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Trump Rips Impeachment But Says McConnell Will Do What He Wants; North Korea Warning He Will Be sending A Christmas Gift To The U.S.; President Trump Once Again Lashed Out At House Democrats Accusing Them Of Treating Him Unfairly. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired December 24, 2019 - 14:00   ET

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

[14:00:19]

JESSICA DEAN, CNN HOST: Hi, everyone. I'm Jessica Dean, in for Brooke Baldwin and welcome to a Special Holiday Edition of CNN NEWSROOM.

The day before Christmas, President Trump goes from merry and bright to mad and berating after a holiday video conference call thanking U.S. troops overseas, the Commander-in-Chief lashed out over his impeachment.

He contended that House Democrats led an unfair process and are now demanding fairness from the Senate. He also slammed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi who is withholding the Articles of Impeachment amid concerns the Senate will not be impartial in the impeachment trial.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We're in a very good position. Ultimately, that decision is going to be made by Mitch McConnell, and he will make it. He has the right to do whatever he wants. He's the head of the Senate.

People remember they treated us very unfairly. They didn't give us due process. They didn't give us a lawyer. They didn't give us anything. Now, they come to the Senate and they want everything.

We weren't entitled to witnesses. We weren't entitled to lawyers. We sat in the basement. They treated us worse than anybody has been treated from a legal standpoint in the history of the United States.

And we have the majority, and now they want McConnell to do wonderful things for them. I mean, he's going to do what he wants to do. Very smart guy, very good guy and a very fair guy. But they treated us very unfairly and now they want fairness in the Senate.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DEAN: Okay, there's a lot to fact check and correct about the President's comments just there. But before we go deeper on that, which we're going to do, we want to turn first to CNN's Kirsten Holmes who is following the President in West Palm Beach and Kristen, despite all of his criticism of impeachment, the President still saying he is in what he calls a very good position.

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Jessica. And, he again, pins this on Mitch McConnell. He said that all of this comes down to Mitch McConnell, who he calls a good guy and he believes is on his team.

And Jessica, since we've been here, we haven't really seen President Trump. He has been largely surrounded by allies and supporters. I'm talking about Rush Limbaugh, who he had lunch with. He has been golfing. He has been seen shaking hands and hobnobbing with members and guests at Mar-a-Lago which included his personal attorney, as well as former Navy SEAL Eddie Gallagher, the man who President Trump had his status as a Navy SEAL reinstated.

So a lot of people here who have a lot of backing to President Trump. But despite all of that, he has been fixated on this impeachment and fixated on one person in particular. This morning, as well as the past several days, tweeting About Nancy Pelosi and he didn't stop there. Take a listen to him right after that call.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: She hates the Republican Party. She hates all of the people that voted for me and the Republican Party. And she is desperate to do it.

Look, she got thrown out as Speaker once before. She lost like 63 seats, 61 or 63. Tremendous. A record setting number of seats. I think it's going to happen again. She is doing a tremendous disservice to the country. She's not doing a good job.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: Now, even though it is the Holiday, we know White House aides have already started preparing for that impending Senate trial. They are hoping that President Trump will start focusing on that on the actual preparation, not just the process, or Nancy Pelosi herself.

So it'll be interesting to see if that actually happens. If he does turn his attention to that, if we see a quieter President Trump because right now, it is clear he is getting reinforcement from those people around him and he is being very vocal about it.

DEAN: No question about that. Kristen Holmes in West Palm Beach for us. Thanks so much.

Let's discuss all this with our panel. Joining me now, CNN national security analyst Samantha Vinograd; CNN congressional correspondent Manu Raju; and former national security prosecutor, Joseph Moreno.

Hi to all of you. Thanks for being here on this Christmas Eve. Manu, President Trump -- we just heard him -- ranted about that entire impeachment process. Kristen saying he has zeroed in on it calling those House proceedings unfair, saying he wasn't afforded a lawyer or witnesses. You were there for all of it. Fact check that for us. MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, the fact of

the matter is that he was offered an opportunity, for his lawyers to come in and question witnesses not during the House Intelligence Committee's part of the investigation, but during the House Judiciary Committee's part of the investigation.

And then after he was offered that, to come in and question the witnesses, first, there were constitutional lawyers, then it was the actual attorneys who were involved in the House Intelligence Committee's investigation who testified before the Judiciary Committee, the White House turn that down, and said they would not participate in that.

Now, he also criticized the basement proceedings that occurred in the House Intelligence Committee investigation behind closed doors.

