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Democrats Quicken Pace of Impeachment Push; Trump: Not Our Job to Guard Turkey-Syria Border; Democrats Prepare to Take the Stage in Biggest Debate Ever; Is Giuliani In or Out?. Aired 8-9a ET

Aired October 13, 2019 - 08:00   ET

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

[08:00:13]

NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN HOST: Welcome to INSIDE POLITICS. I'm Nia- Malika Henderson, in today for John King. Thanks for spending part of your Sunday with us.

Ahead, Democrats moving forward with their impeachment probe at light speed, issuing a flurry of subpoenas last week and planning multiple depositions in the days ahead.

Plus, two days to go until the CNN/New York Times Democratic debate. Is Elizabeth Warren ready for the onslaught that is sure to come her way? And can Bernie Sanders reassure voters he's healthy enough to be president?

And some of President Trump's top allies in Congress are furious over his decision to withdraw U.S. troops from Northern Syria, allowing the Turkish military to attack America's Kurdish allies.

But the president revealing no regrets over his decision.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I don't think our soldiers should be there for the next 50 years guarding a border between Turkey and Syria when we can't guard our own borders at home. I don't think so.

It's a long ways away. We killed ISIS, we defeated, we did our job. We have to go home. We did our job.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HENDERSON: But we'll start with the impeachment debate. We've learned a lot over the past 48 hours about what led to President Trump's controversial July call with the new Ukrainian president when Trump asked him to, quote, do us a favor by investigating the 2016 election and a state-owned gas company linked to Joe Biden's son.

On Friday, the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine told Congress she believes she was removed last spring after a concerted campaign led by Rudy Giuliani and supported by the president himself. Democrats who were in the room for the closed-door testimony say she painted a damning picture of Trump administration foreign policy. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. PATRICK SEAN MALONEY (D-NY): Every fact that comes out and every credible witness like the ambassador who comes forward courageously, corroborates the core facts that paint a very devastating picture of abuse of power. When Mr. Giuliani showed up representing the interests of now indicted private citizens who were trying to make money and representing the political interest of the president, who was trying to gin up an investigation against the Bidens, that's when she had to be removed. They had to get her out of the way.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HENDERSON: And then last night, "The Washington Post" reported a key witness is ready to clarify a text message he wrote denying a quid pro quo with Ukraine, U.S. ambassador to the European Union, Gordon Sondland, was heavily involved in efforts to convince the Ukrainian government to announce the investigation President Trump was seeking.

You'll remember Sondland from this text exchange with a senior U.S. diplomat in Kiev: As I said on the phone, I think it's crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a political campaign, wrote Bill Taylor, and Sondland responded several years later: Bill, I believe you are incorrect about President Trump's intentions. The president has been crystal clear, no quid pro quos of any kind.

Now, "The Post" quoting a person familiar with Sondland's planned testimony says Sondland will tell Congress it's only true that the president said it, not that it was the truth. "The Post" says Sondland would say he doesn't know first hand whether it's true or not. Sondland is, of course, scheduled to testify behind closed doors on Thursday, one of several planned depositions this week, which also brings sidelines for administration officials to turn over subpoenaed documents to Congress.

So buckle up. Another wild, wild week is ahead of us.

And joining us now with their reporting and their insights, we've got Julie Pace of "The Associated Press", Tarini Parti of "The Wall Street Journal", "The Washington Post's" Rachael Bade, and Josh Dawsey also of "The Washington Post". Josh Dawsey, I should say.

Thank you all for being here.

This has been a wild, sort of, I guess three weeks so far. Lots of information coming. Josh, I'm going to go to you o this.

Talk about what we learned from the closed-door testimony from Marie Yovanovitch, how that fits into the larger puzzle in what we may see going forward from Bill Sondland, as well as from a number of other people we'll hear from going forward.

JOSH DAWSEY, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: So what we learned from Yovanovitch, the ambassador that was deposed in Ukraine, was essentially what we thought happened all along, but we heard from her directly that there was a concerted campaign by Rudy Giuliani and others to push her out of a job, to convince the president that she was disloyal, that she did not need to be overseas for the administration.

What Giuliani and others accuse is that she was blocking witnesses from coming forward to them, to give evidence, that they wanted for their investigation.

[08:05:02]

She, of course, has denied those accusations and her picture showed a foreign policy that was run outside usual channels, run by the president's lawyer, run by other associates, not run traditionally.

What we're expecting to see from Gordon Sondland, as my colleagues reported last night, is he's backing away from that explicit text message.

