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Sources: White House Worried About Support from Key GOP Senators; House Moves Closer to Impeachment with Rules Committee Vote; House Gears Up for Historic Impeachment Vote Tomorrow. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired December 17, 2019 - 09:00   ET

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

[09:00:10]

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: Very good Tuesday morning to you. It is quite a week. I'm Jim Sciutto.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: A big week. A big vote tomorrow. Good morning, everyone. I'm Poppy Harlow.

Right now House Democrats are meeting behind closed doors just hours before the impeachment battle and the partisan clashes that come with it move to the House Rules Committee. This panel is setting the ground rules for the debate leading up to tomorrow's historic vote. This is all about whether or not the president applied political pressure for personal gain.

SCIUTTO: And today, listen to this, we're hearing from the president's personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, who is accused of applying that very pressure and it seems, based on his activity, he's up to the same thing. On Twitter, Giuliani says that former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, was obstructing justice. This apparently because she was not allowing witnesses that the Trump campaign wanted in their pursuit of dirt on Democrats in Ukraine.

Yovanovitch, of course, testified that she was removed from her post after she pushed back on the president's shadow foreign policy efforts.

Let's begin with the latest on impeachment. CNN senior congressional correspondent Manu Raju joins us now from Capitol Hill. So in the next couple of hours, we're going to see the beginning of this Rules Committee debate. What do we expect during that back and forth, and what rules will they set today?

MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, they are going to set the parameters for what the floor debate actually will look like when it happens tomorrow. We're going to see the representative for the Democrats, Jamie Raskin, present from their side and the Republican side, the top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, Doug Collins, present on his side.

It will be contentious. Members will ask questions back and forth. So expect some fireworks. But ultimately what they will do is approve exactly the procedures, the hours, how that floor debate tomorrow will work out before that historic vote to impeach the president on two counts, obstruction of justice -- obstruction of Congress and abuse of power.

Now also behind the scenes, Democrats are meeting just right now they're convening their members, Nancy Pelosi, for a weekly caucus meeting to discuss exactly what the next steps are on this and on other legislative matters and what the Democrats right now are confident they have enough votes, more than enough to impeach the president because, if you look at the last couple of days over the number of freshmen Democrats, particularly from swing districts that the president carried, they are coming out in support of impeachment.

And the sign today, one Democrat who had been holding back, Anthony Brandisi of New York, a freshman from a difficult district that leans Republican, came out and said that he would vote on both counts of impeachment. So that's been the trend so far. We have not seen anyone other than two Democrats break ranks. And one of those Democrats, Jeff Van Drew, has signaled he's going to switch to the Republican Party amid the backlash he is receiving back home.

So right now we expect that historic vote, the ground rules to be set, starting today and then tomorrow is that when that historic vote will happen and the Senate then of course will have to figure out its procedures for its trials and whether it will bring out any witnesses. And expect some Republicans to respond today, guys, about how exactly what they should do to this proposal by Chuck Schumer to have four witnesses come forward. We expect the majority leader, Mitch McConnell, to address that fully today -- guys.

HARLOW: OK. Yes, we really haven't heard any response from him to the letter that Schumer sent.

Manu, thanks very much.

Let's dig in more here on the Giuliani factor. John Avlon is with us to walk us through a stunning couple of days.

And important for people to know you've known Mayor Giuliani for a long time.

JOHN AVLON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes. Absolutely.

HARLOW: You were his speechwriter. You know who the man was and you've seen the transition.

AVLON: Sure.

HARLOW: So he tells the "New Yorker," quote, "I believe that I needed Yovanovitch out of the way. She was going to make the investigations difficult for everyone." What is he trying -- and then he tweets about her this morning. What is he trying to do here a day before the House votes on impeaching the president?

AVLON: This is clearly not what most people would recognize as good judgment. But there's an old political adage, you hang a lantern on your problem. And that's perhaps the most generous explanation for what he's doing. If you look at that statement, he basically after refusing to testify in front of the House committee is giving kind of the money quote that you would want from an interrogation which is, sure, I was concerned that the ambassador was impeding our investigation into the Bidens, told the president that she needed to be removed. He connected me with the secretary of State and lo and behold, she was removed. That's a problem.