[14:05:09]

RAJU: Republicans did participate in those closed door depositions. They asked as many questions as Democrats. He criticized the leaks that came out of there, and the leaks oftentimes came from the witnesses' attorneys who provided the opening statements of their testimony to various members of the press to provide their arguments going in.

And then later, the transcripts were released of all those who testified. But this has all been part of the argument that the President has been made. That he has been a victim, that this was an unfair process. He is trying to attack Nancy Pelosi, Adam Schiff, over all of that.

The interesting thing is that now, he is saying that the Republicans should not provide any sort of fair process in the eyes of Democrats because of the way he was treated in the House. So the question is, will the Republicans listen to him? And at the moment, they don't want to give the witnesses the Democrats have been asking for.

DEAN: Yes, I want to ask you about that because Senate leaders from both parties, Mitch McConnell and Chuck Schumer are trying to hash out what that impeachment trial is going to look like, and you're hearing that McConnell is weighing an option that involves needing no support from Chuck Schumer.

RAJU: Yes. And he has that right to do that. He can go to the floor of the Senate and actually try to move to get a vote to set the ground rules of the Senate trial. And he could do that with a simple majority vote, meaning 51 Republican senators can vote to do just that.

And I'm hearing from multiple Republican sources that that is certainly an option that is still on the table. He wants to try to cut a deal with Chuck Schumer, but Chuck Schumer wants those witnesses agreed upfront, wants documents to be released upfront, and an agreement on that. McConnell is saying no agreement on that. Let's have the trial. Opening arguments first and worry about that later.

So it seems like McConnell's digging in. Schumer is digging in and that could lead up to this partisan vote on the floor -- Jessica.

DEAN: And here we are. All right, Manu, thanks. And Joseph, what do you think and what do you make of doing things in that order that Manu was just describing: Opening statements before there's a decision on witnesses and documents and why do you think Chuck Schumer is good go along with that, if he will? Is that just political pressure there by being in the minority?

JOSEPH MORENO, FORMER NATIONAL SECURITY PROSECUTOR: Jessica, what Mitch McConnell is saying is that look, we want to use the same rules in the Senate that we use for the Bill Clinton impeachment trial back in 1998. And that was exactly as you laid out, opening statements, an opportunity for questions, and then to decide whether or not witnesses get called.

I think what's very different here, though, than in the case of Bill Clinton was that, you know, while there was certainly fighting about the substance of the Bill Clinton impeachment, there wasn't all this fighting about process.

I mean, both parties really did kind of get together and say, okay, look, we may not agree on whether he should be impeached, but there wasn't a lot of complaining about the fairness of the process.

So here, the President likes to complain about fairness. But at the end of the day, you know, he and the House and the Senate will be judged, I think very harshly if this was all determined by either party to basically be unfair to all involved.

DEAN: To just be so hyper partisan. And Sam, I want to ask you, an MO of President Trump has been to discredit this whole impeachment process. We heard him talking about it there. Do you think that's an effective message for him and the White House?

SAMANTHA VINOGRAD, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Well, it's likely an effective message for him politically with his base. But Jessica Trump is a creature of habit. He has discredited the Special Counsel investigation. He even tries to discredit future election results that he thinks may things may not turn out in his favor.

So this is par for the course with respect to how President Trump approaches any process that he thinks is detrimental to him in some way. But what we have to remember is who Trump is speaking to here.

He is speaking to members of the Senate that he is hoping will cooperate with Mitch McConnell and not allow a fair process to go forward with the Senate. But he is also speaking with the American people in an election year.

And so for that reason, we should expect this to continue, and the real question is what Mitch McConnell and the Democrats are going to be able to come up with as a compromise solution to move forward.

Now that could include the Democrats agreeing to let some of the Republican witnesses appear, which Democrats have said really have no bearing on this case whether that's Adam Schiff, Nancy Pelosi, or even Hunter Biden.

So I'm really waiting to see what the compromise looks like going forward while fully aware that President Trump is going to continue this dis-accreditation of the process.

DEAN: Right. Right. Well, we'll see what they come up with a minute. And Manu, I want go back to you because CNN has some new details about an American who was working with two of Rudy Giuliani's associates indicted on campaign finance violations. What are we learning about this man, David Correia?

RAJU: Yes, this is our reporting from our colleague Vicky Ward, who looked at text messages shedding new light about this individual who actually has been indicted along with two other Giuliani associates as part of their efforts here.

And what that she was able to reveal from looking at these text messages is that David Correia played the role of trying to essentially commercialize the efforts by the Giuliani associates who were out in Ukraine. The Giuliani associates were, at the time, pushing for an investigations into the Bidens. That was part of their efforts to try to dig up dirt on the Bidens that led to that call for the investigation.

