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Vacationing Trump Fires Off Stream of Anti-Impeachment Tweets; Benjamin Netanyahu Facing A Leadership Challenge Within His Own Party; Americans Are Spending Lots Of Money This Holiday Season. Aired 2- 2:30p ET

Aired December 26, 2019 - 14:00   ET

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

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: A winter storm is threatening to complicate weekend travel plans for millions of Americans. Up to two feet of snow is possible across the Midwest and in the eastern third of the country, it is likely to be a weekend wash out with up to three inches of rain across the Northeast and the Deep South.

That's it for me. NEWSROOM starts right now.

[14:00:31]

JESSICA DEAN, CNN HOST: Hi, everyone. I'm Jessica Dean, in for Brooke Baldwin today. Thanks for being along with us this afternoon.

Just hours after President Trump called for a quote, "culture of deeper respect" this Christmas, he tweeted Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi is quote, "crazy." The insult part of a stream of messages in which he raged against his impeachment and the impasse over it and the tweet show that while he maybe on vacation in Florida, President Trump has yet to take a break from Washington and what waits for him when he returns.

Right now, it looks like he'll face the ongoing uncertainty about when the Senate impeachment trial will start. House Speaker Pelosi is withholding the two Articles of Impeachment from the Senate amid concerns Republicans will not hold an impartial Senate trial.

And that move has triggered this question from the President in one of his latest tweets, quote, "A primary for N?" For the record, Nancy Pelosi has represented California's 12th District for 31 years winning her last Democratic primary with 68 percent of the vote.

Let's go now to CNN White House reporter, Sarah Westwood near the President's Florida resort. And Sarah, we know the President is thinking about impeachment. That is very clear. How was he preparing for impeachment, though during this winter break?

SARAH WESTWOOD, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Well, Jessica, President Trump is increasingly agitated about that uncertainty that you mentioned surrounding all aspects of the Senate impeachment trial and he has been lashing out nearly every day of his trip here at House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for withholding those Articles of Impeachment.

Today, even going after conditions in her California District. That's something that he has used to attack her before. But even as President Trump is growing more impatient about when that Senate trial will start.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is signaling that he is not so eager to see this process get rolling. He said earlier this week that he is not anxious for the trial to get underway and in fact, that Speaker Pelosi is not really exercising leverage by withholding something from senators that they would rather not deal with.

Now, before the President came down here to Mar-a-Lago, some White House officials had expressed some concerns the duration of the trip could affect preparations for that Senate trial while the President is at his property at Mar-a-Lago. It's a really unstructured environment.

Some of his informal friends, his advisers, they have an unusual amount of access to him, and so White House officials had feared that perhaps those people could play to his instincts, change his mind when it comes to Senate trial preparations.

Now, President Trump was golfing today. CNN able to get some video of that, but next week, he is expected to be more heavily staffed with White House counsel Pat Cipollone and some other senior officials expected to come down here, and perhaps, Jessica, some of those unanswered questions surrounding what the White House's strategy for the trial will be, will be answered when he is able to get with those staffers and prepare.

DEAN: We will see about that. All right. Sarah Westwood for us live in Florida. Thanks so much.

Let's talk a little bit about all of this, open up the conversation. We have CNN legal analyst Paul Callan, a former prosecutor. Also here CNN correspondent, Josh Campbell and CNN congressional correspondent, Phil Mattingly. Hi to all of you. Thanks for being with us.

PAUL CALLAN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Good afternoon.

DEAN: Phil, let's go to you first. What are you hearing on Capitol Hill about what Pelosi needs to see in order to turn over these Articles of Impeachment to the Senate? That seems to be where this all starts.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN U.S. CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, I mean, I think that's the beginning frame of it. Right? I think the expectation right now from Democrats is actually pretty aligned between the House and the Senate. And you've seen Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer really push on this idea that he wants an agreement to have at least four witnesses, either current or former administration officials involved in the Ukraine allegations, as well as reams of documents to be subpoenaed, as well, as part of the initial agreement on what a bipartisan Senate trial would actually look like going forward.

Here's the reality. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has made it very clear, he is not in favor of that. He does not want any of that to be dealt with, until after the initial trial presentations. And as Sarah reported, the leader has made very clear -- McConnell has made very clear that he doesn't feel like he is being leveraged in any way, shape or form.

