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Players and Procedure, What the Trump Senate Trial Will Look Like; Democratic Voters in Michigan Weigh Impeachment; Bloomberg Unveils Health Care Plan as Obamacare Suffers A Blow; Black Med Students Pose in Front of Old Slave Quarters. Aired 3:30-4p ET
Aired December 19, 2019 - 15:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[15:30:00]
JOAN BISKUPIC, CNN SUPREME COURT ANALYST -- the Constitution itself only provides the barest of structure about the two responsibilities of the House and the Senate. But there are rules that the Senate has adopted over the years. And the ones that they'll start with date to 1986.
And they've got all sorts of great little nitty-gritty points there about what time they would start the trial. Who would present, and how many -- how many people could open. How many people could close. You see there, you know, one to open, two to close. And how questions would be put to any witnesses.
And you see under the rules there that any questions would have to be in writing and then they're given to the presiding officer who would be the Chief Justice who would then ask them of witnesses. But I should tell you, Brooke, in 1999, when Bill Clinton was subject to an impeachment trial, there were no live witnesses. So there were no questions to be put in writing and then announced by the Chief, because --
BALDWIN: It was all tapes.
BISKUPIC: -- back in 1999 they only had videotape of three witnesses.
BALDWIN: It begins in January. Start day, TBD. Joan Biskupic, thank you very much.
BISKUPIC: Thank you.
BALDWIN: Coming up we'll take you to Detroit. As Democratic voters there share what they see as the pros and cons of this whole impeachment process.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The Republican party members have spent the day making a show of it. So far as to call the President of the United States equal to Jesus Christ, and the Democrats in Congress like Pontius Pilate. This is absurd.
(END VIDEO CLIP) [15:35:00]
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BALDWIN: Moments ago President Trump meeting with Congressman Jeff Van Drew at White House. The President formally announcing that the New Jersey Democrat will be switching to the Republican Party. Congressman Van Drew cites impeachment but he was at risk politically.
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DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Amazing period of time and to have you is a tremendous asset to the party and again, thank you very much.
REP. JEFF VAN DREW (R-NJ): Thank you.
TRUMP: We're with you all the way.
VAN DREW: Thank you.
TRUMP: Thank you. With you. Tremendous honor. Thank you.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BALDWIN: And Manu Raju is reporting that the House is likely to close shop for the year today without approving a key impeachment resolution. That resolution would name managers, those House managers for the Senate trial before lawmakers head home for recess. So what that means is no clarity until they return to Washington January 6th.
CNN's Jason Carroll is following how voters feel about impeachment in Detroit.
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JASON CARROLL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: The Democrats we spoke to say the impeachment long overdue but there is no cause for celebration. They say looking ahead they have a lot of concern for their party and the country.
(voice-over): As the impeachment proceedings winded down members of the Greater Royal Oak Democratic Club gathered to mark what they called somber day in U.S. history.
PAULA MARTINO-MANTAY, MICHIGAN RESIDENT: It's very disheartening to me to see people who used to call themselves Republicans who are simply standing up to support Donald Trump.
CARROLL: Keeping tabs on the impeachment proceeding was especially important to Lauren Jasinski.
LAUREN JASINSKI, MICHIGAN RESIDENT: I think it's really a fantastic opportunity to see democracy in action.
CARROLL: Jasinski teaches government to high school students. (on camera): Has there been any particular moment that stood out to
you?
JASINSKI: I think I'm surprised in how forward people are being and their minds already being made up.
CARROLL: Interesting. Is that surprising to you?
JASINSKI: Yes. Yes. I would expect a little more openness.
CARROLL (voice-over): No one in the group say the expected Republican leaders to support impeaching the President. But Paul Curtis, who has now watched two Presidents be impeached says he was still surprised by the behavior of some Republican members of Congress.
PAUL CURTIS, MICHIGAN RESIDENT: The Republican Party members have spent the day making a show of it, so far as to call the President of the United States equal to Jesus Christ, and the Democrats in Congress are like Pontius Pilate. This is absurd.
CARROLL: Earlier Wednesday hours before the vote took place, Jeffrey Nolish and his friends were already feeling the weight of the day.
JEFFREY NOLISH, MICHIGAN RESIDENT: We're witnessing procedures that were put into practice by founders. You know, play out in realtime and I guess it is a bit more of a somber day, but it's a day to be, to learn and be educated.
TEDDY DORSETTE, MICHIGAN RESIDENT: Who would have thought in our lifetime that we and others, an impeachment debate? I'm holding my son and thinking to myself will we ever see this again in his lifetime. I hope not.
CARROLL: Still this group felt it was important to mark the day in history together.
LESLIE TOM, MICHIGAN RESIDENT: Processing it together, collectively. There's something that's nice about Detroit and being able to find the spaces to meet up, gather and discuss.
