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Sen. Bennet: Impeachment Would Give Trump "A Favor"; Warren Pressed on Past Native American Ancestry Claims; 43 House Dems Call for Impeachment Inquiry. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired May 31, 2019 - 12:30   ET

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

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[12:32:31] DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Thanks to Robert Mueller's surprise statement this week, the number of 2020 Democratic candidates who are calling for impeachment proceedings beginning has jumped to 10. But one Democratic candidate, Senator Michael Bennet of Colorado, told me during a CNN town hall last night he's not jumping on the impeachment train, and he argued it would only help Donald Trump.

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SEN. MICHAEL BENNET (D-CO), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: It is very important that we take a page out of history and do what they did with Watergate which was to make sure the American people understood really what was at stake. If we go down the road tomorrow and impeach President Trump, we're actually giving him a favor. That's what he wants, to be able to say he was railroaded.

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BASH: The Colorado senator is trying to appeal to voters by being what he calls a pragmatic idealist, and he took a swipe at his competitors trying to one-up another about impeachment on social media.

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BENNET: The president, in my view, I think he committed impeachable offenses, but we have to go through the process. And to me it's one of the problems with our politics today is we want to go out and tweet and immediately react, race to judgment, and we need to be more strategic than that. We need to be smarter than that.

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BASH: And Nia is back with us. Do Democratic primary caucus voters want strategic, or do they want to hear what they want to hear from their candidates?

NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER: You know, I think --

BASH: Meaning, go get the guy.

HENDERSON: Yes. I mean, it's funny. I mean, you go out and you go to these campaign events, whether it's Biden, Bernie Sanders. I was just with him on Tuesday. This isn't really what they're talking, right? Well, I mean, maybe one question will come up about impeachment, but they're talking about healthcare.

They're talking about income inequality. They're talking about climate change. And they want to hear about that from these candidates. I think do you have a situation where Elizabeth Warren really sort of set the pace in terms of how you frame the debate with impeachment. And you've had other people try to modify that in some ways.

He seemed to say, oh, we want to impeach. He essentially sounded like Nancy Pelosi. I think at one point he said we should investigate but let's call them -- you know, the Russia proceedings, not impeachment. So, yes --

BASH: It's very much in the Pelosi camp.

HENDERSON: Yes, he's in the Pelosi camp and, you know, some Democrats are.

BASH: So as we talk about him because there are so many candidates and he is a relatively new face on the national scene, we'll put up on the screen a little bit more about Michael Bennet. He's 54 from as I said from Colorado.

[12:35:01] He announced earlier this month. He is moderate because for lots of reasons, but most importantly because that's where he stands but where he represents the state of Colorado.

You mentioned healthcare. That is another area where he's separated himself from the much more progressive candidates who are a supporter of the Medicare for All healthcare plan which would effectively eliminate private insurance. Listen to what he had said about his healthcare plan.

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BENNET: I don't know if you guys remember when we're passing the Affordable Care Act, the whole thing about it, if you like your insurance, you can keep it. Do you remember that? And a few people lost their insurance, and all hell broke loose. And Bernie is proposing that if you like your insurance, we're going to take it away from you.

I think Bernie is wrong to propose it. I think what we should do is give the American people a choice.

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RACHAEL BADE, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: I think it's really fascinating because, number one, even for Democrats who don't fully support Medicare for All, you don't see them go out in such a way and say this is wrong. Bernie Sanders is wrong because the ideas are so popular in the Democratic Party.

At the same time, you know, a few minutes later he said basically my plan is, quote, Medicare for All if you want it. And so I think he realizes that even though he's not supporting it and is criticizing Bernie Sanders he's saying, you know, his healthcare plan would let you buy into Medicare for All but also let you keep private insurance. And I think that really shows how far-left the Democratic field really has shifted because he is one of the moderate candidates out there.

TAMARA KEITH, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, NPR: Yes, and it's not -- that's a very similar position that Pete Buttigieg has. He calls it Medicare for All who want it. There are -- I mean, even when Democrats are saying that they don't support Medicare for All, they're branding it with the language of Medicare for All.

In some ways, Bennet's position is very similar to what Hillary Clinton was arguing in 2016 as it relates to healthcare. Like let people buy into Medicare if they want to, you know. There are still some Democrats running on the Hillary Clinton platform. They're not all running on the Hillary Clinton platform.

BASH: And that's the question, is whether or not there's room for a Michael Bennet, you know, the progressives are wrong in this era, in this 2020 climate.