So I think the expectation right now is shortly after Congress returns in January, the Articles will make their way over, but we still have some time to see whether or not Schumer and McConnell can actually strike some kind of a deal.

DEAN: Yes, it will be interesting -- and to that end, Paul, how much time do you think Nancy Pelosi has to stall? Is there anything legally that can allow -- that's going to stop Leader McConnell from just going forward?

CALLAN: No, there really isn't anything legally that would stop him from going forward.

First of all, the Constitution doesn't say anything about how Impeachment Articles are delivered to the Senate. They're a matter of public record -- the charges -- and we know what the vote was. We know who voted to impeach.

[14:05:08]

CALLAN: So I think that the Senate, if it wanted to, could just take up the impeachment issue, even if somebody didn't walk it across to the Senate chamber. Now, I don't think that's going to happen, because I think she is stalling to make Trump look bad, and she is largely succeeding in that. And I think probably within the next couple of weeks, she will send the Articles over.

DEAN: Yes, we're going to see about that. And, Phil, I want to go back to you because the President also retweeted this from a Fox News commentator, quote, "Look, the House is supposed to do all of this work on witnesses and documents before they send the Articles over to the Senate, not to call in new witnesses, go through new documents -- that work is supposed to be done in the House."

So Phil, what are the rules saying about evidence being introduced during the Senate impeachment trial? Is this something they're going to have -- clearly, they're going to have to get to the bottom to, but also, it's important to note that the White House and President Trump prevented some of that from happening in the house, right?

MATTINGLY: Yes, look the bottom line is the rules don't say anything about whether or not -- and I think that's what's important to note -- that senators will have the opportunity if they want to, if they aren't -- if it isn't covered in the initial kind of rules of the road to vote on this, right?

Any majority vote, if a resolution is brought up, any senator can bring up the idea for witnesses or the idea for information they would like to subpoena, and if they have a simple majority of support, Republicans and Democrats or just Republicans, then that's exactly what will happen during the trial. I think, look, you hear this a lot from Republicans, right? If you

really wanted the administration to cooperate, administrations over the course of history have gone to court battle, because they don't want to give what Congress actually wants to see.

And the problem with the Democratic case is they weren't willing to take the time to actually do that. I think Democrats' retort is absolute immunity is a new legal theory that kind of came out of the blue here for this administration. We didn't have time to wait.

So there's a lot of back and forth about who is right and who is wrong on this. Here's what the bottom line is. There are no rules as it relates to that. The senators will decide whether or not new evidence, whether or not new witnesses are brought to the trial.

DEAN: Yes, and that makes it all the more political, right? Well, Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska was concerned about impartiality when Mitch McConnell said that he was acting in quote, "total coordination" with the White House. Take a listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. LISA MURKOWSKI (R-AK): I heard what Leader McConnell had said. I happen to think that that has further confused the process -- need to prejudge and say there's nothing there, or on the other hand, he should be impeached yesterday. That's wrong.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DEAN: All right. So Paul, how fair will this impeachment trial really be if senators on both sides of the aisle continue to weigh in before they've ever heard any of this evidence?

CALLAN: You know, I think that the conduct in both parties has been disgraceful. Even before the impeachment vote was taken, the Democrats were denouncing Trump, the ones who were on the Committee evaluating the evidence -- and now you have the Republicans doing something that's even worse. They're the jurors in the case, essentially, and they're announcing that they'll never vote for impeachment against the President and the Leader McConnell being especially firm about it.

It just makes the whole process look like a joke, when it's supposed to be a somber, dignified way that you're looking at a very, very serious thing should the President of the United States be removed.

DEAN: Right and again, it makes it all the more partisan on both sides.

CALLAN: Yes, it does.

DEAN: To have them talking like that before it even starts. Josh, the leader of the Senate Democrats, Chuck Schumer, specifically requested four witnesses to testify in the Senate trial. Mitch McConnell has rejected that, as we've been talking about. What's the potential loss of Intelligence on what actually happened in Ukraine if we're not hearing from those four Trump officials, do you think?

JOSH CAMPBELL, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Well, this comes down to how informed the decision of the senators will actually be if you don't have this information from these key witnesses, and I think it's important to understand that in a normal world, both sides, I think would be asking for these witnesses to come forward. These are people with so-called direct knowledge.