He's saying, I talked to the president directly. The president told me that. I'm conveying the words of the president. I can't say were those words actually true or not. This is just what the president told me.

And that's a key revelation.

He has been caught up in this somewhat inexplicably. He was the ambassador to the European Union, and then all of a sudden this summer, he was working with the Ukrainian officials on a statement that was promise investigations. He was working with Kurt Volker, he was working with Rudy Giuliani. He was talking to the president

He is a key witness in all of this. I think what we're going to see from him this week are, you know, a bid to show that his actions were a little more nuanced and complicated than they may appear and to make sure he doesn't become the fall guy.

HENDERSON: Right, and we'll see how the president reacts to this reporting that's coming out about what he's going to say. What we do know is the president essentially has the same strategy with this investigation that he had with the Mueller investigation.

Here he was Friday talking about what he thinks of this impeachment inquiry.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: They know they can't win an election day, so they're pursuing an illegal, invalid and unconstitutional bullshit impeachment.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HENDERSON: Sorry about that, some vulgar language there. My mom will not be happy to hear that.

How long can they do this, right? I mean, this is a tactic we saw laid out in the eight-page letter to Nancy Pelosi, as well as the chairman of the other committees and it's also a familiar tactic that we saw from the Mueller --

JULIE PACE, WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF, ASSOCIATED PRESS: Yes, I don't think you're going to see much change from the president.

HENDERSON: Right.

PACE: You know, his lesson from Mueller is -- and really from his political career is attacking works, try to discredit the investigations, try to discredit whoever your opponent is and paint it as politically motivated. I do think that one piece of that, you know, if you strip away some of the vulgarity, one piece of what he's saying may have resonance with some more moderate voters, some more moderate Republicans, which is the idea of Democrats trying to use a political process to invalidate an election.

That is something that Democratic lawmakers on the Hill have to work on in their argument, making the case that what the president did is so serious that they have to take this step. It's not just because they don't like him and they're trying to remove him.

HENDERSON: And the other thing you hear Republicans saying is, listen, why don't they take a vote on this to make it more official? You saw that laid out in the letter.

Still not a sense that they would necessarily cooperate, the White House, if there was a formal impeachment inquiry vote.

Rachael, is that something you expect that Nancy Pelosi to do? What's the calculus for her?

RACHAEL BADE, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes, not at this point. I mean, clearly, the calculus here is to try to divert attention from the substance of the allegation to the process. And, you know, past impeachments of American presidents, there was an official vote to begin the impeachment inquiry. But the House, they set their own rules. And unless we see a federal judge say otherwise, I mean, they are arguing in court that they're on an impeachment inquiry and that they should get all these documents that the White House is withholding.

If a judge says you need to have a vote in order to get those documents, then I think they would do something like this. Other than that, they think this is just sort of Trump and the Republicans diverting attention. They're not going to take the bait.

HENDERSON: And something else they have to decide is how narrow to keep this. Some Democrats I've talked to have said, listen, make it big and broad rather than making it a narrow decision.

And here was Jon Favreau from "God Save America" talking about what he thinks Democrats should do.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

JON FAVREAU, FORMER OBAMA SPEECHWRITER: If the argument for impeachment is that this is a serious abuse of power and it's not the first time he's abused his power, it's not some one-off incident it was an accident or whatever else, I think it's important to build a case that Trump has been abusing the power of the presidency over and over for personal, political and financial gain.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

HENDERSON: It seems like more information is coming out even beyond Ukraine, the Democrats have to decide what their tactic is here.

TARINI PARTI, NATIONAL POLITICS REPORTER, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: I think the scope of how broad the Democrats want to go on this will be something to look out for. But if you are on the campaign trail, I was in Iowa just earlier this week, when you talk to voters they actually understand the complexity of what happened with the Ukraine investigation and they kind of bring up the Mueller investigation on their own and say how that got sort of out of control and they couldn't keep up with it.

But this seems more clear-cut. This seems something that voters can actually follow. So I heard from a lot of undecided Democrats saying that they were actually in favor of the Democrats in the House pushing forward on a narrower scope.

HENDERSON: And Republicans having to decide how they respond, they're of course home in their districts and they'll be back this coming week. This was Senator Lamar Alexander, of course, out of Tennessee, here's what he had to say: It is inappropriate for the president to be talking with foreign governments about investigating his political opponents, but impeachment would be a mistake.

[08:10:10]

An election which is just around the corner is the right way to decide who should be president.

