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House Debates Rules For Impeachment Vote; Trump Sends Letter to Pelosi Over Impeachment. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired December 17, 2019 - 15:00   ET

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

[15:00:00]

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN HOST: We're back. You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin, top of the hour here.

Addressed to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, this extraordinary, jaw- dropping letter from President Donald Trump.

In six scorching pages on White House letterhead, the president rails against the impeachment process going on right now, calling it a partisan crusade and an unprecedented and unconstitutional abuse of power by Democrats.

Let me just read you just one graph of this six-page diatribe.

This is what he says: "You are the ones interfering in America's elections. You are the ones subverting America's democracy. You are the ones obstructing justice. You are the ones bringing pain and suffering to our republic for your own selfish, personal, political, and partisan gain."

Let's go straight to the White House just to kick this off this hour.

Our White House correspondent Boris Sanchez is with now.

You have also read through the six pages here. Talk to me about more of what the president's trying to express and why.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Brooke, diatribe is certainly the right word to use.

This reads as though the president dictated it himself, a lot of the language and sort of vitriol that he uses when he speaks about impeachment and Democrats.

Notably, there was one portion where he takes offense to Nancy Pelosi saying that she prays for him. Recall that, over recent weeks, the House speaker has repeatedly said that she prays for President Trump's health, that he succeeds for the good of the country.

The president here lining his sights on Pelosi for that. Look at what he says. He writes -- quote -- "You are offending Americans of faith by continually saying, 'I pray for the president,' when you know this statement is not true, unless it is meant in a negative sense."

He goes on to write: "It is a terrible thing you are doing, but you will have to live with it, not I."

The president later in this letter adding that he's doing so that, a hundred years from now, people will look back at this letter and see the difficulties that he's faced and so that no other president has to deal with the level of unfairness, in his eyes, that he is dealing with.

We should point out our cameras just went into the Oval Office a few moments ago, the president meeting with Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales, Trump saying that he, in fact, will not be watching tomorrow's vote on impeachment on the House floor.

He's, of course, holding a rally in Battle Creek, Michigan, a merry Christmas rally. The president also saying that he's never seen Republicans more unified. This, of course, coming as reporting behind the scenes indicates that there are disagreements between the president and between Republican senators over what a Senate trial should look like, what witnesses should be called, and exactly how long the trial should last -- Brooke

BALDWIN: All right, Boris, thank you on this letter.

Let me bring in a couple of smart voices here to continue on the conversation.

I have with me Jen Rodgers. Jen Rodgers is back here, CNN legal analyst.

But, first, let's go to CNN chief political analyst Gloria Borger and our senior White House correspondent, Pamela Brown.

And so, Gloria, just first to you.

When you read this letter, it's like the overall tone is defensive and angry and accusatory. And it's not exactly something we expect from someone who has bragged that impeachment is helping him.

GLORIA BORGER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, first of all, when I read it the first time, it seemed to me sort of to be the longest tweet in the history of America, because...

BALDWIN: Totally.

BORGER: ... what it is, is one Donald Trump tweet after another, replete with the exclamation points.

And I think it points to some very serious issues. I mean, this is written by the president of the United States, who clearly has difficulty exhibiting any kind of self-control whatsoever.

And I think, as senators read this letter, and they are about to be the jurors, if the House votes for impeachment, on the question of Ukraine and in a larger sense on this president's fitness for office, I think you have to read this letter in that context.

Donald Trump, historically, loves to throw hand grenades into real estate meetings and change the terms of the debate or the negotiations. And I think that was probably his intent here, to put in writing what his thoughts are, and to throw this grenade into the process.

The question is whether it's going to boomerang on him, because, reading this letter, I think you have to ask some very, very serious questions about Donald Trump and about this administration, and why no one could stop him from putting some of the things in this letter that he chose to put in it.

BALDWIN: When you read -- Jen, this is for you -- that he dismissed the Zelensky call back in July and the Ukraine actions -- quote, unquote -- "as a policy disagreement between two branches of government" and that -- quote -- "It is no more legitimate than the executive branch charging members of Congress with crimes for a lawful exercise of legislative power."