You'll recall that when the impeachment witnesses that were before the House of Representatives came forward, Republicans were blasting the so-called hearsay that was at play, where you didn't have people that were actually in the room. These were people that heard second and third hand.

That's not the case with these witnesses that Senator Schumer has asked to come forward. The acting White House Chief of Staff, his former assistant, former Ambassador John Bolton, who obviously would be key to any of the discussions that were underway.

If the President and the White House were confident in what took place, and that the so-called phone call was perfect, you would think that they would want these witnesses to come forward, but we don't see that. And the same with the Democrats. So again, this isn't hearsay, these are people who would have direct knowledge.

The problem is, if it sounds like -- now, we've seen this movie before -- it's because we have. You go back to the Robert Mueller investigation. Obviously, the President said that he himself would like to sit down with Robert Mueller, would like to make a host of people available to the Mueller team, but in the end decided to attack the process to try to undermine the team in order to, you know, paint the narrative that -- look, I can't get a fair shot here. I'm not going to participate.

This seems to be at play here as well. We'll see if it works the second time around.

[14:10:03]

DEAN: Right, of attacking the process. Yes. And "The Washington Post," Josh just reported -- did a story about how in the aftermath of the Ukraine scandal that career Foreign Service and Intelligence officials in the administration are facing what they call a, quote, "climate of mistrust and threats."

And it also goes into greater detail about former Trump Russia adviser, Fiona Hill, who testified, she has apparently even had calls at her home, frightening her young daughter. Is it possible in this whole situation, in this day and age to be nonpartisan and work in Foreign Service or in Intelligence Agencies under Trump because there are so many people who do work in those agencies that it is about the work? Is it possible for them to continue to do that and to be nonpartisan?

CAMPBELL: It is, and I think that we should hope that that would be the case for these career government officials who aren't, you know, part of a political party.

And what's so interesting, we talk at length about these -- the toxic climate in Washington, the Democrats and Republicans continuing to fight with each other. You have to keep in mind, there are some three million Federal workers who aren't on anyone's side, they go to work and they do their job or at least they should in a nonpartisan apolitical way. They have really been thrust into the spotlight.

We've heard the President, you know, continue to talk about this so- called Deep State. At the end of the day, what he is essentially saying is that these people who swore an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States are violating that oath by becoming political and, you know, out to get him.

I think at the end of the day, it comes down to a President and a White House that is seeing people, if they, you know, aren't professing allegiance to the President, then they're suspicious of them. These are people that you know, presumably aren't on the President's side.

At the end of the day, though, I think it's important for people understand especially those of us who cover these agencies, that it's the right thing that you don't have these agencies that are political. That "Washington Post" article that you talked about was stunning in the way that it described how career officials are now at fear for their own safety, the so-called whistleblower at C.I.A. who kicked off this whole thing apparently now has armed guards that sometimes escort him to work because of perceived threats.

Again, you're in these Intelligence Agencies, you're trying to do your job. You're also now in a political climate that they haven't seen before. They are now at center stage and obviously in the crosshairs of politicians.

DEAN: Yes. And, Paul, I see you waving your finger. You want to just jump in there quickly.

CALLAN: I just wanted to add one last thought, and that is the one thing we haven't heard yet is about the concept of a speedy trial, and I'm betting that if Nancy Pelosi doesn't get those Articles of Impeachment over to the Senate chamber very, very soon, the President is going to be saying he has been denied a speedy trial that you're entitled to under the U.S. Constitution and that a motion to dismiss the impeachment lies now.

This has never happened before in American history. But I'm betting you're going to hear those words spoken if those Articles aren't delivered very soon.

DEAN: Well, we are certainly in uncharted territory at this point, no question about it. Paul Callan, Josh Campbell, Phil Mattingly, thank you to all of you.

CALLAN: Thank you.

DEAN: One of President Trump's closest allies is also in the middle of a political battle. Benjamin Netanyahu facing a leadership challenge within his own party.

Plus, a lot of talk about this being the biggest holiday shopping season ever. We're going to talk about record setting sales and what people are spending their money on.

And how will this town move forward? We're going to go back to a community still reeling from a massive immigration raid.