SCIUTTO: Can we talk, though, about the investigation that he's claiming to do here, right?

AVLON: Yes. Sure.

SCIUTTO: Because we know many of the people he's meeting with in Ukraine are not the most credible sources, right? I mean, pro-Russian members of the Ukrainian parliament, one of whom studied with KGB. I mean, can you call it an investigation as he and some Republicans are claiming?

AVLON: Well, look, I think Rudy believes it's an investigation. His excuse to himself and his defense is that he's protecting his client, the president of the United States.

SCIUTTO: What's the facts, though?

AVLON: But no, you know, the facts are that a lot of these witnesses are dodging. But it follows a general political play we've seen from the president which is to muddy the waters.

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Ukraine is a corrupt country, therefore everyone is corrupt. You see the language in Rudy's tweet this morning. He uses phrases that presumably intentionally obstruction of justice, what the president has been accused of, one of the articles of impeachment, in effect. Collusion, corruption. So part of the president's strategy and I think it's been executed by Rudy as well is to muddy the waters by using the same phrases that he has been credibly accused of in his Ukrainian deals.

HARLOW: Except protect his client from what? His client won the election.

AVLON: Well, yes, but, remember, this is about muddying the waters about where there was collusion. This is the argument that Democrats colluded with the Ukraine to hurt candidate Trump, something that Rudy has argued in various tweets, even though he has also said that he doesn't believe the CrowdStrike conspiracy theory which is just that. A conspiracy theory.

This is something that is about rallying the base and Rudy does believe that he is going to be vindicated and that his client will be vindicated by bringing up all this alleged corruption, none of which has been credibly verified by the United States intelligence on the part of --

SCIUTTO: But it's -- the allegations have been picked up by many members of the Republican Party.

HARLOW: That's true.

AVLON: And that's the game.

SCIUTTO: So -- and that -- you might call that a win.

John Avlon, thanks very much.

Joining us now, Sophia Nelson, she's a former House GOP investigative counsel member, and Julian Epstein, he's former chief counsel for House Judiciary Democrats during the Clinton impeachment.

Great to have you both on. You got a little experience here.

Sophia, I want to ask you just again about Giuliani here. What appears to be happening before our eyes, right? You have the president's personal attorney going to a foreign country seeking political information on political opponents, right, or damaging information on political opponents from questionable sources, at best, in Ukraine.

Is that -- should Americans at home say, wait a second, you now have an American inviting foreign interferes in the election. Is that a reasonable way to view this?

SOPHIA NELSON, FORMER HOUSE GOP INVESTIGATIVE COUNSEL 1997-1999: I think two things concern me. Number one, I awaked this weekend and really thought about the fact that this country is a lot more divided than I had any clue about. That's number one. Number two, I think that something has changed in our politics since 2016-2017. Meaning, this could not have happened a decade ago.

This wouldn't have happened. And I think Julian would agree with me that there's no way a Rudy Giuliani could be acting like this on behalf of and in a nefarious way the State Department, going to Ukraine when we're in the middle of an impeachment with Ukraine as the central question and he's tweeting in essence that he did help to undo Marie Yovanovitch, that they had to get her out of the way, which is exactly what the Democrats have been putting forward, particularly Schiff and his committee.

So it's really stunning. It's like we're through the looking glass. We're in "Alice in Wonderland." I don't have a real answer for you as to why this is happening in broad daylight, but the Trump base loves it. They're excited about it, and they feel like they're getting the deep state and they're really going to give it to the deep state. And that's what they believe.

HARLOW: Julian, given Schumer's position now as minority leader and calling for four witnesses and documents to be presented in the Senate trial, basically saying we need new, more evidence that was not -- that the House, you know, didn't have available for various reasons. Obviously, they wanted Mulvaney and Bolton to testify. How is that complicated by the fact that during the Clinton impeachment when Schumer was a member of the House, voted, and then became a senator and called for no new evidence to be presented in the Senate trial? Does not complicate matters for him now?

JULIAN EPSTEIN, FORMER CHIEF COUNSEL FOR HOUSE JUDICIARY DEMOCRATS: That's right. And I worked very closely with Schumer in '98.