[15:05:07]

Like, what?

JENNIFER RODGERS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Yes.

So what he's trying to say -- and I to think that someone else wrote portions of this letter for him, because there are parts of it that sound a little bit more thought through and rational than other parts.

What he's saying is, this is the legislative branch, meaning the House, disagreeing with how I acted as president, right, how I decided that I wasn't going to give money to Ukraine because I didn't like what they were doing. That's my business. You ought to stay out of it, the same way that I shouldn't be just having people charged in the legislative branch for doing what they would normally do, which is voting on bills and so on.

So I think that somebody obviously is giving him some of these arguments to put out there to try to get people to think, hey, maybe he has some point here.

But it's all just patently ridiculous. There are so many witnesses who have testified about why what he did was not a legitimate exercise of presidential power. We have evidence about that.

And we would have even more if they would let Mulvaney testify, for example, and John Bolton testify. So there's ample evidence to show that what he's saying here is untrue. But this is him trying to bring his case directly to the people, I guess.

BALDWIN: Gloria, what about, I guess, the fallout after -- if you're a Republican and you -- we know what's coming up, whether you're in the House, and you have got this big vote tomorrow, of course, looking ahead to January and the Senate trial.

Where do you go from here? Like, in all seriousness, will this longest tweet hand grenade have any impact? BORGER: I can't really answer that question. I think there are parts

of this that are so personal and so offensive, for example, when he says to Nancy Pelosi, you know...

BALDWIN: He's questioning her prayerfulness.

BORGER: Right, questioning her faith, questioning her, and people of faith will question you.

When he says about members of Congress, as he said in this, any member of Congress who votes in support of impeachment is showing how deeply they revile the voters and how truly they detest America's constitutional order, when you read this, and you come from a history in this country of honest people can disagree, and you read this, that is not -- that is not what the president believes.

The president believes the people who believe you should be impeached are evil and hate the Constitution of the United States. So, I have a question. I don't know how members of Congress will take this, particularly in the Senate.

And I don't know how history will regard this letter, because I think is it is an historic document that we are looking at. Yes, some of it may have been written by his lawyers, but a lot of it, a lot of input here is real Donald Trump.

BALDWIN: Well, let's ask -- guys, do we still have Jeffrey Engel?

Yes? OK.

So, Jeffrey Engel, to Gloria's point, I mean, how will history look at this letter? Can you put this six-page diatribe into historic context for us?

JEFFREY ENGEL, CNN PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: You know, when listening about -- the news about this letter, I had the exact same thought that I'm sure every American did, which is that it reminds me of Andrew Johnson in 1868.

He, first of all, was one who would go off in diatribes, and would -- one of my favorite lines from him was that he made the claim during his impeachment that no one had ever sacrificed or suffered more for the union than him.

Keep in mind, his predecessor had been assassinated for it. But, secondly, and what's really critical, is that one of the articles of impeachment that Congress passed in 1868 was actually that the president was insulting the Congress, that the president was essentially not treating the Congress with the proper due respect the Constitution demands.

So there is actually historical precedent for impeaching a president, at least discussing the impeachment of a president, whether or not he is actually acting as a proper negotiator with other branches of Congress. Now, I have to point out, Johnson did not get removed from office. So

there's a sense in which Congress could at this point come through and say, this is not how you're supposed to act. We think that this is not the way a president should be acting, and then the Senate could adjudicate it and say, well, that might be true, but it's not a high crime, or not something which requires losing office for.

BALDWIN: We have been wondering what an impeached, but not removed President Donald Trump will look like.

And I'm just -- as you talk about his actions and his words and his mind-set, and, Gloria, did we just get a preview in this letter?

BORGER: We did. We did. I mean, in a way, sadly, it's not surprising.

But you can also think about, after impeachment, whatever occurs, as you're pointing out, whether this will be a president full of bitterness and retribution for those who vote in the way that he doesn't want them to vote, who vote for impeachment, for example.

I mean, he says they would be voting against America's constitutional order and against their constituents. And they would say, of course, that they are voting to preserve and defend the Constitution of the United States.

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I mean, I have to -- I haven't deconstructed all of this letter yet. Some of it is very familiar to me. Some of the anger is very, very familiar to me.