[14:10:05]

RAJU: I should say, David Correia played the role of essentially looking out on the business side of things. According to what she was able to find out was that what he was trying to do is figure out a way to sell U.S. natural gas -- liquefied natural gas -- to Ukraine through Poland -- through a pipeline in Poland.

That was all part of some of the discussions to try to sum up these business meetings. But one of the things that we had heard from the Impeachment Inquiry is that this effort was not just an effort to dig up dirt, but also a commercial effort to actually monetize some of these matters. And apparently, David Correia played that role, allegedly.

Now, I should say he denied any wrongdoing as long with the two other Giuliani associates. So he will eventually have his day in court, but I suspect we'll learn more about his role as well -- Jessica.

DEAN: Yes. And I want to ask you, Sam, with your national security background, you have Correia along with Igor FrUman and Lev Parnas trying to dig up dirt in Ukraine on Joe and Hunter Biden. And now we're learning that Correia was trying to monetize this as well according to Vicky Ward's reporting there. What kind of national security implications does this have when you have these people over in Ukraine doing all kinds of things like this?

VINOGRAD: Sure. I mean, this certainly redefines mixing business with pleasure, and the major takeaway from all this is that three actors who are really motivated by financial interests were able to have a negative impact on us national security. Marie Yovanovitch was ousted from her position by men that were trying

to make money and they were going to Ukraine to try to ink business deals while pushing for dirt on Hunter Biden, and really soliciting foreign campaign contributions.

And it's really interesting, we don't know if Correia is cooperating with law enforcement. But an interesting part of Vicky Ward's reporting is also that Corriea was in these meetings with Giuliani at BLT Steak in Washington, D.C., and whether it's Parnas, Fruman or now, Correia, it certainly appears that Correia would have valuable information on what Giuliani was up to.

There's a text message, for example, that says -- from Correia - that says it started after the article on "The Hill" was published about dirt on Hunter Biden. So I will be keeping my eyes on whether Correia is cooperating in some way with law enforcement because he may have valuable information.

DEAN: That's an interesting point and we have to talk about Rudy Giuliani's latest interview in "New York Magazine," speaking of Rudy Giuliani. It is wild. It is wide ranging and Giuliani calls the people at the Southern District of New York office, which he used to lead of course, as U.S. Attorney idiots, and worse, he declares he has no business in Ukraine after he describes his business in Ukraine. He also questions if billionaire George Soros is Jewish.

Joseph, all of this and he is still the President's personal lawyer. What do you make of all of these elements at play -- giving interviews like this, all of these comments on the record as the President's personal lawyer?

MORENO: Jessica, I mean, as a former New Yorker, as a former Federal prosecutor and as a Republican, I mean, I had a lot of respect for Rudy Giuliani for so many years as to what he did in New York City. What he is doing now is so inexplicable in terms of his legal and his public relations strategy for any client, much less the President of the United States.

You know, it was reported a few weeks ago in "The Washington Post" that Bill Barr, the Attorney General told President Trump, look, you are not being well-served by your lawyer, Rudy Giuliani. Be careful. He is becoming a liability. Hard to argue with that from what we're seeing in this and other interviews like it.

DEAN: It's very interesting. All right. Samantha Vinograd, Manu Raju, Joseph Moreno, thanks to all of you. Sam, we'll see you next hour. Thanks, guys.

MORENO: Thanks.

VINOGRAD: Thanks.

DEAN: North Korea has warned it will be sending a Christmas gift if the U.S. does not change its negotiating strategy in the denuclearization talks. American military officials fear it could be a long range missile test. Now, listen to what the President said when he was asked about it today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

QUESTION: Kim Jong-un is threatening a Christmas surprise for the world --

TRUMP: Oh, that's okay. We'll find out what the surprise is and we'll deal with it very successfully and let's see what happens.

Everybody's got surprises for me. But let's see what happens. I handle them as they come along. Maybe it's a nice present. Maybe it's a present where he sends me a beautiful vase as opposed to a missile test. Right? I'm making a vase. I'm making a nice present for him. You don't know. You never know.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DEAN: We're going to find out. Kylie Atwood is CNN national security reporter and Kylie, this is a delicate time for those negotiations. How is the Pentagon preparing for whatever this Christmas gift turns out to be?

KYLIE ATWOOD, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY REPORTER: Yes, Jessica. It is an extremely delicate moment because for all intents and purposes, the negotiations between the U.S. and North Korea that started out very well earlier this year with a Summit in Hanoi have fallen apart and it's the North Koreans that have set this timeline.

