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Articles Of Impeachment, Democrats Unveil Two Impeachment Articles Against President Trump; U.S.-Russia Relations; New Zealand Volcano; United Kingdom Elections, Conservative On Track To Win 339 Seats, Labour 231; Aramco's Record IPO; North American Trade Pact; Thick Smoke Blanketing Sydney; Australia's Bushfires; Genocide Charges. Aired 3-3:30a ET
Aired December 11, 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]
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ROSEMARY CHURCH, CNN ANCHOR: Hello and welcome to our viewers joining us from all around the world. I'm Rosemary Church. Coming up on CNN Newsroom, abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. Democrats unveil articles of impeachment in yet another historic day in Washington.
Also ahead, the threat of more volcanic eruptions, disrupt recovery efforts on New Zealand's White Island.
Plus, it is crunch time for politicians in the U.K. on the final day of campaigning ahead of the general election.
And we begin with the political turmoil in Washington. The U.S. House Judiciary Committee is getting ready to debate the two articles of impeachment against U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday. After a two month investigation, Democrats unveiled the articles on Tuesday. They are both related to pressuring Ukraine for political favors to help the president in the 2020 election. One charges him with abuse of power, the other obstructing Congress by refusing to provide documents and witnesses for the investigation.
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REP. JERRY NADLER (D-NY): The framers of the constitution prescribed a clear remedy for presidents who sought violate their oath of office. That is the power of impeachment. Today, in service to our duty to the constitution, and to our country, the House committee on the judiciary is introducing two articles of impeachment charging the president of the United States, Donald J. Trump with committing high crimes and misdemeanors.
REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D-CA): We stand here today because the president continuing abuse of his power has left us no choice, to do nothing would make ourselves complicit in the presidents abuse of his eye office, the public trust and our national security.
(END VIDEO CLIP) CHURCH: President Trump is downplaying in awe, calling impeachment
light and week.
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DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The Republicans have stuck together, it's a witch hunt, it's a parable thing but even the Democrats they couldn't find very much because they put up two articles that frankly are very weak, and they're very weak.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHURCH: So what's next in the impeachment process? Well CNN's Phil Mattingly, breaks it all down for us.
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PHIL MATTINGLY, NEW YORK BASED CNN CORRESPONDENT: We had the articles of impeachment now, we know there are two of them, abuse of power and obstruction of Congress and that's obviously a huge step forward, basically laying the groundwork for an almost certain vote to impeach President Trump. But here's what's going to happen going forward.
Right now, you have got members of the Judiciary Committee Democrats and Republicans meeting behind closed doors. Kind of plan the process of actually considering these articles of impeachment and that's where they will initially start in the committee process, where they will, what's called, mark-up those articles to see if Republicans can get any changes and see if Democrats want any changes, the assumption right now is no right, but it will be the legislative process in the committee.
It will be lengthy, we'll start Wednesday night and continue into Thursday. Don't expect many changes if any changes at all to be made, but there will be certainly a lot of back and forth. And what this all tease up is a final House votes, we've been talking now for several weeks that House Democratic leaders have been targeting next week as the week that they voted to impeach President Trump. They are very much on target for that vote to happen at that time line.
Now, we don't know the exact day yet, we know the exact process of how it's going to be structured and played out, but we do know those two articles of impeachment, obstruction of Congress, abuse of power, will get House four votes next week. Those votes to impeach President Trump. Only the third president of United States history to be impeached, and then standing those articles of impeachment over to the United States Senate for a trial. A trial that won't likely start until sometime the first or second week of January. But we know for sure, the House is moving, the House is moving quickly, legislative actions in the committee this week, House for a vote next week.
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CHURCH: And some House Democrats had made a case for a third article of impeachment based on the Mueller report. But that was drop after it became clear it could cost them votes. I ask CNN political analyst, Michael Scherer, earlier if this was the right move.
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MICHAEL SCHERER, TIME'S WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF: There was a lot of debate inside the Democratic Party in the House. Some members wanted to go much broader and wanted to bring in the Mueller investigations and the Russian meddling and perhaps charge the president with the another article of impeachment related to that case.
[03:05:08]
There were other members that wanted to go even broader and bring another things that the president has done wrong in their view, but in the end Speaker Pelosi and I think the leadership in the House decided that it was smarter to simply take the strongest case they had. The case that they have been investigating into such depth over the last couple of months, and really focus it narrowly on that the idea being that you garner as much support as you can around the very narrow impeachment.
