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Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) Suggests House Will Vote Tomorrow On Impeachment Managers; Six Democratic Candidates Face Off Tonight In CNN Iowa Debate. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired January 14, 2020 - 10:00   ET

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

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JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning to you. We have some news and it's important. I'm Jim Sciutto in New York.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Poppy Harlow.

Breaking news this morning, Pelosi is making her move. The House speaker suggesting she will finally transmit those articles of impeachment over to the Senate tomorrow. Also tomorrow, a resolution vote to name the impeachment managers.

SCIUTTO: what does this mean? It means the Senate will sit as jurors of a sitting president in a trial of the president. There is still many open questions this morning, one of them, when those managers are chosen to present the House's case to the Senate, after that, will witnesses be called before the Senate? Several high profile Republican senators now say they want to hear from them. And we're edging towards the number of votes necessary to call them.

CNN Senior Congressional Correspondent Manu Raju, Manu, you spoke with Chairman Nadler, expected to play a key role in this. Tell us what happens now.

MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. Right now, we expect the Senate trial to begin just in a matter days, Nancy Pelosi making that announcement this morning. We have been expecting a vote to happen by later this week and we expect that to happen tomorrow. She indicated to her colleagues they should expect a vote on the floor tomorrow that would actually formally name those impeachment managers, people who actually prosecute the case before the Senate.

And then those managers essentially will be delivering those articles of impeachment over to the Senate. They'll walk from the House to the Senate, they will read from the articles of impeachment aloud. And that will set the stage for multiday process. Several procedural things need to happen before the opening arguments would happen in the trial. We do expect the opening arguments to occur early next week.

But Pelosi did not name who those managers were. She explicitly did not tell her colleagues that behind closed doors and that has been a big question all along. Now, the Judiciary Committee chairman, Jerry Nadler, he did tell me he does expect to be one of the impeachment managers. We also expect Adam Schiff, the House Intelligence Committee chairman, to also take a lead role in the Democrats' case. Others will play a key role as well.

But a significant decision by the speaker here, ultimately saying it is time to move forward to the next phase here, send those articles over. We can expect the articles likely to go over as soon as tomorrow after that vote happens. Tomorrow, we'll see how quickly the actual transmission happens after the vote. But tomorrow will be a big day as a president's impeachment trial about to begin now in just a matter of days. Guys?

HARLOW: Okay. So now the question becomes witnesses. And the list of Republicans open to hearing from witnesses is growing. How big is it?

RAJU: Republicans are certainly open to the idea of witnesses, several of them are. The question is how do they vote? That is the ultimate question. Will they vote to subpoena people like John Bolton, like Mick Mulvaney, people the Democrats have demanded, including a senior budget official, Michael Duffey, who was involved in some of those discussions of withholding of military aid to Ukraine.

Those matters -- specifics have not been sorted out yet. Even Susan Collins of Maine who have suggested she's open to witnesses has not specified exactly how she would vote when it would come time to issuing a subpoena in order to subpoena these witnesses. They would need 51 votes in the Senate. That means four Republicans would have to break ranks, vote with Democrats in order to do that.

And it's uncertain how that would come down, whether Republicans would push for, say, Hunter Biden to come in exchange for getting witnesses like a John Bolton. Those are negotiations that will happen through the course of this trial. And that will not happen until after those opening arguments take place. And we can expect opening arguments on each side to happen probably over a two-week timeframe. So a lot needs to happen next week before we finally get to that, but a lot of discussions happening behind the scenes about whether in fact they do bring in witnesses and how that impacts things will be a big question going forward.

SCIUTTO: Listen, one lesson in this whole process is prepare for surprises, right? We don't know what the trial is going to look like.

HARLOW: As much as you can prepare for them. Be ready.

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SCIUTTO: The question of witness seemed to be a dead issue a few days ago, a couple of weeks ago, no longer a dead issue.

HARLOW: That's true. Manu, thank you for the reporting.

Let's bring in our White House Correspondent, Jeremy Diamond. What is the White House saying? JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, at this point, what we're tracking is who exactly those House managers will be. That is going to be a key point for this White House. They have said before, sources close to the president's legal team have indicated that they may add individuals to their legal team, to the individuals who are actually trying the case on the floor of the Senate, based on who exactly those House managers are, how many of them there are. So that is certainly something that this White House is still looking for.

And at the same time, as we are waiting to see that, the sources are telling us that the president's personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, the former New York City mayor, has actually been lobbying the president to join that team on the Senate floor, to make the case for the president's defense on the Senate floor, alongside the White House Counsel, Pat Cipollone, and the president's outside lawyer, Jay Sekulow.

