Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Live Event/Special

Trump Rips Fired Bolton As Senate Considers Him As Witness; Rudy Giuliani Says, John Bolton Is A Backstabber And Atomic Bomb. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired January 29, 2020 - 10:00   ET

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

[10:00:00]

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: And thanks to all of you for joining us. We'll see you back here tomorrow morning. I'm Poppy Harlow.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Jim Sciutto. Stay tuned here. CNN's special coverage of the Senate impeachment trial of President Trump begins right now.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Wolf Blitzer live in Washington alongside Jake Tapper, Anderson Cooper and Dana Bash, she's up up on Capitol Hill. This is CNN's special coverage of the impeachment trial of President Donald J. Trump.

Today, we enter a new phase of the trial, a less predictable phase, where 100 U.S. senators get to ask questions of the House managers and the Trump legal defense team.

JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: Those questions could give us further insight into how the senators are leaning on whether to call for additional witnesses. Right now, sources tell CNN that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is saying he does not have the votes to block additional witnesses. John Bolton is, of course, the witness name on everyone's lips. And now, President Trump has taken to Twitter to attack his former national security adviser after mostly playing nice following Bolton's departure from the White House last fall. But that detente has clearly passed.

Mr. Trump tweeting, quote, Bolton begged me for a non-Senate approved job, which I gave him, despite many saying don't do it, sir. The president adding that he fired Bolton, quote, because, frankly, if I listened to him, we would be in World War 6 and he goes out and writes a nasty and untrue book.

Remember, the president says he has not seen the manuscript of the book that he is now calling nasty and untrue and claiming it contains classified information, which calls into question whether the vetting process for Bolton's book has been compromised. Bolton, through his attorney, submitted his manuscript on December 30th to the National Security Council's records management division to ensure the book contains no classified information. Bolton's lawyer says he was told no one outside the process would see it, so how does President Trump seem to know its contents? As for Bolton's response, he simply liked a reply to the Trump tweet that said, Mr. President, sir, you should fire the moron who hired John Bolton. He's the real idiot.

Let's go to Dana Bash, who's anchoring our coverage on Capitol Hill. And, Dana, what kind of reaction are you hearing on Capitol Hill today to the president unleashing on John Bolton?

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Jake, it's the same kind of reaction that we see and hear from the president's fellow Republicans pretty much every time he has gone after a former aide, somebody who challenges him. Obviously, the stakes are so much higher now because we are talking about this happening in the throes of an impeachment trial and about a former aide who is a central character in this drama, a character whom Republicans are talking extensively about behind closed doors about whether or not to call him as a witness.

But as for the president's actions, the rhetoric he's using on Twitter, there's not a whole lot of surprise here, I've got to be honest.

BLITZER: What do we know, Dana, right now about the Republican vote count on calling witnesses like John Bolton, for example, maybe the acting White House chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney? What's the latest information you're getting?

BASH: I've been talking to sources this morning and late last night about it. And here's where things stand. First of all, according to an administration source who's familiar with what's going on behind the scenes, of course, they're preparing for the Q&A session today with senators. But the focus is on, this is a quote, the steady stream of pressure that the administration, that top Republicans are putting on those four key senators to vote no on witnesses. And the four I'm talking about, of course, are Mitt Romney, Susan Collins, Lamar Alexander and Lisa Murkowski.

The source I'm talking to says that they are pretty confident that Susan Collins and Mitt Romney are not gettable, meaning it's hard for them to see those two voting no on witnesses. They're probably going to be with the Democrats. The other two are where the action is.

Now, these are -- this is not something that we haven't talked about but it's noteworthy to hear it from sources who are in the room working these people. Separately, a senior Senate source told me on the Lamar Alexander question, that really is the ball game for these senior Republicans because he is so close with the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell.

Yes, he is retiring. Yes, he is more perhaps old school than certainly Donald Trump and the new Republicans who are fierce supporters of Donald Trump. But he is somebody that they are working very hard making the argument that this would be bad for the Senate historically and set a bad precedent for the Senate to say, yes, to a witness that the House didn't deal with. And so that is really where the game is right now. Lisa Murkowski, yes, but Lamar Alexander. TAPPER: I mean, Dana, let's take a step back.

