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Inside Politics

President Trump Faces Mounting Legal Investigations; Federal Judge Strikes Down Affordable Care Act; Trump Names OMB Director Mulvaney as Acting Chief of Staff; What Iowa Dems are Looking for in 2020. Aired 8-9a ET

Aired December 16, 2018 - 08:00   ET

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

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

[08:00:31] JOHN KING, CNN HOST (voice-over): The presidency in peril. New details on the investigations and a long-time Trump insider is talking.

MICHAEL COHEN, FORMER TRUMP LAWYER: He knows the truth and it's sad that I should take responsibility for his dirty deeds.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I never directed him to do anything wrong.

KING: Plus, deadline week. Will the president get his border wall or will the speaker to be score another win?

REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA), HOUSE MINORITY LEADER: I think the American people recognize that we must keep government open and that we should not have a shutdown.

KING: And ranking the 2020 Democrats nationally and in Iowa.

REP. BETO O'ROURKE (D), TEXAS: There's never been a darker moment in this country. So, to all of us to be the answer to that.

KING: INSIDE POLITICS, the biggest stories sourced by the best reporters, now.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KING: And welcome to INSIDE POLITICS. I'm John King. To our viewers in the United States and around the world, thank you for sharing your Sunday.

Two big changes at the top of the Trump administration, and word, expect more. The embattled interior secretary leaving. The president is naming a new chief of staff but raising some eyebrows by adding "acting" to the title.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. KEVIN BRADY (R), CHAIRMAN, WAYS AND MEANS COMMITTEE: Look, Mick Mulvaney is an outstanding individual. I served with Mick, obviously, in Congress. We worked together a lot on budget tax reform, other issues as well. He is a tireless worker. He is no baloney here. I mean, he says it the way it is. I think that's why the president likes him.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Plus, Republicans win a giant court victory. A judge says a landmark Obamacare law must be scrapped. That ruling reignites the political fight though that of late has shifted dramatically in the Democrats' favor.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I believe we're going to get really good health care. And exciting things happened over the past 24 hours. And if everybody is smart because we have a lot of Democrats here tonight, and I'm very happy about that. People don't realize I have a lot of friends who are Democrats.

We have Democrats here. And if the Republicans and the Democrats get together, we are going to end up with incredible health care, which is the way it should have been from day one. And it's going to happen. It now has a chance to happen.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: And the feds close in. The special counsel still wants to talk to the president and court filings accuse candidate Trump of illegal hush money payments and lies about his Russia business dealings.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. JERRY NADLER (D-NY), RANKING MEMBER, JUDICIARY COMMITTEE: There's a pattern here of the president having associate being surrounded by crooks, by crooks, by people who are now convicted or pleading guilty an extraordinary number of the people around him have admitted to crimes and that raises all sorts of questions which we have to get to the bottom of on behalf of the American people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: With us this Sunday to share their reporting and their insights, Julie Hirschfield Davis of "The New York Times", Josh Dawsey of "The Washington Post", Rachael Bade from "Politico", and CNN's Abby Philip.

We begin a packed hour with new developments that underscore the depth of the president's legal and political jeopardy, the list of investigations grew even longer this past week and the allegations more specific and more details, ranging from hush money payments to women to Russia business dealings to the role the president's daughter played in inauguration spending now under scrutiny. The headlines are ominous. Take a look at just a few they're making clear the cloud of investigation is only growing there's year two of the Trump presidency winds down.

Now, the president who insists he did nothing wrong was challenged both in court and on television this past week by a man who for a decade says his job was to carry out Mr. Trump's dirty deeds.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS, ABC NEWS ANCHOR: He was trying to hide what you were doing, correct?

COHEN: Correct.

STEPHANOPOULOS: And he knew it was wrong?

COHEN: Of course.

STEPHANOPOULOS: And he was doing that to help his election?

COHEN: You have to remember at what point in time that this matter came about, two weeks or so before the election, post the Billy Bush comments. So, yes, he was very concerned about how this would affect the election.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Now, there Michael Cohen is talking about late campaign payments to buy the silence of an adult film actress and a Playboy centerfold. President Trump now acknowledges his direct role in those payments but says it's Cohen's fault, bad legal advice if they violated campaign laws.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: They put that on to embarrass me. They put those two charges on to embarrass me. They're not criminal charges.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Actually, and this is important they are criminal charges.

And just as Cohen was sentenced to three years in prison, prosecutors announced, the publisher of the "National Enquirer" is now cooperating and backs up Cohen's take that the payments were made, quote, to ensure that a woman did not publicize damaging allegations about that candidate before the 2016 presidential election and thereby influence that election.

