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Trump Lashes Out As Dems Prepare for Impeachment Inquiry; Recent Polls Show Tight Race in Three of Four Early States; Trump Impeachment Inquiry Looms Large in Democrats' 2020 Battle; Rudy Giuliani, Bill Barr Both Caught Up in Ukraine Probe. Aired 8-9a ET

Aired September 29, 2019 - 08:00   ET

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

[08:00:12]

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN KING, CNN HOST (voice-over): The call that changed everything, bluntly asking Ukraine for 2020 election help.

REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA): The president of the United States betrayed his oath of office.

KING: Now, a whistle-blower, an impeachment inquiry and a rattled White House.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: No push, no pressure, no nothing. It's all a hoax, folks. It's all a big hoax.

KING: Plus, two new early state polls as impeachment reshapes the 2020 Democratic race.

SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN (D-MA), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: This is our moment in American history.

JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Our job is to make sure, above all else, we beat Donald Trump.

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

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KING: 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.

In the moment, the first look at CNN brand new polling from states three and four in the 2020 primary calendar, that would be Nevada and South Carolina.

But we begin and we'll spend most of the hour ahead on the darkening impeachment cloud over President Trump.

House Democrats now fast tracking their inquiry and there are several important new developments. A subpoena demanding cooperation from the Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, the sudden resignation of Ukraine's special envoy, Kurt Volker, who's a key witness because of his work helping Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani seek political dirt on Joe Biden from a foreign government.

A "Washington Post" report that President Trump back in 2017 told Russian officials he was not concerned about the Kremlin's interference in the 2016 U.S. election; and new CNN reporting that it was not just the president's call with Ukraine that was handled outside normal procedures. White House aides also restricted access and took other steps to keep secret the president's calls with Vladimir Putin and Saudi Arabia's crowned prince.

The president on constant attack against Democrats and against the whistle-blower's whose complaint is now a roadmap for the impeachment inquiry. But Democrats say the president's own words and actions are their best evidence and they say it proves the credibility of the wider White House corruption allegations laid out by the whistleblower before the damning July Ukraine call memo was released. The full Congress now on recess for two weeks but the House Intelligence Committee plans interviews and possibly hearings.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PELOSI: If this -- activity, this pattern of behavior were to prevail and the president continued to ignore that Article Two does not say he can do whatever he wants, then it's over for the republic. We will have the e equivalent of a monarchy. They will take the course of integrity, of deliberation, of fairness, as I think we have done all along by not just responding to people who thought he should be impeached.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: With us this Sunday to share their reporting and their insights, Jackie Kucinich with "The Daily Beast", Vivian Salama of "The Wall Street Journal", CNN's Manu Raju, and "Time's" Molly Ball.

Just as we were coming on air, NBC News releasing a new poll. How serious of a problem is it that President Trump encouraged the Ukrainian president to investigate Joe Biden and his son Hunter? Forty-three percent of Americans say it's very serious, 21 percent say somewhat serious. So, 64 percent say that it's serious, 19 percent not so serious, 17 percent not serious at all.

I mention the polling because the impeachment is not a criminal trial. It's a political trial, if you will.

You heard Nancy Pelosi saying we're going to do this deliberately. What are we going to see in the next week or two?

MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: A lot of behind closed doors. The House Intelligence Committee is staying back as the rest of Congress is on recess over the next two weeks to begin this investigation.

You're probably going to see a lot of letters going out demanding records, records from the White House about these efforts to allegedly conceal this transcript and other transcripts the president was involved with, asked for interviews, not just with the whistle-blower himself or herself, but also other people who may have been involved in this phone call. We already saw subpoenas going out on Friday for five State Department officials to be deposed, to sit down about what they knew about the Ukrainian conversation, as well as a request for records.

Democrats are telling me, John, that they are not going to put up with a prolonged court fight, prolonged battle. We've seen this all year long where the White House has resisted turning over documents, providing testimony. This time they're saying if you don't provide -- agree to comply with our subpoenas, we are going to use that as evidence of article of impeachment of obstruction of Congress.

So, Democrats are moving rapidly. We'll see what evidence they glean. But we want to potentially move forward with articles of impeachment by this fall.

KING: And the last part is a test because the Trump administration on any other inquiry before Congress has essentially said, no, go away. There's been almost zero cooperation, committees in Congress, no matter the issue, not just the Mueller report, other oversight issues.

[08:05:01]

They said, we want these documents, we want these witnesses.

And this White House has adopted what is an unprecedented position by saying, go away. We did not respect your right to have congressional oversight.

