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Iranian Officials Admit to Accidentally Shooting Down Ukrainian Passenger Jet; President Trump Comments on Imminence of Threats Posed by Iranian General Qasem Soleimani; Puerto Rico Experiences Continued Earthquake Aftershocks; John Bolton Says He Will Testify in Senate Impeachment Trial if Subpoenaed; Iran May Work with European and Other Countries to Maintain Nuclear Deal; Nancy Pelosi to Send Articles of Impeachment to Senate; Bernie Sanders Leading in Iowa in New Poll. Aired 10-11a ET

Aired January 11, 2020 - 10:00   ET

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

[10:00:00]

MICHAEL SMERCONISH, CNN ANCHOR: Thanks for watching. See you next week.

CHRISTI PAUL, CNN ANCHOR: We're with you. Good morning. It is Saturday, January 11th. We're so glad to have you here. I'm Christi Paul.

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Victor Blackwell. You are in the CNN Newsroom.

PAUL: We're going to get to the latest on Iran in just a moment, but we've got some breaking news out of Louisiana. At least three people have been killed because of these severe storms that are making their way through the southern U.S. this morning.

BLACKWELL: Police say one man was killed when a tree fell on to his house. An elderly couple has been found dead near their demolished home. We're going to get you the latest forecast in just a few minutes.

But we're also following breaking news on the Ukrainian International Airlines passenger jet. Iran now admits to accidently shooting that plane down, but they're putting the blame back, in part, on the United States.

PAUL: This morning we learned an Iranian commander requested all commercial flights in Iran be grounded until tensions with the U.S. had cooled off, but Iran's military said that request was never carried out. Our reporters are covering all angles of this story from around the globe.

BLACKWELL: Let's begin with CNN's Frederik Pleitgen in Tehran. Tell us about the blame game that we are seeing playing out where you are.

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, there certainly is some blame being thrown around and certainly a lot of public anger also here in Tehran, Victor. On the one hand you had that Revolutionary Guard commander who is in charge of the air defense forces who said that he did ask for flights to be grounded in the aftermath of Iran shooting those ballistic missiles at those Iraqi bases with U.S. forces on it. He says that that request was never relayed. He also says that after finding out that one of their surface-to-air missile batteries had fired at an aircraft, that they told authorities on Wednesday already that that had been the case. However, that only became public knowledge until early this morning, Iran time late last night, U.S. time.

And the Iranians are saying essentially what happened was that they were on a heightened state of alert, thinking that the U.S. would strike back after they hit them with their ballistic missiles. They say they believed there were cruise missiles heading towards Iran, and that this plane that had taken off was in the vicinity of an important Revolutionary Guard base. And that then the commander of that surface- to-air missile battery identified, or misidentified that plane as a cruise missile, then tried to check with chain of command whether or not he was authorized to shoot it down.

The head of the air space forces said that commander had 10 seconds to make that call, and then mistakenly made the call to shoot the plane down with, obviously, all those tragic results. The Iranians are saying that there is going to be a full investigation. They say there are going to also be trials and that those who are behind this are going to be held accountable.

However, as you can imagine, there is a lot of public anger here in Iran. The president of the country in turn, highly critical of the country's military. He came out and called this an inexcusable error that was made. And a lot of people here, of course, also quite taken aback by this admission, also quite angry at this admission. There's one university here in Tehran call the Amirkabir University where there is supposed to be a candlelight vigil, actually going on pretty much now. I think it was supposed to start an hour ago, where some protests have erupted where the protesters there are also calling on those who were behind this to be held accountable as well.

So you can see there's a lot of grief here, obviously, still a lot of public anger here as well, and then some blame being thrown around also while Iran now absolutely acknowledging that it shot that plane down. And also the Revolutionary Guard saying that they are going to revise their procedures for how they use their surface-to-air missile technology to make sure something like this does not ever happen again. That's according to them, Victor.

BLACKWELL: Fred Pleitgen there in Tehran. Fred, thank you.

PAUL: Thank you, Fred.

In a new interview, President Trump is defending the U.S. drone strike that killed Qasem Soleimani. CNN's Kristen Holmes has the latest for us here. And Kristen, we know the president, he is revealing what he believes the Iranian general was initially targeting, yes?