And we also heard from Cory Gardner locked in this tough race in Colorado. Here's what he had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. CORY GARDNER (R-CO): This is what we're going to get into. The Senate Intelligence Committee is having a bipartisan investigation.

REPORTER: But is it --

GARDNER: I've answered your question.

REPORTER: No, you didn't. It's a yes or no.

REPORTER: It's a yes or no.

GARDNER: Well, here's what we see in the House of Representatives. You see a very partisan process taking place.

REPORTER: But the question is, is it appropriate for a president --

GARDNER: I think we're going to have an investigation and it's a nonpartisan investigation.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HENDERSON: Senator Gardner not wanting to answer the question.

PACE: I think it was really interesting is those are two Republicans in very different positions. Lamar Alexander is retiring, Cory Gardner is up for reelection in a competitive state. And, yes, their rhetoric is slightly different. Alexander saying what Trump did is wrong but not impeachable, Gardner doing everything he can to avoid the question.

But ultimately, neither of them is walking away from Donald Trump and that's all Trump needs to know right now. His party is still with him.

DAWSEY: And are the Republicans -- I'm sorry, are the Republicans willing to say this is bad conduct but it's not impeachable conduct. The question is, is the president and his team willing to revoke (ph) that criticism? Even Mitt Romney last weekend who got repeated attacks from the president on Twitter did not call for the president's impeachment.

And the president is sending a signal the way he attacked Mitt Romney, some of his public him, if you criticize me on this, 85 percent, 95 percent of the party is with me, and I will go after you and there will be repercussion.

HENDERSON: And you saw Tucker Carlson lay this out, right, in an op- ed, essentially saying there's no way to defend this, saying it's bad essentially, but not call for impeachment.

RACHAEL BADE, CNN POLITCAL ANALYST: Yes, but not impeachable.

HENDERSON: Yes.

BADE: Would Trump actually go along with that? No, of course he won't.

HENDERSON: Right.

BADE: But no, I think --

DAWSEY: It was a perfect phone call.

HENDERSON: Yes.

BADE: When it comes to the Republicans, though, I mean, I think this is one of the reasons why the Dems want to focus on Ukraine. The more they investigate, the more that Republicans can say it's a witch hunt. If you look at the past ten months, I mean, Mueller didn't move the needle, campaign finance, hush payments to women did not move the needle, having military members and Vice President Mike Pence staying at his own resorts, padding his bottom line, didn't move the needle with the public.

This Ukraine scandal specifically does.

HENDERSON: It does.

BADE: That's why polls --

HENDERSON: Yes, we've seen the polling on this, that more Americans are favoring the impeachment inquiry and favoring removing the president from office, movement among Republicans, Democrats as well as independents. We'll keep watching this.

Coming up, the commander of Kurdish led forces in Syria tells the U.S., you're leaving us to be slaughtered. Why even Republicans say the administration isn't doing enough to stop it.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HENDERSON: President Trump last night defending his decision to remove U.S. troops from the Turkey/Syria border, a decision that's drawn bipartisan criticism. They say President Trump gave Turkey tacit approval to launch a military operation against America's long- time Syrian Kurdish allies who helped the U.S. defeat the Islamic State but who the Turks called terrorists.

[08:15:11]

The president says not our problem.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: It's a long ways away. We killed ISIS, we defeated. We did our job. We have to go home.

And if the Kurds do back up, and I hope they do, I hope they do, because it's hard to beat a force that has planes, and they don't, where they have weapons that the Kurds don't have. We paid a lot of money to the Kurds over the years.

And don't forget they're fighting for their land. They haven't helped us fighting for our land. They're fighting for their land, and that's good, but we've helped them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HENDERSON: Here's how the Kurds see it according to a memo obtained exclusively by CNN. The commander of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces told a senior U.S. diplomat last week, quote: You have given up on us, you are leaving us to be slaughtered, you have sold us. This is immoral.

CNN's Nick Paton Walsh is in Northern Syria.

Nick, tell us what you're seeing on the ground there.

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Trump's statements, you heard there, that will make many here sick to the bottom of their stomachs, because the collapse of the territory which they hold is happening fast. We saw ourselves how extraordinary today forces backed by Turkey Syrian rebels and it seems the Turkish military themselves are cutting in half this area held by the Syria Kurds from the west to the east.

We drove down the main highway, the international road, and on that we saw the wreckage of an SUV that was actually where a female Kurdish activist was shot dead allegedly by Syrian rebels. As we got further down the road, there was panic because they heard gunfire and they didn't know what was ahead.

