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Interview with Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY); No Public Statements from Warren and Sanders; Harry Appears Publicly for Engagement Following Sandringham Meeting. Aired 10:30-11a ET

Aired January 16, 2020 - 10:30   ET

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

[10:30:00]

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JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: Just hours from now, members of the U.S. Senate will be sworn in as jurors in the impeachment trial of President Trump. But will they include new evidence, new witnesses, especially in light of information coming just in the last 24 hours from Rudy Giuliani's indicted associate Lev Parnas?

I'm joined now by GOP Senator John Barrasso of Wyoming. He, of course, will serve as senator -- as juror during the impeachment trial. He also serves on the Foreign Relations Committee. Senator, we appreciate you taking the time this morning.

SEN JOHN BARRASSO (R-WY): Thank you, Jim.

SCIUTTO: Earlier this week, you said justice will be done in the Senate. Since the vote on impeachment articles in the House, we have a new witness -- a central one -- who's volunteered to testify before the Senate, that of course, John Bolton.

We have new White House documents showing communications back and forth about direction from the president to withhold this aid from Ukraine. And we also have new text messages back and forth between Giuliani's associate here about surveilling the U.S. ambassador in Ukraine, who the president forced out.

I wonder, how can you do justice in the Senate without considering that new evidence and these new witnesses?

BARRASSO: Well, number one is, in the Senate, we will listen to whatever the House impeachment managers bring to us to consider. They may include all --

(CROSSTALK)

SCIUTTO: Including new evidence?

BARRASSO: -- that and new -- we will listen to whatever --

SCIUTTO: So you would listen to it if they include it? BARRASSO: -- case -- whatever they present to us, we will be there, a

hundred of us, in the Senate, listening to them present their case. We will then listen to the White House in their defense. We're then going to be allowed to ask questions, and we will do that in a written form through the chief justice of the Supreme Court.

[10:35:05]

I imagine this is going to take several weeks to get to that point. And new information may continue to come out on a daily basis.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

BARRASSO: But this shows how rushed the House was, because they claimed urgency, they had to get things done before Christmas. They rushed to such a point that they didn't take the time to look at what evidence may be available and what may be coming shortly.

SCIUTTO: Well, to be fair, as you know, the White House blocked that evidence. I mean, for instance, one reason we only -- we got Lev Parnas' text messages now is because the Justice Department withheld his devices, wouldn't even let him look at it. I mean, that was the White House that was doing that.

But I want to be clear about what you're saying here. Would you vote yes if, for instance, Democrats proposed calling John Bolton to testify? Would you vote for that?

BARRASSO: I think we're all going to be asked to vote after we hear what the House says in terms of making their case, what the White House says in their defense. After we hear the written answers, we are all going to be asked --

SCIUTTO: OK, so your mind is open?

BARRASSO: -- have we heard enough or do we need additional witnesses? Do we need to hear --

SCIUTTO: Sounds like you're --

BARRASSO: -- we want -- I'll --

SCIUTTO: -- sorry to interrupt, I just -- it sounds like your mind's open, and I want to be clear. Is your mind open to voting for witnesses?

BARRASSO: My mind is open to witnesses on both sides, witnesses that the -- that the Senate -- that the House members may want to call, and witnesses that the White House may want to call. But after two weeks, we're going to say, have we heard enough to make an informed judgment or do we need more information? And that's when the decision will be made about witnesses, which is what they did in the Bill Clinton trial in 1999.

SCIUTTO: Fair enough. Just in the last hour, the Government Accounting Office, U.S. -- the

GAO concluded that the Trump administration, in its view, broke the law when it withheld U.S. security aid to Ukraine. I'm just going to read from that judgment, just very briefly.

"Faithful execution of the law does not permit the president to substitute his own policy priorities for those that Congress has enacted into law."

You serve in the Senate. The Senate and the House passed this legislation, giving this aid to Ukraine. As a sitting senator, do you agree with that finding? That -- listen, it's the Senate's power to pass this kind of funding.

BARRASSO: Well, I just saw the headline, I want to read the full report. I've been very interested in the funding to Ukraine for years because I was in Ukraine with a group of eight U.S. senators the day that Russia took over the gas plants in Crimea. I've been trying to get lethal assistance to Ukraine since back then. We were blocked by President Obama in that administration.

