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Democratic Primary Debate Tonight; Sen. Mitch McConnell's Speech on the Senate Floor. Aired 9:30-10a ET

Aired December 19, 2019 - 09:30   ET

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

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[09:32:40]

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REP. JERRY NADLER (D-NY): Mitch McConnell has a problem. Mitch McConnell has said that he's going to work hand in glove with the White House. He has said that he's not a fair juror. I don't understand how he can possibly take the oath that he's required to take.

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JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: There you see the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee there taking issue with the Senate majority leader who has said that he will not be an impartial juror in a Senate trial if it happens. There's a chance now it may not. We're going to hear in just moments from the Senate majority leader. These are live pictures from the House floor where they're taking their oaths.

The -- McConnell's remarks come as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, as you may have read, will not commit to sending those articles of impeachment to the Senate yet. This until she's assured there will be a fair trial.

McConnell has come under fire from Democrats after he admitted plans to work directly with the White House. And, of course, Poppy, as you know, state those words that he has no plans to be an impartial juror.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, it was amazing to hear. And now we hear how Nadler is responding. We'll hear from McConnell in just a minute.

As we wait, there's a big debate tonight. Seven presidential candidates will take the stage in Los Angeles for the final Democratic primary debate of 2019.

SCIUTTO: Yes, the smallest, least diverse group of candidates so far.

CNN's Ryan Nobles is in Los Angeles, Arlette Saenz in Washington.

Ryan, smaller slate of candidates on the stage there. What should we expect to see tonight? RYAN NOBLES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, the hope, I guess, Jim, is that

there will be more of an opportunity for these candidates to dig into some of these big issues that the Democratic candidates have been talking about and have been focused on in their campaigns. A lot of them, honestly, having nothing to do with impeachment. They prefer to talk about health care, economic inequality, minimum wage. These are the issues that have been driving the Democratic primary.

But because we do have a smaller field, perhaps this does give an opportunity for one of these lower tier candidates who have had a hard time breaking through to perhaps have a big moment.

The one name that a lot of people are focused on is Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar. She seems to be gaining somewhat of some traction in Iowa. Does she look to have a big moment tonight?

And then, of course, will there be some sort of a focus on Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend. He, of course, doing well in Iowa right now. But for the most part has not been attacked too heavily on the debate stage. Perhaps that changes tonight.

[09:35:00]

Of course, with fewer candidates on stage, could be the opportunity for more attacks to come from all sides. So we'll have to see how that plays out.

HARLOW: So, Arlette, just for some analysis here, when you look at Biden being -- all right, let's jump and listen to the Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY): They voted to impeach President Trump.

Over the last 12 weeks, House Democrats have conducted the most rushed, least thorough and most unfair impeachment inquiry in modern history.

Now their slapdash process has concluded in the first purely partisan presidential impeachment since the wake of the Civil War. The opposition to impeachment was bipartisan. Only one part of one faction wanted this outcome. The House's conduct risks deeply damaging the institutions of American government.

This particular House of Representatives has let its partisan rage at this particular president create a toxic new precedent that will echo well into the future. That's what I want to discuss right now, the historic degree to which House Democrats have failed to do their duty and what it will mean for the Senate to do ours.

So let's start at the beginning. Let's start with the fact that Washington Democrats made up their minds to impeach President Trump since before he was even inaugurated. Here's a reporter in April of 2016 -- April of 2016. Donald Trump isn't even the Republican nominee yet, but impeachment is already on the lips of pundits, newspaper editorials, constitutional scholars and even a few members of Congress -- April 2016. On Inauguration Day 2017, the headline in The Washington Post: "The Campaign to Impeach President Trump Has Begun." That was day one.

In April 2017, three months into the presidency, a senior House Democrat said, "I'm going to fight every day until he's impeached." That was three months into the administration.

In December 2017, two years ago, Congressman Jerry Nadler was openly campaign -- campaigning to be the ranking member on the House Judiciary Committee specifically -- specifically because he was an expert on impeachment. That's the Nadler's campaign to be the top Democrat on Judiciary.

This week wasn't even the first time House Democrats have introduced articles of impeachment. It was actually the seventh time. They started less than six months after the president was sworn in. They tried to impeach President Trump for being impolite to the press, for being mean to professional athletes, for changing President Obama's policy on transgender people in the military. All of these things were high crimes and misdemeanors, according to Democrats.

[09:40:00] Now, this wasn't just a few people. Scores, scores of Democrats voted to move forward with impeachment on three of those prior occasions. So let's be clear. The House's vote yesterday was not some neutral judgment that Democrats came to with great reluctance. It was the predetermined end of a partisan crusade that began before President Trump was even nominated, let alone sworn in.

For the very first time in modern history, we've seen a political faction in Congress promise from the moment -- the moment the presidential election ended that they would find some way to overturn it.

MCCONNELL: A few months ago Democrats' three-year-long impeachment in search of articles found its way to the subject of Ukraine.

House Democrats embarked on the most rushed, least thorough and most unfair impeachment inquiry in modern history.