So, in that letter, you talk about, this is in the subpoena to Mike Pompeo, the secretary of state. It ends with: Your failure or refusal to comply with the subpoena shall constitute evidence of obstruction of the House's impeachment inquiry, essentially laying down the marker we're not going to court this time. We're not litigating this for months. Cooperate or we make that part of our case.

VIVIAN SALAMA, WHITE HOUSE REPORTER, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: They don't want to have the whole fiasco that we saw with the Mueller investigation that takes months, even years. The president has been adamant this is a witch hunt and he is not a big fan of any kind of disclosures. He used that in his business life and he brought that into the White House as well, where he feels essentially that his staff gets nondisclosure agreements. He doesn't want people going out and talking about things.

But also, he feels that this is part of this whole charade that is framing him. In a way, his campaign especially has been using it because they see that it mobilizes the base and it kind of encourages them to get revved up behind him. But on the other hand, they're actually worried about the potential for this backfiring on him. So there's a lot of hesitation about how to handle it.

JACKIE KUCINICH, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: One of the things they've said is there's no war room. The Clinton impeachment, there was a war room.

And the messaging that they're putting out is also kind of backfiring on them, saying it's hearsay, saying the whistle-blower report was wrong. Actually, the White House is the one that keeps confirming what the whistle-blower account has said, things like the transcript that we saw, other comments they've made of actually putting the conversations between the president and other world leaders into this very classified server. The White House essentially confirmed that as well.

So, the messaging discipline that comes from having a war room -- perhaps they'll assemble one later, because right now, it's not really working out.

KING: So, it turns out facts are facts.

KUCINICH: Right.

KING: You know, in this Washington, that's been hard to prove sometimes.

So we focus in on the details, the depositions, how fast will the Democrats go, what's the mix of behind closed doors, who cooperates. Does -- you know, if you look at the witness list you just put it up there, the Attorney General William Barr, I wouldn't bet on cooperation from him, but we'll see what happens here.

Rudy Giuliani, who has gone back and forth, about he loves being on television. The question is, does he love being under oath before Congress. That could be a very different issue.

And you see these names that you don't know at home, but people who were on the call, people who are part of this, Kurt Volker, for example, who just resigned as Ukraine's special envoy, I've talked to administration officials who are nervous about him, because he's no longer in the administration. He is somebody who had a reputation beforehand.

Does that somebody -- you're looking at an impeachment inquiry, who's who becomes, is there an unlikely voice that becomes a strong witness. So, as we look at the details, we also sometimes try to step back and get the moment.

And, Molly, you captured that well in the cover story in "Time Magazine" that shows the president painting himself into the corner. There has been such sustained chaos throughout Trump's term that it can be hard to determine which outcries to worry about and which to ignore. To the president's critics, a dispute over a weather map is a symptom of a rule of law under siege; even if they're right, the layperson could be forgiven for becoming numb to the constant drumbeat of outrage. But the Ukraine affair has caused something to snap, and not merely because Trump has supplied enough final straws to fill a hayloft.

That final sentence is very important because something did snap in town last week. It became -- not that the Mueller report wasn't serious, not that these other oversight issues, they're not impeachable issues, but these other oversight issues are critical to the balance of power and government and the legitimate right for Congress to look at things but something did snap this past week.

MOLLY BALL, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes, and with the public as well, right? I think the poll you showed earlier in the segment is really fascinating because the talking point we have always heard from the administration and the Trump campaign has been this isn't a kitchen table issue, the public doesn't care. This is all technical and abstract to Joe and Jane Doe at home worrying about their lives.

But actually the American public, two-thirds of the American public thinks this is a serious issue. And that is the messaging challenge for the Trump administration, is can they move the needle by continuing to work the reps and blame the media and do the typical, you know, shuffle of witch hunt and so on, or is this a clear enough picture? And that's part of why Democrats moved forward with this.

Of course, they do think this is serious. They thought the other stuff was serious, too. But this is a very clear and easy to articulate thing that they think that they can bring to the public. And so, the messaging challenge for the Democrats is going to be, when you have a two-weak break that Congress isn't here, when you have these hearings happening behind closed doors, when you have subpoenas flying in a sort of confusing way, can they build that narrative that continues to look bad for the president, or are they thrown off their game because it all gets muddled?

KING: Right, and we'll come back to the president strategy in a minute and what Republicans say about this. The president's strategy is just attack everybody.

But to your point about the Democrats, you talked to a couple of the Democrats who are legitimately nervous about this for political reasons. They may think there's a solid case against the president here, but they have to run in difficult districts. Hear a little bit of that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: Could you vote for articles of impeachment right now?

REP. ANTHONY BRINDISI (D-NY): Not yet. I think that while I find many of the statements in the whistleblower's report disturbing, there's a lot more information that's out there.