[08:05:18] Prosecutors also say Cohen lied to Congress about candidate Trump's Russian business dealings and that Cohen discussed the status and progress of the Moscow project with individual one, that's the president, on more than three occasions.

And those are just two, the hush money payments, the Russia business dealings, actually let's just put the list up. I mean, this is what stuns me. At the end of this week, the Trump campaign, the Trump inaugural committee, the Trump Organization, the Trump transition, the Trump administration and the Trump Foundation all under investigation. Reports even that the New Jersey attorney general may look at the Trump golf courses for undocumented hiring.

The president wanted this all gone. It's not all gone. It is growing.

ABBY PHILIP, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: And what is striking about this whole situation is that the White House -- the president and the people around him don't seem to grasp the seriousness of this. I think they've been resigned for many, many months now to letting the president take these investigations on via Twitter by simply just talking his trying to talk his way out of them.

The problem is that what you pointed out this is not just special counsel Robert Mueller, it's the Southern District of New York led by someone who was appointed by President Trump. It's also perhaps the state attorney general in New York. There are so many avenues in which this administration is coming under fire and this White House doesn't appear to grasp that these are real legal challenges, not just fake ones, not just ones that you can just talk your way out of and there is no real plan to deal with that.

And in fact, the president often goes out there on television in these interviews, on Twitter, making matters worse for himself so I think we're in for a really bumpy next few months in which this could get very bad for this president. I think he is resigned to blaming this on fake news, but it's going to get very serious as more and more people are pleading guilty and going to jail over lying to investigators for --

(CROSSTALK)

KING: Forgive me, but the fake news argument gets much more difficult to make when you start reading these court filings and they have corroborating documents, corroborating witnesses. It's not just Michael Cohen turning on the president.

JOSH DAWSEY, WHITE HOUSE REPORTER, THE WASHINGTON POST: The court filings as you say are piling up. If you talk to people around the president, the Southern District of New York investigations concern them in a way that some ways the special counsel even doesn't. Michael Cohen is unencumbered, willing to share documents, subscribe meetings, payments, you know, there's concern that they'll begin investigating his businesses, looking at transactions maybe that predated the presidency.

So, once you get under the hood there you hear a lot from Trump ally said that's another world that they don't understand, was that we're not part of, and that, you know, it could be pretty murky for them. And if you just look at the sheer number of these investigations, it's every day is a different development in a different front for the president. And so far, the White House has tried to say, you know, we refer all this to Rudy Giuliani and the outside lawyers.

But the president is using a lot of his political capital to fight back against these investigations. What's the agenda in if you're spending so much of your time just pushing back on investigators that are coming in every aspect of your life?

JULIE HIRSCHFIELD DAVIS, CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT, THE NEW YORK TIMES: And this is not even accounting all of the investigations that they're going to be confronting from the House Democrats when they take over in January. I mean, that this is a whole another can of worms that they know they're going to have to deal with. I think the difference there is they do have something of a plan. I think that the White House counsel's office is very focused on trying to figure out how they're going to deal with all that in coming probably subpoenas every week. We're talking about a number of agencies and things that they could be investigating there.

And what has come out of these legal investigation -- existing legal cases and investigations up till now is going to start to be taken up by Congress, when they engage in a fight over potentially getting the president's tax returns, they're going to be able to get into some of these questions of his private business dealings and what that may also tell us about some of these ongoing things like Russia. And I think that there is going to be a sort of a quickening drumbeat that's going to happen very quickly when Democrats take over in January of them starting to lay out exactly what they're going to look into.

KING: And you see, again from the court filing, again, you know, Michael Cohen, you can take him is he telling the truth, does he not? Clearly, has a vested interest, he wanted a shorter prison sentence.

But when you take a look at the Trump argument is, it's all politically motivated, it didn't happen, it's a few bad apples who have turned on me. That gets harder to not only when you read the court documents, but when you see things like this, Michael Cohen going to prison for three years, Michael Flynn the former national security adviser, one of the most sensitive jobs United States government will be sentenced in the week ahead going to president, Paul Manafort. So, your top lawyer, your national security adviser, your campaign chairman, your deputy campaign chairman and then George Papadopoulos, yes, Trump can make the case a much lower level campaign adviser, but that's just -- those people are going to jail or already have been to jail.

[8:10:05] It is hard for them to just say there's nothing there. There's clearly something there.

RACHAEL BADE, CONGRESSIONAL REPORTER, POLITICO: And let's not forget that this week recently we heard prosecutors specifically say that they have seen evidence that Michael Cohen was not lying when he said individual one this is the president you know directed and was directly involved in these hush payments to women to buy their silence. I think from a Capitol Hill perspective, it'll be interesting to see, number one, how Democrats prioritize all these different things, Russia, potentially obstruction, you know, the hush payments, Trump's tax returns.