Now, we are finally getting aid there, but I've always worried about corruption in Ukraine and wanting to make sure that U.S. taxpayer dollars were actually wisely spent when we sent either money or arms to Ukraine.

SCIUTTO: Yes. And you've done your homework there, we talked about it before. You deserve credit for that.

The other news today -- and I know I'm throwing a lot at you, but it's happening so quickly, we're just trying to keep up -- police in Ukraine now say that they're investigating the possible surveillance of the former U.S. ambassador there, Marie Yovanovitch. This is arising from these messages, back and forth between Parnas, a congressional candidate -- a Republican congressional candidate in Connecticut.

The State Department, we've asked them, are they investigating this because of course, she served the U.S. State Department, she served the country. We don't have a straight answer. Should the U.S. investigate this threat, given -- I mean, you talk about Ukraine being corrupt country, it can be a dangerous place? Shouldn't the U.S. be looking into this as well since it's one of our own?

BARRASSO: Well, it is a place that we have a lot of interest and Russia has a lot of interest in Ukraine. I've been concerned about corruption there for a long period of time. Obviously there is a new spotlight on Ukraine as a result of what's gone on in the last number of months, but I don't think all the evidence is in yet.

SCIUTTO: OK. But should the U.S. look for that evidence to make sure that this ambassador was safe?

BARRASSO: Well, you want -- I want our ambassadors to be safe everywhere around the world. That is a big function of the Foreign Relations Committee, whether it's in Iraq -- SCIUTTO: Yes.

BARRASSO: -- with the way the Iranian troops stormed our embassy, they're -- all of those things, yes, we want to make sure our embassies and ambassadors and personnel around the world are safe. And it is a bigger problem now than before.

SCIUTTO: Understood.

I want to ask you on Iran. Of course, you're on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, you've been very vocal on this. Continuing questions just about how specific and imminent the threat was to U.S. embassies from Iran prior to the killing of Soleimani.

Based on what you've heard and seen -- and I don't want you to compromise classified intelligence, but your judgment based on what you've seen -- was that a genuine credible imminent threat?

BARRASSO: Well, my judgment is it was justifiable to eliminate Soleimani, looking at the ongoing escalation from the attack on our drone, on our personnel, on the oil wells and on our embassy, and then the killing of an American citizen. He was the mastermind, the super glue that held together all the terrorist groups. I continue to see an escalating pattern. I think it was the right call, and completely justified.

[10:40:09]

SCIUTTO: I covered the aftermath of many of the attacks he engineered. Senator John Barrasso, it's always a pleasure to have you on the program.

BARRASSO: Thanks, Jim. Thanks for having me.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: All right. You saw it, right? On the debate stage. Now, you can hear it. Up next, more on that heated exchange between Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, right after the debate.

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HARLOW: We all saw that exchange after the CNN debate: Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, she refuses to shake his hand as he extends it, and then they exchange words. Listen.

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SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN (D-MA), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I think you called me a liar on national TV.

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (D-VT), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: What?

WARREN: I think you called me a liar on national TV.

SANDERS: Let's not do it right now. You want to have that discussion, we'll have that discussion.

WARREN: Any time.

SANDERS: You called me a -- you told me -- all right, let's not do it now.

TOM STEYER (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I don't want to get in the middle of it. I just want to say Hi, Bernie.

SANDERS: Yes, good.

STEYER: It's a treat (ph) to (ph) see (ph) you (ph).

SANDERS: OK.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: OK. Now, that dispute has the party -- the Democratic Party -- some in the party worried, heading into the Iowa caucuses. According to "The Washington Post," very worried for Jamie Raskin and some others.

Here with me now, CNN Washington correspondent -- senior Washington correspondent Jeff Zeleny. So you just saw Senator Sanders, what did he say?

JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESONDENT: Poppy, we did, just a few moments ago. We tried catching up with Senator Sanders and his wife Jane as they walked through the hallways of Capitol Hill here.

He did not answer any of our questions. For several minutes, we tried asking him about -- you know, he said that he wanted to have a discussion, a conversation with Senator Sanders (ph). You can see us trying there. And he was just making small talk with his wife Jane, talking about the schedule for the day as they walked to an elevator out of our reach.

But, look, so Senator Sanders, you know, offered to have a conversation, a discussion about this with Senator Warren. We will see if they do have that conversation.