Now, of course, that would be quite an extraordinary moment given how central Rudy Giuliani's involvement in his activities in Ukraine, his involvement with top Trump administration officials dealing with Ukraine, how central all of that is to the case against the president.

Now, sources have cautioned us that that's not necessarily going to happen, particularly because members of the president's legal team are opposed to this idea, and Senate Republicans would also likely be opposed. But that is certainly something that Rudy Giuliani is pushing for. And we know, of course, that the president does like to see Rudy Giuliani on T.V.

SCIUTTO: Well, could Giuliani end up being called as a witness, we don't know. Jeremy Diamond, thanks very much.

Joining us to discuss is Bob Barr. Bob Barr, former Republican Congressman from Georgia, he served as a manager in the Senate trial of Bill Clinton back in 1999, and Julian Epstein, he was chief counsel for House Judiciary Democrats during the Clinton impeachment as well. Thanks to both of you. Great to draw on your experience today.

So, Bob, let's take a moment to take stock here, a trial is going to happen of a sitting U.S. president. You took part in one in 1999, which, of course, ended up in acquittal. Once those House managers are chosen, tell us how things proceed from there and what you expect to see.

FMR. REP. BOB BARR (R-GA): The way things are shaping up now, and we obviously don't know exactly what's going to happen, the process is playing itself out in slow motion as opposed to back in 1998-1999 when things moved very, very quickly. But if in fact the Senate decides to proceed along the lines of how they proceeded with the 1999 trial, then I would expect to see a bifurcated process. You would have the managers present their arguments, we don't know how many there are going to be, then the White House lawyers would do theirs.

Then I suppose the senators would meet and decide how they want to proceed from that point forward. Whether they want to have depositions, whether they want to present live witnesses, whether they want to open up the evidence before them, all of those are issues that remain to be decided, even at this late stage.

HARLOW: Julian, they're in the resolution, laying out the rules for the Clinton impeachment trial, there was a motion to dismiss included in it. And they voted on that about two weeks in. It failed, but it was there. It is interesting to hear from Roy Blunt now saying, you know, I don't think you got 51 senators who want to vote on that right now. Should we expect a motion to dismiss, to ultimately be included as we head into this president's Senate impeachment trial?

JULIAN EPSTEIN, FORMER CHIEF COUNSEL, HOUSE JUDICIARY DEMS IN CLINTON IMPEACHMENT: I think Republicans will back down from it. And I think they sort of overplayed their hand on this motion to dismiss. Because what it did, I think, was unify the moderate Republicans in favor of some kind of independent position, first on the motion to dismiss and now that sort of migrated into this question about whether witnesses should be called. So I think Republicans sort of overplayed their hand.

Nancy Pelosi, for her part, I think she was close to overplaying her hand by holding the impeachment resolution for as long as she did. But I don't she did overplay her hand. I think she was close to it, went up to the line, allowed for there to be sort of public debate to kind of clarify this issue about whether witnesses should be called. I think she kind of played it just right, but I think the Republicans made a mistake here. And now what you have is four or five Republicans who I think are going to be in the position of calling witnesses.

And the question is, as Bob was pointing out, there is still a lot of cards to play here, you know, in 1998, we had witnesses in the Senate trial. We had three depositions. These could be depositions, these witnesses could be subpoenaed, the White House could invoke executive privilege, so there's still a lot of cards to play here in the next couple of weeks.

SCIUTTO: Bob, you know, it strikes me, and I wonder if you agree that the question of witnesses in the trial is potentially more consequential here, because in 1999, the Senate had so much more information.

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Because the Starr investigation, you had the complete report, you had many witness depositions and testimony on the House side, you didn't have the White House summarily blocking so many documents and witnesses, that here, the witnesses could actually tell us something new, could they not, particularly if, say, it's a John Bolton who would have direct knowledge of the president's involvement here. Do you think that's a correct analysis?

BARR: I think, by and large, it is. Although I'm not sure that, you know, John Bolton is going to be explosive witness that everybody seems to think. That might be kind of a red herring. But you're right, Jim, the process leading up to the Senate trial in January of 1999 was very different because we did have on the House side an extensive record. I believed and I thought at the time that we ought to expand that, but the Senate didn't allow it. In this case now, you have a much leaner record coming over to the Senate.

