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House Mangers Final Day of Arguments; Trump Defense begins Saturday; Votes to Call Witnesses; Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO) is Interviewed on Impeachment. Aired 9:30-10a

Aired January 24, 2020 - 09:30   ET

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

[09:32:54]

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back, live from the Capitol this morning.

The president's legal team preparing for its first day of arguments as Democrats prepare to make their arguments on their final day. Today's focus, their charge of obstruction of Congress by the president, but Trump lawyer Ken Starr says there is no such thing, that it's made up.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: So joining us now is Paul Rosenzweig. He's a conservative and a former federal prosecutor who served as senior counsel to Ken Starr during Whitewater.

Good to have you, sir. Thank you for joining us.

So you have called Ken Starr's decision to join the president's legal defense team on this puzzling. And CNN's reporting in the last 24 hours is that there's really not been any or much formal prep with Ken Starr and Alan Dershowitz and the rest of the team. And we haven't seen them involved in the sessions on Capitol Hill.

Should the American people expect to see Ken Starr take a bigger role going forward?

PAUL ROSENZWEIG, FORMER DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR POLICY, DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY: Well, you'd really have to address that question to the president's defense team. I think that they were added to the team for what the president perceives of as their expertise. I'd be surprised if they didn't play a role after such a public affiliation.

SCIUTTO: So House managers, they're, of course, going to make their closing arguments today. Trump, this charged today, the focus, obstruction of Congress. Ken Starr is dismissing that allegation saying, we're quoting here, it really is unwise of the House. It's made up. There's really no such thing as obstruction of Congress.

Let me ask you from a legal standpoint, is that true? I mean how can there not be, really, because if Congress subpoenas documents, testimony, et cetera, from the executive branch, then what is the recourse if the White House refuses to cooperate? ROSENZWEIG: I -- that must be a quote taken out of context. It's clear

that obstruction of Congress is a real thing. For one thing, there's a criminal statute passed by Congress and signed into law by earlier presidents that makes it a crime to obstruct Congress, makes it a crime to withhold documents from Congress, makes it a crime to lie to Congress.

[09:35:01]

So there really must be something more to the discussion than that because, at least as quoted, it's so clearly wrong that I can't actually imagine that's the legal position the president's going to advance.

SCIUTTO: Not clear, though, because Starr, of course, is not the only one who's made that argument. But I'm not the lawyer and so I don't know the basis.

HARLOW: Yes, and people should listen --

ROSENZWEIG: I mean --

HARLOW: It's interesting because Jim brings up Ken Starr said this on a recent podcast. So people should listen to it, listen to the context and then make up their mind.

But let's move on to something that Lindsey Graham said, you know, two decades ago, and what you think now. This is a 21-year-old clip from him during the Clinton impeachment trial.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-SC): What's a high crime? How about if an important person hurts somebody of low means? It's not very scholarly, but I think it's the truth. I think that's what they meant by high crimes. Doesn't even have to be a crime.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: I'm not going to ask you if you agree, but I am going to ask you if you think Adam Schiff, yesterday, using that in his presentation, was a prudent legal strategy to try to flip minds of Republicans.

ROSENZWEIG: Well, I think the -- that's a strategy that's addressed more to the American public. There is a -- yes, much of the attitudes in the body politic have hardened, but there's an undecided group of people, some of whom are quite literally just tuning in for the first time, notwithstanding your and my focus on this for the last year.

HARLOW: Yes.

ROSENZWEIG: But who are just focusing for the first time. And for them to see the ways in which the president's defenders now have changed their tune from what they said 20 years ago is, I think, an important revelation as to the disheartening nature of the situational ethics that some of them are adopting.

And perhaps that will persuade enough people in the middle who have yet to make up their minds, who haven't been paying attention, that this proceeding is serious and is grounded on real threats, real abuses of power, real obstruction of Congress that deserve serious treatment, not the casual treatment that seems to be being given by Republican senators, many of whom can't even be bothered to stay in the chamber to listen.

SCIUTTO: Yes, situational ethics, perhaps a phrase for our time, sadly.

