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Two Ex-Clinton Impeachment Investigators Join Trump Team; that U.S. Troops Were Indeed Injured In Iranian Missile Attack On Two Military Bases In Iraq Just Last Week; Secretary Of State Mike Pompeo Breaks His Silence, Promises To Take Action Over The Alleged Surveillance Of A Former U.S. Ambassador. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired January 17, 2020 - 14:00   ET

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

[14:00:00]

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN HOST: With only four days to the start of testimony in the president's impeachment trial, the Senate majority leader must now determine exactly how to present it, and the most pressing question, will there be witnesses?

And as Republicans figure out the process, the President is finally making some calls on who will defend him. And so we now know, the defense team will include the lawyer whose work led to the last impeachment trial, the names of the new Trump lawyers in just a second here.

But first, let me get you up to speed on what's happening right now just to prepare for Tuesday when arguments get underway in the third impeachment trial of an American President.

So for that, let's go to CNN congressional reporter Lauren Fox, who has been digging deep on what's been going on behind the scenes. And so Lauren, you are reporting that moderate Republican Senator Susan Collins printed out the 1999 Impeachment Rules, made a beeline for Mitch McConnell to say what?

LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL REPORTER Well, essentially what she did was because she was facing a lot of pressure back home about what she was going to accept in terms of witnesses when she returned from the Holiday season back to the Senate. She essentially brought that 1999 Clinton Resolution to the floor and she handed it to McConnell's staff essentially asking them, okay, show me what is going to change in this resolution and what is going to stay the same.

We know the Majority Leader had made it very clear, he was going to follow the "Clinton model," but she wanted to see it in writing. She wanted to understand what does that mean in terms of getting witnesses?

So what transpired was weeks of negotiations between Senator Collins, his staff, Murkowski staff, Mitt Romney, staff, Lamar Alexander staff, and leadership to go over word by word what was going to be in this resolution.

So the expectation -- and we should be cautious here -- we have not seen the resolution yet. It hasn't been released. But the expectation is that it will actually include a vote after the presentations of evidence by both sides and a debate from the senators, there will actually be a vote on whether or not senators are willing to entertain the idea of witnesses, not any specific witnesses, just the idea of needing more information.

And that of course, is going to be a very important vote for those moderates who are facing a lot of pressure back home. And we should also note, Brooke, just tend to be more independent-minded when it comes to wanting more information.

These are not people who had their minds made up, they're going into this trial, and they really view their role as being impartial jurors. So of course, their role in these negotiations, very important -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: No, such great reporting, Lauren, and just everyone is creating this color behind the scenes before this whole thing begins. You nailed it. Thank you.

Let's talk now about these new lawyers just hired to defend the President and his impeachment trial, their common tie, they have all had their fair share of TV time. You'll recognize Ken Starr, the independent counsel for the Whitewater investigation. His investigation and report led to the impeachment trial of then President Bill Clinton in 1999. So check out what Starr said the year before about Clinton's refusing to cooperate with investigators.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KEN STARR, THEN WHITEWATER INDEPENDENT COUNSEL: The President refused six invitations to testify before the grand jury. Refusing to cooperate with a duly authorized Federal criminal investigation is inconsistent with the general statutory duty of all Executive Branch employees to cooperate with criminal investigations. It also is inconsistent with the President's duty to faithfully execute the laws.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: It's interesting to note that in 1999, the year of the Clinton impeachment trial, Donald Trump said this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, THEN A PRIVATE CITIZEN: I think Ken Starr is a lunatic. I really think that Ken Starr is a disaster. I hated the way the President handled it. It was a long and terrible process. I really think that Ken Starr was terrible.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Robert Ray was Starr's successor. He is on the team, Alan Dershowitz is as well. He's a well-known Harvard Law professor who was highly vocal during the Russia investigation. Dershowitz has been resisting joining the Trump team. In a statement,

the legal team pointed out that Dershowitz voted for Hillary Clinton. These three attorneys joined four others defending Trump: Jane Raskin and Pam Bondi, a former Federal prosecutor, and she was also former Florida State Attorney and the team will be led by the White House Counsel Pat Cipollone and the President's private attorney, Jay Sekulow. So that's the full picture for you for the Trump defense team.