[14:15:00]

ATWOOD: That if the U.S. doesn't change their position on negotiations, doesn't give them sanctions relief by the end of the year, then they are no longer going to negotiate.

They've also promised, as you said, this Christmas gift and we have, the expectation is that it's going to be some sort of launch by the North Koreans. There are images, satellite images that demonstrate that they are moving around engines and pieces of missiles, which do indicate that they could launch something.

So senior officials from the military have told CNN that they are ready for anything that North Korea decides to do. The question is, what kind of launch could they decide to make right now? Would it be a short range missile launch? A long range missile launch? Or a nuclear test?

And we see President Trump there saying that they are going to deal with it beautifully, that it's going to be fine; essentially, that it could also be something like a vase that North Korea gives him as a gift rather than a missile test.

But the ultimate reality here is that the North Koreans have set this deadline for the end of the year, and we are all waiting to see what kind of action they take over the next few days.

DEAN: Yes, it'll be interesting to see. All right, Kylie Atwood, we know you'll be keeping an eye on that. Thanks so much.

Well, Democratic candidates are taking a Christmas Eve break from campaigning, but once they're back on the trail, how will they challenge President Trump on the economy as polls get tighter?

Plus, the black market of vaping is hiding in plain sight and Dr. Sanjay Gupta is going to tell us how to spot dangerous fakes.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

DEAN: In the wake of his impeachment in the House and his upcoming trial in the Senate, President Trump today once again lashed out at House Democrats accusing them of treating him unfairly.

[14:20:07]

DEAN: Despite his anger over impeachment, though, recent polling shows the President may actually be gaining ground as we head into 2020. CNN's senior political writer and analyst, Harry Enten joins us now to break down some numbers here. Harry, these are really interesting and important to keep in mind as we get ready for 2020.

HARRY ENTEN, CNN POLITICS SENIOR WRITER AND ANALYST: I think these numbers are really interesting and really important, because we know throughout the President's time in office, the numbers really haven't been moving.

But if we take a look at the poll numbers as we see them right now, General Election polls, and we compare our CNN poll that was taken on October to our CNN poll taken in December, we see clear movement towards the President of the United States.

Joe Biden is up only five points now. He was up 10 points back in October. Bernie Sanders is up only four points now, he was up nine points back in October. Elizabeth Warren who was up eight points in October, she's now only up a point, well within the margin of error and with Pete Buttigieg, the same thing. He was up six points in October, and now, he is down one point. That's within the margin of error.

But of course, elections in this country are about the Electoral College. It's about the battleground states, and take a look at the numbers in those battleground states, because I think it's so important. The 15 closest states back in 2016. What do we see here? We see the president even doing better than he was doing nationally.

Joe Biden and he are tied. Bernie Sanders actually down by two, though that's within the margin of error. Elizabeth Warren down by four, again, within the margin error, a very close race. And Pete Buttigieg down five, again, within the margin of error. But I think this is a key point when we think back to 2016. It's quite possible if this poll is right, that the President may lose nationally, but could win in the battleground states and thereby win the presidency.

But why are these numbers closing? Why is the President doing better? Well, I think there are a few reasons why. Number one, the state of the economy. So we asked voters, we asked adults in our poll how are economic conditions in the country today? And what we see is that more Americans say that economic conditions are good in the country today that have said that over the last two decades.

You have to go all the way back to 2001 to see that 76 percent of Americans now say economic conditions are good versus only a little more than 20 percent who say economic conditions are bad. So I think that is a real reason why the movement in the pulse of the President.

One last thing that I'll sort of point out in terms of the President of the United States. Take a look at this. The favorability ratings. This is very key. Although the President, more Americans still or more voters say they have an unfavorable than favorable view of the President. That number, that is getting closer to break even. So now, his net favorability, that is his favorable minus his unfavorable rating is minus six points. That is up from minus 12 the last two times we took the poll and I think that's very, very important because as close to the President is to break even, the better chance he has of winning.

DEAN: And it seems to me just in breaking all that down, we saw a very long way down.

ENTEN: Oh, we do.

DEAN: I know that. I know that. But this is no matter how you cut it, very tight right now. And I think sometimes on both sides, people think oh, my person, my side is going to win no matter what.

ENTEN: I think that's so important. You know, I talked to some people that said, oh, there's no doubt the President will win, and I talked to other people say, well, the President is historically unpopular. There's no way he could possibly win.

And I think when you look at these numbers, what this indicates to me is that we still have a very tight country, you know, 50/50, really, and this is why the campaign is going to be so important because one way or another, one side has to win and right now, we're just not sure who that's going to be.

