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Trump Personally Reaching Out to GOP Senators on Impeachment; Former FBI Lawyer Under Investigation for Document Altering Allegation; Impeachment Narratives Play Out As 2020 Heats Up. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired November 22, 2019 - 12:30   ET

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

[12:30:00]

JOHN KING, CNN HOST: -- for President Trump back in 2016. So far, there are no Republicans who say they support impeachment. That's important. And the House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy predicts a fair amount of Democrats will vote no.

President Trump is focused more and more on the Senate these days where an impeachment trial would be held. Bringing Republican senators to the White House for example for lunch, and checking in with some by phone.

CNN's Phil Mattingly joins us now live from Capitol Hill. Phil, you've been wandering the halls the last couple of days talking to people, who should we watch most closely?

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. What I've been struck by in the House and you kind of hit on this is the fact that, I made a point of talking to the few moderate Republicans who are still left in the House conference after 2018, and I have not seen a single one of them or heard a single one of them that's moving right now.

I think the House is pretty set in where they're going to be. I think there are two House Democrats you probably want to keep an eye on, Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey and Collin Peterson of Minnesota, they both voted against the House resolution on impeachment a few weeks back. Where they end up will be interesting but beyond that, everybody is pretty locked in.

It's the Senate where I think there's a reason the White House is paying so close attention to things right now. There is a reason the president has brought more than 40 senators over to talk to them during these lunches over the course of the last couple of weeks. The people you want to keep an eye on though, people we've know, it's Susan Collins of Maine. Obviously, up in a tough re-election race, always considered a moderate, always considered a swing vote on things. Lisa Murkowski in Alaska, kind of fits the same profile, and obviously, Mitt Romney who's been very clear that he's had some concerns about how this is all gone.

I would note, Collins and Romney were at lunch at the White House yesterday. Romney called the meeting delightful, even said the president he'd shook hands and that there was no acknowledgment at the long standing tension when he returned.

But I want to give you three more names, John, that you should keep an eye on here and why they actually matter. Lindsey Graham on one count, Ted Cruz on another, and Mike Lee. I've been told by several Senate Republicans that they are kind of the core group of individuals who are working with the White House right now on how to shape what's coming next in a Senate trial. They are working with Pat Cipollone, they were involved with Pat Cipollone and several other Republican senators yesterday about the actual structure, the actual shape of a Senate trial. There was an acknowledgment both at the White House and here on Capitol Hill that a trial is coming whether the president likes it or not.

How that actually forms up? What that looks like? Those are three Republican senators to keep an eye on. They are not going to vote against the president by any means but how they work and shape this process going forward may be just as important given the fact that this is very clearly going to end up in the Senate's lap in short order, John.

KING: Short order. The question is how short? Phil Mattingly live on the Hill. Appreciate it. We'll watch the calendar as it plays out.

Let's bring into the room. Let's start with the House point Phil made and then spend some time on the Senate. On the committee is Will Hurd, and he came up in the earlier conversation. He's leaving, he has disagreed with the president on many issues, he's a career intelligence officer before he was in politics who doesn't like the president's questioning and attacking of the intelligence community. And yet, after all of the testimony, just before right as we were winding down yesterday, he says this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. WILL HURD (R-TX): An impeachable offense should be compelling, overwhelmingly clear and unambiguous, and it's not something to be rushed or taken lightly. I've not heard evidence proving the president committed bribery or extortion. I also reject the notion that holding this view means supporting all the foreign policy choices we have been hearing about over these last few weeks.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: He, in fact, called is blundering. So clearly no fan of what happened and how it happened, but if Will Hurd had said, I am for impeachment, there might be some who follow him because of his experience, because he's on the committee. When you have someone like that saying, nope, that tells you where we are.

JULIE PACE, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Someone with nothing to lose. He would have been the bellwether to see if there way any movement there. He was pretty clear about where he's going to fall, and I do think that's the splitting the baby argument we're going to hear from Republicans. Probably a couple in the House and certainly more in the Senate. This idea of, I don't agree with this, I don't agree like the precedent it sets but we don't think it meets that very high bar to actually impeach him on the --

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Although I will say, he does have a little to lose because he's a young man who clearly wants a future in politics --

PACE: And he's wrestling with where Republicans go maybe after Trump.

BASH: -- and he's from Texas.

PACE: Yes.

BASH: And who knows exactly where the Republican Party is going to go post-Trump. And, you know, I'm not saying that that's the reason he's doing it, but he's in a different position perhaps than others who are older, who are really going off into the sunset in the House retiring.

JONATHAN MARTIN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: He could well believe what he's saying, you know, on the merits. He obviously is very experienced on these things, and we shouldn't dismiss that. There's also politics in politics.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Right.

MARTIN: And that occurs too. He wants to run for president. He's been very open about that. He's been asked about it publicly and said that he won't rule it out. And in fact, he's going to New Hampshire as early as this month. You don't go to New Hampshire and have events if you're not thinking about running for president.

And as Dana said, he wants to keep his options open in a post-Trump party. A post-Trump party is getting hold a lot of Trump folks. And if you're on the record impeaching the last president of the United States, that's going to create problems in a primary in '24.

KING: And so I just want to put up --

MARTIN: But your point is very important. Put a harness on it for a minute.

