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Sprint To Iowa; Senate Poised To Acquit Trump; Sanders Returns To Iowa; Foreign Nationals Denied Entry; How Trump's Acquittal Pushes Boundaries Of Presidential Power; Doctor Questions Pence On Admin's Push To Shift Medicaid Spending; Iowa Voters Torn Between Candidates Days Before Causes; Fareed Zakaria Goes One-On-One With Jared Kushner. Aired 8-9p ET

Aired February 01, 2020 - 20:00   ET

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

ANA CABRERA, CNN HOST: You are live in the CNN NEWSROOM. Thank you for being here. I'm Ana Cabrera in New York.

And this week, and literally just hours before the start of the Iowa caucuses, a few influential Democrats appear to be bickering among themselves, instead of focusing on the big prize, the White House in November. I'm talking about Friday night in Clive, Iowa, sitting Democratic Congresswoman booed former presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton. It was at a Bernie Sanders rally in Iowa. The moderator mentioned recent comments from Hillary Clinton, where she criticized her 2016 opponent, Bernie Sanders.

Listen to this Hillary Clinton comment, then, to what happened last night.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HILLARY CLINTON, FORMER U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: Unfortunately, you know, his campaign and his principle supporters were just very difficult and really constantly, not just attacking me, but my supporters. We get to the convention. They're booing Michelle Obama, John Lewis. I mean, it was very distressing. And such a contrast between what we did to unite in 2008 and all the way up until the end. A lot of people highly identified with his campaign, were urging people to vote third party, urging people not to vote. It had an impact.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Iowa, we have three days. I don't remember if you guys remember last week when someone, by the name of Hillary Clinton, said that nobody -- we're not going to boo. We're not going to boo. We're classy here.

RASHIDA TLAIB (D), : No, I'll boo. Boo. You all know, I can't be quiet. No, we're going to boo. That's our right. The haters -- the haters will shut up on Monday when we win.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: That was Michigan Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, a major surrogate for Senator Bernie Sanders, booing a fellow Democrat from the stage. Tlaib showed some remorse for that booing incident today on Twitter, saying her disappointment with Hillary Clinton got the best of her.

Joining us now, Democratic Strategist Joe Trippi and Bill Kristol, Director of Defending Democracy Together. Joe, there's, clearly, still hurt feelings there. How big of a distraction does this party divide become?

JOE TRIPPI, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, there are, clearly, hurt feelings still. And, unfortunately, I don't think it's helpful at all, neither on -- either Hillary Clinton's comments or Rashida Tlaib's comments. It's a big distraction right now. I'm not sure it does the Sanders' campaign much good for this to be airing again and before Iowa. He has real momentum, I think. Going to be coming out of there as one of the co-frontrunners.

What's -- what I think is different this time, though, and I think this will go by the wayside, because the great unifier in the Democratic Party will be Donald Trump, we will get by this angst. And I guarantee -- I mean, I have not met any Democrat, regardless of who the nominee is, they're going to be there. And possibility -- possibly even Bill Kristol will be there. But that remains to be seen.

CABRERA: Bill, how much does President Trump benefit from this ideological split within the Democratic Party?

BILL KRISTOL, DIRECTOR, DEFENDING DEMOCRACY TOGETHER: You know, I'll be there and try to defeat Donald Trump. But I guess as someone newer to Democratic policy -- Democratic Party politics than Joe Trippi, certainly, I'm a little struck by the -- I think, from the outside, I kind of assumed, oh, they'll all get together. They're all, you know, on the left of the spectrum. But no one is crazy and they know they've got to beat Trump.

I'm a little startled by the depth of the enmity between the Hillary Clinton camp and the Bernie Sanders camp. But Hillary Clinton is not running again and so her camp is, sort of, her commenting on media and there's some various surrogates and people who were associated with her. But I'm a little less confident than Joe that that can just -- they'll all necessary come together.

Having said that -- having said that, I think, basically, yes, these primaries often look nasty and the parties end up unite -- unifying pretty well. I do think it's an interesting moment, though. I mean, Sanders -- you know, you have two primaries going on, essentially, in Iowa. I don't know if Joe would agree with this analysis.

Basically, if Sanders beats Warren handily, it's pretty hard to see how she, then, overtakes him as the progressive candidate. If she upsets him, I think she -- he's really wounded and she probably becomes the progressive candidate going forward. Same as (ph) if there's the Sanders-Warren primary.