But I think that this letter gets dropped into the laps of sitting senators, like a grenade, as I said before. And they're all going to have to look at it and read it and say, OK, either this is beside the point, we know this is Donald Trump, never mind, or this rises to a new level, even for Donald Trump.

BALDWIN: Right.

And that goes back to the question that I asked you, and we just don't have the crystal ball. And we don't know how these Senate Republicans will act.

BORGER: Right.

BALDWIN: We only have just what -- based upon what they have or have not done thus far.

To the question about getting a preview of a post-impeached, but not removed Donald Trump, let me just -- let me read a couple more excerpts.

And, Jeffrey, this is for you, as far as maybe some foreshadowing of the president, writing: "Declared open war on American democracy. You view democracy as your enemy." He writes: "You are the ones that interfering in America's elections. American people will not soon forgive your perversion of justice and abuse of power."

I mean, do you expect them to go after the Democrats, not just his 2020 rivals? Like, let's play it forward through next year. But, also, do you expect him to go after members of Congress?

ENGEL: One would have to think so.

I mean, one of the things I think is really unusual about this impeachment -- and, again, we don't have that many examples to go by -- is that this is the first impeachment of a president in their first term. Andrew Johnson doesn't count. He was never going to get the nomination from the Republican Party to be the nominee in 1868.

That was going to go to U.S. Grant. So this is the first time that we have a president who is being impeached at the same time that he is trying to seek reelection.

And what's critical of that is, if you think about most of the political scandals that occur over time, typically in the second term of an administration, usually, the president's popularity sinks. Usually, the president is essentially defended by his partisan allies mostly just because it's the right thing to do to defend their partisan ally, not necessarily because they want more of the guy.

This is a case where people are going to go to -- the Republicans are going to go to the ballot box, I think, in the primaries and in the general election coming forward, and ask themselves not so much, did the president do something that was impeachable, but do we actually want four more years of this?

And there's a real sense in which I think many senators may be of the opinion that they -- who knows how they're going to vote, but they may be of the opinion that this is something that President Trump did something that was impeachable, but I want him to stay in office.

I mean, to be honest, that's what Susan Collins said in 1999, senator from Maine. She made the point that Bill Clinton was guilty, I think he should remain in office.

So the senators have a lot of leeway when it comes to how they make their decision going forward. And this is the type of evidence that they are instructed to use.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: We are. We are in an incredible time.

Go ahead, Gloria, just quickly.

BORGER: I think this also puts the senators on notice that if they had any notion of saying the president's phone call was wrong, it was inappropriate, but it doesn't rise to the level of impeachment...

BALDWIN: This may push them over.

BORGER: ... Donald Trump will -- he will not countenance that. This phone call, according to his letter, was absolutely perfect. And anybody who thinks otherwise is perverting the Constitution.

So he is not allowing for that kind of defense at all, whereas, in Bill Clinton's impeachment, people said the president was shameful, disgraceful, et cetera, but it doesn't rise to the level of impeachment.

That defense, Donald Trump will not countenance at all.

BALDWIN: Everyone, stay with me. Thank you so much thus far for this extraordinary conversation. We have so much more to discuss.

Right now, just a reminder to all of you watching, the final impeachment hearing in the House is under way, this Rules Committee, of course, ahead of tomorrow's historic vote. It just got heated.

So we will dip back in. That's next.

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BALDWIN: Welcome back. You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

Today is expected to go down in history as impeachment eve. Tomorrow, the House of Representatives is set to vote in favor of two articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump. And that would make just the third time in 243 years that the House has done that to an American president.

The vote itself is such a serious moment for this country that, today, the House Rules Committee is setting up guidelines as far as how the debate on the impeachment vote should proceed.

So, with that, let's go back to Capitol Hill to our senior congressional correspondent, Manu Raju.

So, Manu, we know we heard a lot of partisan back and forth for the first couple of hours. Has the Rules Committee set up the actual rules, the parameters yet?

MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Not yet, but it's going to happen soon.