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DEAN: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is likely facing the biggest political fight of his life, he is being challenged today for the top leadership spot within his own party and he is taking a page out of Donald Trump's playbook to stay in power.

All of this is happening after he was escorted off the stage during a campaign speech last night after rockets were launched from Gaza into Israel. CNN's Oren Liebermann is in Jerusalem with more on the political turmoil. Also here with us, Aaron David Miller, CNN global affairs analyst and former Middle East negotiator for the U.S. State Department. Thanks so much for being with us guys.

AARON DAVID MILLER, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Pleasure.

DEAN: Oren, let's go to you. First set the stage for us in Israel today. What are we expecting from these results tonight?

OREN LIEBERMANN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: So this is an enormous fight for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He has, over the course of the past 10 years or more won these leadership contests within his own Likud Party with something like 70 percent of the vote, 80 percent of the vote -- big numbers.

But now he faces a challenge from a hard line, right-wing politician, a former Minister of Education, Gideon Sa'ar. Netanyahu already has a tough battle ahead of him. He has failed to form a government twice. He faces criminal indictment on charges of fraud and bribery and breach of trust. And all of that stands against him, as well as what we just saw from last night.

The video you showed there -- him being escorted to safety as there was incoming rocket fire from Gaza, and yet, he remains the favorite here. The question, at least according to political analysts is not if he wins, it's by what margin? If he takes this 80/20 or 70/30, it means he is in control of his own Likud Party and Israel's right wing.

If this is a tight race, a 60/40 or 55/45, it means that Netanyahu's based maybe slipping away from him and looking in a different direction.

Of course, Jessica, the real earthquake would be if Gideon Sa'ar beats Netanyahu and becomes the candidate for Prime Minister in March. That would effectively mean the end of Netanyahu. DEAN: All right. Oren Liebermann. Thanks for setting that all up

for us. We appreciate you. Aaron, I want to turn to you. What is this political turmoil in your opinion mean for Israel? And is the public exhausted from all of these repeat elections in this last year?

MILLER: I mean, it's really quite extraordinary. You've had two elections. You're going to have three within -- not even within a calendar year, which is itself precedent setting. I think it really suggests the division and polarization within the country and the reality that this election very much is going to be a contest between presumably Benjamin Netanyahu if he prevails today and tomorrow in the Likud primary.

And his likely challenger, Benny Gantz with the Blue and White Party. You know, it's interesting because Likud has only had four leaders since its inception in 1973. The Labour Party is at 17.

So the reality is it's not in Likud DNA to change leaders and I think Oren is right. It's not a question, I think, of whether Mr. Netanyahu will will win, but by how much?

DEAN: All right. And we also know, Oren was explaining to us, Netanyahu is facing these charges of bribery and fraud, breach of trust, three corruption cases there. For the record, he has denied any wrongdoing, but he's also been saying that the media and law enforcement are trying to push him out, which can sound a little bit familiar to Americans in a way.

[14:20:03]

DEAN: If he wins tonight, how does he then move forward as an effective leader? How does he claim that power even amidst, you know, all this other stuff on the side with all of these charges against him?

MILLER: Well, the reality is that a sitting Israeli Prime Minister can be indicted and continue to actually remain Prime Minister. The question is, and there are legal challenges now afoot as to whether or not an Israeli Prime Minister who is in the process of putting together a government can actually do so without violating law.

So it's conceivable that there will be a legal challenge should Mr. Netanyahu win tonight and again on March 2nd, but I think what we're witnessing here and again, I would never count this man out is the beginning of the end of Mr. Netanyahu's political career.

And most likely, I doubt if he is going to jail. The most likely outcome I suspect, for his future will be some sort of negotiated plea bargain in which he would leave public life in exchange for some sort of pardon, or certainly dropping of the charges and no prison time.

An extraordinary leader, very effective in many ways, but exceedingly polarizing and playing off an American President eager to use his credibility and his legitimacy in order to boost his own stock among evangelicals, conservative Jews and conservative Republicans here at home. DEAN: And with some of the reasons you said, you would ever count him

out. Why is that?

MILLER: Well, in large part because, you know, he is now the longest serving Prime Minister in history of the State of Israel. Last year, he surpassed Israel's greatest Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion, and the reality is if he wins tonight, it will essentially legitimize him within the party unless Mr. Sa'ar, his challenger captures more than 30 percent of the of the vote.