MICHAEL BENDER, WHITE HOUSE REPORTER, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: Yes. I just don't -- I don't know where Michael Bennet fits in this sort of spectrum of Democratic candidates. Your interview last night with him brought out -- I mean, he's very engaging, he's fun to talk to. He's very personable but, you know, if you look at the field, you have the old candidates, you have the young candidates. You have female candidates, minority candidates, you know, that kind of it's the emo (ph) candidates. But what the -- like what we're still missing here, what I'm not sure is who has the enthusiasm coalition, right?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

BENDER: I mean, none of the vote -- none of the primary voter, wherever they are, if they're very liberal or they're very moderate, you know, we haven't seen where there -- any of these candidates are -- they're particularly energetic about which is how Democrats have won presidential campaigns in the past.

BASH: It's with the heart. And listen, that's why CNN is doing all of these, I guess now almost two dozen town halls to get -- to give voters that sense. And on that note, CNN is hosting more this weekend, three back-to-back-to-back town halls on Sunday. Massachusetts Congressman Seth Moulton at 6 p.m. Eastern, Ohio Congressman Tim Ryan at 7, and California Congressman Eric Swalwell at 8.

Before we go to break, an unfortunate milestone we want to tell you about. It's now been one year, 365 days, without an official Pentagon briefing for reporters. And we don't have any indication of when that will change. We'll be right back.

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[12:43:06] BASH: Topping our political radar today, proof that politics can still make for strange bedfellows, even in these hyper- partisan times. Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Republican Senator Ted Cruz agreed on Twitter to work together to ban former lawmakers from taking paid lobbying positions. Democratic senator and presidential candidate Michael Bennet is on board as well saying on Twitter wait a minute, this was my idea, but I'm for it.

And Senator Elizabeth Warren was on iHeartRadio's "The Breakfast Club" show this morning, a program that has hosted several other 2020 candidates. At one point, one of the co-hosts asked the Democratic presidential candidate about her past claims of Native American ancestry. Here's part of the exchange.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When did you find out you weren't?

SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN (D-MA), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Well, you know, it's -- I'm not a person of color. I'm not a citizen of a tribe.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Were there any benefits to that?

WARREN: No. Boston Globe did a full investigation.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You kind of like the original Rachel Dolezal a little bit. Rachel Dolezal was a white woman pretending to be black.

Warren: Well, this is what I learned from my family.

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BASH: OK. We're back around the table. Nia, we were talking about this during the break.

HENDERSON: Yes, I mean, I thought the Rachel Dolezal comparison was a really low blow. I mean, if you remember this is a woman who painted her skin, you know, darkened her skin and got a perm and passed for a black. She was completely White. And Elizabeth Warren, you know, I sort of put it in the context of Elizabeth Warren, she's from Oklahoma, it's a southern state. You grew up in southern states, a lot of people claim Native American history -- ancestry. Bill Clinton did, Johnny Depp did as well, Billy Ray Cyrus.

So that is -- that's what the family lore is. I think this does remind us of an issue that had been dogging Elizabeth Warren. The president obviously has given her that nickname, but this is the answer she's land on.

[12:45:03] This is what she learned growing up. She grew up in Oklahoma which --

BASH: And she tried to get ahead of this --

HENDERSON: Yes, she did with the DNA test, which of course really made Native Americans mad because that's not the way you determine Native American ancestry and that's what Native American about this as well. They're also annoyed with the fact that she keeps saying she's not a person of color because that also has nothing to do with Native American ancestry or Native American tribal affiliation. It's all about whether or not you're part of a tribe or a nation.

BENDER: And this is just -- I mean, this is the answer she's landed on.

HENDERSON: Yes.

BENDER: The question is whether it's good enough. You know, in the sort of internal struggle, conflict with the Democratic base about who they think can win and who they're excited about. I mean, I don't think anyone sort of represents that better than Warren. And why aren't people more excited about Warren? The answer seems to be this issue.

So until she can find an answer that satisfies the base on this, I mean, whether it's good or not, I mean, she's asked a couple of direct questions in this interview and, frankly, didn't answer them. And now, you know, now it has the risk of becoming, you know, the Iraq question for Jeb Bush or the e-mail question for Hillary Clinton. And, you know, I think it's good for her to keep getting these questions and try to find an answer that will put this to rest for her.

BASH: OK. Another little jump back in the INSIDE POLITICS way back machine because it has been two years, I'm not sure if anyone has answered this question. What does covfefe mean?