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Christi. And I do want to give a little context around these remarks. This is coming at a time in which the administration is feeling an intense amount of pressure from lawmakers on both sides. They want to see the evidence that leads to the justification of the U.S. launching these airstrikes which eventually killed Soleimani. Was there significant evidence that showed that this needed to be done, that the U.S. needed to take out essentially the second most powerful man in Iran.

And there are two big questions here. One is on the topic of the imminence of those threats. How imminent was it? What exactly were the threats? When it comes to the timing, we've talked to several national security figures and they've also given several public briefings, and essentially all have contradicted each other. We've heard anywhere from it was going to happen immediately to a really unknown timeline here.

And when it comes to the threats, President Trump had offered numerous suggestions. One, he said, Thursday, that Soleimani was planning on blowing up the embassy in Baghdad.

[10:05:04]

Then later on Thursday, President Trump saying Soleimani had plans to attack the embassy, not only in Baghdad, but elsewhere. Now this is the most recent thing he's saying. He said this in an interview last night. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I can reveal that I believe it would have been four embassies, and I think that probably Baghdad already started. They were really amazed that we came in with that kind of force. We came in with very powerful force and drove them out. That ended almost immediately. But Baghdad correspondent would have been the lead. But I think it would have been four embassies. It could have military bases, could have been a lot of other things too. But it was imminent, and then all of a sudden he was gone.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: Let's break this down here. One, this is the first we've heard mentioned of four embassies. And he also kind of gives a caveat that it maybe not just the embassies, it could have been military bases as well, or other U.S. targets overseas. But there's a really big question mark over this, and here's why. President Trump's top advisers were up on Capitol Hill talking to senators, talking to congressmen, briefing them on why exactly this threat was imminent, why they had to conduct these strikes. Those senators after these remarks have said this never came up in the briefing. So the big question being if this was in fact the reason, how come these top administration officials never said so in the first place, and never gave these officials, these senators, these lawmakers on Capitol Hill, that information during a briefing?

BLACKWELL: So let's talk about before the strike. The president is talking about why he did not tell members of Congress before the drone strike was ordered. What did he say about that? HOLMES: Well, Victor, he's really mocking the entire congressional

approval process. And we know that this comes as he has been furious, according to sources, after the House passed that resolution that really limited his military powers in Iran without getting congressional approval in the first time. You can actually hear the anger in his voice when he described why exactly they didn't get congressional approval in the first place.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Can you imagine, they want us to call up and speak to crooked, corrupt politician Adam Schiff. Oh, Adam, we have somebody that we've been trying to get for a long time. We have a shot at him right now. Could we meet so that we can get your approval, Adam Schiff? And he would say, well, let's do it in a couple of days, oh, OK, let's meet in a couple of days. It doesn't work that way, number one. Number two, they leak. Anything we give will be leaked immediately.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: So this is just another example here of the president doing things his own way. We know in the past when there's been this kind of strife, they might not get congressional approval, but they do brief Congress before the attacks actually happen. President Trump really in this case only briefing his friends and allies on Capitol Hill before the strike.

BLACKWELL: Kristen Holmes for us there at the White House. Thank you, Kristen.

PAUL: We are getting some reaction from Canadian officials this morning regarding that Ukrainian passenger plane crash earlier this week. Paula Newton is in Toronto. We know that the prime minister there has been very vocal about this, wanting someone to take responsibility for what happened this week. How are they reacting now to the latest news this morning that Iran is taking responsibility and saying it was a mistake?

PAULA NEWTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, hey, Christi, for them, their part, Canadian officials are saying this doesn't change anything in terms of what they're looking for in terms of the investigation. They are still quite skeptical in terms of the kind of access that they have had on the ground.

I have to remind you that, look, the Canadian officials still don't have the visas to be there. First order of business, they say, is remain focused to try and repatriate the remains of loved ones, but then it is trying to be involved in this investigation. What Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has said, and he released a statement just after Iran's admission, saying, look, this investigation has to provide closure to the victims and their families, it needs to be open and transparent, and they will continue to push for that.