With me now, CNN legal analyst Jennifer Rogers. She's a former Federal prosecutor and now, a lecturer at Columbia Law. You heard what the, you know, the sound that we dug up from then private-citizen Donald Trump on Starr: A lunatic and a disaster.

Let me add to that, this Monica Lewinsky tweet from today. "This is definitely and 'are you [bleep] kidding me?' kind of day."

So I mean, obviously, she is alluding to Ken Starr's name. What did you make of Ken Starr, Alan Dershowitz being named to this team?

JENNIFER RODGERS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: I think it's a mistake, Brooke. I think it's going to backfire on them, and listen, the Trump team has had a lot of trouble attracting top notch legal talent. That's been the case this whole time, in the Mueller investigation and even now.

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RODGERS: And I understand they want TV-friendly personalities who have proven themselves loyal. But these guys are disasters.

BALDWIN: Why will it backfire?

RODGERS: Because Dershowitz, I mean, just to start with him, right? He has lost so much credibility through the extreme positions that he's been taking on TV defending the President against the Mueller investigation and other things.

He's tied very closely to Jeffrey Epstein. He's even in litigation over whether he had sex with a minor trafficked by Epstein. So he is a disaster.

And Ken Starr is going to be facing the exact thing that you just did to him, which is side by side comparisons of what he said then and what he is saying now.

BALDWIN: Of what he did then versus now.

RODGERS: His job is to stand up and explain why it's no big deal that Trump wouldn't speak to investigators, blocked every single witness, blocked every single document, doesn't want witnesses. How is he going to do that credibly?

So I think that even though they've had trouble with talent, they should have looked elsewhere.

BALDWIN: How does he square that given witnesses then versus they don't want them now. On witnesses, we know that Democrats have been consistent that Biden should take the stand. They feel like it's the President of the United States on trial and that the Biden's actions have absolutely nothing to do with impeachment.

So here is the Minority Leader in the Senate, Chuck Schumer.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY): Witnesses we've asked for are not witnesses that are our pals, they're Trump appointees. They work for Trump.

Hunter Biden has nothing to do with that. Now, if they want to go on a fishing expedition, because they're so worried about what witnesses would find and try to ask for someone else, I don't think it'll fly with the American people. And I don't even think it'll fly with the senators. A few senators have called for it, but I think that's to try and scare people from the pursuit of real witnesses.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: I'm curious, Jen, just how you interpret his response. And is there room for these House Managers, essentially the prosecutors here to negotiate? I'll give you, you know, a Biden in exchange for a John Bolton and a Mick Mulvaney?

RODGERS: There is room to negotiate and I think that's what's going to happen here. But his point is, you know, listen, at the very beginning of all of this, the President was trying to mount a defense that went along the lines of there is corruption here. He is really just trying to root out corruption and that's what this was all about.

But that has been absolutely eviscerated by all of what we've learned since then. These dozen witnesses who have testified, the documents that have come out through FOIA requests or otherwise, so it's now not even a question that Hunter Biden and Joe Biden had anything to do with this in the sense of a legitimate defense for the President. So there's no legitimate reason to call them here.

BALDWIN: Do you think that -- you mentioned the new evidence coming out, you know, Lev Parnas, the indicted Giuliani associate -- do you think it'll force lawmakers hands on bringing witnesses to this trial?

RODGERS: I think every piece of information that comes out including Lev Parnas forces their hand a little bit bore. The problem is, some of them are refusing to have their hand forced, right? Some of them have their head stuck so far in the sand that they just refuse to be moved by anything.

BALDWIN: Okay. Jen Rodgers, thank you very much. We also now know more about Iran's missile attack against the United States. Now, CNN is learning that American troops were injured after all. So the question we're asking is why are we just now finding out about this?

And a new book describes a presidential tirade against his top military brass telling star generals, they're all and I'm quoting, "losers." And Andrew Yang's wife opens up about being sexually assaulted by her

doctor. It is a story you will not want to miss. You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin. We will be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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BALDWIN: We are back. You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin. We're now learning that U.S. troops were indeed injured in that Iranian missile attack on two military bases in Iraq just last week.

The Pentagon is revealing now that 11 service members at the Al-Assad airbase in Western Iraq were hurt, and that several have been treated for concussion symptoms and are still being assessed.

Now remember, initially, the Pentagon said no one was hurt, and so did the Commander-in-Chief.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: No Americans were harmed in last night's attack by the Iranian regime.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Shortly after those missiles were fired by Iran, the President also tweeted, "All as well," adding that " ... assessment of casualties and damages was taking place and so far so good."