CHURCH: And the Republicans called the announcements political and an embarrassment to Congress, not surprisingly. The big question now will be what will happen when it goes to trial and vote with the Senate next month?
SCHERER: Right, I mean, one of the remarkable things that, you know, a lot of times in Washington especially on Congress -- there's a real uncertainty about how a vote might go, because Washington is pretty closely divided these days. We are a polarized nations and so oftentimes were hanging on to one vote either way. And you never quite sure what's going to happen.
In this case, I think it is the opposite, right. Everybody knows what's going to happen in a Judiciary Committee in the next couple of days, they're going to approve these articles. Everybody knows what's going to happen on the House floor. The House is easily going to impeach him and so the only sort of semi uncertainty is kind of how the Senate trial plays out at the beginning of next year.
Everybody is quite sure that the Democrats won't to be able to muster 67 votes, two thirds of the Senate required to remove the president from office, but still how the trial plays out, whether they will be witnesses, whether the president would appear to sort of speak in his own behalf, all of that is kind of up in the air and uncertainty and I think that's definitely got both parties kind of on edge.
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CHURCH: Well, the same day President Trump faced articles of impeachment for seeking foreign help in the 2020 election. He was meeting with the top diplomat from a country caught meddling in the last election. This was Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov second Oval Office meeting with Mr. Trump, when they met in 2017, the president reportedly revealed classified information. U.S. media were not allowed to hear what the two men discussed. On Tuesday, the White House says Mr. Trump urged Russia not to meddle in U.S. elections. U.S. Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo said the same, but the foreign minister suggested that did not happen.
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MIKE POMPEO, SECRETARY OF STATE: On the question of interference in our domestic affairs I was clear, it's unacceptable and I may or expectations of Russia clear. The Trump administration will always work to protect the integrity of our elections period. Should Russia or any foreign actor take steps to undermine our Democratic process is we will take action in response?
SERGEY LAVROV, RUSSIAN FOREIGN MINISTER: We you know, we haven't even actually discussed elections.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHURCH: Well coming up, the U.K. prepares for a crucial vote and it's already looking like another uphill battle for Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn. Back in a moment.
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CHURCH: We are just one day until British voters head to the polls, Prime Minister Boris Johnson is driving home his message that he will get Brexit done. By bulldozing through a wall of Styrofoam bricks painted with the word gridlock. His Conservative Party is on track to win a majority in parliament, though not as large as once predicted.
Meanwhile, Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, is backing away from Brexit. To focus his campaign on health care and education policy reforms. He is trying to claw back their lead from the Conservatives. So, let's turn to CNN Simon Cullen, joining me now live from London. Good to see you again Simon. So, the majority of the Conservatives appears to have narrowed from 68 to 28 seats. That is according to the UGA forecast, but that still leaves them in a very (inaudible) person, doesn't it? So, what's the latest on those numbers and all of that?
SIMON CULLEN, CNN PRODUCER: Yes, Rosemary, (inaudible) definitely a very good place. As you say, that gap has narrowed in this space of the last month. So, we've seen from 68 majority for the Conservative down to 28. Let's have a look at the raw numbers though, the Conservatives are on track to win 339 seats out of a parliament of 650. Labour on 231, the Scottish National Party on track for 41, and the Liberal Democrats on 15.
Interestingly the Conservatives are doing particularly well in Brexit voting areas, where they are struggling in London which is an area where Labour expects to pick up a few seats. Two major points to point out though here is that this is a national poll, so, sometimes it doesn't get into the details of each individual constituency, and the issues affecting the local vote, and to is it there is a margin of error with all polling and even though this was down with 100,000 interviews over 10 days, even the pollsters themselves say, as to the Conservatives majority could be even bigger, or on the flip side it could still be a hung parliament if the numbers are on the lower end of the scale.
CHURCH: That seems incredible at this point doesn't it? So, what are the issues that are influencing people's votes right now?
CULLEN: Well, a few major themes sort of been running through this campaign, undeniably Brexit is a big one and this is an issue where there is a staff difference between the major parties. Boris Johnson, the Conservative leader promising to get Brexit done as we saw at the video just a moment ago.
And of course on the flip side, Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn is promising to go back to the E.U. renegotiate the withdrawal deal and then put that deal to the people in the form of a referendum. There is also the issue of public spending international health service, a difference there in terms of promises about the future, and of course there is the issue of trust and leadership both major party leaders facing particular challenges here.