[10:05:01]

I mean, that's kind of an empty argument given the fact that the House did ask Bolton to testify, he said he wouldn't. They tried to get his deputy to testify, the deputy sued the House and Bolton was going to join with that lawsuit. It was going to be tied up in litigation. So that argument is kind of like not within the realm of the facts.

I know you're not making it, they're making it.

BASH: Yes, yes, go ahead.

TAPPER: Just to take a step back, we have the former national security adviser of the United States, John Bolton, who was until, a couple days ago, a conservative icon, had run for president, had served as the U.N. ambassador for the Bush administration, was a Fox News Commentator for 11 years. He is a conservative icon. He obviously has germane information. He says he has germane information. His lawyer says he has germane and new information. And he has a book that we're all going to have access to by March at the very latest. He's raised his hand and said, I want to testify, you just need to subpoena me and I will testify.

The former White House chief of staff, retired Marine General John Kelly, also an icon in military circles, has said, I believe John Bolton, not President Trump, in so many words, and he should be allowed to tell his story. These are not liberals. These are conservatives who want to share their story. Do the Republicans in the Senate, other than Romney and Collins and maybe Murkowski, do they understanding that by blocking and not listening to these conservative voices, they will go down in history as siding with allegiance to the president beyond trying to get the full story as to what happened. Do they see that in any way other, than I need to stick with McConnell, I need to stick with Trump?

BASH: Of course. That's why this is such -- well, first of all, I will answer that broadly, the Senate Republicans, even those who have said on this network that they think what the president did was wrong but maybe not impeachable, they're in lock step. So the answer to that question, when you look at the majority, the vast majority of the Republican conference, they're not listening to that or maybe they're listening to it but that's not what's guiding them, which is remarkable on its face.

But separate from that, the senators who are in play, that is why they are in play. People like, again, Lamar Alexander, who understands, there's no question, all of the arguments you just made, understands what's really going on here, which is why it is so -- it is a hard decision for him when he is hearing from his very good friends, including, and especially the majority leader, likely, and others around him saying, please don't do this.

Again, I'm not -- I'm not saying that that's an argument that is -- that would or should fly in any other circumstance, but it is what they are hearing and it is the argument that Senate Republicans and the White House are hoping will, you know, rule the day with somebody like Lamar Alexander.

And you're right about history across the board, and that's what they are grappling with behind the scenes here, Jake.

BLITZER: You know, Jake, one point that several of these Republicans are now making in the aftermath of Professor Alan Dershowitz' defense of the president, well, even if Bolton said what he said and it's true, it's still not enough to go ahead and vote to remove a president from office.

TAPPER: That's an argument that they should feel free to make. I'm just saying like, clearly, there are facts we do not know that are important to the American people, and here are -- here's the national security adviser, conservative icon, his president's former chief of staff, a military icon, saying, let's bring these facts forward. We're going to get them anyway.

BLITZER: I'd love to have him come here and tell us all that stuff.

TAPPER: We're going to get anyway. Mr. Bolton knows full well that there's a chair for him any time he wants.

BLITZER: He's more than welcome.

TAPPER: But the idea that they are -- I mean, we're not talking about the decision to invade another country, we're talking about the decision to let somebody give testimony. You know, it doesn't seem that big a deal to me if you really care about what happened.

BLITZER: I'd love to hear what he has to say.

TAPPER: All right. Joining us to walk us through the next two days, CNN's Sara Murray. Sara, explain how the next part of the Senate trial, the question and answer portion of this trial will work.

SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, the senators get to play a bigger part in this. They get to submit 16 hours worth of questions over the next two days and they're submitted in writing. So here's a look at the sheet the senators will be submitting, that they get to write their question down on. I think we have a slide of that, you can see it there.

So the senators write their name and write their question down. They say, do I want this to go to the president's counsel or to the House impeachment managers and then sign off on the question. So once they have submitted their question in writing, then it goes to the chief justice.

[10:10:01]

So you're going to hear more from John Roberts today. He's going to be reading these questions out loud. Republicans and Democrats are going to alternate turns in submitting the questions and then the counsel and House impeachment managers have about five minutes to respond. We saw a little warning from the chief justice yesterday to try to keep these things, you know, relatively brief to keep the flow moving, and we will see how that plays out. And, obviously, we'll see what the senators have on the tops of their minds and if it sways anyone one way or another on whether to hear more from witnesses.

BLITZER: It could be a very exciting two days. All right, Sara, thank you very much.

And over these next two days, senators can just ask just about anything to the House managers and the president's lawyers.