And then, there's Biden and Klobuchar and Buttigieg. If Biden beats those two handily, he probably is the centrist candidate against either Warren or Sanders. If one of them gets very close to Biden, and if Biden looks weak, or two of them get close to Biden, then we're in a whole new world, I think on the moderate side of things.

So, Iowa will -- it's not going to resolve the nomination. But I think it will clarify an awful lot which centrist candidate or candidates emerge and which of the progressives emerge.

CABRERA: And then --

KRISTOL: Now, if they're very close, obviously, it's less clear, if it's 21-20 between Sanders and Warren.

TRIPPI: Right.

KRISTOL: But I think it really could resolve some things.

CABRERA: Right. Well, then, add in the Michael Bloomberg factor, because he's not running in Iowa but he is spending millions of dollars all around the country, specifically targeting those Super Tuesday states.

[20:05:03]

And he's going to be airing a one-minute add on gun violence during tomorrow's Super Bowl. I want to get your take on this. Let's watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Lives are being lost every day. It is a national crisis. I heard Mike Bloomberg speak. He's been in this fight for so long. He heard mothers crying, so he started fighting. When I heard he was stepping into the ring, I thought, now we have a dog in the fight.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: Now, comedian Bill Marrs criticizing Bloomberg for this ad, saying that money would be better spent taking on Donald Trump. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BILL MAHER, HOST, "REAL TIME WITH BILL NMAHER": I just think Democrats are too often bad at politics. Michael Bloomberg is going to run an ad on the Super Bowl. I think he's spending $11 million on it. It's an anti-gun ad. A bunch of wings-eating, beer-drinking guys and you're going to come out there and say, let me introduce myself. I want to take your guns. Right after the truck commercial.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: OK, Joe, that is Bill Maher's analysis. I want yours. Do you believe Bloomberg's ad is the best use of his money?

TRIPPI: I think it's good use of his money, given his strategy. I agree with Bill. If there's a jumbled mess coming out of Iowa and New Hampshire, the Bloomberg strategy may play. And this ad running on super -- nationwide, but to a lot of Super Tuesday state viewers, could hit the spot, if it's a jumbled mess.

I think one thing we don't think of too much is people don't understand, I think, how much Iowa can change the entire dynamic of the race. Iowa is going to decide whether that spot is going to matter or not. If you have a Bernie-Biden separation, coming out of Iowa, into New Hampshire, and into South Carolina, I'm not sure that by the -- that that won't erase the spot or the impact it has.

If, on the other hand, Iowa does set the dynamic to be a jumbled mess, this spot could be very effective, running at exactly the right time, and give Bloomberg -- play right into his strategy. We won't know yet. We'll know tomorrow night.

CABRERA: Now, the day after the Iowa caucuses, President Trump will be giving his State of the Union address. That's on Tuesday. And, Bill, he's expected to take, perhaps, a victory lap, now that the Impeachment Trial is essentially behind him. Although. the acquittal vote is not supposed to happen until Wednesday. But how do you think this Impeachment Trial might affect his campaign?

KRISTOL: You know, if you look back, people were very worried on the Democratic side. And Republicans, like me, who wanted him impeached and removed, that the politics of it would hurt -- would help Donald Trump. Bill Clinton was famously by his impeachment. There was a lot of rallying and sympathy to him and support. It doesn't seem to have happened if you just look at the polls. It's been pretty flat. Trump's had a little uptick of approval, consisting with the economy remaining strong.

But I think that Pelosi's managed the impeachment well. And I do think the Republican defense of Trump, now, which is what he did was inappropriate, he tried to violate the principle of equal justice under the law. But it doesn't rise under impeachment, to removal. Well, but you've got Republican senators, like Lamar Alexander and others, saying he stood against the principle of equal justice under the law. I mean, I think that's not a bad thing for Democrats to be talking about a few months from now.

So, I don't think Trump ends up getting helped by this. And also, there's more to still come out. It's not like John Bolton's going away the moment they vote Wednesday. So, we'll get more details about what's happened.

CABRERA: We're going to get more details, despite the fact that Republican senators were able to get enough support to prevent witnesses and new evidence from being presented as part of this trial. And, Joe, the recent polls show the vast majority of voters wanted -- 75 percent of voters wanted to see those new witnesses called during the trial. It didn't happen. So, do you think this will be something Democrats can really run on going into the election?

