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Coronavirus Continues to Spread; NFL Pays Tribute to Bryant; Trump Team Begins Final Day of Arguments; Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT) is Interviewed about Impeachment; Ernst Questions if Trial Hurts Biden. Aired 9:30-10a

Aired January 28, 2020 - 09:30   ET

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

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[09:32:18]

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: In just a few hours, more than 200 Americans will be leaving Wuhan, China. They're going to board a chartered flight bound for the United States. Of course, this is to get them out of there because of major concerns over the deadly coronavirus. There are now five confirmed cases in the U.S. The latest patient diagnosed at Arizona State University. And the CDC says it's monitoring travelers at 20 airports in the U.S. for symptoms.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, this is quickly becoming a global problem. The concerns are real. They are now nearly 4,500 confirmed cases of coronavirus in China. A dramatic jump from the 2,700 reported just yesterday. More than 100 people there have died so far.

CNN's David Culver joins us now from Beijing.

David, travel restrictions going up around the globe and a real concerted effort here among numerous countries, including the U.S., to get their citizens out of China.

DAVID CULVER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, no question, Jim and Poppy. In fact, we're seeing the stepped up effort coming from neighboring territories like Hong Kong. Some of the restrictions they're putting in place, pretty extreme.

They are saying that anybody who is from Hubei province or who has traveled there recently cannot go into Hong Kong for two weeks' time. Singapore saying that if students or staff were anywhere in mainland China, they can't go back to school for 14 days. They're putting that same restriction on.

And you mentioned how the U.S. is handling this. Well, the CDC is saying, reconsider travel to China if you don't have to go. And they're saying do not travel to Hubei province. Australia following that same lead.

Now, what's interesting with these evacuations is we know about 1,000 U.S. citizens are within the city of Wuhan. And U.S. diplomats are being evacuated by the State Department. Now, that flight is a few hours away, as you mentioned. And I've been

talking with one of the civilians who's going on that plane. There were a few spots that were opened up to those who were interested in going.

You can imagine they were in high demand. And this mother and daughter that we spoke with, they've shared some of the video of them arriving at what is a desolate Wuhan airport. You can imagine since it's locked down. Everything's shut down. You can only get there if you have special approval. And they were on that list.

They arrived. They said they went through a health screening and they're now waiting to board the plane.

Now, when they get on that plane, they and the 240 folks who are on there are going to have to go to the West Coast of the U.S. and will have to be in quarantine anywhere from 72 hours to 14 days.

It's not just the U.S. that's doing this, though. You've got Japan and South Korea otherwise bringing planes in. The planes that they're bringing in are also going to have much-needed supplies that the doctors and nurses within Hubei province have been pleading for really. I mean we're talking about masks, hazmat suits, basic things that they simply are lacking.

[09:35:02]

And President Xi Jinping, he met a short time ago with the head of the World Health Organization. And state media reporting really within just the past couple of hours, President Xi is calling this a demon virus that he will not allow to hide. And he is the one, he says, who is taking the personal command of all these deployments, Jim and Poppy.

HARLOW: Wow. I mean the repercussions --

SCIUTTO: It's an enormous challenge to his leadership as well. Yes.

HARLOW: A hundred percent. And the lives --

CULVER: Right.

HARLOW: And the impact there broadly.

David, thank you for the reporting.

Kobe Bryant's death is reaching far beyond the basketball world.

SCIUTTO: The NBA superstar and father was remembered last night at Super Bowl opening night.

Coy Wire now has the latest from Miami.

COY WIRE, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Jim and Poppy.

Kobe's presence certainly being felt here in Miami as we're seeing it in many places around the country and the world. A lot of Lakers and Kobe Bryant jerseys along Ocean Drive. Just 20 minutes up the road from here where the game's going to be played at Hard Rock Stadium is lit up purple and gold.

And just before the Chiefs made their entrance to the start of the first media session last night, Kobe's picture appeared on the Jumbotron for a moment of silence. There were chants of his name.

Now, these players knew that they were going to be asked about Kobe's passing and you could tell that they really put a lot of thought into how they described how Kobe's career impacted theirs.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PATRICK MAHOMES, KANSAS CITY CHIEFS QUARTERBACK: I wasn't lucky enough to get to meet Kobe, but the impact that he made in my life, I mean, it was huge. The way he was able to go about every single day when I was a kid and the work ethic and the intensity that he had to be great every single day.

RICHARD SHERMAN, SAN FRANCISCO 49ERS CORNERBACK: And I was sad this morning. I was kind of down. I was in the dumps. And then I just thought about what he would tell me, you know what I mean? He would tell me, stop being a baby and man up and play it and do it in his honor and win this game for him, you know?