Paul Rosenzweig, thanks very much.

ROSENZWEIG: Thank you.

SCIUTTO: It is a tall task for House impeachment managers trying to convince four Republican senators to support voting to subpoena witnesses. Are they making their case? The feeling here on Capitol Hill is the chances of that is waning.

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[09:42:31]

SCIUTTO: Welcome back.

We're live on Capitol Hill. Day three about to begin. The final day for Democrats to make their case to the American people, to fellow Democrats, to Republicans to remove the president, but also in favor of just calling witnesses.

HARLOW: But to get the votes, Democrats need to appeal to key Republicans. That's what they've been trying to do this whole time. Several of them, those key Republicans, are complaining about Democrats repeating their case over and over again.

Today, those Democrats, the House managers, have just eight hours left to try to change those minds before the president's team takes over.

So let's begin our coverage right here with our congressional reporter, Lauren Fox, and White House Correspondent John Harwood.

Lauren, just tell people what they will see today.

LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL REPORTER: Well, yesterday was the case all about abuse of power. Today the case that you can expect House managers to make is going to be obstruction of Congress. The fact that the administration wouldn't turn over documents and witnesses that were very important and that were requested by the House Intelligence Committee during their investigation of that phone call between President Trump and Ukraine's President Zelensky.

Also be watching, of course, though, for those moderate Republicans. Are any minds being changed? Are they getting frustrated with the Democratic case? Are they ready to move on, to hear from the president's defense team? This game all along has been convincing enough Republicans to get witnesses like John Bolton and Mick Mulvaney to be part of the Senate trial. The big question, whether or not Democrats have succeeded in that mission, Poppy.

SCIUTTO: John Harwood, at the White House, we understand that President Trump a little bit upset that his team begins on a Saturday with presumably fewer eyeballs. But how is the Trump defense team getting ready?

JOHN HARWOOD, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, they've got a challenge, Jim, because the Trump defense is split between two different kinds of arguments. One of the arguments is that the president didn't do anything wrong. That's what we heard Josh Hawley, the senator from -- Republican from Missouri say yesterday. But you've also got those senators who say, well, he did do something inappropriate, but it's not impeachable. That's what Rob Portman of Ohio told our colleague Manu Raju.

Trump's challenge, of course, is that he wants the most people to see his defense, whether it's a mixed message or not. He had that tweet this morning. He said, my team is forced to begin their defense on Saturday. That's death valley in TV ratings. And so I think you can't dismiss the possibility that, first of all, they've already said it is likely to be a shorter session or suggested it's likely to be a shorter session on Saturday.

[09:45:00]

But I talked to a McConnell adviser today who didn't rule out the possibility that they could, because the president doesn't like Saturday, they could ditch the Saturday session altogether and begin on Monday.

SCIUTTO: Well, it wouldn't be the first time they made a decision to his advantage.

HARWOOD: That's right.

SCIUTTO: Let's also add in CNN politics reporter Jeremy Herb and our political analyst Jackie Kucinich to the conversation as well.

Jeremy, you cover The Hill. You've covered it a long time. Vote counting now. If Democrats -- we know Democrats need four votes. Where does the betting stand on whether they'll get those votes to call witnesses?

JEREMY HERB, CNN POLITICS REPORTER: Yes, you know, I think they do still face long odds to get those four votes. And I think it's a case where if there are four, there are probably going to have to be more than four so it's not exactly 51 senators who do this. The key senators, as we said, Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Mitt Romney, Lamar Alexander.

You know, I asked Murkowski yesterday what she thought about one of the concerns raised by Republicans about executive privilege and that this fight could get tied up in the courts if they try to get John Bolton or Mick Mulvaney in. And what she said was, well, she wondered why the House didn't go after this themselves. And it's a -- it raises the question of where her head is at. It doesn't necessarily mean she's going to vote one way or the other, but it was certainly notable that she was raising that same concern that I think we've heard from Mitch McConnell.

SCIUTTO: Well, it's interesting, Poppy, too, because Senator Murkowski, before that, raised some concern as Democratic House members were attacking Republican senators and said, hey, that's not helping either.