[08:10:04]

I think we have to talk to some of these officials that they have listed in the report and see where it goes.

REP. MATT CARTWRIGHT (D-PA): I would vote no right now because we haven't seen all the facts. We have to presume that people are innocent, don't we?

(END VIDEO CLIP) KING: And so the question is, again, we'll come to the president, but can Democrats handle this in a way that their own members come along with?

Number one, if Nancy Pelosi, she wants -- if they're going to vote to impeach, and they're going to vote to impeach, we're on that track right now, can she get an overwhelming vote? Because she's probably not going to get any Republicans. Maybe she gets Justin Amash. We'll see if anyone else comes forward.

But can they handle it seriously? And I ask in the context, show the reservations of those members. You heard the speaker at the top of the show saying, hey, look, I was against this for a long time. I got there for a reason. The facts have changed and we're going to do this deliberately.

But you have some members -- this is Rashida Tlaib selling t-shirts, we're going to impeach the MF. You can figure that out at home. It's Sunday morning. I'm not going to do it for you.

Where that may be fine in her district, but the Democrats are trying to have a national conversation, including with Republicans and independents that this is a worthwhile investigation that could lead to impeachment. That doesn't help.

RAJU: No, it doesn't. And they want to keep this narrowly focused, which is why Nancy Pelosi has made very clear, that she believes this issue will resonate with the public. You hear Democrats say the more we talk about this, even though polls may show people don't want the president impeached, that could change dramatically if this is narrowly focused, if the message is very clear, if this is making a national security issue.

That's why you hear it over and over from Democrats, but ultimately, John, yes, the question is can they get 218 votes on the floor? So, there's not much room for defections. They want to impeach this president.

KING: A fascinating moment.

Up next for us, angry at times and sullen in others. The mindset and mood swings of a president facing now the very real prospect of impeachment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: It was the president himself who decided this past week to declassify and make public what is now exhibit A in the Democrats' impeachment inquiry, the White House memo detailing his July call with the Ukraine president and President Trump's blunt effort to get foreign election help. And it was an inspector general appointed who deemed the whistle-blower complaint alleging broader Trump corruption to be both credible and urgent.

But the president wants you to see him as the victim here of a smear orchestrated by Democrats and the deep state. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: It's ridiculous. It's a witch hunt. I'm leading in the polls and they have no idea how they stop me. The only way they can try is through impeachment.

So many leaders came up to me today and said, sir, what you go through no president has ever gone through and it's so bad for your country.

And it should never be allowed what's happened to this president.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: And so here you are, I covered a White House when the president was impeached by the House and whatever your politics at home, it sends a chill through the White House. Aides are worried about seeing subpoenaed. Aides are worried about legal costs.

You mentioned before, do they have a war room? We have seen in recent days not just the president's anger at Democrats trying to undermine the credibility of the whistle-blower, whose credibility so far has held up 100 percent, but talk that he's mad at his chief of staff for not having a plan to deal with all of this.

[08:15:14]

His campaign says we're raising a boot load of money but no president, no president wants to be impeached.

SALAMA: You know, Molly was just talking in the previous segment about the shift in public opinion on this. I'm sensing a shift from White House officials on this definitely compared to the Mueller investigation. I'm talking to officials who are nervous, who are debating whether or not releasing the transcript was a wise idea. We know that that's been an argument now for the last two weeks and even after it was released they're still debating it.

I spoke to one person who is a former White House counsel official from this White House, Republican, career Republican this whole time, and he was telling me, you know, this is bad. This is really bad.

And the issue is we keep on talking about a quid pro quo, did President Trump offer a quid pro quo and I think that was a big part of the defense of why we can release the transcript? There was no blatant qui pro, and so, they felt like it was fine. But this official was saying it's not about that, it's about abuse of executive power. And in that official's mind, it was very clear there and the White House staff feeling that.

KING: And the memo of the call is one piece of a month-long puzzle. There was an earlier call when the Ukrainian president won the election. This was a call after he won parliamentary elections. Before and in-between and after, there are all these Giuliani meetings.

So, the White House can say there was no quid pro quo, no direct "do this or else you don't get the aid", but he raised the aid several times. He talked about reciprocation. So, you can see this the other way if you so choose.

RAJU: Yes, and, look, one of the arguments that you've heard from Republicans is that the president is the one that brought up Joe Biden first in the call. The call transcript does show that the president did actually say that Joe Biden, he asked him specifically, the Ukrainian president to investigate Joe Biden and his son. The first person he mentioned was Biden in the transcript.