And right now, this week, of the past couple days, we saw the case regarding campaign finance laws being broken and the president potentially directing that to his top lawyer. That case is really taking off and there's actually a divide right now among Democrats on the Hill, do they want to make that a central part of what they're doing because you know obviously when it comes to women, they're afraid there could be a potential backlash. There's a talk right now about do they want to just focus on Russia, do they just want to focus on obstruction? And right now the case that perhaps they have the most evidence and Cohen is willing to talk he has said he's willing to come to Congress is regarding these hush payments. So --

KING: It's a great point because that they the Democrats face choices too and there's political ramifications for them we talked about how this is a huge part of the president, but do they do that, do they do Don Jr., and the Trump Tower meeting, do they try to now ask questions about Ivanka Trump and was she involved in there's an allegation the Trump hotels were overcharging during the Trump inaugural, you know, just making money if you will off this?

But to your point about the Michael Cohen and the specifics of campaign finance violations payments, the Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal, what is striking is a number of Republicans the president United States accused by his own Justice Department of committing felonies. Ask a Republican on Capitol Hill, you get this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY (R), CALIFORNIA: The president hires an attorney to solve a problem, he expects him to do it in a legal manner.

SEN. CHUCK GRASSLEY (R-IA), CHAIRMAN, JUDICIARY COMMITTEE: Remember, the information came from a guy that was a liar and accused of lying to the Congress of the United States. So how much credibility do you want to put in the words of a liar?

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R), SOUTH CAROLINA: I'm not excusing it, but we're talking about sex, we're talking about Stormy Daniels, Michael Avenatti and a Playboy bunny as your chief witnesses.

SEN. ORRIN HATCH (R), UTAH: I don't care. All I can say is he's doing a good job as president.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Now, Senator Hatch, to be fair, cleaned that up the end of the week, saying he regrets saying I don't care that these payments actually are an issue.

But I guess what are they supposed to say but they couldn't say these things concern me I'm going to reserve judgment until we get to the facts or until these cases make their way through the courts, but, of course, I'm concerned. Instead, they seem to say please go away, all is fine.

DAWSEY: They seem to say we haven't heard any of that. What are you talking about? I haven't seen these tweets, haven't seen the court filings.

And my colleague from "The Post" had a great story this week where she interviewed 15 or 20 of these members and all of them basically just pleaded it, you know, that United States senators have seen these developments on every front page, on television, on the radio. I mean, how could you not see these developments?

And they just say we don't know what you're talking about, what are you talking about?

BADE: Totally hypocritical. If the roles were reversed, it would be -- they would be calling for -

(CROSSTALK)

DAWSEY: But they know their supporters still support President Trump, and that his numbers are really high among Republicans. And what are you going to do, denounce him and then he comes after you and you have your own political problems?

KING: I'm not excusing things the Clinton Foundation did, and the Trump people used to talk about pay-for-play, but match it up. Just match it up. The paperwork and the paperwork, the grand ostrich party, that's what they could come at the moment.

Up next, President Trump calls it a great win, but will illegal ruling against Obamacare create a new political headache for Republicans?

And as we go to break, politicians say the darndest things especially retiring senators.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JEFF FLAKE (R), ARIZONA: As I stand here today, I am optimistic about the future but my optimism is do more to the country that my parents gave to me than is due to the present condition of our civic life.

HATCH: The Senate as an institution is in crisis or at least maybe in crisis.

SEN. CLAIRE MCCASKILL (D), MISSOURI: Peter Morgan, an author, said no family is complete without an embarrassing uncle. We have too many embarrassing uncles in the United States Senate.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:18:02] KING: A federal judge in Texas is giving Republicans a long sought victory, one they could well live to regret. In a ruling late Friday, the judge ruled the individual mandate in Obamacare is unconstitutional and said as a result, the rest of the landmark health care law cannot stand. Now, nothing changes immediately because the ruling will be appealed, likely all the way to the Supreme Court.

But it was Republicans who filed this suit and they have now won in court what they could not achieve in Congress. If upheld, the ruling would invite sweeping disruption back into the insurance market for all Americans. Not only does it throw out the individual mandate requiring health coverage, it would also end protections for those with pre-existing conditions and the provision allowing children to stay on a parent's plan through age 26, and caps on out-of-pocket expenses and allow insurance companies to reinstate annual and lifetime caps on your coverage. President Trump calls the ruling proof he was right and calling Obamacare an unconstitutional disaster and he says Congress must now replace it.

