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Iowa Democratic Party Results Delays for Unknown Reasons; GOP Senators Urge Trump to Avoid Impeachment Talk in His State of the Union Address; Stocks to Rise as U.S. Oil Prices Near a One-Year Low; Confusion in Iowa as Dems Delay Results Over Inconsistencies. Aired 9- 9:30a ET

Aired February 04, 2020 - 09:00   ET

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

[09:00:11]

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: Well, we didn't expect to be here this morning but a good morning to you. I'm Jim Sciutto.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Poppy Harlow. What a night. We'll try to explain it to you this morning. Welcome to our viewers in the U.S. and around the world.

This morning we were supposed to be talking about the results in Iowa. Instead, no winner has been declared and there's a whole lot of confusion after a meltdown in the reporting process.

The Iowa Democratic Party is blaming inconsistencies for the delay and, folks, there are problems with technology this morning.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

HARLOW: Trouble with the app used to tally the caucusgoers.

SCIUTTO: Yes. Imagine that. Troubles with the app. Officials are now scrambling to count and verify the results. They are taking care here. They say they will release them later today.

This morning Democratic candidates are in the dark about exact timing of those results. For now, they are moving on to the next big contest. They're already there. New Hampshire.

We have our teams there in Iowa as well. Let's begin, though, with Jeff Zeleny.

So Jeff, tell us what's happening now in the count. We know they're going over this so that they have a paper trail to get the numbers right. But how soon do we expect results there?

JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Jim, that is the question here in Iowa and of course New Hampshire and everywhere else. There is no word on the timing of the release of that. I've been talking to officials from a variety of presidential campaigns this morning. And they say that they simply do not know when this is coming out. They're in the dark on this, they say. So perhaps some word might be coming from the Iowa Democratic Party this morning.

But a question is, will there be a full release of the results or will there be a partial release? And this -- all is coming because of a variety of factors here. So let's sort of walk through what is at play here and why this happened as it did.

First of all, it's the inconsistencies in the reporting. The Iowa Democratic Party for the first time was reporting three separate numbers. It was the raw votes, the popular vote, if you will, of the people who are coming into the precinct on the first alignment, the second alignment and the then a third number from the state delegates that are awarded, and that is how the winner is chosen. Think of it like the electoral college, if you will.

The second is the app. We heard a variety of problems really for several days and certainly throughout the day yesterday that there was a problem with the app. Now party officials has said that it was working fine. They were trying to work through it. But the app was supposed to be used on someone's phone to report the results in the variety of precincts across Iowa. There were almost 1700 or so small town meetings if you will.

So that was an issue, as well as the phone lines. The phone lines were supposed to be a backup. They were supposed to be the way to report these results if the app didn't work. Well, those phone lines were jammed. They did not have enough people answering them. We were talking to officials last evening who said that they were waiting for up to an hour and a half to try and report the results. So those are a couple of the reasons here that we are in this position at this hour this morning -- Jim.

HARLOW: Yes.

SCIUTTO: Understood. Now campaigns, it's interesting the Biden campaign manager was on "NEW DAY" this morning and questioning now the integrity of the process. I wonder -- I'm sure they want answers now.

ZELENY: Right.

SCIUTTO: Is the Iowa Democratic Party giving the campaigns kind of periodic updates?

ZELENY: They're not. I mean, the last word from them was they -- a very brief and contentious, I'm told, conference call this morning shortly after midnight here. And it was just the results would be coming but they were not giving any other updates.

We should point out, though, the reaction from the Biden campaign is very different than the reaction from the other campaigns. We know from our own reporting on the ground in precincts across Iowa that the former vice president was not viable in some of the places he hoped to be viable. One of his leading endorsers, the Iowa attorney general, the longest serving attorney general in the U.S., Tom Miller, he endorsed Joe Biden. Joe Biden was not viable in his district here in Des Moines so he had to support Pete Buttigieg in the --

SCIUTTO: Yes.

ZELENY: Via second round of balloting. So the Biden campaign certainly is reacting differently than the others who are, you know, declaring a victory.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

HARLOW: You're right. And it's an important distinction. We'll talk to Symon Sanders from the Biden team about that in a little bit.