The one thing though that I think Speaker Pelosi might have erred on in dragging this out and delaying transmittal of the managers and the impeachment articles to the Senate for so long is that witness testimony and people's knowledge and interest in something decreases, declines over time. So I think that had she moved forward and brought this over to the Senate on a more timely basis, both the public interest and the interest on the part of the senators would have been higher, but there, again, from the Democrats' side, that may increase the need or the desire for witnesses in the Senate side because there has been such a delay between last fall and now into the winter of 2020.

HARLOW: Julian, given that you were the Chief Counsel for the House Judiciary Democrats during the Clinton impeachment, what would your advice be to Speaker Pelosi in choosing impeachment managers? Because I should note that Bob thinks that it is a bad idea to pick an Adam Schiff, for example. What do you think?

EPSTEIN: Well, I think you you don't get a better prosecutor than Adam Schiff. I think it's a very difficult balancing act. There are demographic issues, this is the most diverse caucus in the history of the House of Representatives. But you also have not just kind of racial and gender diversity issues, you also have ideological diversity issues. You have, I think, moderates that should be a key part of the plan.

So I think you'll certainly see Nadler, you'll certainly see -- you'll certainly see Schiff and then I think you'll see a balance. I think it's very smart of her to keep it to what is rumored to be six managers right now. I think that's very, very smart.

And, you know, to Bob's point, in '98, every single witness that was important had testified before the grand jury, including the president of the United States. And when you're talking about people like Bolton and potentially Giuliani and Mulvaney and the two OMB witnesses, these figures were central, central, central figures that have not been heard from. Bolton, of all people, is writing a book about this. I mean, it just seems to me to be a hard argument for the moderates in the Senate to say, we don't want to hear from these central witnesses.

HARLOW: We hear that.The House could have waited, but that's an argument for another day. Bob Barr, Julian Epstein, nice to have you both both.

Ahead, serious doubts about President Trump's claim that Iran's General Soleimani was targeting four specific U.S. embassies and that's the reason the U.S. took him out when they did. CNN has learned that State Department security officials who would know this stuff were not aware of imminent threats to those specific embassies.

SCIUTTO: You expect they would be.

Plus, a battle over privacy taking place between the DOJ and tech giant Apple at the center, locked iPhones of the gunman in the Pensacola Naval Base shooting.

And 2020 candidates Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders locked in a he said/she said showdown and face to face tonight at CNN's debate.

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SCIUTTO: in Iowa, just hours from now, six Democrats will go head to head on that stage, this in the final debate ahead of next month's caucuses in Iowa, of course, only on CNN. A big showdown we're keeping an eye on, Warren versus Sanders.

HARLOW: All right, here's why, because M.J. Lee's important reporting that broke yesterday. Warren said Sanders -- Warren says that in 2018, Sanders told her in a private meeting he didn't think a woman could win the presidency in 2020. Sanders team calling that claim ludicrous.

Our Senior Political Analyst Mark Preston is here and Emily Tisch Sussman, former staffer for the 2008 Obama Campaign and Democratic strategist.

So, Mark, I mean, remarkable that Warren went on the record confirming this last night. Obviously, they're going to be asked about it on the debate stage tonight. I mean, are they going to point at each other and say you're lying?

MARK PRESTON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: You know, this is going to be an interesting dynamic, because we haven't seen Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren attack one another. That's what that whole meeting was about where this discussion took place. Let's have a non- aggression pact, let's not try to tear down the ideals that we're pushing for the progressive part of the party.

But, again, tonight, there is so much at stake. They're going to be on stage. This will be the last time we'll see all six of these candidates together on stage, and specifically Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders. 24 hours ago, she comes out and acknowledges a conversation that took place that Bernie Sanders' campaign seems to say she has now misinterpreted.

So tonight will be interesting to see if that non-aggression pact that they talked about at that meeting stays in place or they use this debate stage to attack one another.

SCIUTTO: Emily, let's look at the most recent polling. Monmouth had a poll out yesterday that showed the lay of the land just prior to Iowa, and it shows Joe Biden with a lead, I believe the biggest one he's shown so far in Iowa.

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And this is key, is it not, because, you know, the conventional wisdom for some time has been that Biden would be weak in Iowa and New Hampshire, but then recover in South Carolina where he has tremendous African-American support. A lot of ifs here, but what does that tell you about who has the momentum leading into tonight and into the caucus?

EMILY TISCH SUSSMAN, FORMER STAFFER, 2008 OBAMA CAMPAIGN: Well, I think that the momentum for tonight means a lot for the caucus. Caucus-goers in Iowa are very much paying attention to these debates and the fact this is on their home turf, on their issues, is really going to be very important for a lot of them who are deciding.