I think Mr. Netanyahu will enter the election still very popular in March among his base and among the Likud Party, and then the real question is, how tired are Israelis of this wash, rinse and repeat electoral cycle? And even more to the point, Jessica, how tired are they and exhausted are they with Benjamin Netanyahu? And that still remains to be seen?

DEAN: Yes, the big question there. We'll see what happens. Aaron David Miller, thanks so much for joining us.

MILLER: Thank you.

DEAN: All right. Well, what's bigger than Black Friday? Bigger than Cyber Monday? Well, turns out it was December 21st. How what they're calling Super Saturday broke all the records.

We're also going to visit a Mississippi town that just has not been the same since a massive immigration raid this summer. The families now living without work, and living in fear.

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[14:26:56]

DEAN: Americans are spending lots of money this holiday season. In fact, according to a new report from MasterCard, online shoppers broke new records signaling the decade long economic expansion in the U.S. still has some legs left in it.

Vanessa Yurkevich, CNN business and politics correspondent joins me now. There's been a lot of talk about this year and its giant holiday shopping season. Break it all -- what did we all buy? What happened? Break it all down for us.

VANESSA YURKEVICH, CNN BUSINESS AND POLITICS REPORTER: Well, it was definitely a record breaking holiday shopping season. Even the President taking notice. He tweeted last night. He said, "2019 holiday retail sales were up 3.4 percent from last year, the biggest number in U.S. history." So yes and no. Yes, they were up from last year, but the biggest increase was actually the previous year.

So he got that wrong. But however, online retail shopping, exploding 8.8 percent up from last year and that's largely in part to Super Saturday -- just this past Saturday -- breaking all kinds of records, the biggest U.S. shopping day in history.

DEAN: This was on the roll even for procrastinators.

YURKEVICH: I mean, look at that, over Cyber Monday and over Black Friday. That's a huge increase. And what this is really saying is that while people may have questions about the U.S. economy overall, the consumer is feeling really good and really strong and they're wanting to spend their cash.

And Amazon said they had their biggest season ever and that actually helped move markets a little bit. The NASDAQ crossing 9,000 points just today for the first time because of this really, really strong spending by consumers.

DEAN: That is really fascinating. So what are we buying?

YURKEVICH: Okay --

DEAN: Where did all of that money go?

YURKEVICH: This is the kind of stuff -- tell me if you bought any of this.

DEAN: Okay.

YURKEVICH: So this is Amazon's sort of top five-ish.

DEAN: Okay.

YURKEVICH: These are what people have bought from Amazon. So here we go. We have the Amazon Echo.

DEAN: Okay.

YURKEVICH: So anything technology, anything with Alexa. LOL Surprised Dolls, not familiar, but I hear they're cool with the kids.

DEAN: I am not either, but I'm probably not the demographic for this.

YURKEVICH: Exactly. Maybe the Roomba though, the Roomba vacuum. You would have seen this maybe in a cat video, a cat riding around on these cylindrical vacuums.

DEAN: Yes, oh I love this. I love this idea. I do not have one, but it sounds great.

YURKEVICH: Speaking of cats. Cat treats and dog treats were really big this year on Amazon.

DEAN: Everybody needs some holiday -- some Christmas gifts, you know, a treat.

YURKEVICH: But you know -- and you know what's interesting, it is the way that we are purchasing items has completely changed, right? We're doing it on our phones, on the couch in our Christmas pajamas. And if we're not doing it there, we're not buying it in the store. We're actually still ordering online and then picking it up in the store. So I mean, this is how people are shopping nowadays. DEAN: Right. And I remember at the beginning when you look at a

phone, you're like, I'll get on a laptop and now it's just so easy.

YURKEVICH: Yes. One-stop shopping literally.

DEAN: All right, Vanessa Yurkevich, thanks so much for being with us.

YURKEVICH: Thank you.

DEAN: Good to see you.

YURKEVICH: Good to see you.

DEAN: A new development in the murder that rattled New York City. Police say they now have the third teenager they were looking for in the case of Barnard College student, Tessa Majors. CNN NEWSROOM continues when we come back.

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