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Biden: If Trump Doesn't Cooperate with Congress, Impeach Him; New Poll: Warren, Biden Top Dem Field in New Hampshire; Chuck Schumer Seeks Vote On Whistleblower's Complaint; Mitt Romney Wants Whistleblower Story, Trump Phone Call Transcript. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired September 24, 2019 - 12:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:33:18] JOHN KING, CNN HOST: Important new information just in to CNN, the former vice president Joe Biden to make a statement this afternoon in Wilmington, Delaware. And a Biden campaign aide says the former vice president will now add his name to the list of Democrats calling to impeach President Trump if the president does not comply with the demands of congressional investigators.

CNN's Jeff Zeleny joins us live now with more. Jeff, a big step again. Joe Biden has been one of those standing back seems to be jumping in now.

JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: He is, John, and this was really part of a groundswell we are seeing from Democrats from, you know, all regions of the country. Freshmen lawmakers, more senior lawmakers, now Joe Biden also adding his name to that. Making the point here that if the White House does not cooperate, he would support going forward with that.

We do have a statement here from a top campaign aide who we just spoke to a few moments ago who says this. "He's going to make the point that Trump's latest abuses are on top of all his prior abuses. He's going to call on Trump to comply with all of Congress' outstanding lawful requests for information, in the Ukraine matter and in the other investigations. And if Trump does not comply, Congress has no choice but to impeach."

So this is yet one more voice, but a very important voice as you said. This clearly is where the center of the Democratic Party is right now on this. Speaker Pelosi as we all know has been very reluctant to rush to this. I spoke with her last evening. She said that, you know, the case needs to be made to the American people. That's what all this is about.

So, John, this is part of the big crescendo here. And it somewhat orchestrated. We were seeing so many statements coming from Democratic lawmakers as Manu Raju and others on the Hill have been reporting. And this is part of that as well.

Of course, Speaker Pelosi will be meeting with the chairmen this afternoon and then all of the House Democrats, so Joe Biden clearly wants to be ahead of all of that.

[12:35:04] He'll be speaking this afternoon from Wilmington about this.

John?

KING: We look forward to that statement from the former vice president this afternoon. Appreciate the live report from CNN's Jeff Zeleny.

Let's come back in the room. So you do see this, Kamala Harris making the case on the campaign trail last night, Elizabeth Warren has been there for some time. Now Joe Biden who has a personal interest in this because the president is stirring up dirt, a lot of it reckless and inaccurate about his son Hunter Biden. The Democrats now -- the argument has been, OK, some have said even based on the Mueller report now especially because of the Ukraine call. There is a policy, a substance reason to proceed.

They've been worried about the politics. They've just decided now they have no choice?

JACKIE KUCINICH, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Perhaps. Perhaps because of the details that have come out. It seems like some of these senators as we've seen over the past, you know, 24 hours are looking at some of the reporting in the New York Times, in the Washington Post and saying, you know, if all of this is true, we can't do this.

Now, what Biden is talking about is what Margaret was talking about.

MARGARET TALEV, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: I didn't even know he was talking about it at the time.

KUCINICH: But we've also heard members openly discussing this during -- I believe it was the Corey Lewandowski hearing about, you know, how obstructing what Congress is doing could lead to impeachment. So that's been very much in the ecosystem here. So -- and the Ukraine conversation just adds another, you know, stick to the fire.

HEATHER CAYGLE, CONGRESSIONAL REPORTER, POLITICO: I think the timing is so important here because Democrats, even the moderates who are against impeachment have been so fed up by the repeated stonewalling of the administration. We saw this last week when Corey Lewandowski came to testify. It turned into a circus. Democrats didn't think the hearing was great for them either but they looked at it and they're like, we're never going to get anything out of these guys. We see the calendar. If we want to move toward impeachment, we have to do it before the Iowa caucuses in February. We need to make a decision now.

And then the Ukraine thing started bubbling up and here we are. So I think that's really important. And the other thing I want to note is, a lot of these people, including Pelosi who were opposed, said public sentiment was the reason, right. We're not going to do it until the public is on board. Well, those polls are still about 30 percent of people supporting impeachment, but they said, you know what, maybe we can bring the public along with us if we make this case, but now is the time to do it.