The extraordinary thing about this, Poppy, is that these two senators, who have been longtime friends and allies, have had a nonaggression pact for more than a year. Perhaps it's surprising it's actually held up this long, you know, just given the acrimony and the fact that they are, you know, actual competitors here, they're going after the same thing.

But the reality is that going forward here, the progressive groups are worried about a split on their side of the party --

HARLOW: Yes.

ZELENY: -- so that's why this matters.

HARLOW: Yes, totally, and who does that split help, right? Especially when both those senators aren't going to be on the campaign trail, right? As the Senate trial begins --

ZELENY: Right.

HARLOW: -- next week. Before you go, Jeff, I think it's telling, M.J. Lee's reporting -- is it just like how Sanders wouldn't talk to you? Neither of the campaigns are saying anything to anyone about this. What is that, in and of itself, tell us?

ZELENY: I think that they do not want to dwell on this. Because they don't know, frankly, what the raw politics of this actually means.

It's interesting. Senator Warren did not choose to say this on the debate stage, she waited until after.

HARLOW: Right.

ZELENY: She clearly did not think that this moment was going to be seen. So -- but both of these senators, Poppy, will be spending a lot of time together, here on Capitol Hill, you know, in the halls of the Senate, on the chamber -- on the floor of the Senate. So my guess is that at some point, they will have a conversation and try and move on beyond this.

The question is, what is this doing to the ultimate underlying question here, is a woman electable? Senator Warren, of course, argues absolutely. Senator Sanders says, of course. But that has been injected, now, into the conversation, into the bloodstream. So that question of electability is key, now just 18 days before the Iowa caucuses -- Poppy.

HARLOW: There you go. Jeff Zeleny, thanks very much for the reporting.

ZELENY: Sure.

[10:48:13]

SCIUTTO: A lot of folks waiting for the latest on this. Prince Harry, returning to royal duty after announcing he and his wife will reduce their royal roles. The potential significance of this event, will they heal the wounds? It's all coming up, next.

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HARLOW: Prince Harry makes his first appearance since he and the duchess of Sussex, Meghan Markle, announced they're going to step back from royal life, which led to that meeting with the queen and other senior royals.

SCIUTTO: Yes. Have the bridges been mended? CNN royal correspondent Max Foster joins me now from London. So what more do we know about this appearance? And is this the beginning, in effect, of a new normal for Prince Harry?

MAX FOSTER, CNN ROYAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, it's interesting. Today's royal update, Prince Harry going on a very ordinary engagement to Buckingham Palace, about causes he's very well-known for, sport and mental health.

But actually, these could be very historic images, as you're suggesting, simply because this is the first time we've seen him since that crunch meeting at Sandringham, but also this could be his last event as a working royal. So this could be the last time we see him in that (ph) umbrella.

The reason I say that is we talked a lot on CNN about how, you know, they're really struggling to find a way where he can be half-in, half- out of the royal family. He's transitioning out. He could go out altogether, and just carry on with these events but not under the royal banner. So this could be a big moment for him.

I was speaking to a source last night who was telling me that Harry does have some meetings lined up next week -- they wouldn't go beyond that -- that does suggest that they're getting closer to some sort of deal on his future role, and it could be completely out of the royal family. So we might not see scenes like this again, so it could be quite a moment.

HARLOW: Wow. I thought they were sort of agreeing, Max, to the half- stay-in. But no?

FOSTER: They could be, but the more they try to thrash through things, it's difficult to see how someone can be in the family and cash in on it with a private income. That hasn't happened before, I think they're really, really struggling with that.

HARLOW: Got it.

SCIUTTO: We'll be watching it. We know you'll be on it, Max Foster. Thanks very much.

HARLOW: Just one hour from now, the House impeachment managers will head over to the Senate to formally deliver the articles of impeachment of the president. It's a big day ahead. Thanks for joining us this morning. I'm Poppy Harlow.

[10:54:54]

SCIUTTO: And I'm Jim Sciutto. Stay with CNN. "AT THIS HOUR" with Kate Bolduan starts right after a quick break.

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KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR, AT THIS HOUR: Hello, everyone. I'm Kate Bolduan. Thanks so much for joining me. And so the impeachment trial begins. Moments from now, the newly appointed Democratic House impeachment managers will formally present the articles to the Senate, kicking off a series of -- really, the formal start of the third impeachment trial in American --

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