It underscores the challenge that Republicans have had in messaging and defending the president's conduct in the aftermath of the release of the call memo, as well as the whistleblower complaint, initially running into before the president released the transcript he was getting urged from the Senate majority leader, I'm told and others to release the call transcript because the president defended it as, quote, a perfect call. But when it came out, it made things a lot more difficult to message and that's why you've seen Republicans running away from this when asked about it.

KING: And that's a great point because the Democrats are going to proceed. Once speaker Pelosi decided to make this an official impeachment inquiry, there's no out for the Democrats now. Their base would implode if they didn't take it to the finish line.

The question is, do any Republicans crack? And you have some Republicans who say -- who just -- it doesn't matter. They just say, forget it. There's nothing here. It's Democratic partisan (ph).

We have a lot of Republicans saying I don't think this is impeachable but there are questions that need to be answered and those are the Republicans we need to watch to see if they change their mind. The president trying to keep them loyal as he always does. More than 100 tweets in the past week. We can just put some of them up on the screen about the investigation.

This is what the president does. And he's not dealing that often with the substance. It's mostly presidential harassment, trying to make this a Democrat/Republican issue to try to get Republicans to stay in the tribal corner.

KUCINICH: And making the cynical argument that thing that other things aren't going to get through because of this, things like gun control, which -- let's be real, that was never going to happen anyway.

But, you know, the other thing, I just wanted to jump off of what Manu said about Republicans, they also were kept in the dark about why the Ukrainian aid was being held up. They know that happened and now we know why. So, that also has presented a bit of -- how they explain that, because they were urging it to be released. They helped approve it.

So, yes, that's problem attic. And the president doesn't really drop things, so he's going to keep bringing this up over and over again, whether or not public opinion is with him. KING: Not only does -- does he not drop things, but you see -- he is

in some ways, the most transparent politician we have, in the sense that -- and I raise in the contest of -- the House is tribal, the House is for Trump. The Senate, there's a lot of Republicans who've been for Trump, but because of this, they're just afraid of him. They don't like him. They don't agree with him on a lot of policy issues, but they've seen his power with the Republican base.

But they have to run statewide. They have to appeal to the suburbs where the Democrats have some strength. They don't like when the president walks into a room of U.S. diplomats, brings this up and calls a whistle-blower who is trying to file a complaint against the United States government, that's allowed under the law, calls him a spy and then says this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Basically, that person never saw the report, never saw the call, never saw the call, heard something and decided that he or she, whoever the hell it is, almost a spy. I want to know who is the person that gave the whistle-blower, who is the person that gave the whistle-blower the information? Because that's close to a spy.

You know what we used to do in the old days when we were smart, right, with spies and treason? We used to handle it a little differently than we do now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: I mean, I'd say, brace for this for months, in the sense that everything the president said about the whistle-blower was wrong.

[08:20:01]

Well, what we have so far, maybe something the whistle-blower filed will be proven not to be true. But on the big issues, the Ukraine call, the transcript released by the president, the rough transcript, backs it up.

On the idea that they take some sensitive conversations and hide them in a different server, the White House lawyers themselves, the president's own staff has confirmed the whistle-blower is right. Whistle-blowers are patriots. The president calls this whistleblower a spy, treason, says we handled it a different way in the old days. That's a threat.

SALAMA: One of the interesting things I keep on hearing from White House officials is that in the last couple of months, the president has been really emboldened and they are seeing it in his actions because he believes he was exonerated in the Mueller investigation. And so, now, he's kind of pushing forward with some of these more bombastic accusations and contact that we're seeing now. And so, it's something that everybody around him is noticing and concerned about.

KING: It's a different president than last time. This president is not going to be quiet. Bill Clinton was sometimes quiet during his. Understood, leave it the staff, leave it to the lawyers.

BALL: Well, and that's part of the case the Democrats are making us as well, right, is that this idea that the president has, that he has complete impunity and can't ever be held accountable is part of the reason that they feel they need to move forward on impeachment, because if there is no meaningful check from Congress or anywhere else, they fear that the president's lawlessness only gets worse and worse, and that's underscored by the fact that this call happened the day after the Mueller hearing.

KING: I should note, Twitter didn't exist back in those days. I don't know what it would have been like if it had it, yikes.

OK. Up next for us, our Sunday Trail Mix, including the first look at brand new CNN polling on the 2020 race among the Democrats in Nevada and South Carolina.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:25:24]

KING: More on the impeachment debate in just a moment.

To our Sunday trail mix now for a taste of the developments in the 2020 campaign, including brand new this morning, two CNN polls looking at the Democratic nomination chase in the critical early states of Nevada and South Carolina.

Let's take a look at the numbers. This Nevada, caucus, up third on the calendar.

Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders at 22 percent each, Elizabeth Warren at 18 percent. So, three candidates essentially in a statistical tie at the top of the pack in Nevada. Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg and Tom Steyer making 4 percent in the lower tier here, but you have a three- way race at the top of the pack in Nevada.

Let's move, voting fourth is South Carolina. Here Joe Biden still has a healthy lead, more than 20 points there over Elizabeth Warren, 37 percent for the former vice president, 16 percent for Elizabeth Warren, and Bernie Sanders third at 11 percent. And then the same three trailing them but in single digits, Mayor Buttigieg, Senator Harris and businessman Tom Steyer.

A big lead for the vice president there, South Carolina his fire wall state. Why is that happening? Largely because of the former vice president's support among African-American voters.

Forty-five percent of black voters in South Carolina are with Joe Biden. Bernie Sanders is second at 13 percent, you see the numbers here. Among white voters a tie between Biden and Warren there. The rest of the candidates fill out.

So I want to pop ahead and look at what we've learned. What have we learned in the last week? Last Sunday, we were talking about the CNN Iowa poll, Sanders, Biden close race there. Monmouth had a poll this week in the second state, New Hampshire,

Sanders -- Warren, I'm sorry, Biden, close race there. Now, we have Nevada which goes third, close race there. And South Carolina, a Biden lead.

Studying the history of presidential politics, though, yes, Joe Biden has the South Carolina fire wall right now, but these results in South Carolina are often influenced by what happens in the early states. So, you look at this race right now, a much more competitive state-by- state Democratic race than maybe the national poll suggests to you.

So, it is fascinating as we go forward. And as we do, up next, we'll talk about it -- how the 2020 Democrats navigate this new impeachment terrain out on the campaign trail.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:30:55]

JOHN KING, CNN HOST: Welcome back.

There is no roadmap for this, though Beto O'Rourke does have a suggested offramp.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BETO O'ROURKE (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The single best thing to bring the country together would be Donald Trump's resignation.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: We have never had to navigate a presidential race in the thick of an impeachment investigation.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PETE BUTTIGIEG (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The discipline that will be required of anybody running for president is to speak to the news of the day, to speak to the urgency of the processes happening in Washington and at the very same time focus on what's going to impact people's everyday lives.

SENATOR ELIZABETH WARREN (D-MA), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: There are a whole lot of issues that people want to talk about out here. They want to talk about health care. They want to talk about education. They want to talk about foreign policy.

This is the chance to hear from them about what they want to talk about.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: This is, of course, quite personal for Joe Biden as we learn more and more about how the President and his team lobbied Ukraine for dirt on Biden and his son Hunter.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: After 70 straight polls have shown me beating him, I think -- It is not surprising that I become the object of his attention.

It's not about me. We'll overcome this. This is fine. My family will handle this. But I'm worried about all the families and all the lives that are at stake in this election because of his failure as a president in terms of the substance of what needs to be done.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: We do have no roadmap for this but let's start there. Joe Biden says, and it's true, that a lot of things said by the President, said by Rudy Giuliani, said by and Trump allies about Hunter Biden are not true -- are not true. And they get the timeline of Joe Biden asking for the Ukrainian prosecutor to be fired wrong sometimes.

But the "Washington Post" has a great piece on it today. There's a lot of good journalism about it. Hunter Biden was a consultant, making money overseas as many people with famous last names or with the title of former congressman and senator.

I would note as they make these attacks, as Rudy Giuliani does, it raises a lot of money, makes a lot of money, and his consulting, his security firm from overseas interests.

That part is fair game. They take a lot of it out of context but how does Joe Biden navigate this?

MOLLY BALL, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, this has been a debate inside the Biden campaign as we reported in the cover that you showed, and there's different camps. There's some camp of Biden advisers who are hopeful that this actually sort of causes Democrats to rally around him. Something we know about Joe Biden is he is very well loved by the Democratic Party, still viewed with a lot of affection.

So do Democrats look at this and say this is our beloved Uncle Joe, we can't let this happen to him. We can't let them attack him like this.

But its' certainly also possible that the opposite happens. That, as you say, this sort of cloud of dirt starts to surround his candidacy in the same way that the email situation became something that Hillary Clinton couldn't shake and that no amount of facts could dissuade people from seeing as just sort of this ambient stain of the swamp.

And I think that was a risk with Hunter Biden's business dealings before this became a Trump scandal because of all of the enterprises that Biden's family has been involved in.

And so, you know, wo when you have the President trying to make that the issue, when you have the words Biden and corruption in the same headline over and over again, do voters start to say well, even if this isn't his fault, let's try to go for someone who doesn't have to deal with that issue.

KING: Right.