For example, Boris Johnson is coming under fire over the veracity or the truthfulness of some of these promises. For example 50,000 new nurses he said turns out its only 31,000 new nurses. And of course the Conservatives came under fire a few weeks ago over their re-branding of their Twitter account to make it look like an independent fact checking service.
On the flip side, Labour Leader, Jeremy Corbyn, has come under fire over the -- I believe ability of some of his manifesto promise costings and of course, some persistent problems over how he has dealt or not dealt with antisemitism within the Labour Party. So there is a lot of issues that voters are weighing up as they go to the polls and of course the big day is tomorrow.
CHURCH: Yes. It'll be fascinating to see where this lands. Simon Cullen, many thanks.
We'll take a short break here, still to come Saudi Arabia's oil giant starts trading on the country stock exchange, Aramco wraps up its record IPO. The plans for the money race. We will take a look at that on the other side of the break.
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CHURCH: Oil giant Aramco shares and now trading on the Saudi Arabian stock exchange. This year has jump 10 percent and this completes the world's largest initial public offering raising $25.6 billion from retail and institutional buyers. And this listing is targeted at Saudi nationals and few other investors in fact. The Aramco IPO is part of Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman's strategy to diversify the Saudi economy and for more on this, we turn to Nic Robinson, he joins us live from Riyadh. Good to see you again, Nic. So, did the IPO reach the crown prince's goal?
NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: You know, it didn't reaches initial goals. He was hoping for a two -- trillion dollar evaluation. He was hoping to be able to float 5 percent of it and in the end, it was only 1.5 percent. I think at the end of the day today at least where it stands right now, that is sort of 10 percent bump from 1.7 evaluation of. Now it's looking rosy at 1.9 billion. This is positive, but it the long term objectives of the crown prince around this IPO that are perhaps more important to him than today.
But look, there has been broken crockery to get to this moment if you will. The energy ministers who was also the CEO of Aramco was switched out. New energy minister, new CEO of Aramco in the last few months, because it appeared the least to outsiders that were resistant to what the crown prince Mohammed Bin Salman wanted to do. And initially as well, you know, he did want international investors. This was about bringing in international money in to the country. So that he could use it for the vision 2030. He's vision for the future of a diversified economy.
And that really did not happen and some of that is quite simply because, you know, the same (inaudible) glitzy hotel that he took those international investors to in 2016 to sell on the idea; less than a year later, this became the lock-up for over 300 Saudi princes and other, you know, influential and rich businessman.
The government said that this was sort of a crackdown on corruption, but too many people it look like a taking stronger leadership control in the country and the shakedown of their wealth which kind of rattles some international investors. The number of other issues as well, but at the end of the day, I think a lot of people here in Saudi would say, look, the crowd prince are off to achieve a monumental huge undertaking and has managed to pull it off.
CHURCH: And of course, as you mentioned this is part of the crown prince's efforts to diversify the Saudi economy. How is that supposed to work exactly?
ROBERTSON: Sure, I mean, look, the targets they were set back in 2016 for example to reduce unemployment in the country. At that point it was about 11.6 percent down to 9 percent by 2020 and to reduce the span on government employees down from 45 percent to 40 percent by 2020 as a percentage of the sort of government spanned. You know, the numbers today don't really look good. Unemployment is actually now at 12.2 percent and that government spent on governor work is now at 50 percent, but other things had been achieved.
You know, a higher number of women in the workforces, the social changes have been put in place. Women allowed to drive, music concerts here, things that could not happen a few years ago. So, the underlying efforts are still work in progress, but a huge multi, multi, multibillion dollar projects of 500 billion dollar projects for now almost sort of futuristic city on the Red Sea.
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A massive concept on undertaking. You know, the money -- what the crown prince is going to have raise from Aramco to pay for that in the future. That still seems such a long way off, Rosemary.
CHURCH: All right. Nic Robertson, bringing us the very latest details on that from Riyadh. Many thanks.
Well the key signing in Mexico City made possible by a rare show of bipartisanship between U.S. House Democrats and the Trump administration. Representatives from the U.S., Mexico and Canada were in Mexico City Tuesday, to sign off on a revamp North American trade pacts. The USMCA. The deal is expected to be ratified by U.S. lawmakers early next year, and this could be a major victory for Donald Trump on one of his signature campaign pledges to do away with NAFTA. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is also touting the deal as a big win for the Democrats.