Seven hundred and 30 days ago, the President gifted us on Twitter the following. "Who can figure out the true meaning of covfefe?" Have at it, folks. We'll be right back.

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[12:51:27] BASH: Forty-three Democratic members of Congress are now calling for at least an impeachment inquiry to begin. Let's get straight to Capitol Hill. CNN's Phil Mattingly is joining me now.

So as the week is ending, and that number has spiked a bit, what are you hearing from your sources in Democratic leadership about whether or not the pressure is still mounting and whether or not Nancy Pelosi can hold back?

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. So I'll take the latter part of that first and the answer is the speaker is going to continue to hold back and I think the speaker has made this very clear. One of the most interesting parts about the speaker and her position on impeachment is she's been rather transparent about it. She's said kind of the key things that she looks at regarding whether or not to pursue an inquiry multiple times publicly. And I'll take through a couple of them here.

First and foremost is the fact that she believes they need to build a public case. And part of the reason for that is, if you look at the 43 members, the vast majority, if not all of them, don't come from this so-called majority-maker group, the group who in 2018 flipped seats that President Trump won in 2016, flipped seats that were held by Republicans and are the reasons Speaker Nancy Pelosi is, in fact, Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

On the lines of building the public case, she pointed again last night in an interview with Jimmy Kimmel on late-night TV to the Republican- lead Senate. They're going to need at least 20 Republicans to come over and join all Democrats to convict the president if the House is able to impeach him. And at this moment, Dana, as you know well, there are currently zero Senate Republicans who back doing that.

And she also points to the idea that the investigations are ongoing and there is a path. Take a listen to how she said it.

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NANCY PELOSI (D-CA): As we go down this path, the American people will know the truth and the president will be held accountable. But you have to go down that path when you're as ready as you can possibly be, and you don't know that until you go down the path.

JIMMY KIMMEL, "JIMMY KIMMEL LIVE" HOST: Will we be ready before the year 2020?

PELOSI: Yes, we will.

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MATTINGLY: So the timeline is actually interesting. They're acknowledging that they would be able to do something or decide to do something with finality before 2020. That gives them about seven months to work with right now. But Pelosi has maintained her position and House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler who would be responsible for an impeachment inquiry has lined up behind her on this. That there are ongoing investigations, let those investigations play out. And despite what some of their more vocal members have said about impeachment, at least for this point in time they're staying in the course, Dana.

BASH: Phil, thank you so much for that report. Let's look at what has happened visually over the past week.

So, 43 members of the Democratic caucus as I mentioned are now calling for impeachment. Thirty-five were already in that camp before Robert Mueller spoke this week. Three more jumped in after Mueller spoke. Five after Trump spoke reacting to Robert Mueller yesterday.

And what is also interesting is, and Rachael, you've done some reporting on this and Phil was talking about it as well, 52 Congresspeople come from red districts, so districts that Trump won in 2016 and that is no small thing. We've been talking so much about the impact of this in 2020, on the presidential race, but it also is very important as it relates to whether Democrats can keep the House. BADE: That's exactly right. And it's not a point Pelosi talks about a lot. She would prefer to talk about Republicans and how they're not going to, you know --

BASH: Right.

BADE: -- take him out in the Senate but this is a huge concern of hers. And, you know, my colleague and I went out to some of these Trump districts held by Democrats this week and it's incredible to see a totally different political reality where nobody is talking about Mueller, nobody is talking about impeachment. And, you know, my colleague was with Cheri Bustos who heads the Democratic campaign arm at the exact time that Mueller was up at the mic and talking to the television sets, he was with her all day and nobody asked about it, not a single person.

[12:55:06] And the night before I was also with a Democrat in Virginia, Elaine Luria, who flipped a Republican seat to a Democratic seat but which still went for Trump, and I was at the town hall and nobody brought it up and so I went out and I interviewed Democrats there. What do you think the Democratic House should do on impeachment? And all of them except one said that they shouldn't touch it, that it would help Trump, that it would distract from the issues they care about. They are not there and so Pelosi is very cognizant of that and, you know.

BASH: Maybe we should call them the silent majority-makers because that's what they are. And I would just say as we go to break, Matt Cartwright, one of them of Pennsylvania, told CNN on NEW DAY this morning the "I" word he uses is infrastructure. That's what he wants Congress to focus on.

HENDERSON: Infrastructure week.

BASH: Exactly.

All right, everybody, thank you so much. Happy Friday. Thank you for watching INSIDE POLITICS. Brianna Keilar starts after a quick break.

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