Repealing Obamacare you might remember was the GOP's Holy Grail and four of the last five election cycles. The exception though was the most recent cycle, health care specifically the argument that Republicans want to got Obamacare was a driving force in the giant Democratic 2018 games.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I feel betrayed by Dave Brat. He voted against protections for pre-existing conditions for families like mine.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Lance voted over 60 times to attack and undermine affordable health care, and he's voted repeatedly to weaken protections for people with pre-existing conditions.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yoder took nearly $500,000 in campaign cash from insurance companies and voted to let them deny coverage for pre- existing conditions, meaning these Kansans and many more could lose their health care.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: The timing here right after the election -- I mean, this is -- you know, it's a great victory for the Republicans, this is what they've wanted since Obama passed this almost a decade ago, now what? In the sense that the politics on this issue have changed so dramatically in the last year or two, the president last night saying, we'll all come together and pass great health care. There is zero evidence in the last two years that he is capable of doing that that he has a plan to do that and now, the Democrats would be willing to listen to him.

DAVIS: It's a little bit like the dog that caught the car here. You know, they've gotten this ruling which was in their favor, but now, they have to figure out what they're going to do. Now, obviously, the judge said that the law can stay in places now, it was very interesting that the first official statement out of the White House from Sarah Sanders included that.

You know, nothing's going to change for now and that's really important for them to drive home politically because if people think that they're going to lose their health care immediately and lose all those benefits that you put up there on the screen, it's going to be a huge political crisis for Republicans to compound what just happened to them in November in the elections, based on the fact that people, not just Democrats, but the public writ large does not like the idea that they're going to get you know their health care taken away.

The key question now is what they're going to do because there's clearly going to be an appeal to this case and Democrats are going to have to decide what they are going to do in terms of a an improvements bill or some sort of bill to protect the Affordable Care Act when they take the House and what a Republicans going to do in return. Their strategy that they were trying to use last year and the year before we're going to repeal and replace fell very quickly based on the fact that they couldn't agree what they wanted to replace it with.

So, the question now is, are they going to be any better equipped to figure that out?

KING: The answer is no.

DAVIS: Doesn't like they are.

KING: The answer's no because you still have the Republican divide. Republicans are divided about the role of government health care. It's a debate that is divided the party forever, not just in the last ten years.

And now, you have a new Democratic majority with a lot of younger members who want Medicare for all. They want a more liberal government-run approach. So even that now the Democrats would have a hard time figuring out.

So the best position for the Democrats politically is just say the Republicans filed this suit, this is what Nancy Pelosi likely to be the next speaker said Republicans are fully responsible for this cruel decision and for the fear they have struck into millions of families across America who are now in danger of losing their health coverage.

DAWSEY: The president has used all of these platitudes will come together and have terrific health care, but he's pretty flexible and in kind of what he wants it to be. I mean, we're week two the night in the story last year where Democrats came to meet with him pitched him on a pretty liberal plan, and he said can we call it repeal and replace? Sir, you can call it whatever you want.

You know, the president would sign on if they could come together and put a plan, but he's not going to dive into the policy specifics on this. He doesn't have a prescription that he wants. He's just saying come together, bring us a plan.

The problem is, if it can be done.

BADE: If Republicans can't agree amongst themselves, there's no way they're going to be able to agree with Democrats that are taking control of the House and again have these new younger members talking about Medicare-for-all.

There is going to be a test vote in the first few weeks of January. The House Democrats are expected to come in and instruct House counsel to defend the Obamacare law in court.

And so, what that's going to do is it's going to force Democrats in the House and Republicans who said on the trail oh we're going to protect your pre-existing conditions et cetera, even though they voted not to do that, it's going to put them on the spot and they're going to have to take a vote do they want to defend Obamacare and move forward and including with the polls that are showing Americans do support Obamacare, or are they going to stick to their anti-Obamacare platform that they've had for so long?

KING: It is extraordinary -- I've been at this a while -- for an issue to be front and center in six or seven consecutive election cycles. We have a divided America that has been having a tug-of-war over this issue since it was passed. I mean, it predates passing Obamacare health care in America but since Obamacare was passed 2010, 2012, 2014, 2016, 2018, and now 2020.

But here's how the ground has changed. Remember, Democrats lost the House in 2010, lost the Senate in 2014, in part because of people being unhappy with Obamacare. Look at the polling now. Allow adults to stay on their plan until age 26, 82 percent of Americans, creation of individual health care exchanges, 82 percent. Subsidies for low and moderate income Americans, 81 percent. Protections for pre- existing conditions, 65 percent.

Republicans own this court decision, those numbers tell you they have a problem.

PHILLIP: Absolutely, and frankly the president doesn't understand the politics of this law because he hasn't yet run himself in this environment, but he will find out pretty quickly because we're really into 2020 already.