BALL: And that's I think what we're going to see in the sort of next round of Democratic polling and Democratic debates, is Biden able to put this at rest in a way that actually helps the campaign?

KING: Right. It's a great point, because politics is about winning and the other candidates, there's a lot of affection for Joe Biden, even people who are voting for other candidates among the Democrats. The question is what do the other candidates do.

And I ask it in the context of they're competitive people, right? In 1988 the first person to mention Willy Horton was Al Gore, not the Bush campaign against Michael Dukakis.

M.J. Lee asked Elizabeth Warren -- an issue here?

[08:35:00]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

M.J. LEE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The President has gone after Joe Biden and his son. Do you think his conduct, his business dealings, Hunter Biden's should be off limits in this campaign?

WARREN: I believe that this issue is about Donald Trump and that's where we need to keep our focus. He is the President of the United States and he has solicited a foreign government to interfere in our 2020 election.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Very direct answer there. Kamala Harris, asked a similar question yesterday, she said she would probably not was her answer, allow her vice president's children to be involved in any international consulting. But then she quickly said this is not about Joe Biden, this is about Donald Trump.

JACKIE KUCINICH, WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF, THE DAILY BEAST: Well, I mean, Elizabeth Warren in particular has been very careful not to attack Joe Biden. It might be because she's seen other people try it and it sort of backfire on them long term.

So right now we are seeing the Democratic field step away from this and then put the focus back on Trump because I think there's an awareness that if they get mired in this attack on Joe Biden and voters -- to Molly's point -- they decide they want to protect him, they could end up having a political problem themselves.

KING: And what is the broader context of how do you do it? Especially if you're a more struggling candidate or somebody in the middle of the pack. Bernie Sanders right now, he has base. He's going to be in this race for the entire duration because of his loyal base. But if you look at the polls right now, he's running third in most places, trying to figure out a path to victory.

He had a pretty clever way to do this over the weekend, trying to race money. He says we're going to beat Donald Trump or Mike Pence -- whoever they put up. Bernie Sanders put a tweet out about that. You know, it was kind of a little bit clever -- hope we could show that to you.

How does a candidate, if the national conversation is all about impeachment -- and you're in Nevada, you're in South Carolina, you're in Iowa, you're in New Hampshire -- how do you deal with it?

MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It's a challenge because the Democratic base wants President Trump impeached and removed from office tomorrow. You know, they don't want the equivocating. They let -- one reason why Elizabeth Warren has been successful in connecting to the base is that she was one of the first people who came out very aggressively for impeachment. She got a lot of attention and a lot of the voters like that kind of fire power from a candidate.

But at the same time as we've seen from polling -- more moderate voters, swing voters, people in other parts of the country are not there yet. So it is going to be a constant balancing act for these candidates to appease to the base and also not show that they're just only focused on one thing -- impeachment.

They've got to talk about the issues, too. It's going to be a challenge as this eats up all the time here in Washington.

VIVIAN SALAMA, WHITE HOUSE REPORTER, "WALL STREET JOURNAL": Well, and potentially one that could backfire, right? Because when they become more and more unified in their message as we lead up to the primaries, all of a sudden you start to forget why these candidates are different in the first place.

If the one unified message is let's impeach Donald Trump, how are you different from him? And a lot of voters are just chiming into this campaign in the next couple of months and they're going to want to understand these candidates for their individual policies and not to this one message. And so it could get confusing.

RAJU: But the one thing, too is also the views are so baked in about Trump too, that a lot of Democrats --

KING: Democratic primary though --

RAJU: -- exactly. So, you know, if you're on both sides of the aisle, so if you're pushing for impeachment it's probably not going to change how voters view you.

KING: It is. You always have to remember there's two dramas playing out at once. The Democratic primary comes first to pick a candidate. Then you've got to run in a general election. So the things you say in a primary when you've got to win Independents and hopefully maybe win over some 2016 Trump voters, that's what makes this delicate and interesting as we go forward.

Up next for us, Rudy Giuliani's outsized role in this Ukraine scandal. But as we go to break -- a lights out moment for Mayor Pete Buttigieg, literally. But thanks to life's new technology like cell phones, the speech keeps going.

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BUTTIGIEG: No, this is how we used to do politics. You just have to go --

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KING: Beyond the President himself, two of his most trusted advisers now central to the impeachment inquiry -- his personal attorney Rudy Giuliani and the Attorney General of the United States William Barr.

Barr, Democrats allege, takes a see-no-evil approach to every presidential action even when other season attorneys like the intelligence community inspector general, for example, raised big concerns.

Giuliani is central to the foundation of the impeachment case. He has admitted pushing Ukraine for election dirt and admitted to pushing the State Department to help him.

