through the day is this flurry of amendments proposed by Republicans in the House and then rejected probably by the Democrats. What would those amendments look like? RODGERS: I have no idea to be honest with you.

HARLOW: Yes.

RODGERS: I mean, they're going to want to change the language and, you know, take out the most stinging allegations. Maybe they'll try to remove the language about the pattern of behavior and keep it focused really on what the witnesses said. I mean, you know, I don't really know what they'll try to do. It's so different from court where it's so orderly and, you know, you don't have all this chaos and the yelling and the constant interruptions that, you know, it's not at all clear to me what it will look like, but it will be interesting to watch.

SCIUTTO: And even in the Senate, right, I mean, you do have some fairly outspoken -- think of some of the things Lindsey Graham has said in recent days.

HARLOW: Sure.

SCIUTTO: And of course he's a veteran of the Clinton impeachment proceedings when he was in the House at the time, one of the prosecutors. We'll see. It's going to be interesting. We'll bring it to you.

Jennifer Rodgers, Jeff Mason, thanks very much.

Still to come this hour, a small group of Democrats discussing as we mentioned a way to avoid a formal impeachment vote against President Trump. They had a private meeting. Why?

HARLOW: Plus, the Department of Justice's inspector general set to testify in one hour on Capitol Hill as the president unloads on the FBI, even calling some members of the agency scum.

And the mayor of Jersey City says a deadly shooting yesterday at a Jewish store was a targeted attack. We'll take you there live.

[09:10:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARLOW: New this morning, surveillance cameras show that two gunmen targeted someone at least at a kosher grocery store in Jersey City.

SCIUTTO: Yes. We're trying to get more details on exactly what that means. This is according to the mayor, the local mayor, and public safety officials there who gave an update on the attack in just the last hour. But they say at this point they're not labeling the shooting anti-Semitic specifically. Listen to what they said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAMES SHEA, DIRECTOR, JERSEY CITY DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC SAFETY: On the video, they park the van. They exit the van with the long guns in their hand and immediately begin firing toward the location that we lost three of our citizens in yesterday. So there are multiple other people on the streets so there were many other targets available to them that they bypassed to attack that place. So it was clearly -- that was their target, and they intended to harm people inside there.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: The suspects engaged in an hours-long shootout with police. It left three civilians dead as well as a veteran police officer. The shooters was also both killed.

[09:15:00]

SCIUTTO: Alexandra Field, she's been following the latest from Jersey City. Alexandra, tell us what you're learning this morning. There are so many open questions at this point.

ALEXANDRA FIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Sure. And police have not come out and said what they believe motivated the shootings here in Jersey City. But you are, of course, hearing from the mayor and the public safety director who say from what they have seen, they believe that this was a targeted attack. That's because of that CCTV video that they watched.

They say that this was deliberate, seeing those suspects getting out of the van at this specific location, and then opening fire first on civilians. They say that there were two police officers who were posted about a block away who heard the gunshots, responded immediately.

Those officers were shot and injured, but they were able to hold the suspects within the store until enforcement -- reinforcement came to help them. That's when that hours-long standoff ensued. So, the discrepancy here being, was this an anti-Semitic attack or not? Well, the officials that we're hearing from right now say, they can't directly call this anti-Semitic, they're not certain of the motive, but they say to their eyes, it is clear that these shooters intended to hit this Kosher market.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAMES SHEA, DIRECTOR, JERSEY CITY DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC SAFETY: I didn't use the words anti-Semitic. Any -- the motives are still part of the investigation. I said this location, they exited the van and they proceeded to attack this location in a targeted manner. Anything else is open for investigation.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FIELD: Police are still also looking at two other crime scenes. They say they're looking at a u-haul that's being examined by the bomb squad. They are also, of course, doing an investigation at the area where another police officer was shot and killed. Detective Joe Seals, a 15-year veteran of the Jersey City police force.

He is somebody who worked -- spent his career trying to get guns off the street. He was killed, shot to death, and police are not at this point saying what sparked the confrontation between this detective and the suspects or what could have motivated that shooting. Jim, Poppy?

HARLOW: Tragic. Alex, thank you very much for being there, and for that reporting. I know we're waiting for many more answers. With what we do know at this point, let's talk about it with retired FBI special agent James Gagliano. James, help us understand the difference because you heard the Jersey City mayor say this was targeted, this kosher deli, but you also heard him say, I didn't say it was anti-Semitic and the police don't have a motive at this point. What does that tell you what questions does it leave open?

JAMES GAGLIANO, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST (via telephone): Yes, difficult needle for him to thread here. The mayor of Jersey City pop in, and the reason that is, people want to know what the motive was. And there's a reason for that. You know, is this part of a broader conspiracy? Is a particular community being targeted as part of a -- as part of a hate crime?

I think the way that he chose his words, he suggested that he saw something on the CCTV camera footage that police are reviewing.

HARLOW: Right --

GAGLIANO: But he mentioned that when the two shooters jumped out of the van and proceeded towards the kosher deli, they passed up others to use the term in law enforcement targets of opportunity. They didn't shoot anybody on the street, this didn't seem to be a mass killing spree, somebody that was just going to target random people.

Now, the concern here for law enforcement is, was the deli targeted because it was a Jewish establishment or could --

HARLOW: Right --

GAGLIANO: There possibly have been somebody inside there that they were looking to kill or to assassinate, just happened to be inside the deli.

HARLOW: Help us understand what authorities are looking at now to try to determine a motive. I would assume, obviously, do these two shooters --they're dead, so they have their identities, did they know the victims for example?