And that's what we're going to try to do, you know, we're going to -- I'm going to go out there and try to -- try to play some dominating ball, just like he wanted. You know, the Mamba mentality still lives on.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WIRE: That mamba mentality, Jim and Poppy, is that mind-set you will outwork everyone every single day. Do that which others are unable or unwilling to do. A lot of these players learned that from Kobe and it helped them reach the sport's biggest stage.

Patrick Mahomes says he still listens to videos of him speaking the day before games as motivation.

HARLOW: Wow.

SCIUTTO: Well, applied the same intensity to his family. Clearly a dedicated father as well.

Coy Wire, thanks so much.

HARLOW: Senate Republicans, really some Democrats, too, have this major decision to make. Are they going to support hearing from witnesses like John Bolton in the impeachment trial as the president's defense team gets ready to wrap up its opening arguments today.

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[09:42:19] SCIUTTO: Just hours from now, President Trump's defense team will begin its final day of opening arguments in the trial. The battle over calling new witnesses, including former National Security Adviser John Bolton, who says he has something to say, still being waged behind the scenes.

HARLOW: Sources tell us at CNN that yesterday's presentation by the president's lawyers helped halt a potential situation where Republican senators move suddenly to allow witnesses. Many Republicans growing deeply unsettled, though, following Bolton's leaked manuscript where he claims the president personally, to him, tied all of that military aid to Ukraine to investigating the Bidens.

With us now on The Hill, Lauren Fox.

Lauren, quite a day yesterday. A few more hours of it today. Do you know what we should expect?

LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL REPORTER: Well, essentially we expect a very short presentation from the president's defense team. They'll make their closing arguments today. The next steps after that will be 16 hours of questions from Republican and Democratic senators. We expect, at the moment, that that won't begin until tomorrow. So today could be a little bit shorter than what we've seen over the last couple of days.

But I will tell you that the up and down behind the scenes about this question of whether or not Republicans want to hear from witnesses is one that is continuing to rage. And I will tell you that lawmakers behind the scenes expressed concerns during their closed door GOP lunch yesterday with Pat Toomey expressing this idea that perhaps they should negotiate a one for one witness deal, essentially getting people like John Bolton for the Democrats and then perhaps Hunter Biden for the Republicans. That is an idea that has been floated before by people like Ted Cruz. It was essentially shot down last week by Chuck Schumer, the leading Democrat.

But others in the conference lunch were expressing that perhaps they would want to be open to witnesses. I will tell you, the universe of individuals to be watching seems to be growing at the moment. You have people like Jerry Moran that we should be keeping an eye on. Of course, Lamar Alexander, who's retiring in 2020.

But, at the moment, it seems like the majority leader's message yesterday to keep calm, to essentially listen to the closing arguments and make a decision later about witnesses is sticking. Whether or not another surprise could come remains to be seen.

Jim and Poppy.

HARLOW: Lauren Fox on The Hill, thanks so much.

SCIUTTO: Joining us now to discuss, Democratic Senator Jon Tester of Montana.

Senator, thanks so much for taking the time this morning. JON TESTER (D-MT): It is great to be with you. Thanks for having me.

SCIUTTO: So on Sunday it seemed like the question of witnesses was a dying question. Then, of course, the Bolton revelations come out. Pendulum swings the other way. And now it appears to have swung back in the opposite direction against witnesses.

Tell us where it stands today. I mean are -- do you believe, from speaking to your Republican colleagues, there are the votes here for this?

TESTER: I don't know. That's a really good question and I think that's what we're going to find out in a day or two.

[09:45:03]

But, ultimately, from the beginning, I thought we'd need to have more witnesses, more documentation. We need to hear from folks that have firsthand information on what's transpired with the president and the aid to Ukraine and the White House, Oval Office visit and all of that.

Unfortunately, or fortunately, however you want to look at it, over the last ten days or so, there's been more and more information coming out, including Bolton's information yesterday that only tells me, and hopefully it tells the other senators on both sides of the aisle, that we need people with firsthand information and more documentation to come forth if we're going to have a fair trial based on the facts.

SCIUTTO: You could say to confirm or deny, I suppose.

Would you, under any circumstances, support an agreement such as the one raised by Republican Senator Pat Toomey yesterday, that is a one for one witnesses deal. In other words, OK, let's say we -- we vote to subpoena John Bolton. The Republicans could then get a witness they would like. Would you, under any circumstances, vote to do that?

