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Inside Politics

Republicans Defend Trump on Ukraine Call; Kinzinger Slams Trump "Warning of Civil War" Over Impeachment; Jeff Flake Tells GOP Not to Support Trump in 2020; Bolton's "Unvarnished View" of North Korea Situation; Trump Camp's Baseless Biden Claim Vexes VP's Campaign; Hillary Clinton: Trump "Obsessed with Me". Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired September 30, 2019 - 12:30   ET

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

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[12:30:00] REP. STEVE SCALISE (R-LA): -- to the interference by Russia so it doesn't happen again.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't have any problem with the call. We've now seen the transcript. The president of Ukraine said that there was no pressure. He was not pushed. Look, if Democrats wanted to impeach because Rudy Giuliani talked to a couple Ukrainians, good luck with that.

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JOHN KING, CNN HOST: It's a whole lot of deflection there, and in the case of Leader Scalise, no, he wasn't asking about Russia, he was actually parroting the conspiracy theory that Russia had nothing to do with it on the call with Ukraine, but that's what they got, right?

TARINI PARTI, WHITE HOUSE REPORTER, BUZZFEED NEWS: They're trying everything they can to deflect, to dodge some of these questions. And as we were saying earlier, as these investigations keep going and more comes out, if anything else comes out, it's going to be harder for them to come up with a cohesive messaging point, and that's why we're seeing the president also just tweet out everything he can, you know, from Fox News clips to kind of some the drain the swamp rhetoric that we've seen in the past from him.

PAUL KANE, SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT, THE WASHINGTON POST: And Graham's point about it's hearsay, it's hearsay. That is true, it is hearsay, but that's why you have an investigation. OK, Kaitlan files a complaint to me, I file it to John. John then goes and interviews other people about that complaint.

Like that is what you are supposed to do. That's the purpose of an investigation.

KATE ROGERS, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, THE NEW YORK TIMES: So little of their reaction actually focuses on the content.

KANE: Yes. ROGERS: It's just top-level only sort of. The behavior was great, it was a perfect phone call. But to your point like no commentary on an investigation deemed credible.

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, it makes me wonder how closely do they even read the transcript of the letter because House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy on "60 Minutes" that he was read part of the transcript and he said, no, no, you added a word. And Scott Pelley said, no, I didn't, that's in the transcript. And he said that's in the transcript? And he said yes, the one released by the White House.

So it shows you they're not even reading that closely to see one of the most explosive parts, one of the most highly scrutinized parts from last week when they did release this transcript. And that is the question, you know, they're going out, if this is the White House's defense, they're going to send these Republicans that you just saw on TV to defend them.

That's not really going to be a viable defense people believed. People inside the White House believe because they saw that, those appearances yesterday didn't do anything to tamp down the speculation, the scrutiny, the calls for his impeachment yesterday. So the question is, if that's going to be their strategy going forward, people in the White House say that they will not be successful with that.

KING: And then you're going to see again, as the additional witnesses come in and you get more facts, maybe there's no "there" there. But maybe -- if there are facts supporting that this went on for months and these are the things Giuliani did and these are the things said in these meetings, then those explanations are not going to hold up.

There have been some Republicans who are mad about certain pieces of this. Now I would say they're mostly in this, I don't mean this as a criticism, they're mostly in the likely suspects' group. I mean, people who've been critical of the president before or people who've been skeptical of the president before.

For example, the president tweeted out on Sunday, "If the Democrats are successful in removing the president from office which they will never be, it will cause a civil warlike fracture in this nation from which our country will never heal." He's quoting there a pastor who was on Fox News, the president. Adam Kinzinger, a more moderate Republican congressman says, "I have visited nations ravaged by civil war. I have never imagined such a quote to be repeated by a president. This is beyond repugnant."

The president's tweet is part of his keep his base loyal, attack the opposition. What do we make of a Republican congressman, again, who has been critical of the president on some other policies in the past and for tweeting too much in the past, is it just likely suspect or is there something to it?