HARLOW: Right. Yes, 100 percent. And to hear that from her, Jackie, I think, you know, could say more than we think, right? I mean because she's been willing to vote against the president and if she is perturbed by this, what is that going to mean for her vote.

What are you looking for today, Jackie, in these final eight hours for Democrats?

JACKIE KUCINICH, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Just -- so what you are hearing from Democrats when you hear Republicans like Lisa Murkowski criticize the House investigation is, OK, well, that's because they wouldn't give us what we needed. OK, that is what we're talking about today. You're -- you're allowing them to continue to obstruct if you decide that, you know, this is acceptable and you're not going to call any more witnesses.

So to the extent that they hit that, the extent that Democrats make that point on the floor, I think Senator Schumer was making that point over the last couple of days, I'm looking for that, but also how they do it, because, as we've seen throughout this process, tonally, it matters. Jerry Nadler turned a lot of people off that first day and angered a lot of senators and people could say crocodile tears but that actually does matter. Where Adam Schiff hasn't really attacked senators, hasn't been personal about this and that his approach seems to be much more persuasive with maybe some of these moderates who are on the fence.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

Jeremy Herb, you've been inside during these sessions here and Chief Justice John Roberts, late in the evening of the first day, made this comment about the Senate being the most admired, you know, deliberative body in the world, this august chamber. Has it been on the inside?

HERB: At times. I think, you know, there has been -- there have been senators who have been walking around. There have been senators who have been out of place. You know, it was notable yesterday, Lindsey Graham was not in the chamber when his clip from 1999 was being played.

But there also are a lot of senators who are sitting there who are taking notes. You know, we see a lot of them have been flipping through the presentation that the House has gotten. So I think it's certainly a mixed bag. It's not easy for them to sit in there for hours on end and listen to this, especially for the Republicans who probably don't agree with most of it.

So I think, you know, obviously, we're noting the various things, the fidget spinners and the milk and all of that, but there have been a lot of senators listening too at the same time.

SCIUTTO: I mean, do I feel for them? You're a sitting U.S. senator. The president's being tried. How much are the American people, Poppy, I wondering, crying tears for these senators? It's an open question.

HARLOW: Where is your heart, Sciutto?

Lauren, talk to us about what you've been seeing. I mean, you know, there's like those spinners, the fidget spinners that were given out to some of the senators. There's, of course, the Rand Paul drawing, people leaving their seats, from both parties. Senators from both parties. What are you seeing, the color that the American people aren't?

FOX: Well, there's some sketch artists on the Senate floor. You know, some of them take to doodling when they get a little bit bored.

I will also tell you that behind the scenes, Poppy, during the Republican lunch yesterday, something very interesting happened. Basically, Majority Leader McConnell and his leadership team made the case to their members that they need to be going out and making a stronger defense of the president during these breaks.

HARLOW: Yes.

FOX: In part because the American people back home, they're watching. All they're seeing is the case that Democrats are making and they're hearing from constituents who are frustrated. They don't understand why the president's defense team isn't getting up and interrupting like they would maybe in a normal court setting. That's not how this process is laid out. But it's a very important and revealing moment given the fact that, you know, this has been wall-to-wall Democratic coverage for the last two and a half days and more coming today.

SCIUTTO: So, John Harwood, just looking at the House members preempting some of the arguments against Joe Biden, Hunter Biden,

[09:50:00]

I wonder, is the expectation that the White House lawyers will, in addition to defending the president, use this as an opportunity to attack a possible political opponent for him in November?

HARWOOD: I think you couldn't assume otherwise. The question is whether that has any traction with the American people.

Remember, you know, we're talking about two things here. One is what is the effect on moderate Republicans, people who might defect from the president? Anybody who's been betting throughout this administration on Republicans defecting from the president, whether it's on tax cuts or Brett Kavanaugh or a host of other things has long since gone broke. This is really about trying to move public opinion at this point. There are more people tuning into this than have been at previous iterations of this process.