And I would add to what Josh said, the president is flexible by about this, but he also is easily swayed by whoever is talking to him. So if -- you know, the freedom caucus types whisper in his ear, Mr. President, this is a bad deal we could end up back in the same position that we were in on DACA, and on a whole host of issues in which Trump enters the room says, I want a deal, and then five minutes later changes his mind.

KING: Remember, he had a Rose Garden event to call the House health care bill great and then within days he called it cruel. So he can -- he's flexible. That's -- flexible.

(CROSSTALK)

KING: Up next, the new chief of staff for President Trump and now, he needs a new interior secretary.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:28:55] KING: Two big changes on team Trump this week, and the president says there's likely more to come.

Late Friday, the president announced a new acting chief of staff, tapping his Budget Director Mick Mulvaney. Then, Saturday, the president tweeted that Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke is leaving at the end of the year. Now, Zinke from day one has been under fire for his management style and questionable ethics.

Midterm shake-ups are standard fare, but the complications here are anything but routine. Zinke, for example, is escaping before a guaranteed aggressive oversight from House Democrats and Mulvaney designated the acting chief of staff has to deal not only with the new power shift in Congress but also the pressure of investigations and the challenge of keeping the White House in sync with the Trump reelection campaign.

It is the moment more than the personnel that fascinates me here in the sense. Let's just focus on Mick Mulvaney for a minute. Number one, he knows the president. He's been around from the beginning, that's a plus.

But you got to deal with the investigations, you got to deal with the Democrats assuming power in Congress, you got to deal with the president getting ready to run for reelection, you have to deal with an economy, something is teetering on the verge of recession.

Pretty big portfolio for Mick Mulvaney.

[08:29:57]

PHILLIP: Yes, and it's interestingly this is something that apparently the OMB director tends to be pulled into, that they are always given many, many jobs because as OMB director, they have a lot of skills in terms of understanding the federal government and managing it.

But in this particular case, the most important thing about managing the White House is the President and a really chaotic staff situation in the West Wing.

So he has a lot of skills that he brings to the table but I think there's a real open question about whether those are actually the right skills needed to deal with a West Wing unlike any that we've seen before in a president, who frankly, just does not want to listen to anybody, least of all anybody who might think that they know better than him about any given subject matter. I think Mick Mulvaney is going to have a challenge with that.

JOHN KING, CNN HOST: Eagerness for the job, though, helps in the sense that for all the people who said no. People who are under consideration said please, no, please no. God, no, please no. We wouldn't have room at this table to put them all.

But you write Rachael, "When Trump soured on his former chief John Kelly, Mick Mulvaney didn't see a quagmire, he saw his next gig. He would have given up a very valuable appendage to get that job, a Republican close to the White House said of Mulvaney's desire to be Trump's chief of staff."

Now some people would laugh about that as calculated maneuvering. I would say at least you have somebody who wants the job. That's important.

Whatever you think of the President, the President should have a chief of staff who wants to be there and wants to try to fix what is a mess.

RACHAEL BADE, CONGRESSIONAL REPORTER, "POLITICO": Yes. He's ambitious. Look, I covered him in the House. He was always a bomb thrower in the House. He cheered for shutdowns. He told Republican leaders to, you know, don't mind credit default. Make sure Democrats do some sort of cuts when you raise the debt ceiling. He was a hardliner.

But the minute that Trump won, he saw an opportunity. And I remember talking to him the day after the election and he told me he wanted to be OMB director. He sort of laughed because he was this sort of sideline hardliner. I never saw him up there going to the OMB but, you know, there was a deficit in people wanting to enter the Trump administration because they knew it was risky.

He worked with Paul Ryan. He was actually sort of a nemesis of his own. They didn't get along very well and they had different policy views to get that promotion. And from there he has been at OMB and again sees this deficit right now and sees it as a way to climb the ladder. And he's seizing it.

KING: And so can he impose any discipline on a structure that has been chaotic to the point -- to the point, I'm going to read for you, Josh -- on Friday "Trump grew deeply frustrated at the rejections and the media narrative that no one of high stature wanted to be his chief of staff, according to a senior official. So he decided suddenly on Friday afternoon to tap Mulvaney. He was never formally interviewed for chief of staff. He met Friday with Trump for a scheduled discussion of the budget showdown, officials said, but he left as the acting chief of staff." Right way to run a railroad.

JOSH DAWSEY, WHITE HOUSE REPORTER, "WASHINGTON POST": He came in because he was going to have a meeting on the wall and he left running the White House. You know, what's interesting about the search -- which was extraordinarily public, it became kind of humiliating for the President and those around him that People kept saying, "no, I don't want this job".

Chris Christie, the President was very interested in -- White House officials told us Friday morning, hey it's likely to be Chris Christie. Within two hours, he put out a statement saying no way.