HARLOW: Yes.

EPSTEIN: He was the only member that served in the House and the Senate during the impeachment proceedings. The Senate did take three depositions from different witnesses, Lewinsky, Jordan and Sidney Blumenthal at that time. But in 1998, we had gone through a year investigation with Kenneth Starr where every single witness had been deposed and testified before the grand jury. It was all out in a report. There were really -- nobody believed there were any facts on the table that were in dispute.

Here, you have Republicans arguing essentially kind of two things. Some Republicans are arguing there were not enough facts on the table yet to make the case on the shakedown. Other Republicans are arguing, well, even if the facts are on the table, the president's motive was pure. And it seems to me what Schumer is doing right now is making a very effective argument that the four witnesses that he wants, in particular, Bolton and Mulvaney, can shed very important facts and very important light on both of those questions.

And kind of what Schumer is doing is, if you look at the polling right now, we're stuck at about 47-47 on impeachment as we really are kind of on everything else in this country. But the people, the segment of the country that as opposed to impeachment is kind of soft on it. Only 25 percent of the public thinks the president has been fully exonerated. So what Schumer is doing is playing to the moderates right now.

And he's playing to potential swing voters who can be persuaded that what the Senate is doing by having this show trial if McConnell gets his way is really acting as part of a cover-up for the White House. And that may persuade moderates in the Senate and it may persuade moderate voters who are still watching this thing and there's still a group of people that are undecided on this.

[09:10:06]

So what Schumer is trying to do is he's -- we may not -- he may not get -- the Senate may exonerate or acquit the president. But what Schumer is doing is playing to a different court. The court of public opinion right now.

SCIUTTO: So --

NELSON: And if I could add.

SCIUTTO: Sure.

NELSON: The public polling shows that about 67 percent of the country overall wants a fair trial. They don't want this to be a sham, just stick it through, we're not going to hear from witnesses. The public believes that the witnesses should be heard from. I'm talking about Mulvaney, Bolton, et cetera. And that this ought to be fair. So I agree with Julian that Schumer is being very strategically smart here. I think he's going to pull some Republicans with him to vote for this probably.

SCIUTTO: Sophia, you made the point that this impeachment process is an American moment here. Big picture, if you look at the president's and the White House's approach so far, to say no to everything. Witnesses, documents, e-mails, et cetera, it seems a reasonable person at home can take from this that obstruction works, right? If you say no aggressively and often enough, you can hamper an investigation. Is that a reasonable takeaway?

NELSON: But you said a key word. Reasonable. There is no reason in this process right now. This is a partisan process and by that I mean the Republicans have dug in, in a way that again I never thought I'd see in my lifetime as a lawyer or someone who was a committee counsel. Like Julian said, they refuse to even acknowledge facts. I think it's fair to debate whether or not the president should be impeached or censured.

They won't even do that. They're saying he did nothing wrong. The call was perfect. This is OK. And so I think that when you have a process that operates from that belief system that we're dug in that no matter what here, we're backing the president, I don't think this process is going to be what it should be that the founders envisioned, that Hamilton and others believed impeachment was all about. I don't think that's where we are.

EPSTEIN: There's two points I'd like to make on Jim's question, if I could real quickly. First of all, I think Jim is exactly right. The process for congressional accountability, holding executive accountable is broken. And every single candidate for president right now ought to be asked the question, what are you going to do about accountability reform if you were elected?

SCIUTTO: It's a good question.

EPSTEIN: Will you agree to a form or say, by the executive can be held accountable through a subpoena with an expedited process of 30 or 45 days. And your reporters should be asking every single presidential candidate, Democrat and Republican, where they stand on the accountability reform because that process is broken just by the executive being able to run the clock. That's the first point.

The second point is you can look at this in terms of how we've been talking about in terms of the moderates versus the base inside the Republican Party, and can Schumer appeal to the moderates? But there's another claim that's very, very important here which is the institutionalists versus the anti-institutionalists.