I understand from a U.S. official that down that road, Syrian rebels backed by Turkey had come in and set up a checkpoint, cutting that road off, essentially meaning that if they want to travel from the outpost, they can't use that road. It's the only real main road between east and west at all.

Later on, we saw some Americans, a convoy leaving one of the towns and they were buzzed by a Turkish jet that flew over them, you could see the underbelly. It's an extraordinary message to send to the Americans. They circulated around the area for 20 minutes or so.

We drove back down the road and I have to say people in the area are terrified because this is the main highway that connects all the Syrian Kurdish held territories, particularly the city of Kobani that was so heavily besieged. But on the main highway, there was Turkish armored personnel carriers and the tank, about dozen that we saw dozens and more coming out of the desert. Clearly, they are there to harass or put pressure, or even close entirely the main highway, that's an extraordinary move by the Turkish military here and the rebels that they backed from Syria, because their mission is supposed to be at most 18 miles into Syrian corridor, this is at least 30 down the road.

And it shows the disregard for American positions, what understanding potentially was they had with the Americans. I'm startled, frankly, by how wide their scope seems to be and use of Syrian rebels of questionable origin to carry out their moves for them.

Back to you.

HENDERSON: And, Nick, are the Kurds telling you that they feel a banded by American?

WALSH: Worse than that. They actually blame America for this, some of them do. Not all of them. They understand that Donald Trump sometimes is a little bit more than coquettish than his military planners would think.

But one man said to me, may god end America. Have you seen? This is what you wanted to come and see? They feel America has abandoned them and this is why this is happening. It's the only reason this is happening because America kept the peace before.

Now, Donald Trump said he thought this was something that may happen and to get out of his way. Turkey rolled in with greater abandon, and it's startling to see those Syrian rebels who are backed by Turkey and doing a lot of the fighting, how terrorizing they are of so many of the ordinary civilians here -- Nia.

HENDERSON: Nick Paton Walsh, thank you so much for the extraordinary reporting.

Chaos there, right, in some ways expected, given the president's decision to withdraw American forces.

No regrets from this president. I'm sure he's watching this. We saw him yesterday stand before that crowd, Values Voters, and defend this decision.

Julie, what do you make of it?

PACE: No regrets so far. We'll see as this plays out how the situation on the ground looks from the president's perspective here.

What's so interesting about this whole situation is that Trump just has a fundamental difference of opinion about the role of the United States around the world.

HENDERSON: Right.

PACE: Certainly, there has been deep frustration among voters in both parties about long entanglements in the Middle East, about endless war --

[08:20:04]

HENDERSON: He's tweeted about this, yes.

PACE: -- which is the phrase (ph) the president is using.

But ultimately, presidents of both parties have believed that the United States does have special responsibility because of our democracy, because of the strength of our military, and that that responsibility includes protecting vulnerable populations. And what this president did is essentially just pick up and go and opened up a vulnerable population to slaughter. That is the decision he made regardless of --

HENDERSON: And he's opened himself -- yes, he's opened himself up to criticism from many Republicans and evangelicals as well. Here is Pat Robertson talking about the president.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PAT ROBERTSON, EVANGELICAL LEADER: I am absolutely appalled that the United States is going to betray those democratic forces in northern Syria. The president of the United States is in danger of losing the mandate of heaven if he permits this to happen.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HENDERSON: Losing the mandate of heaven, that's big stuff, Josh. DAWSEY: Well, what this has done is shown the criticism that he

doesn't usually get from folks like Lindsey Graham, who has been vociferous all week of his criticism. Liz Cheney, his usual allies here have really been repeatedly attacking him over this decision.

I mean, it starts last Sunday night. This has been a week so far. The president takes this call from Erdogan, he agrees to let them go in. His allies are gobsmacked. Lindsey graham wasn't consulted, a number of senior folks in the White House weren't consulted.

And then by Tuesday you have this playing out in pretty violent and terrible form, watching overseas. The president has vacillated some throughout the week. He's talked about maybe doing more. He's gotten a lot of pressure, extraordinary pressure from congressional Republicans, from military advisers, from Secretary of State Pompeo who wanted some sort of an intervention.

But the president so far seems fairly unmoved. But it has shown that while he needs Republicans to stick with him on impeachment and his other domestic problems, he's frustrated with them on this issue.

HENDERSON: And you heard Mnuchin come out this Friday and essentially say there could be sanctions. No sanctions yet, but sort of threatening that. And even that was met with pretty much derision from some Republicans. So, we'll see where this goes.