Nick Ayers, who is the Vice President's chief of staff who the President settled on said no, I don't want it after all.

I mean there were lots and lots of people saying no. Mulvaney, though, is the interesting case study here. His aides, people around him, told reporters he's not interested. He would rather have a cabinet job. Don't think of him for this.

However for months Mulvaney has been pitching the President on becoming the chief of staff. At a dinner the two of them had this summer Mulvaney mad this case. He said listen, I won't try to manage you, like John Kelly does. I won't try to stop who talks to you. I won't try to stop who meets with you.

I'll respect your family. I don't have stand like almost all of your other cabinet secretaries. And at the end of the day I won't leak to the news media. And the President liked the argument.

Now at the time he kept John Kelly but eventually when it came back around, Mulvaney I think made the same pitch to him again and the President was going to name someone soon. I mean there was no -- if it wasn't Mulvaney on Friday, it was going to be someone else very soon because he had had a week of just kind of

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hanging out --

DAWSEY: -- no one knew what was going on.

KING: I will respect your family and I don't have a scandal. Those are the selling cards to be the next White House chief of staff.

JULIE DAVIS, CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT, "NEW YORK TIMES": Well, I mean to Rachael's earlier point, Mick Mulvaney was a bomb thrower in Congress. And the fact that his main case to Donald Trump was, I will basically enable you. I'll let you do what you want. Bodes very -- it's an open question whether that's going to be good or bad for Donald Trump going into this next period.

He needs a chief of staff who can actually keep him on a path that's strategic to go up against these investigations, to figure out how he's going to deal with Democrats in the House.

And if he has someone at the table in Mick Mulvaney who is just going to be concerned with keeping him happy and allowing him to tweet whatever he wants and say whatever he wants. And if he wants to threaten to shut down the government, you know, go ahead and do that.

They're already in a mess because of that and if that's the strategy going forward for his chief of staff, it's going to be a very interesting -- I don't know how long.

KING: We shall see.

It is a beast of a job under good circumstances. Just a really busy job and all the more so because of everything that's going on and all the things we don't even know about.

[08:35:00] Up next, how Democrats rate their candidates as attention turns to 2020. And what matters more, being in sync on the issues or being tough enough to beat the President?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Congressman -- I hate to see you go, but you're going to run for president, right?

REP. BETO O'ROURKE (D), TEXAS: No, no decision on that. No decision.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: You heard it right there, no decision says Congressman Beto O'Rourke.

But some new numbers that suggest he is an early player as Democrats turn their attention to 2020.

[08:40:02] First this reminder -- 417 days until the first 2020 vote in Iowa. So consider these just the early, early, early baseline.

But let's look at our numbers. Number one, who is running for the Democrats? Well, these are just some of the people thinking about running. As you know, they're not all going to run but we're going to have a crowded Democratic field.

Nationally, our new CNN poll this week puts the former vice president way on top right, 30 percent. Bernie Sanders -- this is what's interesting, Beto O'Rourke now third among the Democrats at 9 percent.

Senator Booker and then Senator Kerry, Secretary Kerry. Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren, Michael Bloomberg, Amy Klobuchar round out the top of what would be a crowded field. But from 30 percent to 3 percent is a big drop. That's pretty good for Joe Biden.

So let's look, our brand new partnership with the "Des Moines Register" and CNN. In the Iowa poll Joe Biden ahead there too. Bernie Sanders in second again. Beto O'Rourke in third in Iowa and nationally. Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, Cory Booker round out the top six in Iowa.

Now we asked Iowa Democrats as part of this poll, what are you looking for? And here is the divide for Democrats. Half want a seasoned political hand. Joe Biden would like that number. But four in ten, just shy of that, 36 percent want a newcomer to politics. So as we go into the race, there's a big divide among Democrats about what they want.

And if you notice both polls, national in Iowa, three white men first, second and third. Kirsten Gillibrand, New York senator thinking about running, not happy with that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VAN JONES, CNN HOST: In a party as diverse as ours, does it worry you to see the top three being white guys?

SENATOR KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND (D), NEW YORK: Yes.

JONES: Why? Why?

GILLIBRAND: I just -- I aspire for our country to recognize the beauty of our diversity at some point in the future. That's what makes America so extraordinary that we are all that. We are everything. And I think a more inclusive America is a stronger America.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Now very, very important because we're going to talk a lot between now and those 416 days of the Iowa caucus of 2020. These numbers aren't so important to tell you who is winning but to give you a baseline -- give you a baseline. So in those 416 days, when we look back and see who actually won the Iowa caucuses, who's the frontrunner then, we'll know how the party changed, if it changed.

But if you're Joe Biden, you've got to love it. You're ahead nationally and you're ahead in Iowa. However, if you go back to any other cycle, the person ahead nationally and ahead in Iowa now, never wins.