Chairman Schiff's inquiry was poisoned by partisanship from the outset. Its procedures and parameters were unfair in unprecedented ways. Democrats tried to make Chairman Schiff into a de facto special prosecutor, notwithstanding the fact that he is a partisan member of Congress who had already engaged in strange and biased behavior.

He scrapped the precedent to cut the Republican minority out of the process. He denied President Trump the same sorts of procedural rights that Houses of both parties had provided to past presidents of both parties. President Trump's counsel could not participate in Chairman Schiff's hearings, present evidence or cross-examine witnesses.

The House Judiciary Committee's crack at this was even more ahistorical. It was like the speaker called up Chairman Nadler and ordered one impeachment, rush delivery please.

The committee found no facts on its own, did nothing to verify the Schiff report. Their only witnesses were liberal law professors and congressional staffers.

(inaudible), there's a reason the impeachment inquiry that led to President Nixon's resignation required about 14 months of hearings -- 14 months in addition to a special prosecutor's investigation.

With President Clinton, the independent counsel's inquiry had been under way literally for years before the House Judiciary Committee actually dug in. Mountains of evidence, mountains. Mountains of testimony from firsthand fact witnesses, serious legal battles to get what was necessary.

[09:45:00] This time around? House Democrats skipped all of that. It's been just 12 weeks, 12 weeks. More than a year of hearings for Nixon, multiple years of investigation for Clinton. And they've impeached President Trump in 12 weeks, 12 weeks.

So let's talk about what the House actually produced in those 12 weeks. House Democrats' rushed and rigged inquiry yielded two articles -- two -- of impeachment. They're fundamentally unlike any articles that any prior House of Representatives has ever passed.

The first article concerns the core events, which House Democrats claim are impeachable: the timing of aid to Ukraine. But it does not even purport to allege any actual crime. Instead, they deploy the vague phrase, "abuse of power" -- abuse of power -- to impugn the president's action in a general indeterminate way.

Speaker Pelosi's House just gave into a temptation that every other House in history has managed to resist. I (ph) say that again. Speaker Pelosi's House just gave into a temptation that every other House in our history has managed to resist. They impeach a president whom they do not even allege has committed an actual crime known to our laws. They've impeached simply because they disagree with a presidential act, and question the motive behind it.

So let's look at history. Andrew Johnson's impeachment involved around a clear violation of a criminal statute, albeit an unconstitutional statute. Nixon had obstruction of justice, a felony under our laws. Clinton had perjury, also a felony.

MCCONNELL: Now, the Constitution does not say the House can impeach only those presidents who violate a law, but history matters, history matters and precedent matters. And there were important reasons why every previous House of Representatives in American history restrained itself -- restrained itself from crossing this Rubicon.

The framers of our Constitution very specifically discussed this issue: Whether the House should be able to impeach presidents just for, quote, "maladministration" -- just for maladministration; in other words, because the House simply thought the president had bad judgment or is doing a bad job. They talked about all this when they wrote the Constitution. The written records of our founders' debates show they specifically rejected this. They realized it would create a total dysfunction to set the bar for impeachment that low, that low. James Madison himself explained that allowing impeachment on that basis would mean the president serves at the pleasure of the Congress instead of the pleasure of the American people. It would make the president a creature -- a -- a creature -- a creature of -- of Congress, not the head of a separate and equal branch.

So there were powerful reasons, Mr. President, why Congress after Congress, for 230 years -- 230 years -- required presidential impeachments to revolve around clear, recognizable crimes, even though that was not a strict limitation; powerful reasons why for 230 years, no House -- no House -- opened a Pandora's box of subjective political impeachments. That 230-year tradition died last night.

Now, Mr. President, House Democrats have tried to say they had to impeach President Trump on this historically-thin and subjective basis because the White House challenged their request for more witnesses. And that brings us to the second article of impeachment. The House titled this one "Obstruction of Congress". What it really does is impeach the president for asserting presidential privilege.

[09:50:00] The concept of executive privilege is another two-century- old constitutional tradition. Presidents starting with George Washington have invoked it. Federal courts have repeatedly affirmed it is a legitimate constitutional power. House Democrats requested extraordinary amounts of sensitive information from President Trump's White House, exactly the kinds of things over which presidents of both parties have asserted privilege in the past.

Predictable and appropriately, President Trump did not simply roll over. He defended the constitutional authority of his office. No surprise there. It's not a constitutional crisis for a House to want more information than a president wants to give up. That's not a constitutional crisis; It's a routine occurrence. The separation of powers is messy by design.

[09:45:00] Here's what should have happened -- here's what should have happened: Either the president and Congress negotiate a settlement, or the third branch of government, the judiciary, addresses the dispute between the other two. The Nixon impeachment featured disagreements over presidential privilege, so they went to court. The Clinton impeachment featured disagreements over presidential privilege, so they went to the courts. This takes time. It's inconvenient. That's actually the point. Due process is not meant to maximize the convenience of the prosecutor; It's meant to protect the accused.

But this time was different. Remember, 14 months of hearings for Richard Nixon, years of investigation for Bill Clinton, 12 weeks for Donald Trump. Democrats didn't have to rush this, but they chose to stick to their political timetable at the expense of pursuing more evidence through proper legal channels.