TRIPPI: I don't know about running on it. But I think that, again, you know, every Republican senator is going to -- many of them are going to be talking about things like Alex -- Senator Alexander have. They're going to explain on Tuesday, Wednesday why they're voting the way they're voting. And it's going to be interesting to see how many of them say that the House proved its case. This was unacceptable, but. And I think that's the -- because there are plenty of suburban Republican women, younger Republicans, college educated.

There's groups in the Republican Party that really are soft supporters who could defect still. And we've seen that throughout 2018, and I think we could see it again. And I think that the Impeachment Trial didn't help Trump. It helped him temporarily pull him back in in support of not having him removed. I'm not sure it'll last as they hear -- as more evidence drops, as more emails come out, and as more Republicans in the Senate distance themselves from that vote.

[20:10:05]

CABRERA: OK, Joe Trippi and Bill Kristol, I appreciate the conversation. Thank you, both.

KRISTOL: Thanks, Ana.

CABRERA: Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, again today, she explained a disappointment drove her to lead a rally crowd in booing Hillary Clinton in Iowa. It happened just yesterday. It sparked this reaction today from academy award winning with filmmaker, Michael Moore.

So, proud of my longtime friend from Michigan who spoke the truth last night at the Bernie rally in Clive, Iowa. The audience booed Hillary, then somebody tried to shush them. And Rashida said, don't shush them. Boo Hillary and anyone else who doesn't speak the truth.

Let's go straight to Iowa now. And CNN's Ryan Nobles who is with the man who wrote that tweet -- Ryan.

RYAN NOBLES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Thank you so much, Ana. And Michael Moore joining me now. And I do want to talk about last night, about that moment Rashida Tlaib was on stage. And there was talking about Hillary Clinton's comments about Bernie Sanders and she booed. You came to her defense today. Why is that?

MICHAEL MOORE, FILMMAKER AND AUTHOR: The audience, somebody mentioned Hillary on the stage, not Rashida. And somebody -- and the whole audience started booing the name. And so, I think she was trying to, you know, make a joke or what out of it.

Listen, you know, I got to tell you, because I've been on the Bernie bus here for 11 days across Iowa. Nobody is thinking about 2016. We're focused on 2020. And I'll tell you what I said last night. That letting Michael Bloomberg into the debate, you know, for a billionaire to buy his way in because he doesn't have to follow the rules.

But people like Cory Booker and Julian Castro couldn't join the last debate? This is absolute madness that the one percent, the corporate Democrats who are trying to push Bloomberg into this, because they're so nervous about Bernie Sanders. That's the real story.

NOBLES: But just let me get back to that for just one second. You know, this did come up and it wasn't as if Hillary Clinton was there. Her name was brought up on the stage. MOORE: Yes, I don't know who brought up her name. But somebody said

the name. You know, I was actually shocked because there's thousands of people booing Hillary Clinton. And, you know, let's just face it. She won. She got more votes than Trump, three million more votes than Trump. And so, but I just -- it probably had to do with what she had about Bernie a couple weeks ago. But that's not what any of us are focused on.

NOBLES: But how important is it for Senator Sanders to win over her supporters? Aren't -- isn't he going to need them, in order to beat Donald Trump in the fall?

MOORE: Bernie Sanders is number one in the polls here in Iowa, New Hampshire, California, across the country. Your own CNN poll last week said he was number one with nonwhite voters. He's already won over the country, because he is fighting for health care for all Americans, day care, a minimum wage that should be doubled, on and on and on. When people hear that, that's why they're for Bernie Sanders. That's all they're thinking about.

Nobody out there in Michigan or Wisconsin or Pennsylvania is thinking about 2016 now. We're thinking about how many people have lost their homes because they couldn't pay their medical bills. That's all we're talking about. That's all we're thinking about. And I'm sure it was sad that when her name was mentioned and the whole audience reacted that way. But I think it's because the people, the public have moved on.

NOBLES: Right.

MOORE: They're in 2020 now. And we don't want the -- if we start talking about doing things the old way, I don't think they want that.

NOBLES: OK. So --

MOORE: But I don't think it's anything personal against Hillary.

NOBLES: All right, well, let's talk about 2020.

MOORE: Yes.