With me now, Iraq War veteran Phillip Carter, he served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Detainee Policy under former President Obama and so Phillip, thank you so much for joining me and first things first, why are we just now learning about this?

PHILLIP CARTER, FORMER DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF DEFENSE FOR DETAINEE POLICY UNDER PRESIDENT OBAMA: So it looks like we're just now learning about this because the injuries assessed were concussions. It takes a while to go through the protocol to determine that someone has a blast injury from an explosion like this, and so it makes sense this is just coming out now.

I'd be hesitant to see too much of a political ghost here. This just looks like proof of the old military proverb that first reports are always wrong.

BALDWIN: I got you. I also wanted to ask about this. There's this new book called "A Very Stable Genius: Donald J. Trump's Testing of America" with some pretty compelling details written by these two "Washington Post" reporters and one of the details goes into this July 2017 meeting where then Secretary of State Rex Tillerson called President Trump a moron with some colorful language thrown in there.

And the book reveals that Trump then scolded his top military brass at that meeting, and so here's the quote from him. This is again from President Trump, "You're all losers. You don't know how to win anymore." And then later in the meeting, he goes on to say, "I wouldn't go to war with you people. You're a bunch of dopes and babies."

Now, Phillip, I can't even imagine how heated some of those discussions must be in a room like that. But I mean, you ever heard of language like this coming from the President?

CARTER: It's unusual although, you know, if you'd looked inside the Sit Room from LBJ or other Presidents, you might have heard similar things.

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CARTER: This discussion in July 2017 was one of the first big meetings between President Trump and his War Cabinet, and what's interesting is the way that both sides saw this completely differently.

So the Generals, and Secretary Mattis and Secretary Tillerson wanted to educate the President on the way they saw the world, and the President, by contrast, knew exactly how we saw the world and was not looking forward to that educational session and let it be known.

And so this ended up being a case of two ships essentially passing in the night and shooting at each other a bit as they did. It was sort of the antithesis of what we would expect to see as harmonious civil military relations.

BALDWIN: So, point blank, though, when you read those words, did you wince a little bit or really, you weren't that worried?

CARTER: I winced a little bit because no functioning organization treats people like that. Leaders that I've served under and worked with tend to thrive when they respect the people that they work with and inspire confidence both up and down.

The distinction here is that he was asking fundamental questions of things that those military leaders took as articles of faith, like whether we should continue fighting in Afghanistan, and that was very bitter medicine for some of those generals to hear.

But in some ways, the President was right to ask those fundamental questions, that's why we have civilian control of the military.

BALDWIN: Sure. And then another quote from this book, because we know that the Vice President was in the room and apparently he never said anything. He's described as " ... frozen like a statue," a "wax museum guy and a deer in the headlights." This is according to people in that room.

The one person who did speak out was then Secretary Tillerson who said, "Mr. President, you're wrong." I guess my question to you, Phillip is, if you're, you know, a top military brass there standing -- sitting there, you know, taking this incoming, essentially this verbal incoming from the President, can you push back on a situation like this? I mean, there a non-response to actually try to keep it secret. CARTER: Yes, I mean, that's one of the interesting things in my

experience, and I've been one of the backbenchers in meetings like that. You absolutely can push back, you should push back. That's your job. That's what Lincoln understood when he created his team of rivals during the Civil War. That's what Presidents have done ever since.

And it is absolutely the job of the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of State and the other senior folks there and even to some extent, the Chairman of the Joint Staff to push back and to engage in a healthy dialogue with a fair amount of friction when necessary.

BALDWIN: Phillip Carter, thank you for your expertise in this area. I appreciate you.

CARTER: Thank you.

BALDWIN: More fallout today from those Lev Parnas interviews. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo finally breaks his silence, promises to take action over the alleged surveillance of a former U.S. Ambassador.

And the wife of one of the presidential candidates is speaking out quite candidly about being sexually assaulted. Evelyn Yang shares her powerful story with Dana Bash.

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BALDWIN: After 48 hours, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is breaking his silence over whether one of his ambassadors was being surveilled in Ukraine.

This is just one of several revelations from this trove of documents from indicted Rudy Giuliani associate, Lev Parnas.