CROWD: Impeach now.
CARROLL: While hundreds demonstrated Tuesday in support of the proceedings, in the progressive enclave of Ferndale just outside Detroit, the political reality is, Michigan is a swing state. The question on their minds, will Democrats pay a price at the ballot box as a result of impeachment?
DIANA RAINE, MICHIGAN RESIDENT: I'm terrified they will pay a price.
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But at the same time, they'll be able to live with themselves.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think the Democrats are doing the right thing and whatever the political cost. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's sad and it's good, too. I mean, it shows
that --
CARROLL (on camera): Good in what way?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The Constitution works.
CARROLL: And some of the Democrats we spoke to reacting to the comments the President made about the late Congressman John Dingell. For example, Paula Mantay called the comments, quote, uncalled for, heartless, cruel and
unnecessary.
While Jeffrey Nolish said that the comments were, quote, inappropriate and immature. And that the President should apologize.
Jason Carroll, CNN, Detroit.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BALDWIN: And Jason in addition to those shameful comments about about the late John Dingell, there was also this.
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TRUMP: Dishwashers, the dishwasher, right? You press it. Remember the dishwasher, you press it? Hold it, it's be like an explosion. Five minutes later, you open it up, the steam pours out, the dishes -- now you press it 12 times. Women tell me -- again, you know, give you four drops of water. And there are place where is there's so much water they don't know what to do with it.
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BALDWIN: What? With President Trump's impeachment Wednesday was certainly a day for the history books. But President Trump made a comment that belongs in an entirely different era. You heard him. He just started talking about dishwashers, and certainly not the most egregious thing he said last night but still dishwashers and how they don't work like they used to.
How does he know this? Well he says women tell me. Well, first of all what women are telling him this? You ask any Trump fact checker wo studies how this man speaks, when the President adds the qualifier, many people are saying, or people tell me. It's rarely true.
He did it when he said some people were questioning President Obama's birth certificate or to claim that everyone is saying he was right about the wall. Both are false, of course. So instead of focusing on what women tell you, let's talk about when they speak why you should listen.
When women tell you that they make 80 cents on a dollar compared to a man, when women tell you we only have 12 years left to avoid a climate disaster. When your wife tells you and the country, "be best" instead of degrading women. Mr. President, please, listen. We'll be right back.
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BALDWIN: The U.S. Appeals Court delivering a major blow to the Affordable Care Act ruling, the individual insurance mandate unconstitutional. But the more pressing issue of whether the rest of the rule is also unconstitutional. That remains unresolved.
That ruling coming on the same day that 2020 hopeful and former Mayor of New York City Michael Bloomberg unveils his own healthcare plan. His campaign is describing it as a complete rebuke of President Trump's policies. And CNN business and politics reporter Cristina Alesci is with me now. Hello.
CRISTINA ALESCI, CNN BUSINESS AND POLITICS REPORTER: Hi.
BALDWIN: So he's not calling it Medicare For All. So what is this?
ALESCI: Well, it's definitely not Medicare For All. Because when I was traveling with Bloomberg earlier in the year, he said that would essentially bankrupt the U.S. for a very long time. So what this is, if you look at it, it's basically a Medicare-like option for anybody who wants in on that, and it's in line with other Democrats, like Biden and Buttigieg in the sense that Bloomberg wants to see everybody have some kind of coverage, some kind of health insurance.
It expands the ACA, it calls for more subsidies for the ACA and it allows anyone who likes their insurance to keep their private insurance, which as you know has tripped up a couple of candidates. So this is a very sort of middle of the line kind of plan. He hopes that it will appeal to a broad base of people. That's the policy.
The politics of this and the way that he delivered it, though, was basically, he was asking the American people to ask a very simple question of themselves. Which is -- is your health care any better than it was before President Trump was elected? And does it cost any less?
And he made that in a speech today in Memphis when he rolled this out and he said, you know, despite the fact that Americans spent $3.6 trillion last year in health costs, the life expectancy under Trump has not been reduced. It's actually gone up. That's what the message that Bloomberg was putting out there.
BALDWIN: Got it. So he's saying I can improve it but I also still want to give you the choice.
ALESCI: Yes.
BALDWIN: Cristina, hank you very much. Cristina Alesci on all things Michael Bloomberg.
Just a reminder to all of you. It is debate night. Seven of the Democrats running to replace President Trump have qualified to be on that stage, 8:00 tonight Eastern time. You can watch the PBS News Hour/Politico Democratic Presidential debate live from Los Angeles on CNN, and also your local PBS station. So tune in for that.
Still ahead, Russian President Vladimir Putin defends President Trump on impeachment using some of the same talking points we have heard from -- wait for it -- the White House. But first, a stunning image of 15 African American medical students standing in front of the slave quarters on this old plantation, they will join me live with their inspiring message, next.