TESTER: I think if that witness has firsthand information, bring them in. Firsthand information as to what the president did, as Bolton does, as Mick Mulvaney does, as Pompeo does, then bring that person in and we can cross-examine him -- have cross-examination of them, which, by the way, as has been pointed out by the defense, will bring forth more facts.

So, yes. But firsthand information, people who were in the room, so to speak, is going to be critically important if we're going to be able to cross-examine those folks.

SCIUTTO: So I assume you're saying that someone like Hunter Biden would not be -- you would not be open to demanding his testimony?

TESTER: That is correct because he doesn't have firsthand information on what the president was saying and thinking in regards to the aid to Ukraine.

SCIUTTO: OK.

TESTER: An ally that was in a conflict with one of our adversaries.

SCIUTTO: Your Republican colleague, Joni Ernst, made a revealing comment yesterday about Republican -- possible Republican intentions here. Have a listen. I want to get your reaction.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JONI ERNST (R-IA): Iowa caucuses are this next Monday evening. And I'm really interested to see how this discussion today informs and influences the Iowa caucus voters, those Democratic caucus goers. Will they be supporting Vice President Biden at this point? (INAUDIBLE) about that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: Was she revealing there, in your view, that part of the intention of the president's defense is, frankly, to damage Joe Biden?

TESTER: I don't know. I've got to tell you, I'm very disappointed in that. I had not heard that statement before.

When the defense was delivering the arguments yesterday, I did look at the clock. It was in the 5:00 hour that all that stuff was brought out. I thought, wow, that's interesting.

But I've got to tell you what, this is an impeachment, a very solemn occasion that we need to be very serious about. And if people are using this for political purposes to try to rail against their opponents, if they were, shame on them. This is about holding the president accountable. This is about making sure that the systems of checks and balances in this country work. This is about showing the American people that this government works and works for them.

If that's the case, I just got to tell you, I -- I'm very disappointed. I'm very disappointed if that -- if that's -- if that's the agenda behind all of this.

SCIUTTO: There is a conventional wisdom, and some of this is backed by polling, but I wonder, you're a sitting senator from a red state, Montana. The conventional wisdom is that red state voters don't care about this impeachment investigation, see it as politically motivated from the Democratic side. Is that accurate?

TESTER: No. I think -- I think what they want is -- we have a system of checks and balances that our forefathers put into place. I think Montanans know about that. I think folks from every state know about this. They want people held accountable if they've done something wrong. And that's what this impeachment's about. It's about, if the president has done something wrong, making sure that the Congress holds him accountable. In this case, through the impeachment clauses of the Constitution.

And I think that's what Montanans want, whether they're Democrats, Republicans, and they're all libertarians, they want to make sure that folks are held accountable if they have committed a wrongdoing. SCIUTTO: Final question if I can. The other revelation from John

Bolton's manuscript of his book is him expressing concerns, including to the attorney general, that the president was doing favors for the Turkish president, for the Chinese president, to serve his own interest. I wonder what Democrats do with that information because that speaks, does it not, to at least potential abuse of power.

TESTER: Look, I think there's a lot of things out there that are being done that raises eyebrows. I think we need to focus on the articles of impeachment and the information around those articles of impeachment. To get sidetracked on, you know, whether the president is right pulling troops out of Syria and supporting an ally, the Kurds there, I think is a misdirection.

[09:50:00]

I think focus on the impeachment charges. Make sure that what's going on as far as the proof of evidence is real. And that's why I want more people with firsthand information to come testify because I think if there's more information to be had, we need to get it. And it's incumbent upon the Senate to get that information.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

TESTER: Part of our job.

SCIUTTO: Senator Jon Tester, thanks so much for taking the time.

TESTER: A pleasure, Jim, thank you.

SCIUTTO: Sure.

HARLOW: Let's talk about all of that, including what we just heard from Senator Tester, with Jackie Kucinich, Washington bureau chief for "The Daily Beast," former Republican Congressman Charlie Dent, and Shan Wu, former federal prosecutor.

Congressman Dent, let me begin with you.

I mean hearing -- we have a lot of lawmakers on this show, and it was interesting to hear the reaction from Senator Tester hearing Joni Ernst for the first time. He hadn't heard that before.

SCIUTTO: Shame on them, he said, yes.

HARLOW: Yes. And that that shouldn't be the practice of either party.

What do you make of it when you hear Senator Ernst's -- I mean if you listen to her, it -- it -- you would think perhaps that Joe Biden is on trial. And this is not an impeachment trial of Joe Biden, it's an impeachment trial of the president, and that was her reaction from a juror. What do you make of it?