DEAN: All right, many more numbers to come in 2020.

ENTEN: I look forward to them.

DEAN: Thanks so much. Happy Holidays to you.

ENTEN: Thank you. You as well.

DEAN: CNN political analyst, Joshua Green is joining me now, and national correspondent for Bloomberg Business Week; and Catherine Rampell is a columnist for "The Washington Post," also a CNN political analyst. Thank you, both of you for joining us today.

I want to talk a little bit about what Harry and I were just talking about. Josh, let's go to you first. You've written recently about how things are looking brighter for President Trump, as the impeachment hasn't yet really turned into this body blow the Democrats had hoped for. Is it all about the economy for him going into 2020, do you think?

JOSHUA GREEN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: I think it's a big part of it. I mean, if you look at where we were a year ago, the stock market was bottoming out. Trump had just gone on Twitter and declared himself a tariff man. The trade war was raging. There were a lot of fears that the U.S. economy was going to slip into a recession.

But since then, none of those fears had really come to be realized. The economy is doing better. Trump has had a very accommodative Federal Reserve, and the S&P 500 is up about 30 percent for the year. So most Americans, as Harry's number show, as the CNN poll shows are feeling better about the economy.

And if you're an incumbent President, that is good news for you.

DEAN: And Catherine, you just wrote a column in "The Post" talking about this two-year anniversary of the G.O.P. tax cuts and how the President's signature legislative achievement has not lived up to its promises.

Now, we did just hear from Harry, 76 percent of Americans think the economy is good; 68 percent think it'll be good a year from now. Do you think that the average voter is going to factor in things, like you talked about, the deficit or the tax cuts and how they affect them into their decision of who they're going to support in 2020?

[14:25:06]

CATHERINE RAMPELL, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, I don't know that they're going to really factor in the deficit. That has not necessarily been the most important issue for most Americans lately, or maybe ever, for that matter.

I think that the perception of the tax cut and the overall economic agenda embraced by Trump and his fellow Republicans does matter, in that the tax cut was very heavily weighted toward the wealthy and towards corporations and it is viewed as such.

And in fact, despite those numbers that Harry was just talking about showing that there are, you know, relatively high ratings for the overall economy, other poll data suggests that there is an aspect of economic growth that Democrats can exploit. That is the unequal distribution of gains and the tax cut plays into that narrative, in a sense that if you ask regular Americans, do you think that current economic conditions are helping the wealthy? Most of them say yes.

If you ask most -- if you ask Americans, do you think current economic conditions are helping the middle class? The poor or families like you? Most of them or a plurality, say no. So there is this perception that gains are not being equally shared amongst the American populace.

And if Democrats can weaponize that and talk about how their own policies would lead to more equitable distribution of growth and wage gains and things like that, that could play to their advantage.

DEAN: Yes, so threading that needle about income inequality is kind of what you're saying there. Josh, does the President have the discipline, though, to run a campaign on the economy?

I mean, you know, you'll remember that, like in 2018, a lot of Republicans, especially ones on the ballot, wanted him to talk about that over and over and over again. Does he think that the economy is a winner for him? Or does he want to go back to kind of more of what we hear at his rallies?

GREEN: Well, I think Trump thinks the stock market is a winner for him. We know because he talks about it and he tweets about it, but on the whole Trump has had a really hard time sticking to the message Republicans would like him to stick to which is focused on the economy.

I don't know if that will change in the next 11 or so months. But at least as far as where things stand today, the economy I think, is a net plus for Trump. There's always the possibility that he could blow things up. He could start another trade war. Things could go sideways.

But you know, with that being said, I think the economy is a tailwind for Trump rather than a headwind. And as long as he doesn't get in the way of that both rhetorically and in terms of the policies he pursues. Then, you know, I think things will look good for him going into November.

DEAN: And Catherine, before we let you go, if the President -- we also have heard him all day talking about impeachment. He has been talking about it really non-stop. If he continues to talk about that going into 2020, do you think that's effective for him? Does that resonate beyond his base?

RAMPELL: I think it will resonate with his base that they are fired up, they think that their guy has been unfairly attacked. Whether or not that motivates people in the middle, people on the left for that matter -- people in the middle to come out of open and people on the left to stay home, I think seems quite unlikely at this point, particularly given that you have such segmented news diets today and you could imagine that his playing up impeachment could actually fire up the left-wing base as well, given what they're learning about.

DEAN: Yes. All right, Catherine Rampell and Joshua Green, thank you both for being with us.

Christmas in the Holy Land, we are live as the faithful flock to Bethlehem and the festivities begin.

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