Next, the estate of music legend Prince not happy with the president.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:26:19]

HENDERSON: Listen now to some Sunday trail mix for a taste of the 2020 campaign. Nine Democratic candidates gathered on Thursday for a CNN town hall about LGBTQ issues. It was a night of serious discussion, but there was some levity, like this moment with Senator Elizabeth Warren.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And a supporter approaches you and says, Senator, I am old-fashioned and my faith teaches me that marriage is between one man and one woman. What is your response?

SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN (D-MA), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Well, I'm going to assume it's a guy who said that. And I'm going to say, then just marry one woman. I'm cool with that, assuming you can find one.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HENDERSON: And, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, the first openly guy candidate, was asked about how some say their Christian faith requires them to deny service to LGBTQ customers.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) MAYOR PETE BUTTIGIEG (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I have to say when religion is used in that way, to me it makes god smaller. It to me is an insult not only to us as LGBTQ people, but it's an insult to faith to believe that it could be used to hurt people in that way.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HENDERSON: And the estate of lock legend Prince blasting President Trump for playing one of his songs at a Trump rally in Minnesota.

(MUSIC)

HENDERSON: The music icon's classic hit, of course, "Purple Rain", was played at a campaign rally on Thursday in Prince's own town of Minnesota. His estate quick to condemn it saying the Prince estate will never give permission to President Trump to use Prince's songs.

And next up, who will be first at Tuesday's Democratic debate to attack a surging Elizabeth Warren?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:31:54]

NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN HOST: The Democratic race for the President is coming to Ohio, a record-breaking 12 candidates will share the stage in Westerville on Tuesday night making this the biggest primary debate ever. And this time around Democrats will take the stage amid a dramatically-changed political environment, for one Joe Biden's front runner status is now very much in question.

National polls since the last debate show that Biden is now in a back and forth fight for first with Elizabeth Warren whose New York Rise over the summer has upended the 2020 race.

Another major change, the impeachment fight that's now dominating the headlines. Democrats have wanted to keep the campaign focused not on President Trump, but on bread and butter issues like health care.

The Ukraine scandal though has made that virtually impossible. Every candidate on Tuesday's debate stage has publicly backed the inquiry in the House, including Joe Biden who for the first time this week said President Trump deserves to be impeached.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: In his words, in his actions, President Trump has indicted himself by obstructing justice, refusing to comply with the congressional inquiry. He's already convicted himself in full view of the world and the American people. To preserve our constitution, our democracy, our basic integrity -- he should be impeached.

And Joe Biden really late to this, Elizabeth Warren I think was probably first out of the gate calling for this. How does this impeachment fight change the calculus of what Democrats are talking about on the campaign trail? You, of course, have been out there.

TARINI PARTI (ph), NATIONAL POLITICS REPORTER, THM: So far, we've seen most Democrats actually keep focusing on the issues. They're talking about healthcare. They're talking about climate change.

The one candidate we've seen sort of adjust her message is Kamala Harris. She's really talking more about her prosecutor records. She's focusing on, you know, holding the President accountable, talking about corruption.

So she has modified her message some but we're really seeing that most Democrats are staying focused on the issue. The one impeachment related thing that could come up during the debate that I think everyone will be watching for is how much Hunter Biden becomes a part of the conversation.

The other Democrats really have not gone there yet in terms of questioning Joe Biden on this. I assume he will get pushed by moderators on Hunter Biden and his connections, but it will be interesting to see if any of the other Democratic opponents sort of jump in and push Biden on this.

HENDERSON: We've seen some of that a bit, but they've been tentative. Here are a few of them talking about this issue.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PETE BUTTIGIEG (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: There won't be any confusion about the ethical expectations that I will have for my White House. And the real story here is the President of the United States confessing on air to an abuse of power.

BETO O'ROURKE (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I would not allow a family member, anyone in my cabinet to have a family member to work in a position like that. The focus has to remain on Donald Trump and the crimes that he's committed.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HENDERSON: And some reporting this morning out of Bloomberg saying that Hunter Biden announced that he's going to step down from a private equity firm that's gotten some attention and also not do any business with any foreign businesses should his father become president.

[08:35:06] JULIE PACE, ASSOCIATED PRESS: And you sort of wonder why it's taken

the Biden campaign a couple of weeks to get to that place. I remember, I was probably in the Obama administration in the second term when this happened and it was confusing why Hunter Biden was on the board of this company at the same time that his father was active in Ukraine policy.