CHARLIE DENT, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, she probably shouldn't have said it, but I think it was an honest assessment. How is all -- how is all of this affecting Joe Biden's campaign? I mean it's a legitimate question. She probably shouldn't have raised it.

I've said all along, if the president of the United States essentially weaponized himself, he really weaponized himself to damage Joe Biden's candidacy while simultaneously blowing up his own presidency. And so, to a certain extent, you know, I guess that's what Joni Ernst is asking, how much damage has this done to Joe Biden. Shouldn't have asked it, but people are asking that question, people like us who are in the punditry class.

SCIUTTO: Jackie Kucinich, it was reminiscent to some of Kevin McCarthy's comments --

JACKIE KUCINICH, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Right.

SCIUTTO: On Fox News in 2015 regarding the Benghazi hearings targeting Hillary Clinton. I want to play that sound and get your sense of whether the two have anything in common.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY (R-CA): Everybody thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right? But we put together a Benghazi special committee, a select committee. What are her numbers today? Her numbers are dropping. Why? Because she's untrustable, but no one would have known any of that had happened had we not thought and made that happen.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: Are those two sort of letting the inside voice speak on the outside?

KUCINICH: Yes, I was going to say, I think the official political term of this is saying the quiet part loud, which is what you heard yesterday. And, you know, with -- when you had the Republican team spend the -- that entire portion about the Bidens, justifying why the president thought that there was corruption, and then have a Republican senator go out and say what Joni Ernst said, it really does undermine that entire case.

You had another Republican senator, I believe in that same press conference, talk about how the Democrats who are running against Joe Biden were gleefully taking notes and leaning forward. That wasn't true. I was in the chamber and they were kind of just sitting and watching and they were taking notes but it wasn't any, you know, with any sort of happiness or anything like that.

So while this is a political process, it -- there is some -- that -- that is definitely out of lines.

And, secondly, you know the other thing that Democrats -- that Republican senators have not been able to answer is if this Joe Biden situation with Hunter Biden was so corrupt and so bad, why didn't the Republican Senate investigate it at the time when it was being raised in "The New York Times" and with all these publications that were cited yesterday. And I haven't heard an answer to that question.

HARLOW: It's a great question. An important one.

Also, the president's calls with Poroshenko before Zelensky was in office, you know, before Biden was running, did he bring it up then?

KUCINICH: Right.

HARLOW: All right, so, Shan, Tuesday morning quarterback for us, if you would, sir. How effective was the argument yesterday and what does the president's team need to do to close this thing today?

SHAN WU, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, from an advocacy standpoint, the scorecard or report card is very poor for Trump's team. I'd put it down in the c-minus range. They really did a terrible job with trying to counter the Bolton assertions. Dershowitz, at the end of the presentation, towards the end of primetime, really coming up with frankly a bizarre legal theory, which is after he had carefully studied in the intervening years since Clinton the Constitution, he's now concluded that really the impeachment clause should just be read out of the Constitution entirely. A very unconvincing type of argument.

I think that Sekulow tried to use the minimalist approach, saying we're only going to address things that are in the public record. But, of course, that's kind of silly because they're the ones stopping it from becoming public.

So from an advocacy point of view, not too good. I think the one substantive point Sekulow did make was focusing in on the policy issues. Saying, look, at the end of the day, this is all about a policy disagreement, it's not an impeachable type of conduct that was done here.

[09:55:00]

I think given the political situation, they probably did enough to give the senators cover and so today they ought to quickly wrap up and sit down before they wander too far afield.

SCIUTTO: Charlie Dent, tell me about the political dangers for Republicans here. You were, of course, a sitting congressman yourself. That one lesson of this, right, is that more information is going to come out, right? I mean it started with e-mails from the OMB talking about direction coming from the White House. Lev Parnas, we now have a video of the president saying remove the ambassador.

Now we have the president's former national security adviser, a life- long Republican, saying that he will testify under oath at the core of the impeachment allegation is true. You have to imagine Republicans would be concerned that, well, if they vote against witnesses, for instance, next week there will be more and the week after. Is that -- is that a serious political danger?

DENT: I believe it is. In fact, if I'm a Republican senator right now, I am hopping mad. The one thing these guys don't like, and women, they don't like surprises. In fact, it -- this manuscript had been sitting in the White House since December, and they all just learned about it through "The New York Times" as, at the very least, unsettling. And this will put tremendous pressure on these senators now to support witnesses.

You know, before this Bolton revelation, it only appeared there might be two Republican votes for witnesses. Well, now, guess what, you know, Pat Toomey puts forward a suggestion of how about negotiating, you know, one for one. Other members are now going to be talking about witnesses. So I think there's going to be tremendous pressure because these members don't want to be surprised again and again and again.