What's so interesting here, though, is I'm at a memorial for the victims. There are dozens of them right across the country. When I was at the memorial in the last couple of days, before we had the admission from Iran, there were a lot of anger, Christi, a lot of anger from a lot of those Iranian-Canadians saying, look, if Canada, the international community, hadn't put the pressure on Iran, would they have ever admitted it? And that is the key. They're very skeptical about the way the admission happened, and do not believe that unless the verifiable evidence was there that Iran would have come out and admitted this in any way, shape, or form, they obviously want to be able to really remember their loved ones. They feel as if this kind of politics and this incident has really intruded on their grief. Many are angry and are waiting to see what Iran could possibly do really to try and figure out how this happened and to make sure something like this doesn't happen again.

The other issue there is Canada, like the United States, does not have diplomatic relations with Iran, and they're trying to see exactly what they might do to open up a little bit more so that that investigation can, in fact, be credible. Christi?

BLACKWELL: I'll take it. A lot of questions here, and no easy answers. Paula Newton for us there in Toronto. Kristen Holmes at the White House, Fred Pleitgen in Tehran. We will get back to everyone as we continue the coverage of the breaking news.

[10:10:06]

PAUL: So President Trump's Senate impeachment trial, it could start this coming week. There are a lot of questions about whether the man you see there, his former national security adviser, John Bolton, will testify. The president's talking about it. We'll tell you what he's saying now.

BLACKWELL: And these severe storms that are stretching across a lot of the country, we now know this system has killed at least three in Louisiana. We'll have an update for you in just a moment on the storms and the forecast.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARIA SANTANA, CNN EN ESPANOL CORRESPONDENT AND ANCHOR: The floors started shaking. The windows and the doors of the hotel were rattling, swaying in and out, back and forth. So at that moment people just started running out of the hotel. We're talking about tourists and also the workers that were there at the time. There was a little bit of a panic. It lasted, I would say, about 10, 15 seconds, but it was definitely the strongest aftershock that we have felt since we have been here.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PAUL: You're listening to Maria Santana there, CNN's Espanol reporter, describing to us what she felt in Ponce, Puerto Rico, just a short while ago after a 6.0 aftershock rocked the island this morning.

BLACKWELL: Puerto Rico has been jostled by hundreds of aftershocks since late December. They've destroyed buildings, look at this, they forced people to sleep outside on lawn chairs. The USGS says that 500 quakes have magnitude 2.0 or more have hit Puerto Rico in just the last two weeks.

This morning we're also following the triple storm threat impacting millions across the U.S. right now. And those storms are officially fatal. At least three people were killed in Louisiana overnight.

PAUL: We want to get right to CNN's meteorologist Allison Chinchar. Where do you see this headed, and how powerful is it still? How long is going to last?

ALLISON CHINCHAR, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yes, because that's the ultimate question, people see what it did yesterday and want to know is it going to be as bad today? And the answer to that question is yes. We're already seeing that, because we've continued to see tornado warnings, severe thunderstorm warnings continue throughout the moment.

The system itself stretches from Michigan all the way back towards Texas, where we even have some winter weather there. But the active warning, the severe thunderstorm warnings and even an active tornado warning right now in Mississippi as that main line continues to make its way off to the east, eventually pushing into states like Alabama and even Georgia as the storm system shifts. The main threats today will still be damaging winds, will still be very large hail, in excess of tennis ball sized potentially, and yes, even potentially some tornados.

Again, here's a look, power-outage-wise, you have over 200,000 people without power. The majority of them are on the southern side of the storm, but we're also starting to see some in Michigan, where the winter side of this storm is beginning to take shape. You have winter weather advisories, winter storm warnings, and even ice storms in effect for a lot of those areas.

Take a look, portions of Michigan, even upstate New York and Maine could potentially get at least a half an inch of ice, if not as much as one inch of ice total, before the system moves out. And even on the southern side of this storm, perhaps maybe even about a quarter-of-an- inch of ice, again, when you're talking amounts higher than that, especially up to an inch like we were talking farther north, that's when you're talking not only travel problems, but that stuff brings power lines down, that brings trees down, things like that.

And in addition to that, Victor and Christi, we also have snow. Some portions of Michigan could end up getting more than 10 inches of snow before this system finally exits.

BLACKWELL: Allison Chinchar, thanks for watching this for us.

PAUL: So President Trump say he will likely invoke executive privilege to stop former National Security Adviser John Bolton from testifying in the Senate impeachment trial. The president says he would do it to protect future presidents. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) TRUMP: You can't be in the White House as president -- future, I'm talking about future, many future presidents, and have a security adviser, anybody having to do with security, and legal and other things --

LAURA INGRAHAM, FOX NEWS HOST: Are you going to invoke executive privilege?