Jeff Zeleny, thanks very much for being here.

ZELENY: Sure.

HARLOW: For more on the chaos on the ground in Iowa, joining us on the phone is Bret Nilles, in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. He is the chairman of the Linn County Democratic Party, Linn County has just over 50,000 registered Democrats, about two hours outside of Des Moines.

Bret, good to have you. Thank you very much for being here. Did you have problems in your district?

BRET NILLES, CEDAR RAPIDS IOWA, CHAIR, LINN COUNTY DEMOCRATIC PARTY: Good morning. No, in my precincts, I was caucus chair in nearly 11, I didn't have any problems with the app. It seemed to work fine for me. But within our county, we ask all of the 86 precinct chairs to bring all the material back to a centralized location so that we can verify that everybody got their results sent in and we did have numerous people with issues using the app and then also being hung up on the phone for extended period of time.

[09:05:10]

SCIUTTO: OK. So tell us about this app here because it's our understanding there were concerns about this going back days, even weeks.

HARLOW: Yes.

SCIUTTO: Complaints about reporting back and forth. Is that the key here? And if that -- if there were concerns prior, why did the parties stick with the app?

NILLES: That I can't explain. We had trouble trying to get people set up with the app when it first started rolling out a couple of weeks ago. And then as it got closer to this last weekend, numerous people were really trying to do their best to get on and still had issues. And I think it was based on the security that was built in that they had several layers of security, making sure that the app wasn't hacked, but I think that made it that much more complicated and difficult for people to get access to it.

HARLOW: What is -- there are multiple candidates here, no surprise, claiming victory or near victory. Whether it's Senator Sanders saying that he did very, very well. Senator Klobuchar said she punched above her weight. Pete Buttigieg just doubled down a few minutes ago on this network and said, clearly a victory for us. What did you see in terms of who did well at least in your precinct last night?

NILLES: In my precinct, Mayor Pete was the clear winner. He had the largest number of supporters and then also gained the most number of delegates. Senator Warren did -- came in second, but Senator Klobuchar did much better I think than I expected, at least there that she was able to have a viable group. So she was well over the 15 percent.

SCIUTTO: Yes. So much of this is about expectations. Right? You overperform compared to expectations, call it a win.

HARLOW: Right.

SCIUTTO: Underperform, that will play into this.

Listen, Bret Nilles, we know you have a busy day there.

HARLOW: Yes.

SCIUTTO: We look forward to talking to you again.

While the Iowa results get sorted out, the candidates they've already moved on to New Hampshire. Of course the next vote. And that's where we find Vanessa Yurkevich, Jessica Dean and Leyla Santiago.

Vanessa, let's begin with you first. Both Bernie Sanders and Pete Buttigieg appear to be claiming victory here despite not having the final results. Tell us what you're hearing as they move on to New Hampshire.

VANESSA YURKEVICH, CNN BUSINESS AND POLITICS REPORTER: Yes. Good morning, Jim and Poppy. Pete Buttigieg already out very early this morning doing morning coffee run, meeting with his supporters. He's been on all of the morning shows this morning, really doubling down on this victory he is claiming. He just spoke to our John Berman last hour doubling down on that victory. Take a listen to what he said just moments ago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PETE BUTTIGIEG (D-IN), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: It's clearly a victory for us, even as we, along with, I think the whole country, impatiently wait for some official results from the party. We wanted to be able to go out and speak to supporters with everything fully released and counted, and it is frustrating to put it mildly that even as we speak now, we don't have those counts.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

YURKEVICH: Now a lot of the other campaigns are expressing frustration over not having these official results. But Pete Buttigieg is not the only candidate claiming victory. We've heard from Bernie Sanders last night. He said that he had a very good feeling that he was going to do well coming out of Iowa. But as of right now, candidates really in the dark and we're in the dark as well as -- in terms of who is the official winner. But, of course, we're expected as of right now to get those results later today. But until then, campaigns proceeding as normal. Pete Buttigieg going to start a town hall here in just the next half hour and then continue with more than five events today. So it will be interesting to see how his tone continues as he meets with supporters throughout the day, Jim and Poppy.

HARLOW: OK. Vanessa, thank you.