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BALDWIN: I am so excited to share this story with you. Let me show you this picture. You are going see 15 African American medical students from Tulane University travel to this nearby plantation to pose in their white coats on the steps of what was once slave quarters. Unsurprisingly, the image want viral.
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And two of the students seen in the photo Russell Ledet and Sydney Labat are with me now. And so first of all, medical school, all right, you know, congratulations just on that.
SYDNEY LABAT, TULANE MEDICAL STUDENT WHO HELPED ORGANIZE TRIP TO PLANTATION: Thank you.
BALDWIN: Russell, this was your idea. Tell me how you thought of this.
RUSSELL LEDET, TULANE MEDICAL STUDENT WHO HELPED ORGANIZE TRIP TO PLANTATION: One of my best friends Phillip Thomas had come to visit. And we went for the first time with my nine-year-old, on our ride back my daughter and I had a conversation. And she was like, dad, you know, being a black doctor in America is a big deal, you know.
And I was like, you are right. She's like, we have come a long way. And I was like, you are right. I was like I think my classmates need the see this. So I talked to a couple of my classmates and they were like we just need to do this. She was like we just need to do this.
They were uninhibited about doing it. And it took a while for us to get it together. Thanks to Dr. Joy Banner and Ibrahima Sect over at Whitney plantation for giving us an amazing experience. And we had an intention about going there. We wanted to get something out of that experience. And we got it.
BALDWIN: From your 9-year-old. Bless her. Sydney, I read on Instagram in part you wrote -- for black people pursuing a career in medicine, keep going. For our entire community, keep striving, resilience is in our DNA.
Talk to me a little bit more about what you meant by that. And I am also curious, since you all have posted this, I can only imagine all the messages you all are receiving from folks around the world.
LABAT: Yes, so just to tell those who are black and pursuing a degree in medicine just to tell them to keep going, I think it was substantial to show that those students behind us, this is very possible, and you are capable of this.
I graduated from Xavier University, Louisiana, which is one of the top producers of black doctors in the nation. So I felt that that message was something that I personally needed to tell all the premeds. Because that is so important. This is so your destiny and this is so your future.
Telling our community to keep striving, I think that was important to say under the post because that's essentially what the post is about, that was what the picture was about. To show how far we've come, and how far we have to go. So just hinting at and just directing them that at we still have a lot -- a long distance for us to go just to tell them that, you know, to keep striving and we will make it.
And also just to say, resilience is in our DNA. I think that's self- explanatory. I would not be able the be a student in America studying medicine if those ancestors did not have the will to press on and to live every day. And us paying homage to them by coming back just really makes that connection between the past and the present, and that resiliency has not faded over time, and we are here, and we are present, and we will continue to press on.
BALDWIN: Amen. Good for you. Russell, what are you hearing from people?
LABAT: Thank you.
BALDWIN: I imagine just total strange remembers hitting you up on DM, saying what?
LEDET: Like I believe now. Like I believe I -- like I got a chance. There was somebody who recently messaged me and said like my 4-year- old is going to have this in their bedroom on the wall. And that's kind of our goal. Like at this point it's like I know our position. We know our position.
All of us in that image know who we are. We know our position in society. And we got to utilize it to motivate those babies. They need an example. Like they have got to have an example that looks like them. Someone tweeted I can't be what I don't see. You know --
BALDWIN: So true.
LEDET: -- and so for us, it's like -- we have got to be the people who illustrate what that image looks like. That's kind of our goal now. Like our goal is to get 100,000 copies of that framed and put up in classrooms across the nation.
BALDWIN: You know, this reminds we a little --
LEDET: We're not sure how we are going to do it yet. BALDWIN: You'll do it. You'll do it. It reminds me, I've talked to a
couple of the black judges in Harris County, Texas, remember 19 black judges went and that photo of them went viral of them in their robes when they were running. Here you are now in your white coats as med students. I just curious, I have you all for 60 more seconds.
When you were standing there in those white coats there at the plantation were there tourists sort of like what's going on?
LEDET: Yes, I think they were kind of were like, what is this. But I think another part of it was like this is odd. This isn't normal. Like you don't normally see -- right -- you have an essentially homogeneous African American population of people standing there in white coats taking photos. And white coats generally demonstrate physicians or physicians in training and you have got to take a step back and say oh, my God, like.
LABAT: It's striking.
LEDET: Yes.
BALDWIN: It is striking. It is striking. I thank the two of you. And for all of the young black boys and girls watching right now just look at what you are showing them. See and believe and become Sydney and Russell. And really for anyone. Thank you so much. And good luck.
LEDET: Thank you.
LABAT: Thank you.
BALDWIN: Get those photos framed, guys. I'm Brooke Baldwin. Thank you.
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