This is a process that does take some time. The House Rules Committee, the members have as much time as they want to ask questions of the witnesses, which is why we have seen extended questioning from the members of the panel to the two people who are testifying, the top Democrat -- one of the top Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee, Jamie Raskin, as well as the top Republican on that same committee, Doug Collins, in an extensive back and forth.

[15:20:11]

But there's no question about how this is going to end up. The rule is going to be approved that's going to set the stage for the floor debate tomorrow. And tomorrow's floor debate, by all accounts is expected to pass pretty easily.

Right now, Democrats who are in those swing districts, they are coming out in large numbers in support of the two articles of impeachment, Democrat after Democrat falling in line.

At the moment, we only expect two Democrats to break ranks, Collin Peterson of Minnesota, although he would not commit that to me today that he would vote no on both, said he would wait to see -- wait until tomorrow to announce his decision.

And then Jeff Van Drew, the New Jersey Democrat, someone who has said privately he would switch parties. And I just caught up with Jeff Van Drew, Brooke, and I asked him specifically if he was going to switch parties. He refused to say so. He would refuse to say when he would make his decision.

And he contended it was not about his own political future and the fact that he was getting blowback within his own district because of his positions on impeachment.

But, at the moment, the Democratic leaders believe that essentially their members are falling in line, even though they did not whip the vote and urge members to vote the party line. Expect this vote to come down along party lines, as Republicans are expected all to vote in unison against the two articles tomorrow.

And Democrats by -- except for maybe a couple -- are expected to vote to impeach the president -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: Back to the point, though, about calling witnesses looking ahead to the Senate trial, Manu, we know that the Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, rejected Chuck Schumer's requests for those four witnesses, all top aides to President Trump who have direct knowledge of his attempts to pressure Ukraine to investigate his political rivals.

You see the four of them here on your screen. Chuck Schumer fired back on the Senate floor minutes after Leader McConnell blasted Democrats for moving ahead with impeachment. Here he was.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY): So now the Democratic leader would apparently like our chamber to do House Democrats' homework for them. We don't create impeachments over here, Mr. President. We judge them. That's Speaker Pelosi.

It's the House's obligation to build an ironclad case to act -- end quote. If they fail, they fail. It's not the Senate's job to leap into the breach and search desperately for ways to get to guilty.

SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY): The House has built a very strong case against the president. Maybe that's why Leader McConnell doesn't seem to want witnesses, at least not agree to them now.

Maybe that's why the president is afraid, because the House case is so strong, that they don't want witnesses that might corroborate it.

To every senator in this room, Democrat and Republican, senators who oppose this plan will have to explain why less evidence is better than more evidence.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Manu, what are Senator Schumer's options? Because it's not like he has the majority party.

RAJU: Yes, and he has very limited options.

His only hope is to try to convince a handful of Republican senators to break ranks on the floor and vote to compel some of these witnesses to testify. That's really the only way this will happen.

The first step, though, is actually for Schumer and McConnell sit down and propose a rules package that could be adopted by the Senate. A rules package that they could agree to will probably be pretty basic, probably just detail the timeline for how -- when the Senate will actually be in session to consider the trial, kind of how some of those more nuts and bolts of the trial will play out, without getting into the thorny issues of bringing in witnesses.

And then the question after they adopt that rules package will be how they bring in those witnesses. And that's where we could see some he votes. Schumer was warning that he will push that issue on the floor and put Republicans on record on that.

So expect a lot of those votes to play out in the coming weeks, and some members to be in a difficult spot -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: All right, Manu, thank you.

Let's discuss all of this.

With me now, CNN senior White House correspondent Pamela Brown. CNN legal analyst and former federal prosecutor Jen Rodgers is here with us and CNN presidential historian Jeffrey Engel.

And, Pamela, let me ask you to put a -- put your sort of Capitol Hill cap on and just walk us through. When we talk about this Rules Committee, the hearing thus far today, they're back in session now. What have we seen so far? And talk to me about exactly just how partisan it's been.

PAMELA BROWN, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, it's been incredibly partisan.

And in many ways, it's not a surprise, Brooke. It's been partisan all along. And that is something that you're seeing sort of the White House seize upon. The president says repeatedly, as he said in this letter that he released to Nancy Pelosi today, that Republicans have never been so united.