18 years ago, you see him on the cover of "Time's Person of the Year" for his leadership role as New York City mayor after the horrible September 11th attacks.

Now he's on the New Yorker's cover in a very different context. Turn on cable TV and you will see Giuliani always animated and almost always twisting the truth.

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RUDY GIULIANI, TRUMP PERSONAL ATTORNEY: Shut up. Shut up.

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GIULIANI: Shut up. You don't know what you're talking about. You don't know what you're talking about, idiot.

(CROSSTALKING)

GIULIANI: Joe Biden can be involved in bribery and Joe Biden's son can get $1.5 billion from China and you won't cover it and you want to cover some ridiculous charge that I urged the Ukrainian government to investigate corruption. Well, I did and I'm proud of it.

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KING: I just want to note again, he twists the truth about Hunter Biden's business practices. Hunter Biden was involved in some business deals in China. Rudy Giuliani himself, he always forgets to mention, makes a lot of money off international clients, some of them use the Internet -- not exactly people you might invite to dinner.

But let's get back to the substance of it. He's the President's star representative, if you will, on television. Is he helping or hurting?

RAJU: A lot of people believe hurting, but the President seems to think that he's helping, otherwise the President probably would have severed ties with him and Giuliani could be integral out there.

The question for me is how do Democrats approach Rudy Giuliani, given his central role here in this whistleblower complaint, and it's obviously a big interest for Democrats? Do they bring him up for a public hearing which, of course, could turn into an absolute circus and something that Democrats may actually want to avoid.

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RAJU: But they also need information from him. So they'll probably ask for information. However, how hard do they push to get him I think is another question.

KING: Does he have a compass, if you will? He was going to give a paid speech this week, he had to cancel it when it became public, in a Kremlin group. Putin was going to be there. Rudy Giuliani in the middle of all of this was going to take money from Russians and be in the presence of Putin. And he's saying Hunter Biden is corrupt. Hello?

BALL: Well, one of the things that I think that the President and Rudy Giuliani see in each other is a sense of shamelessness. If they cared at how all of this looked they wouldn't be where they are today and that is something that makes a lot of other Republicans nervous.

One of the -- one of the -- we've been asking the White House, you know, for months what are you doing to prepare for possible impeachment and they've basically laughed in our faces like the Democrats they're not going to do that. And that means that now a lot of people in the Republican Party fear that they're being hung out to dry by a White House whose strategy for messaging consists of having Rudy Giuliani go on TV and yell at people, which might be insufficient once things get more serious.

And you know Giuliani's position is also a very strange one. He's not a public official in any kind of nominated, confirmed or even hired by the government position. He's supposedly the President's lawyer but he's been acting pro bono which may or may not even be legal. He's been doing this sort of freelance foreign policy.

KING: May or may not get him a privilege.

BALL: Exactly because when, you know, when he wants to keep things quiet he says it's privileged but when he doesn't he says I'm not being a lawyer here. And so there's a lot, I think, of questions about Giuliani's role and the question is going to be is he someone who also gets called in and held accountable as a part of this process? Or does he at some point get thrown under the bus? KING: Right. In the public -- court of public opinion he confuses

people. He throws out allegations that are simply not true or at least not proven, and that works -- confusing people.

And if the Democrats are disciplined in an impeachment case and put him in the chair where they can counter him with documents and facts and other witnesses -- that's a whole different place.

SALAMA: It is a different place. At the same time Rudy Giuliani in his past life was also a very skilled prosecutor. And he also may -- you know, he may surprise Democrats and may kind of come out swinging as well.

And so I think the Democrats should probably be cautious in their efforts to kind of corner him. Of course, like you say if it's just a matter of facts then they'll probably be ok.

One issue, though, and I want to just touch upon something Molly said is that Rudy Giuliani, the President and even people in the administration whenever Giuliani acts -- his conduct strays from the ethical norms of the administration, they say well, he's representing the President in his personal capacity. But at the end of the day, he's been acting in ways that are really concerning a lot of people within the administration, stretching national security protocols.

KING: And the use of taxpayer funded operations, like the State Department -- that's what's going to get him in trouble. Rudy Giuliani is not operating on his own. He's operating with help of people inside the government. That's where the Democrats are going to look.

Our reporters share from their notebooks next, including the Democratic presidential candidates on a last-minute dash for cash this weekend. Check your emails.

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KING: Let's head one last 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.

Jackie.

KUCINICH: So front line Dems have been told to focus on Ukraine when they're talking about impeachment, keeping it simple. But they've also been told to keep their public events, keep these town halls that have already been on the books in their districts. And so far we're seeing that they are.