TRUMP: I think you have to for the sake of the office.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PAUL: CNN legal analyst Ross Garber with us now. He teaches impeachment law at Tulane University Law School. Ross, good to see you, thank you.

ROSS GARBER, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Good to be with you.

PAUL: So we know this week that Bolton say he would testify if he was subpoenaed. If President Trump does try to invoke executive privilege, would he be doing anything more than buying himself time? Because it looks like that would be something that could really get caught up in the court system.

GARBER: Actually, I'm not sure it's going to get caught up in the court system. In fact, I think that's probably unlikely, but it depends on how it all plays out. Bolton said that he would come and testify. He didn't say that he would disregard assertions of executive privileges. So what Bolton said was unclear.

So the way it's likely to play out is, first, the Senate has got to decide whether they're going to subpoena John Bolton. If they subpoena John Bolton, then the president's lawyers can object to his testimony based on executive privilege. At that point, it would be up to the chief justice in the first instance to decide whether to sustain that objection or to have the Senate first vote on it. And even if the chief justice votes on it, the Senate could overrule them. So it is possible that this executive privilege fight actually happens at least in the first instance in the Senate.

PAUL: So when we're talking about the fact that Republicans don't necessarily -- many Republicans don't want to hear from John Bolton, but there are all of these questions about assurances and whether there will be witnesses, whether there will be documentation, even if there are not assurances, let's say, going into the Senate trial. As I understand it, and correct me if I'm wrong, there could still be a vote in that Senate trial if one person says I want to hear from Bolton.

[10:20:07]

If there's 51 votes, you can still hear from Bolton, and there are at least three Republicans who have indicated that they would like to hear from him. How likely do you think it is that he will talk?

GARBER: Yes, you've got it exactly right. So we've got to see what the rules are.

PAUL: I'm so sorry. Maybe it's the weather. I don't know what it is.

BLACKWELL: It may be the weather, but that was just a great conversation.

PAUL: I'm sorry.

BLACKWELL: Hopefully we get Ross back.

PAUL: Anyway, you may still hear from John Bolton it sounds like at the end of the day, regardless of what Republicans say they will or will not let in once these articles are transferred. Let's keep going here.

BLACKWELL: Still to come, a CNN exclusive, inside the Al Asad Airbase, this is in Iraq, that was hit by more than a dozen ballistic missiles. Our Arwa Damon is the first western journalist granted access to the scene. We will take you there.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PAUL: We want to tell you about some breaking news out of Afghanistan right now. Two U.S. service members were killed and two wounded in Kandahar Province when their car struck an IED. The service members were conducting operations as part of NATO's resolute support mission.

BLACKWELL: Well, 2019 was the deadliest year in five years for U.S. service members in Afghanistan. We will keep you updated as we get in more information.

PAUL: The future of U.S. troops in Iraq meanwhile is in question this morning. The Iraqi prime minister has asked Secretary of state Mike Pompeo to start the process of withdrawal now.

BLACKWELL: The State Department dismissed the request, saying troops are crucial for the fight against ISIS. U.S. troops are stationed at the Al Assad Airbase, and that was hit with more than a dozen ballistic missiles. The missiles hit areas of the base that were not occupied by troops, however.

PAUL: CNN senior international correspondent Arwa Damon is the first journalist to gain access to the airbase. She's here with her exclusive reporting.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ARWA DAMON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: These used to be living quarters. This is where the troops would sleep, at least one of the areas. There is almost nothing left, nothing that was salvageable, we were told. The crater itself impacted over here, and it was one of 10 impacts that happened.

Being here, it's truly extraordinary how anyone managed to survive this, that there were no casualties. When you look at the destruction, and then hearing all of the stories of the close calls, of the heroics, what we are now learning is that there was advance warning to a certain degree. They knew something was going to happen, they just didn't know what. At about 11:00 p.m. at night, those that were able to go to the bunkers, went to the bunkers. But there were still troops that were out manning posts that because of the security situations they had to stay at.

So people were beginning to take shelter at Iran at 11:00 p.m., and then at 1:34, that's when the first impact happened. A lot of those who we are talking to are saying that it was unlike anything they had ever imagined. Of course, on the one hand the training does kick in, but at the end of the day, this is a terrifying experience, a terrifying situation.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLACKWELL: Our thanks to Arwa Damon there.