Supreme Court biographer and CNN Legal Analyst Joan Biskupic is with us right now. So, Joan, what kind of questions do you anticipate that we will be seeing and hearing?

JOAN BISKUPIC, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, based on the 1999 trial when Chief Justice Rehnquist presided, we can expect anything and everything and all in basically five-minute increments. The questions are going to be very leading and they'll probably have a lot of incriminating information built into those. And John Roberts will be up there trying to, as neutrally as possible, ask these questions, ask these questions involving John Bolton, maybe even describing him as a Fox Contributor, having questions about Donald Trump and his credibility.

Back in 1999, one of the -- several of the questions that Chief Justice Rehnquist had to read said, since Bill Clinton has been lying about this and this and this, do you trust him now? And just think of the kinds of questions that might come up about President Trump. President Trump, a serial liar, has done this and this and this, because both sides are going to use these questions to enhance the arguments that we've heard over the last week. And that's his role. He reads them verbatim. And as I said, he'll probably show as little emotion as possible.

Now, they have to do it -- they don't have a definite timeframe, but he has suggested five minutes. And there were times in 1999 when the chief said, okay, I think that's enough. Or one of the senators said how long did that answer go, and the chief would say sharply, nine minutes.

So, as Sara said, they are being encouraged to keep them limited.

BLITZER: He made that point yesterday in announcing the ground rules, saying that he wanted to follow in the footsteps of Chief Justice Rehnquist 21 years ago.

BISKUPIC: That's right. And I think the other way that he's going to follow in the chief's footsteps is he's going to try to just play it straight by the book.

Now, the senators and House managers can object to certain answers, but they cannot object to the questions. We had a little back-and- forth in 1999 in which one of the questions from the senators arguably mischaracterized what a House manager had said. And the House manager, it was Asa Hutchinson, stood up and said, I object, Chief Justice, that question should not be asked. And the chief conferred with the parliamentarian and said, no, you cannot object to a question, you can object to an answer. And then the chief as an aside said, I find that very unusual, which the chamber then cracked up about.

But there are certain rules that they'll have to abide by. But as I say, these will essentially be part of the arguments that we already heard. So I can imagine hearing John Bolton's name, Mick Mulvaney's name, Adam Schiff's name over and over.

TAPPER: Hunter Biden, Joe Biden, the whistleblower.

BISKUPIC: And not presented in a neutral fashion, rather in an incriminating fashion but read through the voice of John Roberts.

TAPPER: Yes, it's advocacy is what it's going to be. It's going to be fascinating through Roberts' voice. Joan Biskupic, thank you so much.

Coming up, the president's defense team warns Republicans against calling witnesses, saying it could set off a, quote, nasty court battle over executive privilege, but is the White House bluffing?

BLITZER: Plus, this, Rudy Giuliani turns on John Bolton in a new interview calling the former national security adviser an atomic bomb.

Stay with CNN's special coverage.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:15:00]

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: The call for witnesses in the impeachment trial is certainly a contentious one. Right now, a handful of Republicans could cross the aisle and vote to allow witnesses. We don't know yet. Number one on the list, former National Security Adviser John Bolton. White House aides are warning senators that it could trigger a nasty court battle.

Joining me are CNN Legal Analyst Laura Coates and Ross Garber.

There's an interesting article that's been getting a lot of attention from yesterday on Just Security that one of the Mueller's prosecutors, Andrew Weissmann, and other guy named Ryan Goodman, write that, essentially, that the White House may be kind of bluffing on executive privilege, that the White House should -- these authors are saying the White House should think hard about going to court for executive privilege over these witnesses, because if there is a crime or an underlying crime, the judge might rule very early on that because there's an underlying crime or allegations of a crime, executive privilege doesn't apply. Is that viable?

ROSS GARBER, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: See, I think that is very unlikely. It's hard to see a federal judge saying, well, I'm going to decide whether or not the president committed a crime so I don't have to get to the executive privilege question or get to the big jurisdiction issues. I think that's very unlikely. COOPER: By the way, just the other point they make is that because the president has said that Bolton was lying and that conversation he never said what Bolton says he said in the conversation.

[10:20:11]

That's also a reason, the fact that the president has talked about that conversation that basically eliminates the privilege.