It doesn't mean that there was corruption. Or it doesn't mean that there was anything illegal about it, but certainly the optics of it didn't look good. And I do, you know, to Tarini's point, it is going to be really interesting to see how other Democratic candidates grapple with that issue.

Do they want to take Biden head-on on that, or do they to their numerous points there, try to keep the focus on Donald Trump?

(CROSSTALKING)

HENDERSON: Rachael.

RACHAEL BADE, "WASHINGTON POST": -- (INAUDIBLE). I mean, if you guys -- if they go after Biden on this, I mean they're basically helping Trump.

HENDERSON: This shows helping Trump.

BADE: Yes.

HENDERSON: Absolutely.

BADE: If Biden is the nominee they're going to be on stage on on camera, potentially a GOP campaign ad a few months Down the line attacking their very own potential nominee on this.

HENDERSON: You've are had some of them, Kamala Harris and Cory Booker essentially say, leave Joe Biden alone on this. And the Democrats are then clearly worried because Democrats have they have faced blow-back for going after Biden before.

So they've got to be carful -- Josh.

JOSH DAWSEY, WHITE HOUSE REPORTER, "WASHINGTON POST": Well, the Biden campaign so far has not given much of a defense of this. It said it kind of off bounds. The President, his people are terrible for bringing it up. That Rudy Giuliani shouldn't be on television.

But the Trump campaign strategy is not going to let this go away. We have a long number of months. And finally this morning he's saying he would not be taking the Chinese position again.

But I think they're going to have to give a lot more answers on just because President Trump and Rudy Giuliani are going to demand it. The news media is going to demand it. You can imagine at some point other Democrats are going to ask more questions about some of Hunter Biden's entanglements.

And again, I'm not saying that there was any sort of corruption. We haven't proven any but the issue is not going away any time soon.

You have a president who between him and Rudy Giuliani think this is one of the most effective ways to attack Joe Biden, relentlessly. You See Steven Miller doing it from the White House driver. You see it over and over again --

HENDERSON: They are not going to let it go.

DAWSEY: And all the facts -- whatever the facts maybe, the attacks are going to continue.

HENDERSON: Yes. And Tarini, I think the other clashes we'll see on that debate stage have to do with Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. Bernie Sanders out there trying to, you know, say that he's healthy, nothing to see here with the heart attack that he had. Here he was on Elizabeth Warren.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SENATOR BERNIE SANDERS (D), VERMONT: I think she is a very, very good person (ph), but there are differences between Elizabeth and myself. Elizabeth, I think as you know has said that she's a capitalist through her bones. I'm not.

I am I believe the only candidate who is going to say to the ruling class of this country -- the corporate elite -- enough, enough, with your greed and with your corruption. We need real change in this country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HENDERSON: I don't think we know yet what this means for how voters view Bernie Sanders, the fact that he's had this health issue. But we're certainly going to see a clash up there most likely between him and Elizabeth Warren.

PARTI: You know, he's resisted so far in really targeting her and really going after her, but he is starting to make the differences between the two campaigns clear.

And even when the candidate himself, when Bernie Sanders hasn't done it, his aides have done it for him. We recently saw Elizabeth Warren calling Medicare for all a framework rather than a bill. And we saw a policy adviser them tweet, you know, it is a bill. It's 100 pages.

So we're seeing his aides kind of make clear the differences between the two campaigns even when the candidate hasn't done that. And you'll see this week if Bernie Sanders himself actually goes there now.

HENDERSON: On Tuesday and then some of these other candidates -- and you wrote about this already, Julie -- the idea that they can't really get any oxygen if you're a lower-tier candidate. Pete Buttigieg, you know, what does he do? Does he go after Elizabeth Warren? What do you make of it, Rachael?.

BADE: I mean that's their time to shine. There's a lot of candidates, the lower tier tend to (INAUDIBLE) their standout moment in this debate by going after the front-runners -- whether it's Biden, Elizabeth Warren clearly rising. She's going to become more and more of a top target. I think also the location of this Democratic debate is really interesting, too. It's sort of less talked about but Ohio a always seen as a swing state and it's become increasingly conservative, very much a lot of Trump fans in Ohio.

I'm from Ohio so, you know, I've spoken to voters there and, you know, it's going to be interesting to see how it plays. They're debating Medicare-for-all, free college (ph) -- things that will not sit well with a lot of independent voters in swing states.