KUCINICH: And to your point, Elizabeth Warren has been talking about this since about April, and she is someone who is surging in the polls among Democrats. And, you know, has been putting the most -- arguably the most pressure on Pelosi. I think she actually -- either she called her out by name or not by name but it was very clear who she was talking about. And so that -- what -- the part of the Democratic Party that she is currently speaking for is getting louder and louder and increasing the pressure.

TALEV: But this is all a primary stir. But again, this is how you maybe win a primary but then you got to run for the general election. That's always been Nancy Pelosi's concern and it's going to remains now. I mean, it cannot be good for the Senate strategy for Democrats trying to pick up Senate seats. This is like going to create a number of completely foreseeable challenges.

KING: That has been their calculation, and the words I will say over and over again is we don't know. We just don't know. Every day we wake up to something else that -- it's outside of the norm that we couldn't believe before and things happen. So we just don't know.

But to your point, her calculation has been we want 2020 to be about healthcare, about Trump's tweets, about behavior in office that offends a lot of suburban voters. They want it to be about what they know in 2018 work as an election strategy. If you move to your point around the same time we move into the calendar year, let's say they voted in the next couple of weeks to start an impeachment inquiry, we're in late September, you're going to be -- in the 2020 year during the presidential primaries, and what would be a referendum on Trump, the incumbent president will become a referendum on impeachment.

TOLUSE OLORUNNIPA, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Right. And the idea of getting anything done between now and the rest of the year is basically out the window. If you look at how this president operates, he's not someone who's going to deal with Democrats while they're impeaching him. I mean, he's walked out of meetings with Nancy Pelosi because she made a negative statement about him the night before. So, that's what Democrats are trying to figure out, whether or not it's worth sort of putting the agenda on hold for now in order to uphold the constitution and uphold their role and, you know, checks and balances. Or whether or not they feel that because the president has, you know, defied them so often over the past few months and they have to take a stand even if it means putting some of their moderate members in a tough position.

And it's important to know that about half of those sort of swing districts, more than half of those members have already come out for impeachment. So if that number continues to increase, it may make it easier for Pelosi to move ahead.

KUCINICH: But I don't know how you don't have a conversation -- have impeachment as part of the 2020 conversation now because you have -- assuming that who is at the top of the polls right now ends up at the top of the Democratic ticket because each of those people have called for impeachment at this point. KING: It's an interesting point. I want to come back to this later to the Republican side of this in the sense that those -- if you look at the federalist papers, the constitutional conservatives, the co- equal branches of government, and you hear a lot of Republican silence about the power of Congress here.

We'll come back to that but to your point, Elizabeth Warren's big rise in yet another important 2020 state. That's next.

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[12:44:54] KING: Elizabeth Warren today launching her first TV ads of her 2020 campaign, and she's following a very important rule of politics.

[12:45:00] When you have momentum, try to build on it. The latest evidence of the Warren summer surge, a new Monmouth University/New Hampshire poll. Senator Warren at 27 percent. Joe Biden, the former vice president at 25 percent, Bernie Sanders at 12 percent in New Hampshire, a state he won in 2016. That is among likely Democratic primary voters.

You see Governor -- Mayor, I'm sorry, Pete Buttigieg next at 10 percent in the granite state. No other candidate receiving more than three percent in that New Hampshire poll. Those results follow of course the CNN/Des Moines Register/Iowa poll also showing Warren atop the pack in a statistical tie with Biden. Looking to build on that momentum, the Warren campaign today announcing an eight-figure TV ad buy in the four early primary and caucus states.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN (D-MA), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Americans need a leader who's not afraid to fight back. I'm Elizabeth Warren. I know what's wrong. I know how to fix it. And I'll fight to get it done.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: She's the candidate of the moment. Got a ways to go but they're doing everything right in the sense that they see the rise, they're getting out of their summer surge in the polls, now they're trying to build full momentum by spending some of their money to keep it.

TALEV: You have those trend lines confirmed -- I mean, what we've all been sort of feeling and observing which is that she's been getting momentum and Biden's been kind of struggling to maintain his perch. But I think one thing that we don't know yet is how Trump's ploy on the Ukraine stuff is going to affect everything. Axios did some reporting, it obtained some data that show that Biden has gotten a huge bump in terms of -- sort of his name being in reports, people feeling sympathetic to him initially. So he's very much back kind of in the -- under the spotlight, but I think that's a short-term bump.