PHILLIP: Yes. I don't want to say none of this matters but it may not matter. But it does -- I mean I think it just --

KING: It's the starting gate. It matters in that context.

PHILLIP: It's the starting point but there's a long, you know, long, long, long way to go. And I think Democrats have a lot to work out.

But I think one of the biggest elephants in the room is exactly what Kirsten Gillibrand just talked about which is that how do you balance an increasingly diverse Democratic Party with a field that doesn't seem all that diverse? Or at least the candidates who are more diverse don't seem to be gaining traction.

That being said, I mean I think what Democratic voters probably are also looking for, and I think you saw this with Beto is can you also speak to the issues of a diverse coalition?

So I don't think you can rule out that factor in determining where the Democratic base is going to go. It's not necessarily just going to be is the candidate someone who looks like us but do they also understand what we want them to talk about?

KING: And part of the big challenge is if you look at the dynamic, not the people but the dynamic. Half of Iowa Democrats say they want a seasoned political hand, 36 percent say they want a newcomer. It's a challenge of the newcomers to flip those numbers.

That's what Barack Obama did against Hillary Clinton. She was the seasoned hand, he was the new face. People thought interesting kid, is he ready? And he flipped it to make it a newcomer, just to make a historical point as you jump in here.

This is the poll from December 2014. Jeb Bush was going to be your Republican nominee followed by Chris Christie or Ben Carson, Mike Huckabee, Rand Paul, Marco Rubio. You'll notice there's no Donald Trump. There's no Donald Trump here. He didn't touch the polls at this point -- I would note for the record, he is the President of the United States. I'm sorry I interrupted you.

BADE: No, it's fine. I remember thinking Scott Walker was going to be, you know, one of the top contenders. That faded very quickly.

Now, I think the thing about a woman not being in the top three right now is really interesting because we have had this year -- this has been a year of the woman in American politics. And there has been more than a hundred candidates, female candidates that were just elected and coming to the Congress.

And it's just interesting to see that we don't have anyone at the top three right now. And again, it could just be name recognition. But I do -- I would expect that, you know, some of these women candidates --

KING: A lot of it is name recognition and experience. Although the interesting this if you're Beto O'Rourke, you just lost the Senate race in Texas but you became a national phenomenon in doing so. You raised all this money. You had national attention which is why your name ID is up.

Dan Pfeiffer the long-time aide to Obama noting that Obama was third in the Iowa poll at this point in 2007 -- 2006 it would have been at that point and then he won in 2008. Not saying that means anything but if you're Beto O'Rourke, maybe you pump your chest out a little bit.

DAWSEY: You mentioned Trump, though -- John. I mean one of the fundamental questions for big Democrats too, is how do you take him on and deal with it?

[08:45:01] I mean you saw Elizabeth Warren come out, do this DNA test that was widely seen as botched and a bad maneuver. You see Beto O'Rourke who has tried to run a candidacy that's not about Trump in a kind of a broader, you know, philosophical argument.

But I think a lot of these candidates are going to have him taunting them, have them making fun of them. One day he'll go up in the polls, they're going to get nicknames. And you know, Nancy Pelosi said that this week, you know, when you get into a fight with a skunk, what happens to you. I'm not going to say what she said on television.

(CROSSTALK)

DAWSEY: But that's going to be the fundamental challenge for a lot of these folks.

KING: Right.

DAWSEY: You have a guy who fights differently than anyone else we've seen in politics. And who will play in a Democratic primary unlike any other Republican.

DAWSEY: Right, right.

And if you try to make it about him it's hard to win on his terms.

DAVIS: And it's interesting at this base because what you see kind of a risk-aversion among Democrats, right. The people at the top of that poll are people that they know, that they know what a candidacy would look like.

Beto O'Rourke has just run. They've seen that. I think as the debate unfolds here, we're going to see probably a lot more diversity, gender diversity, racial diversity in the field of people that Democrats are looking at to take that on. KING: Bend the numbers, the challenge for the newcomers. We'll see.

We're just getting started.

Our reporters share from their notebooks next, including a warning to their colleagues from Republican women on Capitol Hill.

[08:46:19] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: Let's head one more time around the INSIDE POLITICS table, ask our great reporters to share a little something from their notebooks, help get you out ahead of the big political news just around the corner -- Julie.

DAVIS: Well, we are T minus five business days to a partial government shutdown if the government can't -- if Congress and the President can't come to some sort of terms on continuing funding for the government. The House is gone until Wednesday and it's not -- there's no clear indication of what the plan is from the White House or from Republican congressional leaders to keep the government running.