So that is something that certainly allies of the president are looking at ahead of this vote tomorrow, where it's an eventuality that -- and the president has accepted this -- that, look, he's going to be impeached by the House.

[15:25:08]

That is something that he is accepted, and the White House is very much looking ahead to the Senate trial. And I'm told that this letter today, Brooke, that was released, that the president really wanted to send a letter to Pelosi and to be in his own words, not from his White House counsel, because, as you know, in the past, Pat Cipollone, the White House counsel, has been the one to send the letters to Pelosi and to House Democrats.

But the president wanted it in his own words, basically reiterating many of the points, talking points, that he has made previously.

And I think what it highlights is, this is a president who is vacillating between feeling like, hey, this is politically beneficial. He's got his aides showing him polls that public opinion isn't moving in many of the polls.

He has aides telling him this is good for him, it's rallying up the base. But, at the same time, he vacillates to the other side, Brooke, in that he doesn't want the stain on his legacy. It has gotten under his skin.

And he simply, according to sources we have been speaking with, doesn't understand why the Ukraine issue -- this is what he's told his advisers -- why the Ukraine issue is the issue that got him to this point, Brooke.

BALDWIN: Sure.

And to this hearing that's under way, Jeffrey Engel, for you, just a reminder to everyone, and for anyone who covers Capitol Hill, right, there are many a Rules Committee hearing that never, ever, ever would see the light of day on national television. But today is different.

And, today, they will eventually push past the partisan bickering and get to setting the parameters ahead of the vote tomorrow. So, can you just explain to us what those rules will look like, what it is that they will have to decide ahead of this historic day?

ENGEL: Well, the House wants to take a vote, or the Senate -- or House majority wants to take a vote before their Christmas break.

And so, consequently, they are trying to determine at this point how many people will get to speak in favor or against the motion on the floor of the House, how long they will get to speak, and how we're going to shut off the debate and actually take a final vote.

I mean, this is one of the things I think is really critical, that the Democrats, having the numbers, want to get this done, and they want to be able to air the case, because I don't think they have anything else to prove in the House at this point. I think that they have proved their case has to go to the Senate. They have got the votes for it. And they have made, I think, a

plausible case that the Senate needs to have a trial. The question then becomes, as we saw with Senator Schumer and Senator McConnell, how robust that trial is going to be.

I mean, it seems, at this point, Senator McConnell keeps saying it's not the Senate's job to make the case for the House.

He doesn't make the case. They don't make the case for the House. The House will send over managers to make the case. The House will sent over prosecutors, if you will, from their delegation to make the case on the Senate floor. It's up to the Senate to give them a hearing.

And I think that's something which he is going to have to answer to his own constituents for at some point across the nation, whether or not this is actually a viable and fair trial, or at least even has the appearance of being one.

BALDWIN: But isn't part of the issue -- and, Jennifer, this is to you.

If you're thinking about what the Republicans are saying, they're saying, hey, Democrats, you have the majority in the House. You were the ones who wanted certain witnesses. You maybe didn't fight hard enough. And to them, you would say what?

RODGERS: I would say that they were completely blocked by the White House. They didn't get the documents. Even documents that the White House collected and looked at, they wouldn't turn over. They blocked every witness that they possibly could.

I mean, every single witness who came and testified in front of the House did show in defiance, basically, of an order by the president not to appear.

BALDWIN: Yes.

RODGERS: So, the House did all they could. Could they have gone to court for every single one of those witnesses? In theory, they could have filed an action for each of those witnesses who refused to come, but it would not have been litigated by now.

So we would be in the same boat that we're in now. And it's up to the Senate. If the Senate, which is obviously Republican, held by the president's own party...

BALDWIN: Yes.

RODGERS: ... the Senate says to him, you have got to let these people testify, that's the only way we're going to see those witnesses.

BALDWIN: Jen, Jeffrey and Pamela, thank you all very much.

Let's continue on. One of the senators who will be sitting in judgment of the president

will join me live. We will talk to Democratic presidential candidate and Senator Michael Bennet about the White House letter to the House speaker next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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