GAGLIANO: So two pieces of this. One is going to be, Poppy, is going to be the forensic harvesting. I mean, the weapons used. These were long guns. This does not appear to be a targeted assassination because they came loaded for bear as we say in law enforcement circles. Now, they've got the vehicle, so, they can run the plate, track the vehicle back, they can obviously run the weapons, find out where the weapons came from.

And then it's just going to be the analysis that we do in the wake of these type of events. Go back, talk to people that knew these folks. Look up everything that's involved in the digital exhaust. Anything personal, electronic devices, social media screeds, anything like that could possibly put some type of finer point on what their motivation was. Look, six people are dead, including the two gunmen, three civilians and one police officer that looks like was just being proactive. Saw something that --

HARLOW: Yes --

GAGLIANO: Did not square with that area, approached them, and then ended up being the first casualty there. Great job by the police, it's a tragic event, but Poppy, this could have been much worse.

HARLOW: Well, yes, well, a police officer with, I believe, five children at home -- just a reminder of how they are always just right on the front line and putting themselves in danger for all of us. Our thoughts with him and all of the victims' families. James, thank you very much, I appreciate it.

GAGLIANO: Thanks, Poppy.

[09:20:00]

HARLOW: So, an interesting turn in the impeachment vote that's about to happen. There are some Democrats that met yesterday to talk about potentially censuring the president instead of impeaching him. Why? We will ask one member of the House Intelligence Committees what he thinks about that idea, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:25:00]

SCIUTTO: There are signs that some Democrats in vulnerable districts could be on edge about their party's impeachment push. Sources say a small group of house Democrats from districts won by President Trump met on Monday night, and an alternative raised in that meeting censuring the president instead of impeaching him.

A senior administration official has already dismissed the idea as unacceptable. Joining me now, Democratic Congressman Peter Welch of Vermont, he sits on the House Intelligence and Oversight Committees, both very much involved in this. Congressman, first of all, thank you for taking the time this morning. Let me ask you this, would you support censure as an alternative to voting to impeach the president?

REP. PETER WELCH (D-VT): I would not.

SCIUTTO: And tell me why?

WELCH: Well, first of all, I want to say that you mentioned some members on edge. The fact is all of us here are on edge. We take very seriously the significance of voting on impeachment, so that is universal among the Democrats. But second and politically, there's no support from the Republicans for a censure.

They have totally circled the wagons for the president. What he did is perfect as far as the president is concerned to my Republican colleagues. So, you would not get a single Republican vote. Second, you don't have Democratic support. And the reason you don't have Democratic support is on this question of what the president did in Ukraine, essentially using his authority as president to get Ukraine involvement in the 2020 campaign --

SCIUTTO: Right --

WELCH: Is really impeachable conduct and to diminish it with a censure, I think would create a lot of dissension within our ranks.

SCIUTTO: I do know that is your view, but it is fact that there are Democratic members who are concerned about the political consequences of this. We've also heard that some Democratic members are thinking of voting yes on the abuse of power article, no, on the obstruction of Congress article. Interesting choice there given the amount of evidence of obstruction of Congress.

But as a signal that they're looking to demonstrate to their constituents that, hey, I'm not -- you know, none of this is automatic for me. And now, you have Michael Bloomberg, he's going to donate $10 million to help house Democrats to ward off attacks from Republicans. I'm just curious how deep is the political concern in your caucus about the political consequences of this?

WELCH: Right. You know, there was political concern when we were debating impeachment, and many members individually were coming forward, and that really changed with the revelation of the president's call to Ukraine. And at that point, I think most members thought this really was a constitutional imperative.

And whatever the politics were, we'd have to accept the consequences. But I also want to say something about these extraordinary members who won districts that Trump won. They pay attention to their constituents. They have been having town meetings, they're reaching out and they're presenting their consideration as careful and thoughtful.

And I think what they are managing to do is show to the people they represent that the decision they make will be one based on conscience and their best evaluation of the facts. So, this is an individual effort each of those members has to make, all of us have to make, but this is an extraordinary group of skillful people who connected with the people they represent.

SCIUTTO: I've spoken to some Republican members of Congress who privately will express dissatisfaction with the president's decision- making and activity here, but publicly won't go that far. They're worried of course, about the political consequences as well. I imagine you've had similar some conversations with your Republican colleagues.

What do you say to Republicans who privately will criticize the president, but publicly stand by him?

WELCH: Give us your vote. I mean, this is a -- this is a call to conscience here. I mean, what the president did is absolutely outrageous. And to not even acknowledge that what the president did was profoundly threatening to our democracy, even if we then go into an argument about what's the proper remedy, and to basically, publicly circle the wagons around the president's statement that, that call was perfect means you almost can't have a discussion.

But you know, each member is going to have to make their own choice. It's very tough for the Republicans. I want to express -- acknowledge that. You know, there's like 95 percent opposition within the Republican Party to these proceedings. So, it's very tough for a member to focus up above the fox hole and come forward and be a Howard Baker.

SCIUTTO: The Senate, of course, there's a GOP majority in the Senate. The president indicating he's looking forward to the Senate trial, he's requested a lot of witnesses there to his advantage, some of whom Republicans in the Senate have effectively said no to, for instance, Joe Biden. That said, are you concerned that with the GOP majority, that the Senate will become something of a forum for witnesses that attacked Joe Biden, that divert attention from the central charges here?

WELCH: Well, I do. And of course, that's been the MO here in the house to try to turn this into an investigation on Hunter Biden and Joe Biden. But you know, it'll be interesting question in the Senate when they have to make their own rules. And they'll be able to request evidence from the White House that would exonerate or compromise President Trump.

END