What we don't know is whether this is actually going to hurt him in the long run because as Trump throws words like corruption and (INAUDIBLE) Biden in Ukraine out in the air like whether or not, there's any merit to it, does it stick. And what does that do to Biden?

KING: It's a great point. And Biden has come out and said the reason Trump is going after him is because he knows he'll beat him. Again, trying to take political advantage of it.

Warren has had the different sort of methodical -- I called it the tortoise in the race. You know, at some point if you're the tortoise and you get into position, you have to decide when do I want to become the hare. This tells me they've decided they want to be the hare. Spend some of your resources, get on TV, try to lock in those leads.

The question is, with that comes a target on your back.

OLORUNNIPA: Exactly. When you transition from being the tortoise or being the frontrunner and being the leader of the pack, you start to get those attacks like Joe Biden has from a number of different candidates. I remember one of the debates earlier in the summer where Joe Biden was just getting incoming from all over the stage. We haven't seen that from Elizabeth Warren.

She has not been getting attacked. We're starting to see more and more of her being sort of criticized by name or called out by name. We saw Mayor Pete Buttigieg a couple of days ago say, you know, Warren hasn't been upfront with the American people about how to pay for healthcare and whatnot. So you can expect to see, you know, with these polls showing her in the lead in Iowa and New Hampshire, a number of candidates who want to take that lead call her out and attack her specifically. And when that happens, it'll be interesting to see her numbers moving on.

KING: We got a debate coming up just in a couple of weeks. I suspect we will see more of it then. But, the growth candidate, here what's interesting when you watch your growth. Number one, in this Monmouth poll, she's up 19 points in New Hampshire since May. Nineteen points, that's a lot. Joe Biden is down 11 points since May.

And then if you look here just to expand her coalition, you see the numbers right here. Among liberals, she's at 39 percent but among moderate/conservative Democrats, Elizabeth Warren known as the liberal progressive now up at 18 percent. Joe Biden still beats her with 30 percent but she is proving that she can expand her coalition a little bit. And that is proof if the number one issue for Democratic primary voters is can you beat Trump and you're starting to make inroads not only among progressives but also among moderate and conservative voters, that would indicate that you're starting to answer their concerns.

KUCINICH: Well -- and one of the things about Elizabeth Warren on the stump, she's very good with exception of her -- some of her healthcare ideas. She's very good at explaining why she thinks what she thinks in her positions and her plans. So if someone is worried about that and she's able to answer their questions, that's going to move it. But I do think the rallies that she's putting together, now they are in liberal places, for the most part, that is showing momentum. That is -- people can see it. And that's also helpful and that's why they're doing it.

CAYGLE: I think she has shown, at least to Democrats in the House and the Senate, nervous Democrats that you can run on being tough on Trump, talking openly about corruption and impeachment and also getting your ideas out there. And obviously, that's why Pelosi has held back on impeachment, a main reason for so long because she's afraid of the agenda getting totally consumed.

And Warren is like, look, I can do it. Here's the path. Like you said, it's a long way to go. I don't know if it will work in 2020, we'll see, but she is trying to blaze that dual-track path.

KING: But she sees the -- she is growth stock in the race at the moment. Emphasis on the moment, but we shall see.

Up next, reckoning day on Capitol Hill. How Senator Chuck Schumer hopes to break the Republican near silence on that whistleblower complaint.

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[12:54:33] KING: Some images from the United Nations, President Trump meeting there with Prime Minister Modi of India. The two leaders also were in the news the other day. In their discussions today, the president said the United States is moving forward on a trade agreement with India. He also talked about his friend Prime Minister Modi. No big news out of that but we want to show you some of the president's meetings as he go through his agenda at the United Nations General Assembly.

Back here in Washington, the president's party in the Senate could soon be forced to go on the record about the whistleblower complaint that's igniting new talk of potential impeachment.

[12:55:01] The Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer says he plans to request a vote demanding that information be shared with the relevant congressional committees and that Republicans, Senator Schumer says, have a responsibility here.

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SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY): I hope the majority leader and Senate Republicans would not block it. I hope they will rise to the occasion and realize this is their constitutional duty and realize that this involves the security of the United States.

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KING: Most Senate Republicans don't want to talk about this issue. Many say it's not that big of a deal. But at least two have said they'd like to hear more.

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SEN. MITT ROMNEY (R-UT): I think it'd be very helpful to get to the bottom of the facts, to follow the law that gets us there. That would include the whistleblower as well as the transcript of the conversation.

MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: You want the whistleblower complaint to be turned over to Congress?

SEN. CHUCK GRASSLEY (R-IA): I would like to have the whistleblower come and talk to me so we know what his story is. I don't want to hear it secondhand.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: The body language there tells you everything. Mitt Romney, really the only Republican in the Senate to say we need information here, and if true, this is very damaging standing there and taking questions from reporters. Senator Grassley trying to walk away as fast as possible even though he at least goes on the record saying, I would like to hear from the whistleblower.

CAYGLE: And look what happened to Mitt Romney yesterday offered light criticism, I would say, and then Trump tweeted from his account, mocking him. I mean, other Republicans do not want to be on the other end of Trump's Twitter feed. So I think they're trying the same playbook that they've always done which is deflect, accuse Democrats of trying to politicize, call it a witch hunt. And, you know, don't criticize the president but don't defend him either in some cases.

KING: To that point, let's just show what the president is tweeting an attack on Senator Romney who of course was the Republican nominee in 2012. We won't go into the details here but that tells me that number one, the president doesn't like to be criticized. But he only goes after people when they make him nervous.

And so -- now Senator Romney, I was going to call him Governor Romney, apologies. He was governor of Massachusetts beforehand. At least he had the strength and the courage to stand up and say, can we please see this information. The president of the United States may have withheld military aid to put pressure on a foreign leader. Can we see the information?

KUCINICH: That is true.

KING: But the rest of it is what I call the grand ostrich party where he just wants to put his head in the sand and hope this goes away. And this is not the first time it's happened in the Trump administration but it's happening again.

KING: That is true, but not all senators have the luxury of Mitt Romney who will be out of office no matter -- or will be in office and not up for re-election until even if President Trump does get a second term. So he has a little bit of freedom and from a state that loves him. That said, yes, the fact that everyone else is sort of running the other way and trying not to weigh in on this is telling.

Particularly those who are up for re-election. Ben Sasse, where are you, I seem to remember you actually criticizing the president. But I don't think, though, that what Senator Schumer is doing is going to go anywhere. I'd be -- saying one thing is -- saying what Mitt Romney is saying is different than actually registering a vote with a bunch of Democrats.

TALEV: Yes, the only guy who's like about equally as excited as those Republicans were to talk about this is Chuck Schumer. Like he's going to have to -- if the House Democrats do this and pass it over his ways like he's going to have a deal with them, but this is really not the strategy that he would seek out. Because if you're a Democrat like you're running for the Senate on your own merits and your own campaigns. Maybe it's healthcare or whatever these issues, you're going to be running on impeachment now. That's going to be the litmus test that's going to affect everything.

If Democrats can position this right, play this right, put this in the right terms and it kind of catches hold in the public opinion shifts as we were talking about earlier, fine, that's another ball game. But --

KING: And then the question is do we actually see any of this? Do we have more facts? Do we have the whistleblower complaint? Do we have, Mr. President, you could do this in a nanosecond, the transcript of that call.

Bill Weld, not taken very seriously as a presidential candidate but he is challenging President Trump in the Republican primaries. I'm old enough to remember former U.S. attorney worked in the Justice Department in the Reagan days actually quit on a matter of the principle. He says this about the president.

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BILL WELD (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Talk about pressuring a foreign country to interfere with and control a U.S. election, it couldn't be clearer. And that's not just undermining Democratic institutions, that is treason. It's treason pure and simple. And the penalty for treason under the U.S. code is death. That's the only penalty.

The penalty on the constitution is removal from office, and that might look like a pretty good alternative to the president if he could work out a plea deal.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

OLORUNNIPA: That's pretty (INAUDIBLE).

KING: That's out there.

OLORUNNIPA: But I don't expect many Republicans to follow him down that path. Instead, Republicans want to say, you know, we're sticking with the president, this is a deep state plot to take him out of office. This is just the Democrats doing what they always do, attacking the president. I would not expect any more Republicans to follow.

KING: And as they make that argument of pointing Hunter Biden, we should remember it was a Trump administration intelligence community official, someone complained to the inspector general appointed by the president of the United States Donald Trump. Trump-appointed IG went to Congress.

We'll continue to follow the story. Thanks for joining us on INSIDE POLITICS. Don't go anywhere.

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