NOBLES: You played an important role for Senator Sanders. He's been off the campaign trail because of the Impeachment Trial.

MOORE: Jury duty.

NOBLES: Right, jury duty. But you told me you're on your 11th straight day of campaigning.

MOORE: My eleventh day, yes.

NOBLES: I mean, ae you concerned, at all, that him being off the trail could hurt him on Monday night? I mean, you've been the one here, filling that role, to a certain degree. What's the energy like?

MOORE: Myself and AOC, the other people that are the surrogates. No, I'm not worried at all. I mean, everybody in Iowa knows what he believes in, what he stands for. That's why he's doing so well. That's why he's kept going up in the polls.

That's why the 52 percent, according to your poll, of young people are for Bernie, young adults 18 to 35. He's been number one with Latinos for, like, five months. I mean, you can just go down the whole list of things. He -- this is who the people want. And they want him to do his job, too, in the United States Senate. That's what he's doing right now.

But we're here. But we're not going to -- it's the slogan, not me, us. The campaign is about us. It's about creating a movement. So that once Bernie is president of the United States, we get to enact his legislation, which means we've got to elect Democrats to the Senate and the House. And I'm telling you right -- you are aware, there are at least 30 or 40 AOCs running for office this year across the country. We're going to see a lot more women in office and it's going to be a good thing.

NOBLES: OK. All right, Michael Moore, academy award winning film director, we appreciate you so much being on with us tonight. We appreciate it.

MOORE: Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it. OK.

NOBLES: OK. All right, Ana, we will send it back to you. Just time running out here in the Iowa caucuses and Michael Moore playing a big role in all of that.

CABRERA: Yes, it's great to get a flavor from the ground there. Ryan Nobles, thank you. Michael Moore, thanks for joining us.

A new case of Coronavirus, meantime, reported here in the U.S. tonight, as the Pentagon says it is setting aside hundreds of medical beds as this virus spreads.

[20:15:00]

And as U.S. airlines cancel flights between China and the U.S., the U.S. is taking a rare and serious step to stop the spread of the virus. We're live with the latest. Don't go anywhere.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CABRERA: Tonight, the U.S. now as eight confirmed cases of Coronavirus and the first suspected case in America's largest city. New York Mayor Bill De Blasio offering some details just last hour.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BILL DE BLASIO (D), MAYOR, NEW YORK CITY: About a week ago, I reported New Yorkers on the status of the Coronavirus and I said, at that point, it was a question of not if but when. Now, we have our first case under investigation here in New York City. This individual, this patient who is being evaluated right now, did exactly as they should have, followed the guidelines that the city of New York put out.

[20:20:02]

And they met the specific criteria. They had traveled to China. They did have the specific symptoms associated with Coronavirus. And they did come together medical care here at the hospital. Exactly what we want anyone in a similar situation to do.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: So, additional testing is happening there in that case in New York. The eighth confirmed case we mentioned is a student at the University of Massachusetts who is quarantined and treated at his home.

Meanwhile, the Pentagon is approving housing for up to 1,000 people who may need to be quarantined after returning to the country from overseas.

Now, worldwide, Coronavirus cases have been confirmed across more than 20 countries. Now, as a precaution, multiple airlines have now suspended flights to and from China. The growing concerns are, by no means, unfounded. In China, the death toll is still rising. It's now more than 300 people. And the number of people infected is now more than 14,000.

The Chinese government is taking unusual measures to try to contain the virus.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (INAUDIBLE.)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: What you're hearing there is a warning. Anyone failing to wear a face mask in public receives a swift and rather loud reprimand. Some cities are using drones, in fact, to patrol the streets.

Joining us now with more is David Quammen. He's a science journalist and author, whose books include "Spillover: Animal Infections and the Next Human Pandemic." And it predicted a lot of the things we are now learning about the current Coronavirus outbreak. That was back in 2012 when he wrote that book.

So, David, thanks for being here. You predicted an outbreak like this and it would start as an infection in an animal and then spread. So, based on your prediction there, what's next? Where might we be headed?

DAVID QUAMMEN, SCIENCE AUTHOR AND JOURNALIST: Well, the experts predicted it to me. The scientists have seen this coming. It's only the politicians and the bureaucrats, and, sadly, the general public that are taken by surprise. But the scientists, back when -- in 2010 when I was writing that book, were telling me, expect the next big one to be a fast-evolving virus, probably something like a Coronavirus that could well come out of a wet market from an animal, oh, in China. So, they were saying that.