And so the question is, what causes some marginal change in public opinion? Don't know how much that's going to be. But that's really what it's all about. And Democrats were trying to make the case in advance that Joe Biden, as witnesses have said, as Trump -- former Trump administration witnesses have said, Joe Biden, there's no evidence that he did anything wrong. And hope that that gets some traction against the Republican attempts to smear Biden.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

HARLOW: Jeremy, do we have any sense of, you know, the most compelling case is that the White House will make, meaning, have they seen any holes in the Democrats' argument that they feel -- there's always an advantage sometimes to going second, right, that they want, that they think that they can fill and capitalize on. One example Jim was talking about is bring up the Bidens so much, the Democrats, et cetera, Burisma. What do they see as a strategic advantage here?

HERB: Yes, sure, they get to go second. You know, they have the chance to respond to the House.

HARLOW: Yes.

HERB: And the House won't get the chance then to respond back and have another rebuttal, unlike what we saw the first day. I think what we heard yesterday from Jay Sekulow, the president's personal attorney, about Joe Biden is telling and I think we're going to hear a lengthy case about why there, in fact, should have been an investigation about the Bidens and why the president thinks that perhaps he should have been -- should have been investigated.

Now, the House will, you know, obviously try to get ahead of that and that's why they spent so much time yesterday. But the thing we're going to have to watch with the White House is, how much of this do they focus on the process and attacking Adam Schiff and Jerry Nadler and how much do they actually dive into the facts at hand here.

SCIUTTO: So, Jackie, before we go, it may happen that by the middle of next week, if there aren't sufficient votes to vote for calling witnesses, that this process is over by Wednesday.

Is that a blip on the political calendar in an election year in the end?

KUCINICH: You know, with -- considering you have the many senators who have been here the entire time instead of on the campaign trail, you have the president's State of the Union Address coming right on the heels of this. No, I feel like that this is -- this is going to be continued to be talked about, perhaps on either side as a cudgel in the 2020 election.

We're in a news environment, as we all know, that everything is so fast. But this was -- this is historic. It will continue to be historic. And I would not be surprised if it continues to be part of the election cycle. SCIUTTO: A couple weeks ago there was worried about going to war with

Iran. When's the last time that was mentioned.

KUCINICH: Right.

SCIUTTO: Jeremy, Jackie, Lauren Fox, John Harwood, thanks to all of you.

Poppy.

HARLOW: All right, joining us now is 2020 Democratic presidential candidate, Colorado Senator Michael Bennet.

Senator, thank you so much for joining us this morning.

MICHAEL BENNET (D-CO), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Thanks, Poppy. Great to be with you.

HARLOW: Let's begin with something that your fellow senator, Republican Joni Ernst of Iowa, said yesterday about the case that the Democrats have made thus far. Quote, it's not really changing our opinion.

What do you think the most effective argument has been and what should Democrats do today?

BENNET: Well, I think that -- I actually think the House managers have made a very compelling case that the president abused his office and I think today what we're going to hear is that he has claimed an executive privilege that nobody in American history has ever claimed. And if he's allowed to get away with that, our whole system of checks and balances, I think, is going to crumble.

And I believe every single journalist in America, every single citizen in America, should be insisting that the president produce witnesses and the records of what has been going on in the last few months in the White House. It's absolutely outrageous. And I don't think the American people will stand for it. The Republicans may in the Senate, but I don't think the American people will.

HARLOW: Senator, the Republican argument among senators seems to be perhaps taking shape like this, because let me read you what Senator Rob Portman, who, by the way, was one of those who went to the White House to say what's going on with this OMB funding for Ukraine, right, remember that? He told our Manu Raju yesterday, quote, about the president, some of the things that were done were not appropriate. I've used the word wrong and inappropriate.

[09:55:04]

But then he went on to say, that's different from voting someone out of office, right.

BENNET: Right.

HARLOW: That's different from convicting someone and removing a sitting president.

John Cornyn talked yesterday again to our team about mixed motives. He doesn't think it was all about Burisma for stopping the aid to Ukraine.

What do you make of that?