HENDERSON: And part of the argument if you're Biden and if you're Buttigieg, and Amy Klobuchar, is that you can appeal to folks in states like Ohio. So we'll see how this sort of changes the dynamics of the debate on Tuesday on CNN.

Up next -- is Giuliani in or is he out?

[08:39:38]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HENDERSON: President Trump is going out of his way to show he still supports his personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani. This comes after the rest of two of Giuliani's associates were allegedly funneling foreign money into U.S. elections and a "New York Times" report that Giuliani himself is under criminal investigation for whether he broke foreign lobbying laws by pushing for the ouster of the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine.

Saturday the President had lunch with Giuliani at his golf club in Virginia. Later he offered glowing praise during a phone call to Jeanine Pirro on Fox News.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

Donald Trump, President of the United States: He's a great gentleman. He was a great mayor -- one of the greatest, maybe the greatest mayor in the history of New York. He was a fantastic prosecutor

I know nothing about him being under investigation. As somebody said, I heard a report today. I can't imagine it. He's a man that looks for corruption and whatever he does, I really believe he's a totally -- I mean I know he's an honorable man.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HENDERSON: Giuliani, sure certainly pleased with that account of who he is from the President.

[08:44:54]

HENDERSON: Rachael, how much trouble do we think Giuliani might be in legally? There was talk for instance that the folks on the Senate side wanted -- Lindsey Graham him to come before Congress.

What do we think he's thinking now in terms of how much trouble he's in?

BADE: Well, yet to be determined how serious and how deep this legal trouble is for him. I mean keep in mind even though the President called in to defend him last night, he did the same thing with his former attorney, Michael Cohen, who obviously is now in prison and will be there for the next three years because he was part of the scheme to pay off women who are alleging affairs in 2016. Trump sort of kept him in. Until he was too, sort of and poisonous. And then he pushed them aside. So we'll just have to see how he handles Giuliani.

No in fact, Republicans are still looking to Giuliani to potentially come into the senate to sort of paint this picture of the Biden scandal and what he was doing in Ukraine and why he thought it was legitimate and ok.

But obviously with his two associates being arrested for funneling money into a U.S. election, foreign money, this is like a Jinga (ph) set (ph) right now. I mean you pull one block and these two people who put him in touch with the Ukraine prosecutors are now arrested.

And so it really undercuts their whole argument -- this whole scheme, this whole sort of conspiracy.

HENDERSON: And Giuliani in "New York Times", here is what he had to say.

"Mr. Giuliani said that federal prosecutors had no grounds to charge him with foreign lobbying disclosure violations, because he said he was acting on behalf of Mr. Trump, not the Ukrainian prosecutor, when he collected the information on Miss Yovanovitch, and the others related to the American government and the news media. Josh, do you want to jump in?

DAWSEY: So many people in the White House have very significant issues with Rudy Giuliani and wish that he was not the President's lawyer, do not think he's helping the President on TV.

But the President continues to see him as a valuable and credible defender. He's gone out and said, you know, no collusion, no obstruction for many months. His prosecutor (INAUDIBLE) Hunter Biden in the media. He has been a ready and loyal servant for the President. And the President appreciates that more than almost anything.

And I think he's going to stick with Rudy Giuliani for a while. What we haven't seen yet is the two gentlemen who were arrested this week were Rudy's investigators who were setting up meetings for Rudy Giuliani in the Ukraine. They were paying him for business advice and, you know, he was getting information, was getting meetings, was getting talking points from these gentlemen. They were key to his investigation of what happened in Ukraine.

And there's going to be a lot more that comes out on how they set up those meetings, what they were doing for him overseas. And the President has been known over time when someone make him so much an albatross that they're constantly getting bad headlines, he doesn't always stick with them for good..

(CROSSTALKING)

HENDERSON: And the bad headlines, there's a political article about this, Rudy Giuliani needs to stop talking, I think he's massively hurting the President. His TV appearances are so confusing, contradictory. He's creating an impression of internal chaos.

One former senior administration official described it this way when asked what Trump's strategy against impeachment should be, hopefully Rudy will be on the space shuttle.

PACE: To Josh's point -- I mean there are people in the West Wing right now who think that so much of what is happening right now is because of Rudy Giuliani. He has been running around in Ukraine, having meetings, he's been talking about it publicly with reporters, on television.

But the key to this is he, it appears, was doing this --

HENDERSON: At the President's request.

PACE: If not in coordination with the President's full knowledge. It's not as though this was happening and suddenly one day Trump woke up and said, Rudy, what are you up to? He was well aware of what was going on.