What's next? It's very hard to predict what the virus is going to do. It's hard to predict what people are going to do. But it was easy to predict, at least for the scientists, that this kind of a scenario would be hitting us now.

CABRERA: So, once a virus like this makes the species jump to humans, the next worrying development is when the virus mutates to allow human-to-human transmission. The Wuhan Coronavirus has accomplished that as well. And worse, it's contagious, now we know, before people are even aware they are infected. Now, fortunately, the fatality rate for this virus has been fairly low so far, much less than SARS, for example. But how dangerous is where we are right now?

QUAMMEN: Well, we don't know. There's so much we still don't know. As you say, the case fatality rate is not that high, relative to SARS which was about 10 percent. This was running, earlier, at about three percent. Now, it's been sliding toward two percent. Just above two percent. But it -- this horse was out of the barn sooner than we wish. Wuhan was a -- is a city of 11 million. It's a travel center, so people got to different parts of the world carrying the virus with them before anyone really had a handle on it.

And you mentioned, I think, 20 countries, besides China, around the world. What -- one of the things I'm concerned about is Africa. As far as I know, there haven't been any cases in Africa yet. If we start seeing cases in, for instance, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, it's going to be very hard, especially on top of the Ebola outbreak that's still going on there, to get a handle on that. To get containment. To get tracing of context. To get isolation. And it could go big in a place like that.

CABRERA: And we believe that this virus began in a bat, right? So, why are bats such effective vectors for transmitting diseases to other animals who, then, spread it to humans?

QUAMMEN: Yes. Well, that's been one of the big questions for a long time, why bats? A lot of these scary viruses have their -- they call it a reservoir host. Have their reservoir host in some species of bat. They live in the bat, conspicuously, until they spill over into humans and an outbreak begins. Why is it bats? Well, there are a lot of bats. There's a lot of diversity. One quarter of all mammal species are bats. They're also thinking bats live to relatively high ages, 20, 30 years.

[20:25:02]

They live in dense aggregations, big colonies, many of them, so that viruses are passed. But they also have circumstances with their immune systems. And this has just been coming out lately. Their immune systems seem to be more tolerant of alien DNA, for complicated reasons, than the immune systems of creatures, mammals that don't fly.

Flying puts stresses on their metabolism. The result it their immune systems are a little more tolerant in foreign DNA. And that may be part of the reason why bats have been implicated as reservoir hosts in a lot of these cases.

CABRERA: You use an interesting illustration. Talk to me about how new viral outbreaks are like playing pin ball?

QUAMMEN: Yes, the pin ball analogy. Yes, I said this earlier in the week in a "New York times" op-ed. A virus like this, which is nonpredictable virus, belongs to the family of Coronaviruses, which are single strand RNA viruses. Never mind what that means except it means that they mutate rapidly and they evolve and adapt quickly.

So, viruses like that, that mutate frequently and evolve quickly, are unpredictable just the way the steel balls in a pin ball machine are unpredictable. You can flap your flippers at the ball. You can nudge the machine on its legs. You can make it bounce against the little jittery rings.

But the question of where that ball goes still involves 11 different levels of chance as well as whatever you can do. And that's the situation with these viruses. The viruses are unpredictable. What humans do is unpredictable. And, therefore, we have a very unpredictable situation.

CABRERA: Yet, there are only eight confirmed cases and no deaths here in the U.S. Compare that to the flu which has killed 8,000 people in the U.S. so far just this season.

QUAMMEN: Right.

CABRERA: So, do you think the level of concern here is warranted?

QUAMMEN: I think -- I think the level of response is warranted, but the level of fear is not. What I'm most -- am concerned about is that once we get a handle on this outbreak, or epidemic, or if it comes to be qualified as pandemic, if we respond to it. And we control it and it doesn't kill a lot of people, then we're going to forget about it.

And what we need to do is not forget that this is just one in a series. This is part of a pattern. And if we get a hold on novel Coronavirus of 2019, then there's going to be another novel Coronavirus in 2022 or 2023. And if we don't learn from this event, how to deal with it, how to help prevent it, and control it, and fund our CDC, which has been -- the funding has shrunk over the last three years. If we don't do those things, then we will not be ready for the next one, which could be even worse than this one.