For now, it's likely suspect. Kinzinger, I know him pretty well, he is still in the National Guard. He is a very proud military person who takes this national security issue very seriously. It does spread to other people, unusual suspects, if you will. And once that happens then you know that it's really spreading. For now, it's still limited between those who will be critical and those who won't be but they might e-mail you in the morning.

KING: You get a lot of private stuff. You get a lot of private stuff. It's the question of do they step forward? And a lot of the private stuff, don't get me wrong, it's just I want answers here. I need to see answers here. It's legitimate inquiry here.

A lot of them say I don't see an impeachment yet or anything but they're just worried about -- they're just worried about -- they look at the transcript and they think, if there's more, I don't like that. To your point about likely suspects, this is Jeff Flake, former Arizona senator, he left because of his constant wars with the president. The president was going to support a primary challenge against him. He says this in the Washington Post today, "My fellow Republicans, it is time to risk your careers in favor of your principles. Whether you believe the president deserves impeachment, you know he does not deserve re-election. Trust me when I say that you can go elsewhere for a job. But you cannot go elsewhere for a soul.'

PARTI: Those are some harsh words from Jeff Flake but we've heard this before, and I think he has made the case to Republican members while he was in the Senate and that didn't work, so I don't think an op-ed, you know, is actually going to make his case warm. But, you know, as we've been saying as more facts come out, if they do, I think that'll be crucial to see if other Republicans join in. But for now, it seems it's the usual suspects.

[12:35:05] ROGERS: The longer the Republicans wait to say anything or do anything, the more often you have somebody like Stephen Miller coming out and accusing these diplomats and career intelligence officials as deep state operatives, you know. That's what's stepping into the breach and informing the public and shaping their opinions when you don't have Republicans willing to say, hey, let's bear out all the facts in public. Like you might be hearing that in private but when they're not saying anything, it's the White House stepping in and saying these people are all un-American and deep state.

KING: We'll continue to watch this one and we'll come back to this a bit later to the Biden fact that Paul mentioned a bit earlier though. But next, now a private citizen, John Bolton calls it as he sees it about North Korea and his assessment is pretty sobering.

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[12:40:43] KING: Toping today's political radar, the former national security adviser John Bolton candid remarks on just how dangerous the situation remains with North Korea in his view. The president's former national security adviser back in public today telling an audience in Washington the nuclear threat intensifies, quote, every day. He's skeptical but says he still hopes there's time for a deal.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) JOHN BOLTON, FORMER NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: North Korea has in its judgment, for well or ill, finished testing and can produce nuclear warheads and long-range ballistic missiles. That's not an encouraging sign, that's a sign to be worried about. He will never give up the nuclear weapons. And our policy should be that we do not accept it, we will not accept it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Striking to hear that from a guy who just a couple of weeks ago worked at the White House. We knew he disagreed with the president, we knew he was more skeptical, more hawkish about North Korea than the president. But if you read between the lines here what he's saying is, the president got this wrong because the president keeps telling the American people we're good.

COLLINS: He basically disagreed with every facet of the North Korean policy happening right now inside the White House. It was pretty stunning. Yes, it's John Bolton. Yes, we knew he thinks this way, we've known it since he entered the White House as the national security adviser even though at times he would try to walk the line and agree with the president.

It's only been a little over two weeks since John Bolton left the administration, though. To see him break so sharply with Trump into essentially disagree with everything saying that they shouldn't be pursuing a third summit when the president has sounded open to it, saying that he doesn't think right now Kim Jong-un is ever going to voluntarily give up his weapons. Something he said, I was in the room with a lot of force in his voice is really stunning to see. Just to see him breaks so much.

And the other thing that really stuck out was he went back to touting that Libya model for denuclearization. That was one of the things the president cited when John Bolton got pushed out saying I can't believe he did that, that was a terrible mistake he made and really set back our talks. John Bolton was saying today he stands by that and he said he could speak in unvarnished terms now that he's out of the White House.