BENNET: Well, I think those are excuses to not cross President Trump. I think -- I hope every American will listen to Adam Schiff's closing argument last night about why the president should be removed. We've not heard the president's argument yet. And I want to hear his argument. But Adam Schiff made one of the great speeches in American history last night where he pointed out that if -- if facts -- if truth and right don't matter, the Constitution doesn't matter. And it's up to the people sitting in this room because President Trump put his own private interests ahead of the national interests because he was trying to get help from Ukraine with his presidential election.

HARLOW: So --

BENNET: He adopted a policy that was contrary to the national security interests of the United States. And what Schiff said last night is, everyone in this room knows that when confronted by that choice again, Donald Trump would do exactly the same thing. And that's why he said he should be removed.

HARLOW: So, senator, I'm glad you bring that up because I'm sure you read it yesterday in "The Wall Street Journal." "The Wall Street Journal" editorial board takes that argument and flips it on its head. Let me read you part of what they said, the crux of their argument.

Quote, every president has made foreign policy decisions that he thinks may help his re-election. That is what President Obama did in 2012 when he asked Dmitry Medvedev to tell Vladimir Putin to ease up on the missile defense until after the election. Mitt Romney was criticizing Mr. Obama for being soft on Mr. Putin. Mr. Obama wanted a political favor from the dictator to help him win re-election. And they went on to surmise, such a standard would be a cause for the impeachment of virtually every president, past, present and future.

What do you make of that argument?

BENNET: The difference -- I would say the difference here is that this -- the president was engaged in a month's long shakedown of the Ukrainian president. This wasn't, you know, a one phone call. And, by the way, Schiff also went through the transcript last night. President Trump's been saying read the transcript, read the transcript. Schiff read it in the context of all the evidence that the Democrats have presented and it's a fairly damning document in that context.

But it was a month's long effort by Donald Trump to shake these guys down and to say, I -- illegally to say, I am not going to send you your foreign aid unless you -- unless you open up fake investigations into my political opponents and unless you endorse Russian propaganda about whether Ukraine was involved in the 2016 election. So I don't think this bears any resemblance to what any other president has done. Not just Barack Obama, but any Republican or Democrat.

HARLOW: All right, let's spend the remainder of our interview talking about you and your run for the White House because clearly you got two jobs right now --

BENNET: Right.

HARLOW: To be a juror and to, I guess, go to Iowa and New Hampshire on Sundays when you can.

You said in a new interview this week with "The Boston Globe," quote, I don't think you can get more opposite of Donald Trump than I am. But in the polling that we have this month, Monmouth, you're about 1 percent nationally, less than one in Iowa, 2 percent in New Hampshire. You're betting a lot in New Hampshire. You've had 38 town halls there. You're going to have a lot more before the primary. You weren't on the debate stage. Now you're a juror in Washington.

How do you win?

BENNET: Well, I think the way I win is by making the case that I'm the only person in the race that's won two national elections in a swing state. Nobody else has. That to beat Donald Trump, we're going to have to win, not just blue states on the coast, but purple states in the middle of the country. I've got an agenda called the real deal that will unite the American people and answer their essential questions about, how do we live a middle class life again in this country when we are working so hard? How do we get our kids out of poverty, like the parents that I used to work for when I was superintendent of the Denver Public Schools are asking?

And I think, temperamentally, I am the opposite of Donald Trump. If we want some version of him, I'm obviously not the right candidate. If we want to elect a president that we don't have to think about two weeks at a time because I'll be focused on doing my job with respect to North Korea and my job with respect to ending this trade war in China, then I hope people will give me a look and I'm going back to New Hampshire on Sunday. We spend more time there than any other candidate in the race. And I'm -- I'm -- you can find me doing one more town hall and one more town hall after that.

HARLOW: Well, there you go.

Senator Michael Bennet, appreciate your time.

BENNET: Thanks, Poppy.

HARLOW: And thanks to all of you for joining us. We will see you back here actually for special coverage Sunday night.

I'm Poppy Harlow.

[09:59:58]

Our special coverage of the Senate impeachment trial begins right now.

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