Jessica, let's talk about the Biden camp response which is markedly different than everyone else's. You know, they're questioning the integrity of the process. And we just heard Mayor Buttigieg say look, there's a paper trail. They will count them, et cetera. The Biden team sent a letter demanding an explanation to the Iowa Democrats about, you know, how this could happen. What does that tell us?

JESSICA DEAN, CNN WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Yes, they were saying there were acute failures in this process. That they want to see these results and respond to them before they're released to the public.

Poppy, to the extent that what they can tell us it is -- it is important to note they have a very different response this morning than Pete Buttigieg, than Bernie Sanders. That they are criticizing the process. They are questioning its fairness. We heard from the Biden deputy campaign manager earlier on CNN. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KATE BEDINGFIELD, DEPUTY CAMPAIGN MANAGER AND COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR, BIDEN FOR PRESIDENT: You have a process where you can't be confident that the results that are being reported are reflective of the votes that people cast last night in the process. That's a real concern.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[09:10:02]

DEAN: So, yes, they have a lot of questions today, Jim and Poppy. They are questioning this whole process. For them, they want to turn the page. They want to turn the attention to New Hampshire. They know that this is important. They want to set a new narrative. Their plans are to move ahead, to give the stump speech, to be here in New Hampshire and try to move beyond what happened in Iowa.

And it's going to be very important. How are they going to set the narrative? How are they going to reset the narrative in the days to come here in New Hampshire with even more eyeballs, even more attention now because of what happened in Iowa.

SCIUTTO: Yes. Well, there's a lot of spinning going on. There always is.

So, Leyla, you've been with the Klobuchar --

LEYLA SANTIAGO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes.

SCIUTTO: The Warren campaign. Klobuchar, she arrived in New Hampshire around 4:00 in the morning last night claiming an excellent night in Iowa. SANTIAGO: Right.

SCIUTTO: How is she responding to Iowa, and looking forward to the next step?

SANTIAGO: Well, she was quick to say, listen, we are still waiting for the numbers. But that she feels good. And that plays in her favor. In fact on the way here, her campaign manager tweeted that based on internal and public numbers that he's seen, he believes that they are running even or ahead of Joe Biden. So with these numbers, still not certain and out, these campaigns are able to somewhat claim victory based off of how they felt last night.

So that is certainly playing in Senator Klobuchar's favor. Let me let you listen to what she said when she arrived.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR (D-MN), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I believe, though, count the ballot. I'm sure they're working hard. It must have been devastating to them and they're getting it done and we'll get the numbers. I just know that we are doing well.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANTIAGO: And she, too, is basically saying, let's move forward. I am here to focus on New Hampshire. Hoping that she can gain momentum here as one of the early voting states. I will say that one of her supporters said to me when I asked him about such a long night, he said, look, the race really starts right now in New Hampshire. Now he did admit he would have said that, you know, despite what happened last night in Iowa.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

SANTIAGO: So it was a bit of a prideful New Hampshire feeling. But that's definitely how her supporters were there to support her to say we're here, let's move forward.

HARLOW: OK. Ladies, great reporting. Thank you very much.

Let's go back to our Jeff Zeleny who has new news from the Iowa Democratic Party. Do they have a winner?

ZELENY: Poppy, we do not have results but we do have a new statement from the chairman of the Iowa Democratic Party who just released this a few moments ago, sort of going through what led to the situation. So let me just go through this quickly. They said, "As precinct results started coming in last evening, the Iowa Democratic Party ran them through an accuracy and quality check. It became clear that there were inconsistencies with the reports. The underlying cause of these inconsistencies was not immediately clear and required investigation."

The chairman of the party goes on to say this. "As the investigation unfolded, the staff activated preplanned backup measures and started entering this information in manually. That took longer than expected."

Now this is a key point here. It says, "As part of our investigation, we determined with certainty the underlying data that was coming in was sound but the app was recording the data accurately, but there was some -- it was only recording partial data. So that was leading to the inconsistencies. So they say it was reporting it accurately but only recording partial data. So we might need to question them a little bit more on that.

But it said, the issue was identified and it was fixed. So we do not say, as we still read through this report here, it says, "While our plan is to release these results as soon as possible, our ultimate goal is to ensure the integrity and accuracy of the process continues to be upheld." So they still plan to release these results sometime soon, maybe today.