KING: Now that he's out. First public appearance. We'll see if there are more.

When we come back, Joe Biden's campaign says this Ukraine story is all about Donald Trump. But is it?

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[12:47:34] KING: The Biden campaign today says people who repeatedly lie should not be allowed on television news programs to smear the former vice president. The campaign does have a point. President Trump, Rudy Giuliani, and other Trump allies consistently twist the truth in making their case that Biden intervened in Ukraine to somehow protect his son, Hunter. There is zero evidence to support that. Zero. That doesn't mean Biden isn't being tested by this and the storm comes at a time he is being challenged in the 2020 Democratic race by Senator Elizabeth Warren. Team Biden though says any Ukraine conversation should be about President Trump. Period.

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KATE BEDINGFIELD, BIDEN CAMPAIGN MANAGER: Donald Trump does not want to face Joe Biden at the ballot box so desperately that he's willing to violate his oath of office to not have to do it. What is improper is that Donald Trump is reaching out to a foreign country trying to manufacture dirt on the opponent that he most fears facing at home.

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KING: You touched on this a bit earlier. Kate Bedingfield, others in the Biden campaign are correct. Things said by the president, Rudy Giuliani, and other Trump allies about Joe Biden, you cannot connect the dots. However, this is a test for Biden because his son was, as many people in Washington are, a consultant. If his name was Hunter Smith or Hunter Doe, he might not have had the access that he had. How big of an issue?

KANE: This so far from what everybody has done in terms of reporting, they've not uncovered anything that looks actually illegal. But it looks like that old standard definition of Washington, what's legal is really what's troubling to people. So he got hired, he got put on the board of this gas company, and as you said, if his name was Hunter Walker, would he have done so? And so that doesn't look good in this moment of where Democrats, especially are fighting back against sort of corporate interests.

KING: Right, and it's -- the Democratic -- within the populism of the Democratic Party, it's an excellent point. Just to put it in the context of reality, Ivanka Trump is getting trademarks from the Chinese Government, the Trump children are trying to permeate -- promote the Trump hotel brand around the world as their father is president. Rudy Giuliani, as he pushes this, has a lot of international clients some of them who you would not want at the dinner table. Many other -- you know, so this is not unique. It's not unique, it's swampy. It's swampy, it's not unique.

Nikki Haley, the former ambassador to the United Nations under President Trump and the former South Carolina governor who has a future in Republican politics to be determined, decided to tweet over the weekend at Kamala Harris. The California senator said, leave Joe Biden out of this.

[12:50:02] She tweets, "Leave Joe Biden alone? So are you telling us at Kamala Harris that what Joe Biden did was ethical and moral? Where are the questions about the conflict of interest that occurred from Biden's actions and the issues with his son? This response is embarrassing.

There, taking a different tack than the president and Rudy Giuliani take, it is a fair question to ask because of Hunter Biden's international work even if Joe Biden did absolutely nothing wrong. Was he the best person to send to Ukraine to deliver a message on corruption? Or should the Obama administration have found somebody else?

PARTI: I think the fact that Nikki Haley, you know, chose that framing so she's not really being supportive, you know, outright of the president but she's also not being supportive of the impeachment inquiry. She's kind of sort of taking the middle ground here. And she -- it was interesting that she went after Kamala Harris on this issue because most Democrats are saying the same thing that Harris is saying. You know, they don't really want to go too far in terms of using this to attack Biden in any way. So it was interesting that she chose Harris in particular.

KING: But it's more interesting to me that Nikki Haley deciding at this moment that she wanted to be part of the conversation. Ambition and politics are funny things. We'll see how that happens.

Let's look at some of the reaction among Democrats. This is from an Associated Press story, "Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren suggested that she'd consider barring her vice president's children from serving on the boards of foreign companies, the very kind of business arrangement Trump has used in unfounded attacks against Biden and his son. When asked whether Trump's attacks reflect on Biden's campaign or his character, California Senator Harris said, I'll leave that up to the pundits. I don't have a comment on that. Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, who in 2016 defended Hillary Clinton over the e-mail attacks sidestepped a question about whether the Biden controversy makes him a weaker candidate."