GARBER: Yes, there could be a waiver issue. Although with attorney/client privilege, there's this notion of subject matter waiver. If we have a conversation and it's privileged and I'm the client and I start talking about it, there's an argument, some courts have found, that I as client have waived the privileges to that whole subject matter, everything that deals with that subject.

The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals has held that with respect to executive privilege, it's not a subject matter waiver issue, it's a disclosure-by-disclosure issue. So that disclosure wouldn't waive the privilege for the whole subject matter. But there are very few cases about executive privilege, very few cases. And there is very little law about it.

I mean, one reason the White House may not want to go to court, and you'll notice the White House with respect to the witnesses who testified at the House, they didn't go to court on any of those. They didn't assert executive privilege with respect to any of that. One of the reasons they might not want to this time is they'll attach even more importance, even more significance to Bolton's testimony should he ultimately testify. So we have to see.

LAURA COATES, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: I mean, first of all, the president has yet to assert executive privilege, and probably for the reasons that it's very uncertain whether he's actually going to be successful. But I think this is a very novel approach. Normally, you would tackle it and say, does the privilege apply, and then you decide the actual parameters would be. And then you would say, is there anything that says I cannot apply the privilege any longer?

This is essentially saying it's a way to get out of the ultimate question of does privilege apply for the president in an impeachment proceeding and instead saying, is there any way I can get out of having to rule on this final issue where you've got the Supreme Court of the United States chief justice who is sitting there in the room, I don't have to deal with this question, and that may be the way to approach it.

But, remember, the thing the president has said when he was in Davos even just recently talking about John Bolton and why he didn't want him to testify, remember, he said he left on bad terms. No one wants him to testify because of that reason. That undercuts an argument that there is some reason you want to have these very forthright conversations with a member of your cabinet, to be able to have a brainstorm and get advice. It belies it if you're saying, well, really I'm not worried about national security here, I'm worried about you saying something bad about me, an unpopularity issue. And that undercuts it.

This is a very unique approach, but I think there are going to be many judges, Judge Roberts included, to try to avoid this ultimate question and let the Senate decide what happens.

COOPER: We're going to have more on the legal front.

One red state Democrat just broke with his party saying he thinks Hunter Biden is a relevant witness.

Plus, a young boy's selfie may be the last picture of Kobe Bryant before he, his daughter and seven others were killed in a chopper crash. This as we hear from a -- we'll talk to a man whose wife was on board.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's not the big things, it's not how good she was at basketball, you know, although those things are wonderful. The things that I miss the most are the little -- the tiny little things.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:25:00]

BASH: Welcome back to CNN's special coverage of the impeachment trial of President Donald J. Trump. I'm Dana bash on Capitol Hill. And I'm joined by Senator Tom Udall from the State of New Mexico. Thank you so much for joining us.

SEN. TOM UDALL (D-NM): It's a pleasure, a real pleasure.

BASH: So you're one of the 100 senators but, obviously, on the Democratic side who's going to be putting questions and submitting questions. In fact you already have --

UDALL: Yes.

BASH: -- for the managers. What's the most important question you want answered?

UDALL: Well, there are a number of questions that are being asked. One of the ones I'm -- that I put in that I'm thinking about is the argument seems to be that we shouldn't even be having this trial, just get rid of it because we have an election. And so I would frame that question to the House managers, how do you respond to the argument from the president's attorneys that we don't even need this.

And one of the answers for me is this is an ongoing thing. I mean, the president is still doing everything he can to try to get this investigation. He's got Rudy Giuliani over there.

BASH: So the question is more of a rhetorical one?

UDALL: Well, no. There are going to be very specific issues that I think the House managers bring up. BASH: Okay. So, obviously, that's going to be happening on the floor. But what's really going on in the cloakroom, as you well know, are questions about whether there will be witnesses. Your Democratic colleague, Joe Manchin, said this morning that maybe Hunter Biden, the former vice president's son, is relevant. Let's listen to what he had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOE MANCHIN (D-WV): I want witnesses. I definitely want witnesses and evidence. The only thing I've said is that there should be an adult in the room. That's Chief Justice Roberts. We should vote again on Chief Justice Roberts being able to determine who is pertinent and who has -- to the trial and the charges that have been brought. If Hunter Biden would be one of those people that Justice Roberts says is pertinent to the evidence or to the trial, then, absolutely.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[10:30:04]

BASH: What do you think about Hunter Biden?

UDALL: Dana, well, I don't think he has much to --