I think for a lot of us looking at this race, it's kind of easy for us to say that voters are breaking down between camps of a progressive Sanders/Warren camp versus a Biden/Buttigieg camp on the more moderate side. But that's actually really not the reality, especially the caucus-goers on the ground in Iowa. They get so much contact with voters -- with candidates, they really get to have the conversations they want to have.

So some candidates -- some voters are deciding between Biden and Sanders. And I think it shows us just how many undecideds are left and how the race is still very much influx.

HARLOW: And can I just ask you about the lack of diversity on this stage tonight? Because you have all white candidates, two women, all white candidates who are going to be at their feet (ph), this is the seventh debate, you compare this to the seventh debate back in 2016, on the Republican side, there were three minority candidates. What should this tell people about this party that continually touts inclusivity and diversity?

SUSSMAN: It's definitely not thrilling to a lot of Democrats that we started with the most diverse field in history and it's not turned out that way as the field is winnowing. And a lot of people want to see a vice presidential nominee, with whoever the nominee is, that would bring more diversity to the field. I think it does put extra pressure on the candidates tonight to be able to speak in a very authentic way to the particular struggles of African-Americans and of minority voters and citizens in the country.

SCIUTTO: Mark, foreign policy is going to play a more central role tonight than we have seen in previous debates, and, of course, at a time when foreign policy is front and center. You have the killing of Soleimani, rising tensions, you know. Just a few days ago, we were talking about the possibility of war between U.S. and Iran here. Who has the advantage on that topic on the stage?

PRESTON: You know, interesting you lay that out the way you did, Jim, because there has been so much talk about domestic policy and the differences that these candidates may have over healthcare, or some of the other things, social security in dealing with the deficit. But it is foreign policy right now that is front and center and there are very divergent views on that stage right now.

To say who has the advantage, it's very much unclear because if you are a Bernie Sanders/Elizabeth Warren type of Democrat, more to the liberal side, you want troops out of the Middle East. You want to see America come back, pull back from its engagement overseas. If you are a Joe Biden type of Democrat, Pete Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar, you're the type of Democrat that understands that you want to try to keep some kind of military force in the Middle East to keep stability there.

So that, you would have to expect, would play out tonight as well. We'll see who brings it up. But I would think that Joe Biden is somebody who probably will try to tout at least his experience he had working with Barack Obama as well as his years in the Senate.

SCIUTTO: That's interesting. You would have overlap between some of the more progressive Democratic candidates and President Trump, right, this kind of end the endless wars line.

HARLOW: Yes. And then, as you said, Mark, you have the veteran, right, the one who has served in Pete Buttigieg.

Emily, look, three of them, three of those will be on the stage tonight, half will be going back to be jurors, like at the end of this week or next week or this weekend, who knows, right? So the issue of impartiality, they take an oath to be impartial. But you have Warren, for example, who said back in October that she would vote to convict the president, right? So how do they deal with the impeachment questions tonight? Do they try to be impartial on the stage?

SUSSMAN: I think they pretty much all paved that ground. I think they had all kind of leveled out thresholds of what they think the president would have to hit to be impeached and, in fact, was in the House and met all of those thresholds. So I don't think that should be extra surprising on their stances tonight in the debate.

I think the issue of how much time they're going to have to dedicate in the Senate is going to be a very real factor for a lot of these people over the next couple of weeks, as the impeachment trial is playing out in the Senate, they are not going to be on the ground in Iowa. They are not going to be having those conversations.

And that makes a very real difference as you're going in particularly with almost 40 percent of the field still undecided. But also the Iowa caucus is nuts. It's crazy. It's not just like voters go in and vote, everyone stands in a room and tries to convince their neighbors.

SCIUTTO: Which side of the high school gym are you going to go to?

SUSSMAN: Exactly. They try to bring their neighbors over on their side with them. And so the amount of intensity that caucus-goers feel about a candidate and if they can point to one conversation they had, one hand they shook, it can make a big difference.

SCIUTTO: Yes, it's a remarkable event to witnesses the caucuses. It's democracy in action.

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Mark Preston, Emily Tisch Sussman, thanks to both of you.

The CNN Presidential Debate in partnership with the Des Moines Register begins 9:00 Eastern Time tonight only on CNN.

HARLOW: All right. Ahead for us, U.S. State Department officials are now poking yet another hole in the president's claim that four specific U.S. embassies were facing imminent threat and that's why they took out General Soleimani. We'll talk to a Republican Member of Congress about that and a lot more ahead.

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