How do they others handle this?

COLLINS: That'll be the question going forward. I think the Biden campaign always realized that there were going to be questions about Hunter Biden that's why you saw months ago deeply reported stories about the work he's done, about his personal life, about his standing in the family and how it's affected his father's political ambitions at times. And essentially just their story.

So I think this is something that they knew. It'll be interesting to see what Democrats can do with it going forward because while -- and that's really a larger test that we've seen. They've struggled to fight against each other, attack each other, but also maintain this clear vision that Donald Trump is going to be their main opponent. And that's been essentially a balancing act for the two of them and continue clearly too still be one.

PARTI: I think what Democrats have also learned in just these last few months is that attacking Joe Biden doesn't really help them and also attacking him for something that Donald Trump is raising is not really going to help them. So I think that's the calculation that they're all making for now as, you know, we're seeing Senator Warren, Senator -- and some of these other candidates pick up some momentum against Joe Biden if they change that calculation.

You know, we saw Senator Warren just this weekend, she didn't even mention impeachment, the inquiry at all on the stump this weekend. So if she starts to lean into that at all whether she brings up Joe Biden or Donald Trump more directly on the campaign trail, that'll be something to look out for.

KING: We'll have a debate in a couple of weeks, we'll see if Elizabeth -- the Lord knows what the environment will look like by then. A couple of weeks, a couple of minutes sometimes changes things in this time.

Just ahead, in a new interview, Hillary Clinton says President Trump is obsessed with her. Find out why she believes that, next.

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[12:57:49] KING: All right, let's close, a quick lightning rod. Go around the table with our great reporters, including this from Hillary Clinton.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HILLARY CLINTON, FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE: I believe he knows he's an illegitimate president. He knows. He knows that there were a bunch of different reasons why the election turned out the way it did, and I take responsibility for those parts of it that I should. But it was like applying for a job and getting 66 million letters of recommendation and losing to a corrupt human tornado. So, of course, he's obsessed with me. And I believe that it's a guilty conscience in so much as he has a conscience.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Who wants that one?

KANE: We talked about this off-air. Does the Democratic nominee in 2020 want Hillary Clinton speaking at their convention in --

KING: Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Hello, hello, hello.

KANE: Let alone do they want her to --

ROGERS: Coming out swinging in the middle of impeachment inquiry week?

KANE: Yes.

ROGERS: Yes.

KING: We don't think so. All right.

KANE: To be determined.

KING: To be determined. There we go.

Let's get to a couple of Twitter questions here. Here's a good one here, for anyone at the table, what percentage of public support, if any, do you consider would be enough to change the political calculus of impeachment for the GOP in the Senate? Where would it have to go?

COLLINS: If public support of it shot up to where that's what they were hearing. I mean, I don't think that's going to happen, but if it did, Republicans would change their mind. They're politicians, they go with their base. That's why they've stuck with Donald Trump for so long. It's not because they've privately agreed with everything he says or his tweets or what he does, it's because they know the people who voted them into office agree with Donald Trump.

KING: Watch the Republican number too. Some of these -- some of their senators have to run statewide obviously. All senators do. Some of them were in states that are swing states. We'll watch the percentage of Republican who supports it quickly.

I've seen Censure mentioned as alternative/adjunct to impeachment. How would that mechanism work? Any chance?

KANE: There is one possibility and it would be in the Senate. They could vote over articles of impeachment to the Senate, and Orrin Hatch actually tried to do this in 1999 in substitute and a Censure resolution. It doesn't have any real standing, years later, they could vote to overturn it, but there is --

KING: A lesser penalty if you want to try that.

KANE: Yes.

KING: All right, one of the things we'll keep an eye on. Appreciate the questions. Thanks for joining us in the INSIDE POLITICS. See you back here this time tomorrow. Brianna Keilar starts --