CABRERA: David Quammen, I really appreciate your insight. Thanks so much for sharing tonight.

QUAMMEN: You're very welcome.

CABRERA: With the Senate expected to vote to acquit President Trump in his Impeachment Trial, we're going to examine how President Trump's acquittal pushes the boundaries of presidential power and what that means for the country.

[20:27:24] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GERALD FORD, FORMER PRESIDENT OF UNITED STATES: My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over. Our constitution works. Our great republic is a government of laws and not of men.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: Words of comfort from 1974, the newly sworn in President Gerald R. Ford trying to unite a divided country after Watergate. Forty-six years later, another impeachment battle has nearly ended, but who is our healing voice now? President Trump will be acquitted. That seems certain at this point. He will get on with his term. But sources tell us he won't be contrite or show the humility we saw from another president who was also impeached and then acquitted.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BILL CLINTON, FORMER PRESIDENT OF UNITED STATES: I want to say, again, to the American people how profoundly sorry I am for what I said and did to trigger these events and the great burden they have imposed on the Congress and on the American people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: Today in the age of Trump, the president doesn't apologize. He doesn't admit wrongdoing. He rails against the rules and the remaining guardrails of the constitution.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: And then I have an Article Two where I have the right to do whatever I want as president, but I don't even talk about that.

It's a thing called Article Two. Nobody ever mentions Article Two. It gives me all of these rights at a level that nobody has ever seen before.

Article Two allows me to do whatever I want.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: Before Trump, the impeachment was the ultimate presidential black mark. And now, it's something that elicits laughter at rallies.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: It doesn't really feel like we're being impeached. The country is doing better than ever before. We did nothing wrong. We did nothing wrong. And we have tremendous support in the Republican Party like we've never had before.

(END VIDEO CLIP) CABRERA: President Trump's trial is almost over, but the aftershocks will shape how future generations view presidential power and impeachment. Consider just the debate over what the founders wanted.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NOAH FELDMAN, CONSTITUTIONAL LAW PROFESSOR, HARVARD LAW SCHOOL: Someday, we will no longer be alive and we'll go wherever it is we go, the good place or the other place. And, you know, we may meet there, Madison and Hamilton. And they will ask us, when the president of the United States acted to corrupt the structure of the republic, what did you do?

[20:35:12]

REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY (R-CA): Alexander Hamilton wrote, there will always be the greatest danger, that the decision to use the impeachment power would be driven by partisan animosity.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: And then there was the debate over new witnesses and documents and whether they should even be allowed.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D-CA): If people of power and influence can insist to the judge that the House, that the prosecutors, that the government, that the people must prove their case without witnesses or documents, a right reserved only for the powerful, because, you know, only Donald Trump, only Donald Trump of any defendant in America can insist on a trial with no witnesses.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: But in the end, enough Republicans voted no. Though some conceded, Democrats had proved their case and Trump was in the wrong. From retiring Senator Lamar Alexander, "There is no need for more evidence to prove something that has already been proven."

And this from his Republican colleague, Marco Rubio. "Just because actions meet a standard of impeachment does not mean it is in the best interest of the country to remove a president from office."

Those are extraordinary statements and ones that perhaps show Trump was onto something all those years ago when as a candidate he said this before a crowd.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: You know what else they say about my people, the polls? They say I have the most loyal people. Did you ever see that? Where I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn't lose any voters. OK? It's like incredible.

(END VIDEO CLIP) CABRERA: So earlier this week, the Trump administration took another significant step in overhauling Medicaid, a new program would allow states to curb Medicaid spending and give states more control. But not everyone is cheering about that. See the viral exchange now between the vice president and a Michigan doctor, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[20:40:15]

CABRERA: All eyes on Iowa with just two days now until the caucuses and health care is set to be a major issue in this pivotal election year. Vice President Mike Pence was confronted about this issue by a doctor in Des Moines. Their exchange has gone viral. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. ROB DAVIDSON, COMMITTEE TO PROTECT MEDICARE: I'm worried about the plans they talked about last week of maybe cutting Medicare and then the rollout today of cutting Medicaid. I work in one of the poorest counties in Michigan and my patients depend on expanded Medicaid, so how is that going to affect my patients?

MIKE PENCE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I haven't heard about cutting Medicaid.