Republicans traditionally have been very pro-institution, pro-norms. They've been pro proper procedure, pro Senate, you know, pro these institutions. What Trump represents is an anti-institutionalist movement within the Republican Party that plays on the kind of populist resentment largely because the middle class hasn't seen much of (INAUDIBLE) as in the last five decades. SCIUTTO: Right. And you can argue that message has broken through in

the Party. Yes.

EPSTEIN: Well, it has broken through, but a lot of Republicans are also uncomfortable with that. And so there's an existential issue that's going on with Republicans. Are you for the institution, or you're trying to tear down the institutions?

HARLOW: We love --

EPSTEIN: Schumer is playing to the part that wants to protect the institutions and the Republicans are very kind of existentially dissident on that.

SCIUTTO: Right.

HARLOW: We love having you both here. I mean that sincerely. So we're going to be both back together. We're just -- we got to hop for time.

EPSTEIN: Thank you, Poppy.

NELSON: Thank you.

HARLOW: Thank you both, Sophia Nelson, Julian Epstein, we appreciate it.

All right, so ahead, will they break with the president? Sources tell us that a group of Republican senators who have worked to stay out of the spotlight are worrying the White House this morning.

Also it's not just Washington divided on impeachment. So are you, the voters. New CNN polling overnight shows an even split. We'll break it down.

SCIUTTO: Also he is one of the few Republicans who has said he does not think the president's behavior with Ukraine was proper or appropriate. But does the evidence go far enough for Congressman Francis Rooney? We're going to ask him live on this broadcast.

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HARLOW: Welcome back. Sources tell CNN, White House officials are worried about some Republican senators ahead of the likely impeachment trial. Democrats need Republican support if they want to see any of their requests met for the rules in the process of the trial. Right now, we're watching 10 key senators who may budge on key trial-related issues such as having certain people testify.

With that upend, GOP leader, McConnell's coordinated plans with the White House. With me now, Democratic Senator Bob Casey of Pennsylvania. So nice to have you, Senator Casey, thank you for being with me. Let's just begin with this. Should this go to a trial in the Senate which looks likely now. Have you decided which way you will vote on impeachment?

SEN. BOB CASEY (D-PA): Poppy, I have not because we have to consider all the evidence. The record developed by the house, both with regard to the proceedings and the House Intelligence Committee as well as the Judiciary Committee. Both, as you know, have issued reports that I'm just going through, beginning to go --

HARLOW: Right --

CASEY: Through.

HARLOW: Right.

CASEY: So, we have -- we have hundreds of pages of reading there. We also have to do a lot of reading about the process, the procedure. We're going to be casting votes on that to set up the trial itself. So --

HARLOW: Right --

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CASEY: We've got a ways to go. But there's no question here based upon what transpired here, the president's conduct and all the underlying information is what I said back in September. I think a textbook case of abuse of power by soliciting the interference in a national election --

HARLOW: So --

CASEY: And using the power of his office to do that. So, I think the predicate for this is pretty clear.

HARLOW: Yes --

CASEY: But we have to examine all the evidence, and I take an oath to do that --

HARLOW: Sure --

CASEY: Fairly in front of -- before the Senate.

HARLOW: All U.S. senators take that oath. That is part of your job. My question to you -- because what you're saying really echoes exactly what we heard yesterday on this program from Senator Cardin, what Sherrod Brown told Jake Tapper over the weekend -- reserve judgment, hear all the evidence, hear the defense of the president.

But some of your fellow senators including Senator Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren said back in October that they would vote to convict the president. Is that a mistake to pre-judge?

CASEY: Look, every senator has to make their own determination about how they approach this process. This is going to be a trial, and we are serving as jurors. So we've got some -- so, we've got some work to do prior to that. But then as we're sitting there -- and I think maybe a lot of Americans may not realize how different this will be than the house procedure over the house process. We will be silent.

HARLOW: Yes, you can --

CASEY: Except --

HARLOW: You can't talk, you have to write your questions for witnesses.

CASEY: Correct. That's correct --

HARLOW: Yes --

CASEY: So, it will be -- it will be a different process. What folks will see on the Senate floor for the most part is not hearing from the Chief Justice or the senators. It will be the house managers making the case.