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REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA), U.S. HOUSE SPEAKER: I would say that we came a long way from what he originally proposed. When he originally proposed and there are some people who say why make it look like he has a victory? Well, we are declaring victory for the American worker and what is in this agreement.
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CHURCH: The outdated USMCA will have a big impact on North American trade, reaching the auto industry, dairy markets and the digital economy. The new trade deal also adds protections for workers and labor reforms.
Still to come, Sydney smothered in smoke. It's famous landmark barely visible as raging bushfires bring unprecedented air pollution to Australia's largest city.
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CHURCH: the Chilean Air Force, is intensifying its search for a missing military plane. It is believed to have crashed Monday in a remote area between South America and Antarctica with 38 passengers and crew on board. Controllers lost contact with the plane about an hour after takeoff. The air force admits the chance of finding survivors is difficult. The search may last up to 10 days.
Volcanic conditions on New Zealand's White Island also known as Whakaari are disrupting recovery efforts there. Two days after an eruption killed at least six people, volcanic tremors have significantly increased. Scientists say it is likely they could be another eruption in the next 24 hours. Police say finding those still missing is a top priority, but it's too dangerous to deploy any recovery teams to the island just yet.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This tragedy has already claimed multiple lives and cause terrible industries and injuries and unspeakable grief. There's always a delicate balance it when it comes to recovery operations of where risk to human life exists. And right now, the signs tells us that this is just too high. I can assure you that risk is constantly being re-assist because everyone. I want to repeat that. I mean everyone as united in the desire to recover those bodies from the island so they can be returned to their loved ones.
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CHURCH: Forty-seven people were on that island during the eruption, many of them suffered extensive burns to their bodies and lungs. The Prime Minister said they are being treated across New Zealand.
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JACINDA ARDERN, PRIME MINISTER OF NEW ZEALAND: They are absolutely focused at the moment is ensuring that we have the very best care for those who were injured as a result of the eruption, so those individuals that have been placed across hospitals in New Zealand to ensure that we are making the use of the expertise and the injuries that they have on our burns units around New Zealand.
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CHURCH: There were so many bush fires burning in Australia. The smoke is setting a fire alarm across Sydney and people there are finding a hard to breath. In some areas the air pollution is 11 times above what's considered hazardous. More now from CNN meteorologist, Tom Sater.
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TOM SATER, CNN METEOROLIGIST: Sydney's iconic Harbor Bridge shrouded in smoke. A stark reminder that Australia's deadly bush fires season has hit with unusual ferocity.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A lot of season firefighters are actually saying it's such a big difference. Its running harder, it's running faster, and it's just far more intense.
SATER: Firefighters in the state of New South Wales are battling about 80 fires, half of which are burning out of control. The smoke transforming Sydney's sparkling waterfronts into a toxic haze. Pushing air pollution levels well into the hazardous range, and prompting many residents to use face mask for protection.
The ashes is even turning the city breaches black. The deteriorating situation is again focusing public attention on the climate crisis gripping Australia. But the country's Prime Minister, who for many weeks has not comment on the worsening air pollution, says he does not see any need to change the governments approach saying Australia is already doing enough to fight climate change.
The reality is, he may be forced to do more. With fires bearing down on Australia's biggest city, fire weary residents could soon lose patients with the government some argue is not doing enough to combat the underlying cause of the severe conditions. Tom Sater, CNN, Atlanta.
(END VIDEOTAPE) CHURCH: Well, in the coming hour, Myanmar (ph) Nobel Peace award will
personally defend her country against genocide charges in the U.N.'s top court. On Tuesday Aung San Suu Kyi listen to graphic accounts of rape and murder during the military's crackdown on Rohingya Muslims in Rakhine States. The West African nation of Gambia filed a lawsuit with the Hague claiming Myanmar committed genocidal acts intended to destroy the Rohingya.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: One witness recounted the soldiers killed a male members of my family. They shot them first and then slit their throats. The courtyard was full of blood. They killed my husband, my father in law, and my two nephews of 15 and eight years old. They even kill the child in the same way.
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CHURCH: Myanmar maintains the military crackdown was part of a fight against terrorism.
We want to thank you for your company. I'm Rosemary Church, Vital Signs is up next, but first, I'll be back with the check of the headlines. You're watching CNN. Do stay with us.
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