DAVIDSON: Cutting Medicaid, yes. The head of CMS announced the plan to let states file for waivers so they could get block grants so that would essentially cut the amount of money going to the states. So it would cut federal Medicaid funding. Is that a good idea?

PENCE: Actually, when I was governor of Indiana, we got a waiver from the Obama administration that actually allowed us to expand Medicaid coverage in the state.

DAVIDSON: Right. But now, they're talking about scaling back the Medicaid expansion that they -- that we got with the Affordable Care Act. And that 680,000 Michiganders, 600,000 in Iowa. There's a lot of people got health care.

PENCE: But we expanded coverage in Indiana.

DAVIDSON: Right. But I'm just talking about the president and the administration right now what they're doing. Right now they're cutting Medicaid.

PENCE: Those are waivers for the states that didn't take the expansion.

DAVIDSON: No, it's for people who took expansion money too. I mean, your administration just announced it. They rolled it out today and it's going to affect millions of people across the country cutting Medicaid. I mean, is that a good idea or is that a bad idea?

PENCE: I think you're oversimplifying it.

DAVIDSON: No. I think it comes down to that for the people I take care of all the time.

I encourage you to make sure that we don't cut those folks off of Medicaid because they need it. OK?

PENCE: All right. Thanks for your career and your care.

DAVIDSON: All right. All right. Thanks.

PENCE: Really, truly.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: Now, let's back up for just a second. You may have missed this piece of news. That was referenced in that video. Earlier this week, the Trump administration took another significant step in overhauling Medicaid. A new program by the administration would allow states to apply for so-called block grants to cover certain low-income adults.

Now, Republicans have long wanted to implement block grants as a way to curb Medicaid spending and give states more control.

Let's talk now to that doctor in that video, Rob Davidson. Dr. Davidson is on the committee to protect Medicare. He ran as a Democrat in 2018 to represent Michigan's second Congressional district but lost in the general election there.

Doctor, thank you for spending time with us. First, I'm just curious, how did that conversation come to be and why was it recorded?

DAVIDSON: Hi, Ana. Thanks so much for having me here. Well, I am the executive director of the committee to protect Medicare and advocacy group of hundreds of doctors around the country, pushing for affordable health care and protecting what we have.

And so formal health care and protecting what we have. So we were in Des Moines doing a press conference about Donald Trump talking about cutting Medicare when he was in Davos, Switzerland, the week prior.

So it just happened to be in Des Moines. And we went to the Drake Diner near Drake University. And Vice President Pence happened to wander in, so the folks who were at the table with me said, you know, if you get a chance to ask him a question, ask him what he thinks about these cuts that have been proposed and that's what you saw transpire.

CABRERA: Now, you say the Trump administration's health care policy is literally putting your patients' lives at risk. How so?

DAVIDSON: Right. Well, we see a pattern of behavior with President Trump since before he was president trying to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Now, that repeal effort failed in 2017 largely because of the block grant issue. That's why a lot of people cited its failure in the Senate. He's then talked about cutting Medicare as they fund second term project. Now, he's rolling out the block grant waiver program by Mike Pence's former Medicaid administrator in Indiana, Seema Verma, and this essentially is going to allow states to take less money from the federal government when they tell us about innovation or, you know, things they might they do.

[20:45:11]

Really, what that means is my patients who have benefited from expanded Medicaid, 680,000 strong in Michigan will be kicked off the Medicaid rolls and we have less coverage or more expensive drugs or perhaps shift cost -- shift the cost into the -- into the hands of these folks who really can't afford it.

So this pattern of abuse by this administration on the health care in this country from ACA to Medicare and now Medicaid, is exactly why our group is organizing doctors because we are tired of being in the exam room knowing what to do and then the administration doesn't allow us to do that because of their policies.

CABRERA: What did you think of the vice president's response?

DAVIDSON: You know, I think that he was not prepared to have these questions, and I think he wasn't prepared to have somebody who would keep asking the question when he wasn't going to answer it. It's really remarkable that he pretty much lauded the ACA when he was governor of Indiana.

The only reason he was able to expand Medicaid is because the Affordable Care Act allowed that, just like we did in Michigan, just like we did in so many places in this country. So I think he wasn't, you know, obviously staffed up and didn't have talking points, so he had to revert to somewhere that he thought might make him look good.