(CROSSTALKING)

HENDERSON: They're directing people to try to focus their anger on Giuliani, but really the President is tied up in the middle of this.

HENDERSON: Yes. We'll see where this goes. Next week is going to bring a lot more information. >

Next up, our reporters share from their notebooks next including whether the President's last-minute campaign trip to Louisiana paid off for Republicans.

[08:48:56]

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HENDERSON: Time now for our great reporters to share a page from their notebook to help get you out ahead of the week ahead.

Julie -- we're going to start with you.

PACE: Democrats have to wait another month to find out whether they're going to be able to hang on to their only governorship in the Deep South. In Louisiana last night John Bel Edwards, the Democratic governor failed to get 51 percent in a race against two Republicans which means he now has to go head-to-head with a GOP candidate making his prospects much more difficult.

HENDERSON: Yes. That is going to be tough. PACE: Edwards is the perfect profile for a Democrat in the Deep

South. He bucks his party in certain cases and he got really lucky.

Another Democrat to watch who is in a similar circumstance Alabama, Doug Jones. He's up for reelection. Next year Democrats need to hang on to that seat if they have any prospect of getting the senate back. Really, really tough prospect.

HENDERSON: Yes. Can you get enough white people to vote for the Democratic Party. That's been really tough in the South over these last cycles.

Tarini.

PARTI: I'm going to be looking out for how Senator Warren responds to questions about Medicare for all and health care. This is an issue that her primary opponents have really been questioning her on. On how she's going to pay for Medicare for all.

A person familiar with Senator Warren's thinking on this has told us that there is not really a cost associated with Medicare for all that they know for sure. So that is why she isn't responding to whether it's going to lead to an increase in taxes or not. Different plans have different costs associated with them, so they're still trying to figure that part of it out.

HENDERSON: Yes. And that is going to be a big subject of the debate in the debate clash I imagine on Tuesday.

Rachael.

BADE: So the courts are starting to come to House Democrats' rescue right now when it comes to oversight of the President. He has blocked a bunch of their investigations, dozens of them the past ten months, ignoring subpoenas and sort of clogging up their oversight in the courts but we saw this week two judges both a New York judge and an appeals circuit court level in Washington, D.C. rule with the Democrats their subpoenas were ok and that they should be upheld.

The problem is that the President of course is going to appeal and all of these decisions are going to end up in the Supreme Court and so it might not matter for now because they're going to keep dragging this out.

Now, the Democrat Adam Schiff told me -- the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee told me that they are looking at legislation that would require the courts to move faster so that they could actually get these subpoenas litigated quicker.

HENDERSON: Good luck. See if they can actually get that to passed.

Josh.

DAWSEY: The President now has to pick his fifth Homeland Security Secretary in three years. On Friday he replaced Kevin McAleenan who was his acting secretary for many months who had actually been able to curb some border crossings and implement some of the administrations most harsh policies but yet at the same time never really developed a trust with the President and was out.

[08:55:00]

DAWSEY: Some of the core issue of his presidency, the President has installed a number of hardline aides like Ken Cuccinelli into the administration. And whoever he picks now will have to get Senate confirmed in a pretty small margin of a play. So what the President has to do is now find his fifth person in three years to lead the agency is probably key to his reelection or at least partially key to his reelection.

HENDERSON: Yes. We'll keep an eye on that. Who's up next at DHS. Thanks -- Josh.

And I'll close with this. While Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard has said she is furiously considering boycotting Tuesday's debate over which she says is a rigged process, our guess is that Gabbard will likely be on that stage in Ohio. And if her July debate appearance is any guide, a few people on the stage should worry.

Gabbard who is a favorite of white nationalists, libertarians, conspiracy theories, some conservative and some progressives as well, has proven to be something of a wild card in the Democratic primary where she's polling at about 2 percent. She got the best of Senator Kamala Harris in a previous debate and Tuesday is a chance for a rematch.

And for Gabbard it is also a chance to go after any number of other lower tier candidates like Pete Buttigieg, Cory Booker and Amy Klobuchar as they vie to move up while they look to make gains by going after candidates in the middle of the states and we might also want to be ready for what could come from the far ends of the stage where some of the sharpest attacks have often been launched by candidates with little to lose.

That is it for INSIDE POLITICS. Hope you can catch us week days as well at noon Eastern.

Up next, "STATE OF THE UNION WITH JAKE TAPPER". His guests include Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg.

Thanks again for sharing your Sunday morning.

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