HARLOW: Right --

CASEY: We don't know how many of those managers will have. And then, the president's defense lawyers or others will make the case the other way. So --

HARLOW: So, if I could get your take on some new CNN polling that came in overnight, a few numbers that really are striking, I think. First of all, nationally, support for impeaching and removing the president from office is down 5 percent from a month ago. It's at 45 percent now. It was at 50 percent in November.

And when you look by party among Democrats, when they are asked, should the president be impeached and removed from office, it was 90 percent in November, it is 77 percent now. And then looking at battleground states including your state of Pennsylvania which the president won in the election. A majority of battleground voters don't think there's enough evidence for the house to vote to impeach the president. Do those numbers worry you?

CASEY: Well, I guess that -- I'd say they don't because I try not to provide some kind of conclusion from that. There are different --

HARLOW: Yes --

CASEY: Polls that will have different results. And, frankly, a lot of politicians and even some pundits analyze polls in ways that don't often make a lot of sense. So, I try not to get into that, even when it comes to polls of a candidate's re-election or things like that. But here's the key, here's the key --

HARLOW: Yes --

CASEY: That I think the United States Senate has to discharge its duty to fairly evaluate this information. I think it was a step in the right direction when our Democratic leader Senator Schumer proposed not just a process, but asking for four witnesses who have direct knowledge --

HARLOW: Yes --

CASEY: Of the withholding of the aid. A very -- witnesses -- four witnesses for a very limited but important, relevant purpose.

HARLOW: I --

CASEY: So, we're going to debate that, but I think the key in the end is, this is not going to be a process driven by polls, every senator has got to make their own determination based upon the evidence.

HARLOW: So, I hear you on that, and just picking up on the request from Senator Schumer for those four-fact witnesses. I think a lot of Americans want to hear what Mick Mulvaney would testify to, what John Bolton would have to say. But it is also a fact that back in 1999 during the Senate trial to impeach President Clinton, then-newly a Senator Chuck Schumer didn't want any new evidence or testimony admitted into that trial.

And last night, Republican Senator John Cornyn, of course, a member of the leadership team told CNN, quote, "the house passed articles of impeachment. We are the jury, so we shouldn't be trying to retry it or redo something they have already had a shot at. He says no new evidence. Who is right? Senator Cornyn now and Chuck Schumer in 1999 or Chuck Schumer today?

CASEY: Look, all I can tell you is what I believe should happen. The predicate here, obviously, is the investigation conducted by the house. An exhaustive review of the evidence with sworn testimony. It's interesting that, the folks who have made the case in a very compelling way, I would argue against the president's point of view have all been under oath.

I'm not sure we've had anyone under oath who has made the opposite -- the opposite conclusion. But, look, it's going to be a determination, we have to make individually, reviewing all the evidence.

HARLOW: Right --

CASEY: I think that these witnesses that Senator Schumer has proposed would supplement and fill in some of the information that we don't have right now. But I think what's already on the record is compelling. Look, Poppy, let me just say it personally. When I read the memorandum of that call, I was offended personally. Here's why?

[09:25:00]

Because as a public official, you are always supposed to keep a very bright line between the work you do in government and how you do that work, and the work you do as a candidate. And there are ways to obtain information for an election. You cannot use a government telephone or do it on government property or do it in a way that violates your oath of office.

That's very troubling. It's even worse, and this offense has greater gravity because it involved foreign assistance, interfering in a national election and investigating a political opponent. We've never seen this before in American history.

HARLOW: I appreciate your time, I'm sorry to cut it a little short. We have a lot going on today as you know with that rules vote ahead. I appreciate it, we'll have you back soon. Thanks, Senator Casey.

CASEY: Thanks, Poppy.

HARLOW: You got it.

SCIUTTO: Well, just one day before the house's historic vote on impeachment, where do voters stand? We have new CNN polling. And we're just moments away from the opening bell on Wall Street. The Dow looks set to open the day flat, one stock to watch, Boeing. Stocks sliding after the plane manufacturer says it will temporarily halt production of its troubled 737 Max jets beginning next month.

Boeing continues to wait for the FAA to re-certified the aircraft just months after two deadly crashes. It sold only 30 of the 737 Max jets since the grounding.

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