Of the 70 plus town halls that are scheduled over this recess, only nine are Republicans and only one is a Republican senator. And more broadly Senate Democrats are -- excuse me -- House Democrats have really embraced the town hall format which has kind of gone by the wayside since the Tea Party days when constituents were using them to yell at numbers.

98 percent of the freshmen Democrats have had a town hall since they were elected and 51 percent of Republicans. We'll see if this holds as 2020 continues, but for now it seems to be back.

KING: Getting yelled at is part of democracy. They should all do them.

Vivian.

SALAMA: Guys, guess what else happened last week? The U.N. General Assembly -- in case you've forgotten. And one of the big story lines that was going on there before all the impeachment news came out was whether or not Trump would meet with Iran's President Rouhani who did show up.

Behind the scenes, President Macron of France was trying desperately to get them to me. And he was proposing all kinds of options including having Trump approve a European credit line to Iran, having him hold off on sanctions, all the while have Iran promise to basically not to do any nuclear enrichment for five months and that way we get them to the table.

These talks are still ongoing and its' important to watch because this would something very important in the non-impeachment kind of news. President Trump seems open to the idea, although the White House is saying that they're never going to relent on sanctions. But if this Macron plan works out we might see a meeting in a couple of months, who knows?

KING: We'll give him an A plus for trying and we'll see if he can get to the finish line.

SALAMA: Exactly.

KING: Manu.

RAJU: John -- there's been virtually no bipartisan legislating this Congress and we've seen things like bipartisan bills such as on guns and that's sort of fallen off the radar on Capitol Hill.

But there's still the possibility of getting one bipartisan bill done this Congress. That is the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement -- the new NAFTA agreement that is still being actively considered by House Democrats.

On Friday there was a meeting with the Democratic working group led by the House Ways and Means Chairman Richard Neal. It's with Robert Lighthizer, the President's top trade representative. And it's been described as a positive meeting.

There's a major push among these members in the House to try to get something done. The Speaker herself is keeping open the option of moving this some time these year. And a number of these Democrats who are now open to the notion of impeaching particularly ones who come from Trump districts need -- are looking for a bipartisan win and they're kind of pushed this from going -- to go forward.

And the time line almost coincides with impeachment, so you can almost see a split screen here of the President getting impeached by the House but also potentially getting a bipartisan achievement some time this fall. So we'll see what happens.

KING: We live in interesting times.

Molly.

BALL: Well, this week, tomorrow in fact is the third quarter fund- raising deadline which could be a real make-or-break for a lot of the 2020 candidates. This still enormous field of Democrats could be winnowed by this deadline depending on whether they're able to raise enough money to stay in the race.

[08:54:51]

BALL: We've had some campaigns, notably Cory Booker, sounding the alarm about this a couple of weeks ago, setting a seemingly low target, maybe intentionally, in order to seem to beat expectations.

But some of these campaigns it's more than just a barometer to sort of show how much enthusiasm they're getting. It, in a very real sense, is going to determine whether they can keep their campaigns alive.

And so we could see further winnowing of the field based on those third quarter fundraising received. And we'll also have a sense and I think, you know, also for the leading candidates, for a candidate like Joe Biden, can he keep up the fund-raising pace? Are the donors still committed to him given that there are some signs that his campaign may be faltering in other ways.

KING: Big test for the next few days, costs a lot of money to run for president.

I'm going to close with a look at what has been an interesting week, to put it mildly for the McCain family. Cindy McCain, this past week, criticized the Arizona Republican Party and that said it's possible, in her view, that a Democrat carries Arizona for president in 2020. In that same interview with Politico Mrs. McCain also made clear her affection for Joe Biden, a long time McCain family friend. Daughter Meghan McCain also spoke highly of Biden in an interview with Bravo.

Contrast that Biden affection from Cindy and Meghan McCain with the spotlight now on the executive director of the institute named after the late Senator John McCain. That would be Kurt Volker who was also President Trump's special envoy to Ukraine.

Volker is now a star impeachment inquiry witness because Rudy Giuliani says he has text messages to back it up that Volker helped him arrange meetings with Ukrainian officials where Giuliani sought dirt on that same McCain family friend Joe Biden.

Volker resigned his special envoy job Friday. Look for an announcement from Arizona State University where the McCain Institute is headquartered as soon as tomorrow about Volker's fate at that institute.

That's it for INSIDE POLITICS. Hope you can catch us weekdays as well. We're here at noon Eastern.

Up next, don't go anywhere -- a very busy "STATE OF THE UNION WITH JAKE TAPPER". His guests include Congressmen Hakeem Jeffries and Jim Jordan, plus Senator and presidential candidate Cory Booker.

Thanks again for sharing your Sunday. Have a great day.

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