HARLOW: Jackie, how important is it that, yes, you have Susan Collins sounding like she wants witnesses more, Mitt Romney says I think this Bolton news makes other Republicans get on board with me in calling for witnesses. I get those two things. I sort of expected them from them.

What I -- what I was surprised to hear was Democratic Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia go up, shake Dershowitz's hand afterwards, say that he did a good job and then add that the defense of the president gave, quote, a whole different perspective and that's what trials are about. So the possibility here that a Democrat votes against witnesses or votes to acquit the president, what do you think?

KUCINICH: Witnesses and acquitting the president are two different votes, obviously.

HARLOW: Yes.

KUCINICH: You know, most Democrats are saying they want more information in order to make this decision. But, you know, one of the arguments you're hearing from Republicans and from your kind of sadder Democrats is that this is a foregone conclusion, he's going to be acquitted so why stretch this out any longer than it has to.

And that's -- that's some of the arguments you're hearing GOP leadership make that even if Bolton does testify, even -- and the White House tries to block him, this is just -- it's just going to stretch everything out and they'll end up exactly where they were going to be at the beginning of all of this. Now, does that justify it? That's up to senators.

SCIUTTO: Yes. I mean you have that -- Shan Wu, you have that practical argument there, right, saying, listen, the votes are not going to be there no matter what happens. But you heard Dershowitz make a constitutional argument that even if everything Bolton says is true, it is not impeachable.

And, again, we should note that, you know, the evolution of this argument, defense, that started that it's all not true, it's an outlet (ph), well, even if it is true it's not impeachable, you're a lawyer, is that -- is that a viable argument?

WU: It's not a very viable argument and really it shows their sense of the weakening position of the argument, starting out saying it's not untrue, now, hey, and the alternative -- in the alternative, if it is true, it's still not impeachable. So it reflects a weakening of their position, which is really why it's better for them to sit down quickly this morning.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

HARLOW: Congressman Dent, what do you make of the Pat Toomey floating of the one for one deal, witnesses? I mean our reporting is that's a -- that's a long shot that's pretty far away. What do you think?

DENT: Well, I think Pat Toomey is right to suggest that maybe we should negotiate witnesses here. That has always been the smarter play. I don't know how many witnesses there should be. But if there are going to be a Democratic witnesses, and there should be John Bolton and Mick Mulvaney and Michael Duffey and others, that means that there are going to be Republican witnesses. So they should negotiate this.

So I think Pat Toomey's on to something. And if I were Republican leadership in the Senate, I would want to negotiate something and try to get some -- bring some closure to this witness debate because there really needs to be some.

SCIUTTO: OK, quickly before we go, Jackie, Shan, and Charlie, using your political spidey sense, thumbs up or thumbs down, Senate votes to call witnesses? This -- with sufficient Republican votes.

HARLOW: You're putting them on the spot here.

KUCINICH: Oh, man, Jim.

SCIUTTO: I've got to know.

HARLOW: He asked, not me.

SCIUTTO: Thumbs up says Charlie Dent.

KUCINICH: I'm blaming -- I'm blaming him, Poppy.

WU: Thumbs down.

KUCINICH: You know, no what --

SCIUTTO: Thumbs down says Shan Wu.

You're the swing vote, Jackie.

DENT: Thumbs up.

KUCINICH: You know, I -- I'm inclined to agree. Two -- it's two -- only two senators, but, man, those are two hard votes to get.

SCIUTTO: All right.

HARLOW: So a thumbs up from Jackie.

KUCINICH: No, I don't think they will.

HARLOW: Thumbs down. All right. SCIUTTO: You don't think they will.

HARLOW: All right.

SCIUTTO: OK, fair enough.

KUCINICH: I don't think they will.

SCIUTTO: She smartly didn't put it on the screen. So if it turned out not to be true, there's not going to be a record.

HARLOW: She's a smart -- she's a smart woman.

SCIUTTO: That's right.

HARLOW: Thanks, guys.

SCIUTTO: Jackie --

DENT: I've been wrong before.

SCIUTTO: Jackie, Charlie and Shan --

KUCINICH: So have I.

SCIUTTO: Thanks to all of you.

[10:00:00]

HARLOW: We appreciate it.

KUCINICH: Thanks, guys.

HARLOW: And thanks to all of you for joining us. We'll see you back here tomorrow morning. I'm Poppy Harlow.

SCIUTTO: And I'm Jim Sciutto.

Make sure to stay tuned here.