Joining us now Richard Johnson. He's the former deputy lead coordinator for the Iran nuclear deal implementation at the State Department. Richard, good morning to you.

RICHARD JOHNSON, FORMER DEPUTY LEAD COORDINATOR, IRAN NUCLEAR IMPLEMENTATION DEAL, U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT: Good morning, thank you.

BLACKWELL: So let's start here. We've got EU foreign minister and the NATO secretary general met Friday to try to resuscitate the deal. We know that the French foreign minister Le Drian said that the deal, quote, is not dead. Is it?

JOHNSON: I would agree with the French foreign minister. The statement that foreign minister Javad Zarif of Iran put out the day that they announced that they were going to take another step away from the nuclear deal was very clear that they were staying in the deal. And the key point here is that Iran is continuing to allow the IAEA, the international inspectors, to remain on site to monitor and verify Iran's nuclear program. This is key because that will allow the international community to still know what Iran is up to. There's been headlines, some very misleading headlines, I would say, in newspapers saying that Iran is racing to nuclear weapons. But we know because of the international inspections, which were a key part to that Iran nuclear deal, that that is not the case, at least not yet.

BLACKWELL: Part of the deal was the easing of sanctions. We saw what came from the White House yesterday from Secretaries Mnuchin and Pompeo. What's the virtue of deal if the sanctions are back?

JOHNSON: That's exactly the question that the Iranian government is asking. They stayed in the deal and didn't make any changes for one year, even though all of the sanctions that were lifted under the Obama station were re-imposed by President Trump. And that's why they've started to step starting about in May in 2019.

The Europeans are in a really tough spot. They want to implement this deal. They see it as a huge victory for European diplomacy. But because the Trump administration has essentially said make a choice, either do business with Iran or do business with the United States, they've had to stick with the United States, which means that Iran is not getting the economic benefits it expected to get as a tradeoff for restricting its nuclear weapons in the deal.

[10:30:02]

BLACKWELL: Richard, let's talk about strategy and the way forward. As I mentioned, announcement of new sanctions against Iran came from the White House yesterday. I want you to listen to now former Secretary of State John Kerry, this is back in 2015. He's talking here about the virtue of sanctions and their role in reaching the JCPOA. Let's watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN KERRY, FORMER U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: You're not going to sanction them into oblivion. They've proven that. We've seen that in the last years. Sanctions brought them to the table to negotiate. They did the very thing everybody put the sanctions in place to get them to do, which is negotiate. So they negotiated.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: Sanctions brought them to the table to negotiate. President Trump seems to think that it can happen again. Can it?

JOHNSON: The difference between what President Obama did and what President Trump did is that President Obama built an international coalition to implement those sanctions, and they were U.N. multilateral sanctions, and they were also sanctions from the European Union. Allies are key here to get any progress on restricting Iran's nuclear program.

Unfortunately, by leaving the Iran nuclear deal, the president basically very much frustrated the Europeans by throwing out what had been a great accomplishment. So I don't know how you can get back to the deal just with this so-called maximum pressure. The Iranians have said that they will have maximum resistance, and that's basically what we are seeing here. Again, the good news here is that Iran has not actually moved forward very far in moving back towards the huge, much larger stockpile of uranium that it had prior to the deal. So it's a bit of a zombie deal at this point. It's not dead yet, but I don't think that imposing additional sanctions is going to make that much of an impact at this point.

BLACKWELL: Listen to President Trump, this is on Thursday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Then Iran went on a terror spree, funded by the money from the deal, and created hell in Yemen, Syria, Lebanon, Afghanistan, and Iraq. The missiles fired last night at us and our allies were paid for with the funds made available by the last administration.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: The administration hasn't put anything forward to prove that, they haven't even tried to justify that statement that's been made. But let me ask you this, in 2015 Senate Democrats proposed a bill that would, among other things, have tracked the money, the resources returned to Iran and determine if they were used to fund Quds force, Hamas, Hezbollah, Assad in Syria. It went nowhere. Was that a mistake not to put more emphasis or to support some type of check biannually to determine where the money went?