One of the reasons that the House has gone is because one of the big uncertainties is will they have enough people there to vote once the President decides what he wants to do. If there's an agreement that can be reached, will there be enough Republicans who have been defeated or are retiring who are willing to show up to cast those votes?

So in addition to all the other uncertainty they're wondering who is actually going to come back four days before Christmas to get this done?

KING: Your government -- not at work.

Josh.

DAWSEY: The President seems to be in a mood for change lately. Moved his attorney general out, his chief of staff, now his interior secretary. And I think there's going to be more shakeup in the cabinet. He's unhappy with Kirstjen Nielsen, his Homeland Security Secretary. John Kelly, the former chief of staff, the outgoing chief of staff has been our biggest protector (ph). His frustration with Wilbur Ross.

This President has often, you know, showed his (INAUDIBLE), showed cards in advance for months by complaining about officials. We knew, for example, Rex Tillerson was going to be fired long before he did. We obviously knew about Sessions long before he did.

And the President showed and signaled that he still wants more change. So if you've been watching the carousel of the White House, I think you should expect more people to get off soon.

KING: More change through the holidays.

Rachael. BADE: Female House Republican lawmakers are getting fed up with their male colleagues for not addressing the party's issue with women after this midterm election where they lost a significant number of female Republican lawmakers in the House and suburban moms started leaving the Republican Party and turning to Democrats.

The day after the election, there was one Republican woman in particular, Ann Wagner from Missouri, who won in a suburban district, has a history of financing for the Republican Party and has gotten a lot of Republican women elected before. She was getting ready to run for NRCC chair to sort of head the campaign arm the next cycle to reverse this trend.

And Kevin McCarthy, the majority leader, called her and said he didn't want her, he wanted one of these more backbench members that he was close with. And it really infuriated the Republican women in the conference.

And so right now there's a huge tension between some of the men and women and whether or not the Republicans are willing to address and support female Republican lawmakers and win back more suburban women going forward.

KING: That's if the men would listen, maybe.

BADE: Yes.

KING: You do the math.

BADE: If they care about winning back the majority, they will.

KING: Kind of simple math there.

BADE: Right.

KING: Abby.

PHILLIP: Well, we were just talking about change in the White House. And there's one other element to this that I think is going to become even more problematic for President Trump. He had thought he would go into 2019 with someone close to him, who could help him navigate the political wins of his reelection campaign.

But then Nick Ayers, the Vice President's chief of staff, said no to that job. And now the President is suddenly once again low on political talent in the White House. There's an expectation next year that some people are going to continue to be leaving, within the White House, leaving for campaign jobs, for super PAC jobs and others. Some of them have already left like the White House political director, Bill Stepien.

But President Trump has always wanted someone who he thought understood his MAGA base. I think what we'll see as we go forward is President Trump once again being uneasy by this factor in the White House but also leaning heavily on the people on the outside, who he has been talking to for many, many months now. His kitchen cabinet of outside advisers.

Meanwhile his new chief of staff Mick Mulvaney might give him some expertise on Capitol Hill and management wise but still does not appear to have what the President is looking for which is someone who has the pulse of his MAGA base.

KING: The history -- that's the hard part, keeping the White House in sync with the reelection campaign. That's important.

I'll close with this. A little drama out west -- establishment Republicans are nervous but still betting Arizona Governor Doug Ducey will set aside his doubts and name Congresswoman Martha McSally to John McCain's Senate seat early this week.

As part of the establishment effort, they brokered a Friday detente meeting between McSally and the late Senator's widow, Cindy McCain. That was a truce months in the making.

Mrs. McCain believes McSally was too quiet when President Trump criticized her husband and then Mrs. McCain believes McSally was too willing to distance herself from Senator McCain when she ran for Arizona's other Senate seat this year.

[08:54:55] In that race, Cindy McCain refused delayed appeal from establishment figures to shoot a TV ad supporting McSally, who lost. Now Meghan McCain made clear over the weekend she is no McSally fan but the establishment figures pushing McSally are banking on that Friday meeting with Cindy McCain to hold sway with Governor Ducey.

Now there's a longer term play here in these discussions that have gone on for months. McCain family conversations include the idea of Jack McCain maybe retracing his dad's footsteps and running for the House after he leaves the military. Establishment figures hoping for Cindy McCain's help now suggest it could be a favor returned down the road a few years.

Keep your eye on Arizona.

That's it for INSIDE POLITICS. Again, thanks for sharing your Sunday morning. Hope you can catch us weekdays as well, here at noon Eastern.

Up next, don't go anywhere. "STATE OF THE UNION" with Jake Tapper. His guests include Republican Senator Susan Collins and Democratic Congressman Elijah Cummings.

Again thanks for joining us. Have a great rest of your Sunday.

[08:55:49] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)