SCIUTTO: OK.

ZELENY: We'll see about that. But this is a little bit of the backstory here of what led to that. So inconsistencies as we've been saying in that app which we know from talking to a precinct chair it was an issue for several days.

SCIUTTO: Let me ask you this. Just stands out to me. They're saying that the core data here is sound. They said they had a paper trail.

ZELENY: Right.

SCIUTTO: I mean, are you reading this as saying, listen, we can go back to the beginning here and get to an accurate final result because the data -- the recording of people's votes is sound.

ZELENY: Exactly. That's exactly what they're saying. And this is why they are saying that. I was in a precinct last night in Des Moines's 38th precinct, at the Drake Field House. And this is how it works. The people who come in fill out a preference card. It's about the size of a post card or so, slightly larger. And those are gathered at the end and they're counted up and they're put on a spread sheet, if you will.

It's a, you know, just one sheet. It's called a caucus map sheet. So they have all of those. So now they're going to go through and manually enter those. One of the problems was they didn't have enough people answering the phone last night apparently, which is what led to a long delay there. So there's a paper trail --

[09:15:00]

POPPY HARLOW, CO-ANCHOR, NEWSROOM: Yes --

ZELENY: Which is new --

JIM SCIUTTO, CO-ANCHOR, NEWSROOM: Got you --

ZELENY: Four years ago, in the very contentious Sanders-Clinton caucus here, there was not a paper trail.

SCIUTTO: Yes --

HARLOW: Yes --

ZELENY: That's one of the new --

SCIUTTO: And you see --

ZELENY: Things that were implemented. But clearly --

SCIUTTO: Yes --

ZELENY: The app didn't work.

SCIUTTO: And you see a lot of districts around the country doing that, partly in response to concerns about --

ZELENY: Right --

SCIUTTO: Outside interference, et cetera. Have a paper trail in case --

ZELENY: Right --

SCIUTTO: Interestingly enough, this was inside troubles, not outside troubles.

HARLOW: Important reporting, Jeff, thanks very --

SCIUTTO: Yes --

HARLOW: Much. Who does this delay hurt? Who does it help? We're all just sort of confused this morning. We'll break down the fallout of this melt-down, next.

SCIUTTO: Plus, remember this story, the impeachment trial hangs over the president as he delivers his State of the Union address just hours from now. GOP senators urging him not to mention impeachment at all. But will he follow that advice?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:20:00]

SCIUTTO: Now, this is key. The app did not work, but the Iowa Democratic Party says they have backup here. Paper documentation of each voter choice here to go back and recount the results.

HARLOW: Joining us to discuss all of it, our senior political analyst, Ron Brownstein, senior editor at "The Atlantic", CNN political commentator Van Jones and CNN political analyst Alex Burns. All right, gentlemen, wow, we didn't expect to wake up with no answers this morning. Van, let me just begin with you. What is your takeaway of this mess in Iowa?

VAN JONES, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: It's a debacle. There's no way -- there's no other way to describe it -- (CLEARS THROAT)

Describe it. Listen, we will get an accurate result. The important thing to know about Iowa, it's not just getting it accurately. It's getting it in a timely manner.

HARLOW: Right --

JONES: Speed matters. Last night, having -- you know, candidates just kind of wandering out on stage, you know, giving various versions of their stump speeches, sometimes on top of each other, sometimes cutting each other off or out was just -- you know, it made the Democratic Party look awful, and it was unnecessary. The reality is that there were concerns about this app from the beginning.

They've been growing -- there have been grumblings at the grassroots for people who have been long term, long-time activists, who it's not their first time to the party in any way, who said this app doesn't work, and we've got -- and so it's a debacle.

SCIUTTO: But the fact is, this is a fixable problem, right? They got the data, they count it. What's not fixable is broader confidence in the integrity of votes. And you saw Trump surrogates, his son, Don Junior, his son, Eric Trump, his campaign manager Brad Parscale all jumping on this to claim -- I think we have their tweets here. "The fix is in again", saying that the Democrats have fixed this.