JOHNSON: I think congressional oversight is always a good thing. So if that could be put back into place, I think that would be welcomed. But the reality is this, the U.S. intelligence community monitors this very closely. And even after the nuclear deal came into effect, the Obama administration was very clear, the vast majority of those funds -- and by the way, it was a lot less than what President Trump says -- went to domestic infrastructure projects and paying off debt in Iran. Of course, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard corps has its own set-aside funds. They're going to draw on those. So we don't know exactly where all of the funds with, but I would suspect most of the funds did not go as was described by the president.

BLACKWELL: Richard Johnson, good to have your insight, sir.

JOHNSON: Thank you so much for having me.

BLACKWELL: Certainly.

PAUL: So critics are questioning the president's rationale for launching the drone strike that killed a top Iranian general. Coming up, our political strategists weigh in on President Trump's shifting story.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:37:49]

BLACKWELL: President Trump is offering new details on the decision- making that led to the U.S. drone strike that killed Iranian General Qasem Soleimani. Soleimani is blamed for the deaths of Americans and its allies in the Middle East, and initially the administration said he posed an imminent threat, they continue to say that. But last night the president said Soleimani was actively targeting four U.S. embassies at the time of his death.

Joining me now, former regional director for the Obama 2012 campaign and president and CEO of Paramount Consulting, Tharon Johnson, and Brian Robinson, a Republican strategist and president of Robinson Republic PR. Gentlemen, welcome back to both of you.

THARON JOHNSON, FORMER SOUTHERN REGIONAL DIRECTOR, OBAMA 2012: Good morning.

BRIAN ROBINSON, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: Good morning.

BLACKWELL: Brian, let me start with you. The president, no one in the administration from the attack, the drone strike Thursday night, said anything about four embassies until Laura Ingraham asks him a question on Friday night. The president then says oh, yes, I can tell you I believe x. You're the message guy. Why has this been such a long path to get here?

ROBINSON: As the message guy, I can tell you having a coordinated effort with the administration has been a weak spot for the Trump team going back to day one, dealing with the bureaucracy, the people who are in it, and with the political folks and with President Trump himself. President Trump does best when he's a sole messenger on a topic.

When you get -- we've seen this over and over again, right, where people in the bureaucracy begin to talk, it's often a different, or at least a slightly different story than what he's saying. He said four embassies now. The onus is on him and on Secretary of State Pompeo to back that up. What he can't have is Republican senators like Paul of Kentucky, Lee of Utah, who expressed some consternation about that briefing, to come out against him. It's OK if the Democrats do. Trump cannot have Republican senators going into the impeachment trial raising questions about his integrity.

BLACKWELL: So we had Senator Michael Bennet on, obviously running for president, but also on the Senate Intelligence Committee, who said I just don't believe him.

JOHNSON: That's the effort here, Victor, is that time and time again we hear that people don't believe what comes out of this president's mouth. And Brian is right, those senators walked out of that briefing, this is a briefing that is supposed to give as much detail as you possibly can without violating the Constitution.

[10:40:04]

They all walked out saying we did not get new information. And more importantly, they did not mention four embassies. And so what it clearly shows is that this president is really at messaging to fire up his base, and quite frankly, there are many people that are questioning whether or not he's lying. So I agree with Brian. Within days, if not hours, they need to come out and prove where their four embassies that were being targeted, because if they don't, then this is going to continue this process of basically not trusting the president.

This is what I don't understand about this. If the president feels so comfortable to just tell Laura Ingraham in a conversation, I believe the threat was four embassies, why wouldn't Gina Haspel, Mike Pompeo, O'Brien, all of them go in and tell that to members of Congress? This is after the fact. If they're as suspicious of this act, wouldn't that be the time to tell them four embassies were targeted, if it's true?

ROBINSON: I think we can go on the testimony of the senators in the room that not enough information was given. I take them at their word. President Trump here has the benefit of the doubt as the commander in chief. Americans want to believe that their president is making good decisions to protect them. And they understand that not all intelligence is perfect. They understand that a president must make decisions to defend the national interests, even if he doesn't have all of the facts at his hand. He can use that to his advantage here. He does not need to go out on a whim like he did with Laura Ingraham and give out specifics.

BLACKWELL: Maybe not on a limb but you do need to defend the argument that it's imminent, right? You have to defend that element. Otherwise it's illegal.