MCCONNELL: Nobody made Chairman Schiff do this. He chose to. The Tuesday before last, on live television, Adam Schiff explained to the entire country that, if House Democrats had let the justice system follow its normal course, they might not have gotten to impeach the president in time for the election. My goodness.

In Nixon, the courts were allowed to do their work. In Clinton, the courts were allowed to do their work. Only these House Democrats decided due process is too much work. They'd rather impeach with no proof.

Well, Mr. President, they tried to cover for their own partisan impatience by pretending that the routine occurrence of a president exerting constitutional privilege is itself -- itself a second impeachable offense.

The following is something that Adam Schiff literally said in early October. Here's what he said. "Any action that forces us to litigate or to have to consider litigation will be considered further evidence of obstruction of justice." That's Adam Schiff.

Here's what the chairman effectively said and what one of his committee members restated just this week. "If the president asserts his constitutional rights, it's that much more evident he's guilty." "If the president asserts his constitutional rights, it's that much more evidence he's guilty." That kind of bullying is antithetical to American justice.

So those are House Democrats' two articles of impeachment. That's all their rushed and rigged inquiry could generate, an act that the House does not even allege is criminal and a nonsensical claim that exercising a legitimate presidential power is somehow an impeachable offense.

Mr. President, this is by far the thinnest basis for any House-passed presidential impeachment in American history -- the thinnest and the weakest, and nothing else even comes close.

And, candidly, I don't think I'm the only person around here who realizes that. Even before the House voted yesterday, Democrats had already started to signal uneasiness -- uneasiness with its end product. Before the articles even passed, the Senate Democratic leader went on television to demand that this body redo House Democrats' homework for them, that the Senate should supplement Chairman Schiff's sloppy work so it is more persuasive than Chairman Schiff himself bothered to make it.

Of course, every such demand simply confirms that House Democrats have rushed forward with a case that is much too weak.

Back in June, Speaker Pelosi promised the House would build an ironclad case. Never mind that she was basically promising impeachment months -- months before the Ukraine events, but that's a separate matter. She promised an ironclad case.

And in March, Speaker Pelosi said this. "Impeachment is so divisive to the country that, unless there is something so compelling and overwhelming and bipartisan, I don't think we should go down that path because it divides the country," end quote.

MCCONNELL: By the speaker's own standards, the standards she set, she has failed the country. The case is not compelling, not overwhelming, and as a result not bipartisan. The failure was made clear to everyone earlier this week when Senator Schumer began searching for ways the Senate could step out of our proper role and try to fix the House Democrats' failures for them. And it was made even more clear last night, when Speaker Pelosi suggested that House Democrats may be too afraid, too afraid to even transmit their shoddy work product to the Senate.

Mr. President, it looks like the prosecutors are getting cold feet in front of the entire country, and second-guessing whether they even want to go to trial. They said impeachment was so urgent that it could not even wait for due process, but now they're content to sit on their hands. This is really comical.

Democrats' own actions concede that their allegations are unproven. The articles aren't just unproven, they're also constitutionally incoherent, incoherent.

[09:55:00] Frankly, if either of these articles is blessed by the Senate, we could easily see the impeachment of every future president of either party. Let me say that again. If the Senate blesses this historically low bar, we will invite the impeachment of every future president.

The House Democrats' allegations as presented are incompatible with our constitutional order. They are unlike anything that has ever been seen in 230 years of this republic. House Democrats want to create new rules for this president because they feel uniquely enraged. They feel uniquely enraged.

But long after the partisan fever of this moment has broken, the institutional damage will remain. I've described the threat to the presidency, this also imperils the Senate itself.

The House has created an unfair, unfinished product that looks nothing, nothing like any impeachment inquiry in American history. And if the speaker ever gets her House in order, that mess will be dumped over here on the Senate's lap.

If the Senate blesses this slapdash impeachment, if we say that from now on this is enough, then we invite an endless parade of impeachable trials. Future Houses of either party will feel free to toss up a jump ball every time they feel angry, free to swamp the Senate with trial after trial, no matter how baseless the charges.

We'd be giving future Houses of either party unbelievable new power to paralyze the Senate at their whim. More thin arguments, more incomplete evidence, more partisan impeachments.

In fact, Mr. President, this same House of Representatives has already indicated that they themselves may not be finished impeaching. The House Judiciary Committee told a federal court this very week that it will continue its impeachment investigation even after voting on these articles. And multiple Democratic members have already called publicly for more.

If the Senate blesses this, if the nation accepts this, presidential impeachments may cease being a once-in-a-generation event and become a constant part -- a constant part of the political background noise.

This extraordinary tool of last resort may become just another part of the arms race of polarization. Real statesmen would have recognized, no matter their view of this president, that trying to remove him on this thin and partisan basis could unsettle the foundations of our republic. Real statesmen would have recognized, no matter how much partisan animosity might be coursing through their veins, that cheapening the impeachment process was not the answer.

MCCONNELL: Historians will regard this as a great irony of our era, that so many who profess such concern for our norms and traditions themselves, proved willing to trample our constitutional order to get their way. It is long past time for Washington to get a little perspective.

[10:00:01]

President Trump --