Now among those documents were text messages from Republican congressional candidate, Robert Hyde, suggesting that he had knowledge of Marie Yovanovitch's whereabouts in Ukraine.

Yovanovitch was the U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine before the President fired her last year, and Secretary Pompeo says that he never heard of the surveillance efforts at the time.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

MIKE POMPEO, SECRETARY OF STATE: I've not met this guy, Lev Parnas, to the best of my knowledge. I've never encountered, never communicated with him. We will -- we will do everything we need to do to evaluate whether there was something that took place there.

I suspect that much of what's been reported will ultimately prove wrong, but our obligation, my obligation as Secretary of State is to make sure that we evaluate investigate, anytime there's someone who posits that there may have been a risk to one of our officers, we'll obviously do that.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Brett Bruen is President of the Global Situation Room and former Director of Global Engagement under President Obama, and so Brett, a pleasure to have you here. Do you trust him?

BRETT BRUEN, PRESIDENT, GLOBAL SITUATION ROOM: I think Secretary Pompeo's track record has not been a great one when it comes to the safety of our people.

Just take, for instance, a 23 percent cut in the last fiscal year to embassy security upgrades. So for all of his talk of swagger and restoring diplomats to their rightful place, the evidence tells a very different story and I think his comments belie a certain distrust of the accusations. I'm not certain whether or not we get to the bottom of this.

BALDWIN: I should remind people, Ukraine launched an investigation. Let's take the Secretary at his word like what if he genuinely did not know that she was being surveilled? If she was, that's even more worrisome, correct?

BRUEN: Absolutely. Diplomatic Security agents are supposed to be aware of any Intelligence-Counterintelligence threats to our people, and certainly, the Ambassador, absolutely in a country like Ukraine.

[14:25:14]

BRUEN: This could have been a group of terrorists. It could have been foreign agents from China or Russia, or any of those breakaway provinces in Ukraine that posed a real security threat and certainly an Intelligence threat as well.

BALDWIN: Yes. Lev Parnas is talking. He is revealing more details. He talked to Anderson Cooper about Yovanovitch's is firing, and so here's what he told Anderson.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LEV PARNAS, INDICTED RUDY GIULIANI ASSOCIATE: To my knowledge, the President fired her at least four times, maybe even five times. I mean, once in my presence, a private dinner for a Super PAC in Washington, D.C. at the Trump hotel.

And in the conversation, the subject of Ukraine was brought up and I told the President that our opinion that she is bad mouthing him, and that she said that he's going to get impeached, something like that. I don't know if that's word for word, but that she --

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: You said that at the table --

PARNAS: Correct.

COOPER: -- were the President was.

PARNAS: Correct. Correct. And his reaction was he looked at me like, he got very angry and basically turned around to John DeStefano and said, fire her, get rid of her.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Now, he says he would be willing to talk to lawmakers, but if he is the guy who was pushing this narrative that, you know, Yovanovitch was working against the President, doesn't he have a credibility issue?

BRUEN: I think there are credibility issues on multiple fronts here. And it's almost the credibility of United States. I mean, who are our foreign allies, foreign leaders supposed to listen to? Going forward, do they listen to the President? Do they listen to some guy who is over in Eastern Europe saying that I represent Donald J. Trump.

BALDWIN: Right.

BRUEN: Don't listen to the Ambassador. That's what I'm hearing from friends who are still at the State Department is they don't believe that they can effectively do their jobs.

BALDWIN: Because people don't believe them.

BRUEN: Because now you have Rudy Giuliani or alleged associates of Giuliani running around saying, I'm the one who speaks for Donald Trump.

BALDWIN: And what are the long term ramifications of that?

BRUEN: I think we are going to face a serious challenge of credibility. We're going to face a challenge of influence. And let's just look at what's happening at the United Nations system. The U.N. is now being taken over by the likes of China. They've won major elections in just the last year, America couldn't even cobble together six votes for our candidate to be on the U.N. Security Council.

This is just a canary in the coal mine saying American influence on the world stage is waning, and if we don't wake up and take action, there will be some even more serious consequences to come.

BALDWIN: I hope everyone's listening to the canary in this case. Brett Bruen, awesome insight. As always, thank you very much.

Andrew Yang's wife is sharing her painful personal story about being sexually assaulted by her doctor. What she says happened on the campaign trail that made her want to share her story with you.

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