JONES: Wow, no --

SCIUTTO: Eric Trump, "mark my words, they're rigging this thing" --

HARLOW: Right --

JONES: No --

SCIUTTO: Brad Parscale, "quality control equals rigged". Ron Brownstein, you have a President Trump who has not --

RON BROWNSTEIN, SENIOR EDITOR, THE ATLANTIC: Yes --

SCIUTTO: Shied away from claiming rigged results of elections or votes or say, the popular vote in 2016 that he doesn't like. How concerning is this? This is just the first --

BROWNSTEIN: Yes --

SCIUTTO: Voting day --

BROWNSTEIN: Well --

SCIUTTO: Of a long campaign season.

BROWNSTEIN: It's staggeringly embarrassing, and really unacceptable for the Democratic Party. I mean, I think caucuses were teetering on the edge, were down, I think three of them left. I mean, the idea that something this important, the first contest in the Democratic race which in the last -- you know, the last four Democratic-contested primaries, the Iowa winner has gone on to win. The idea that something that important --

HARLOW: Yes --

BROWNSTEIN: Should be conducted in such a haphazard way. There should be like a sharpie rule, like any election in which people are writing with sharpies at 1:00 in the morning is not an election being run with sufficient precision to -- you know, for the consequences that we have. You know, Trump is meddling --you know, it's kind of meddling in royal waters.

HARLOW: Yes --

BROWNSTEIN: I mean, there's a portion in particular, the Sanders campaign --not campaign, coalition that -- and campaign maybe, that is inclined to believe exactly what he is saying. And he is -- and the president is simply trying to re-create the situation of 2016 when a reasonable percentage of Sanders primary voters ultimately voted third party in the general election. And it'd be unavoidable for Democrats, but they certainly compounded the risk of it last night.

HARLOW: Alex, you've been on the ground in Iowa doing a lot of reporting there as well. Ron, obviously saw your piece this morning as well. But guys, listen to this. Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe, notable not only that he's sort of, you know, a leading face in the party, but that he ran the DNC for a number of years.

ALEXANDER BURNS, NATIONAL POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT, THE NEW YORK TIMES: Yes --

HARLOW: Here's what he says about all of it this morning.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. TERRY MCAULIFFE (D-VA): I would get rid of all the caucuses first of all.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

MCAULIFFE: They're an undemocratic process. People don't have time to go spend the time like you heard here today. Go vote, pull the curtain, close it, vote, and then leave. That is the democratic way.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Alex, is this, A, the last time --

BROWNSTEIN: On the side, he's right --

HARLOW: Iowa goes first? OK, Van thinks he's right, is he right?

JONES: I think he's right.

BROWNSTEIN: Yes --

JONES: Amen.

HARLOW: And you know, the caucus is gone, Alex.

BURNS: I think it's very hard to see how anything resembling the process that unfolded last night is put at the front of the Democratic or probably the Republican presidential selection process in 2024. We're talking about a lot of embarrassing things that happened last night that are unique to the 2020 election.

But you're also hearing people focus in on aspects of the caucus process that really aren't unique to this cycle. The lack of transparency, the haphazard nature of this sort of caucusing and coalition building in the kinds of gymnasiums and local meeting halls that we saw on TV all last night. In some ways, the absence of hard results that would lend at least a veneer of clarity to the caucus process.

I think led a lot of people to focus in on exactly what was going on. And what wasn't going on was an election that sort met the standards that people in this country tend to think of when they think of the way American democracy works.

SCIUTTO: OK, but I mean, I just want to -- I feel like it's necessary for us to take a step back here. I mean, they say the data is sound. So, if they have the votes sound here -- Van Jones, are you concerned?

[09:25:00]

Because even, you know, Biden's campaign manager was on this show -- on this network about an hour ago, saying voters should be concerned about the integrity of the process. That's not -- that's not a big step from what Don Junior and Eric were saying -- they're rigging this again. I mean, that plants real questions in the minds of voters as to whether, you know, not just that this happens in a timely manner, but that it happens in an --

JONES: Yes --

SCIUTTO: Accurate manner --

JONES: Well --

SCIUTTO: Isn't that a broader threat to -- I mean, again, this is the first vote --

JONES: Yes, I think --

SCIUTTO: Of an 11-month or you know, an election campaign.