ROBINSON: I think he can go out and say it was imminent. We had good intelligence to work on. We know what this guy's record is. Even Democrats admit this guy is a terrorist and a murderer of innocents. We know he was a bad guy. We all agree that killing him was good.

BLACKWELL: Bad guy, terrorist, killer, he should be dead, none of that equals imminent.

JOHNSON: Right, and --

ROBINSON: Two and three weeks is imminent when you only get so many opportunities.

JOHNSON: It was not imminent. At the end of the day, listen, we're playing with national security. The number one objective for the president is protect the homeland, right, keep American lives safe. And for him to basically, I believe, just act off belief or a feeling, not the intelligence, not the numbers, not the departments that are there to make sure that they give him the intelligence so he can make these decisions.

But I think what you see is a waffling, a flip-flop from this president. And again, I think he needs to today, tomorrow show this imminent factual evidence that made him go over and attack Iran. And if he can prove it, then great. But if he can't, then we've got to call it what it is, that he was lying, he's taking us to war, he's putting American troops' lives on the line basically on re-election efforts and political believes. Because it's not imminent, if it's not factual, and it's not based on intelligence, then what is it?

BLACKWELL: Tharon, let me stay with you, and I want to go now to the impeachment. Nancy Pelosi's going to hand over the articles next week --

ROBINSON: Finally.

BLACKWELL: Finally, yes, 24, 25 days I guess this went on. I want to remind people of how adamant that Democrats in the House were that they were not going to hand these over until they got some concessions. This is Democratic Whip James Clyburn.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. JAMES CLYBURN, (D-SC) HOUSE MAJORITY WHIP: Some assurances from the majority leader that he is going to allow for a fair and impartial trial to take place. We would be crazy to walk in there knowing he set up a kangaroo court.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: How long are you willing to wait?

CLYBURN: As long as it takes. Even if he doesn't come around to committing to a fair trial, keep those articles here.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: No concessions, no insurances, and Clyburn there said even if he doesn't come around, keep them here. He's not keeping them there. They're going over. Was this a failed strategy?

JOHNSON: No, it wasn't a failed strategy, and I want to commend Congressman Clyburn for what he said. He's absolutely right. What Democrats have been asking for is a fair trial. When you have Republican people, elected officials in the Republican Party coming out who are going to be jurists already making up their mind that they're going to not vote for this impeachment, then it's not a fair trial. And I want to give a big shout out --

BLACKWELL: Before you give the next shout out, before you give the next shout out, I get why Democrats say they did it but they didn't get anything that they said they were going to get by holding them back. They held these hostage, and got nothing for the hostage.

JOHNSON: Again, listen, she's the speaker of the House, right? So she is not going to basically let Republicans dictate when she moves it to the Senate, number one. We have been asking as Democrats for the majority leader to be fair and make some concessions. He's done what he's been doing since he's been majority leader. And let's not forget, Victor, that we also have a judge, Merrick Garland, who basically took 293 days just to basically get a hearing on nomination for judge.

[10:45:00]

BLACKWELL: Yes, but shouldn't that have been the tell that McConnell was not going to move?

JOHNSON: So what I believe Speaker Pelosi is doing, working in conjunction -- who I was going to give my shout out to, let me give it to her, Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, is that we have been asking -- so I think what needs to be called out is the Republicans' inability to be fair, and basically they're just trying to stack -- as he said, kangaroo sort of trial setting to basically try to save the president. All we're asking for is him to make some fair concessions.

BLACKWELL: Why not allow witnesses? You're clearly going to comment the strategy having failed. But why not allow witnesses? Bolton says he wants to testify.

ROBINSON: I so feel bad for Tharon having to defend this incompetence. And Jim Clyburn said that he would be crazy to do what Pelosi said this week she's going to do next week, send them over without getting these concessions from the majority leader. This is inane because this is exactly what we said was going to happen before the House undertook the impeachment proceedings. The House was going to impeach based on a party line vote, and then the Republicans in the Senate would acquit. We all knew this was going to happen.

JOHNSON: That doesn't make it right, though. That doesn't make it right. ROBINSON: They put us through three years of investigations that have all come to nothing. That is the truth.

BLACKWELL: You think the Mueller investigation came to nothing?

ROBINSON: It came to nothing.