And in the end, I he just had to abandon ship and retreat to his safe space. I don't, for a minute, believe that he didn't know this is what happened. He's the second -- you know, second in command in this administration. I think he knew full well. I just believe, you know, he didn't know how to respond because he knew the real answer, the truth isn't what people want.

People want Medicare. People want expansion of health care. They want more affordable healthcare and exactly what they're doing is the opposite. That's why we're working at the committee to protect Medicare to defend what we have and expand health care.

CABRERA: Dr. Rob Davidson, thank you so much for joining us and offering your perspective and sharing a little insight into that moment.

DAVIDSON: Thank you. And if people could go to committee to protect that ORG, they can see the work we're doing. Thank you.

CABRERA: All right. Thank you again, Doctor.

As the Senate is preparing to acquit President Donald Trump, CNN's Fareed Zakaria sat down for a one-on-one with the president's senior adviser and son-in-law, Jared Kushner. That's next.

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[20:50:49]

CABRERA: In a one-on-one interview with CNN's Fareed Zakaria, President Trump's senior advisor, Jared Kushner, opened up about impeachment, insisting that the president's base is strong and getting stronger. Here's part of their conversation.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FAREED ZAKARIA, CNN HOST: Let me ask you about the campaign because you are now moving on to run the president's campaign or at least to be substantially involved in it. The conventional wisdom is that the impeachment process has helped him, net-net, by arousing his base.

I'm wondering now if impeachment -- once impeachment is done with, will people not come to the conclusion that Lamar Alexander came to which was that this was behavior that was wrong, even if it was not impeachable? And could that, over time, hurt the president?

JARED KUSHNER, SENIOR ADVISER TO THE PRESIDENT: Yes. I think there's a big difference between what the voters see and what the voters want and from what people maybe in Washington or in the media are calling for. What we've seen since the impeachment started is that most people, by the way, are not paying attention to it.

We've seen the president's numbers go up by seven points. We got polling back last night that showed the president's approval rating nationally was over 50 percent. It was the highest that it's been since right after the inauguration. So we've seen them...

ZAKARIA: The RealClearPolitics average was more like 44 percent.

KUSHNER: I think it was about 46 percent. But again, everything is relative, right? Because again, there was a lot of polls that were wrong in the last election. I think our data proved to be more right than the public polls and I think it will continue to be.

What I'll also say about approval, though, is in the last election when Mitt Romney ran, two percent of the people who disapproved of him voted for him. In the last election, 15 percent of the people who disapproved of Donald Trump as a candidate ended up voting for him.

So look, I think his base is strong and again, we're stronger last night. We were in Iowa. We had a massive crowd. We had a rally in New Jersey this week. And about 160,000 people signed up for it. I mean, the energy that I'm feeling today is stronger than what we felt at the end of the campaign last year.

I think that President Trump has not lost many supporters, if any at all. And I think that a lot of people who said, well, what he's talking about? Now, he's actually done all the things he's promised. He's actually done more things than his promise. He got done criminal justice reform, which he worked on. He didn't promise he was going to do. He did a lot of things that he didn't even promise he was going to do.

And again, the American consumer has never been stronger. He's created seven million jobs, we have 2.5 million Americans that have been -- that have entered in the workforce, 2.5 million Americans who have been lifted out of poverty. Almost 10 million Americans that have come off of food stamps. The numbers are unbelievable.

But I will say this, the more time we spend in Washington and the more the administration gets better and better at it, and the more the president has his vision for what he wants to do, he believes that the potential for this country is unbelievable.

And so as we finish implementing our deregulation agenda, our tax reform agenda, hopefully, we'll do more tax cuts, as we, you know, focus on becoming energy independent which is critical to our nation security, bringing down energy costs for people, folks on workforce training, training people for the future, economy. We have a lot of things. You know, focusing on the judiciary where the president has been very successful.

The potential for making this country strong is unbelievable, and the president's been very enthusiastic about what he's been able to accomplish so far.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

[20:55:59]

CABRERA: You can catch Fareed's full interview with Jared Kushner on Fareed Zakaria GPS. That's tomorrow morning at 10:00 Eastern right here on CNN.

We are just two days away from the Iowa Democratic caucus and we are on the ground getting the pulse of Iowans and hearing what they think about the Democrats in the race. Don't go anywhere.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CABRERA: Hello. I'm Ana Cabrera in New York. I want to welcome our viewers here in the United States and all around the world.