JONES: Look, I think that, you know, terrible irresponsible mistakes- making on the part of Don Junior to try to, again, sow these seeds of doubt and division. You know, that's kind of, you know, dirty pool. I think it's beneath him, he shouldn't be doing that. Biden coming forward and raising these questions is understandable because, you know, he probably just didn't do as well. The ones who are jumping up and down and saying, hey, it's fine with

us, just, you know, put the numbers out there. People -- they know based on their own internals. They're not just sitting around waiting for the party to tell them what happened. I think Pete probably did really well last night. I think Bernie did really well last night, I think Biden did not.

And so, it's a classic playbook thing to start, you know --

SCIUTTO: And --

JONES: Working the refs. But I'm very concerned going forward. Confidence building on the part of every party official going forward where there's no shenanigans like people thought like happened in 2016 against Bernie --

HARLOW: Yes --

JONES: And this clarity is important.

SCIUTTO: Yes --

HARLOW: And let's just -- we just don't know --

BURNS: Can I just say -- can I just say, Poppy and Jim?

HARLOW: The numbers, we'll bring it up to you -- yes, go for it, Alex.

BURNS: The -- we've heard now a couple of times from the Iowa Democratic Party that there's -- that the results are sort of safe and sound. And a couple of people in this conversation have said that they're accurate and we don't need to worry about the integrity of the results. And I hope very much that, that is all true. We don't want to have an election where the results themselves are compromised.

But I do think right now, the burden is really on the Iowa Democratic Party --

BROWNSTEIN: Yes --

BURNS: To be a great deal, more transparent than they have been so far. We have had a really hard time getting basic answers to important questions since last night. And I don't say any of this by way of suggesting that I think that there's something wrong with the results. I would never suggest --

HARLOW: Yes --

BURNS: That on the basis of not having a whole lot of information, but the point is, we need a lot more information than we have right now. And if you are going to instill confidence in the results --

SCIUTTO: Yes --

BURNS: After this kind of process, we're really going to need to see the underlying map.

HARLOW: And Ron, it's not the first time, you know --

BROWNSTEIN: Yes --

HARLOW: Yes, the questions between Sanders and Clinton, you had eight years ago, Mitt Romney-Rick Santorum, and that whole thing, the difference of 34 votes. You have the lack of diversity in Iowa, and now this. I mean, is this -- in terms of, should it be the first in the nation contest, and should it be done this way?

BROWNSTEIN: Right, I remember in the 2000 recount, Poppy, in Florida, a state -- a county election official said to me, that we have finally had an election where the margin of victory was smaller than the margin of error. And I feel like we were kind of left in that situation last night. The margin of error here is just too big --

SCIUTTO: Yes --

BROWNSTEIN: For something this consequential. And let me throw out kind of a thought that is less than soothing. I think when we finally get the results, it's still going to send a muddled picture. It's entirely possible that the winner last night won with a smaller percentage of the available delegates than any winner ever in the history of the caucus, that we had at least four and maybe five candidates reach double digits in their share of the delegates.

We've only hit four once, we've never hit five. And all of that says -- and if you look at the results of the entrance polls and the divergence and the coalitions of the different candidates, all of that says that, at this point, the Democratic Party is vulcanized by race, by age, by ideology, and none of these candidates are pulling together a broad enough coalition to pull away from the others.

I mean, I think --

SCIUTTO: Yes --

BROWNSTEIN: Once we get the results, it's going to point toward a long and grinding struggle between very different factions in the party.

SCIUTTO: Yes --

BROWNSTEIN: And other than that, everything is great.

SCIUTTO: Yes, well, it will be interesting. It will be interesting. Ron Brownstein, Van Jones, Alexander Burns, thanks to all of you this morning. Tonight, President Trump will be just feet away from the very Democrats who impeached him. Can he avoid attacks during his State of the Union?

HARLOW: We're also moments away from the opening bell on Wall Street. Stocks pointing towards a higher open across the board. The coronavirus has investors very unsettled around the world. Global stocks are starting to recover. One thing to watch is U.S. oil prices. They are near their lowest level in the past year. The demand for oil falling markedly in China, the world's biggest oil importer as they deal with this deadly outbreak.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

END