BLACKWELL: Volume one --

ROBINSON: He did not prove that he included with Russians, and that was the bottom line that drove the whole thing.

BLACKWELL: Volume one was all about the meddling in the investigation, and still 10 examples of potential obstruction in volume two. We got to wrap here. We got to wrap here.

JOHNSON: Listen, if the president has nothing to hide, then let Bolton testify.

BLACKWELL: We've got to wrap. Tharon, Brian, thank you both.

JOHNSON: Thank you.

BLACKWELL: Christi?

PAUL: So the new CNN poll --

(LAUGHTER)

PAUL: The new CNN poll, it is a tight four-way race among the Democratic presidential candidates in the final weeks before the Democratic caucuses. We're going to talk about some of these interesting numbers. We'll break it down for you.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:51:23]

PAUL: In the final stretch before the Democratic caucuses, one month to date from New Hampshire, three weeks away from Iowa, three days until the final debate before voting, and yet Democratic voters still divided between four candidates specifically. A new CNN/"Des Moines Register" poll out of Iowa finds this, Senator Bernie Sanders on the rise, holding 20 percent of voters' support, followed by Senator Elizabeth Warren at 17 percent, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, 16 percent, former Vice President Joe Biden, 15 percent.

The Sanders support has increased five point since November. Buttigieg appears to be headed in the opposite direction just at the moment, dropping nine points. Both Biden and Warren have remained relatively even at the end of the day.

With us, Statehouse reporter for "The Des Moines Register" Stephen Gruber-Miller. Thank you for being with us. I want to look at that and ask the other question here, 40 percent of the elector says their mind is made up. That means 60 percent of the people this far in still do not know what they're going to do. What has to happen? What haven't they heard yet to solidly back somebody?

STEPHEN GRUBER-MILLER, IOWA STATEHOUSE REPORTER, "DES MOINES REGISTER": That's right, 60 percent still have to make up their minds. That 40 percent number is actually up 10 points from November, the last time we did a poll. So slowly but surely Iowans are starting to decide. But in the last few weeks, the people who have been on the fence are going to make up their minds, and the candidates really just need to make sure that the people who are supporting them will come out on caucus night on February 3rd. And anything they can do to fire up their supporters or convince somebody that they are the most likely to win, that's what they need to be doing the last few weeks here.

PAUL: OK, so I want to highlight a couple of other things. The strengths for Bernie Sanders. His ability to empathize, 91 percent. These are people who say that they are going to vote for Bernie Sanders, ability to emphasize is 91 percent, political resume, 87 percent support, leading the military, 61 percent support. And then look at this, his physical health 37 percent. What does this tell you about what voters really value and what they're willing to overlook?

GRUBER-MILLER: I think it's clear that there are some concerns about Sanders' physical health. The poll shows that, like you said. Those numbers are much lower in terms of whether his own supporters think that's a strength for him. I think obviously the heart attack this fall reminded everybody in a really dramatic way that could be an issue for him on the trail. He's 78-years-old. He's bounced back from it in a lot of ways. He's on the trail. His schedule is as active as ever, but there are still some doubts among Iowans.

PAUL: Real quickly too, pollsters also asked if beating President Trump or sharing political positions was more important. And 55 percent said electability is what matters. That's down from 63 percent in November. Any indication what that shift is from? Perhaps President Trump being impeached, people think that maybe he's more vulnerable?

GRUBER-MILLER: I'm not exactly sure where the shift comes from. I think it still is something you hear out on the campaign trail all the time, that Iowans do want someone who can beat President Trump. That is still top of mind for a majority of people as the numbers in this poll shows.

PAUL: Stephen Gruber-Miller, appreciate you being with us. Thank you.

GRUBER-MILLER: Thanks very much.

PAUL: Of course.

And CNN is the place to be for next Democratic presidential debate. The debate is in in partnership with "The Des Moines Register." It's Tuesday, 9:00 p.m. Eastern, only here on CNN.

[10:55:01]

Thank you so much for making us part of your morning. We always appreciate your company. Go make some good memories today.

BLACKWELL: There's much more ahead in the next hour of CNN's Newsroom. Fredricka Whitfield is up after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN HOST: Good morning, everyone, and welcome. I'm Fredricka Whitfield. CNN's now getting an exclusive firsthand look at one of the Iraqi military bases that was hit by Iran earlier this week.