There are other folks who retiring who are in their 60s and 70s, and never running for office again, financially comfortable, aren't looking for a Fox News deal.

[12:35:04]

Francis Rooney in Florida, for example. A very wealthy man, nothing to lose. If you can't get that kind of number, who are you going to get?

KING: It's be interesting to see if any vote present at the end or don't show up, don't vote. There's another way there. It's always a pleasure (INAUDIBLE). We'll see, we'll watch as it plays out.

Clinton lost a lot of Democrats back in the day. We'll see how this plays out here. I sort of want to put it up, these are the members we know are doing town halls back home during this break. Some of them are people you want to keep an eye on. Max Rose, Kendra Horn, some of them are from the districts. I mean, we'll watch all of them, you want to see a, interested -- do voters want to talk about this. Do they come out to talk about impeachment or do they come out to talk about prescription drugs?

So it's interesting to see where the country is or if this is just a Washington conversation. As you go through these town halls, it's also a ton of money being spent all of a sudden. Before the whistleblower report, about five and a half million dollars have been spent on impeachment-related ads. Since the whistleblower and since all this started, we're getting close to $16 million now and that number is only going to grow. It's going to be a fascinating couple of weeks when they're home to see the pressure they face or whether they face it.

SEUNG MIN KIM, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: I think the weather is actually a really good point because we saw a little bit of test case in the last congressional recess with the town halls that particularly vulnerable numbers had. One point was that the sort of the swing district has Democrats who impeachment could be a political liability for them. They lean into there position, they were able to defend it to their constituents despite pushback.

But what we saw from a lot of those town halls was that voters didn't always bring it up. They do care about the economy, they do care about healthcare, the price of prescription drugs, and the balance of what kind of wins out in terms of the questioning, in terms of the concerns from voters will be really interesting to watch considering how much impeachment has consumed the conversation, consumed the news cycle here over the last several weeks.

KING: We'll keep an eye on those town halls as it comes.

Up next for us, we're going to turn to some new CNN reporting on the Justice Department review of the Russia investigation.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:41:42]

KING: CNN has learned that a former FBI lawyer now under criminal investigation after allegedly altering a document related to the 2016 surveillance of Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. The alleged misconduct part of the Russia investigation reviewed due out soon from the Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz. President Trump today predicted the Horowitz report would detail giant abuses at the FBI but that is far from clear. The document altering allegation is first reported by CNN involves a low-level attorney, no longer at the FBI. And while it is a very serious misconduct to have an attorney altered a document, CNN has now confirmed reporting in the Washington Post that the alteration did not change Horowitz finding that the overall Carter Page FISA application had a legal basis.

CNN's Even Perez and Katelyn Polantz are here to share their reporting, excellent reporting as we all wait for this report.

The president raising the bar today saying this is going to be enormous. Let's talk about this particular case we know. An FBI attorney, a crime fighter, accused of a crime here.

EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Right, exactly. He's under investigation by John Durham who is the prosecutor who Bill Barr has appointed to take a look, another -- a second look at what was done in the 2016 investigation. But this lawyer was involved in some of the preparation work done for the FISA application before it went to the court, and allegedly he changed a part of the document. Now this is a serious allegation, obviously, and this is why John -- sorry, Michael Horowitz, the Inspector General, forwarded it over to prosecutors to see whether or not there could be criminal charges.

And so, look, there's a lot we don't know about this report because it's still in the works, but this is a very serious allegation, obviously, because if there was one FISA that needed to be perfect, it's this one.

KING: Right. And to that point, Carter Page this morning, listened to him, he's on Fox Business saying, aha.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CARTER PAGE, FORMER TRUMP CAMPAIGN FOREIGN POLICY ADVISER: They got a warrant, a fraudulent warrant, I believe, to spy on myself as a way of getting into the Trump campaign.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Now, that's what you would expect him to say, but I want to come back to the reporting that Mr. Horowitz who is the Inspector General, who we know is trying to go through this with a fine tooth comb, he has determined this was bad in his view. He's referred it for criminal referral, the altering of the document, but it did not, in his view, undermine the overall legal basis for the Carter Page warrant.

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE REPORTER: Yes. That's what we've learned as of today and the Washington Post also reported that. And one of the things to keep in mind about this is this is really the first front of information that we're getting about what Horowitz has found in his report. He's going to testify to Congress about what he found to the Senate in December 11th, and he's going to release the report two days before that. And then there is a criminal prosecutor and the attorney general are both very interested in what else happened at the beginning of this Russia investigation.

So we're going to keep hearing and learning more about what happened both from Horowitz and potentially from John Durham, the criminal prosecutor.

KING: One of the reasons we're waiting is that they've allowed the witnesses to come in just (INAUDIBLE). So here's what we're saying about you, double check this, any disputes, you want to change anything. From what you've been able to learn from talking to those people, I mean, how big of a deal do they expect this to be.

PEREZ: Look, this is a big deal just because obviously of the allegation of somebody changing something in an application for surveillance. But, look, if you step back, what Carter Page is saying is not really true.

[12:45:04]

I mean, the FBI had plenty of other reasons to surveil Carter Page. And then, as far as the investigation overall, right, the investigation that began into Russian meddling and links to the Trump campaign, that is, by all accounts, Michael Horowitz is going to find that was a legally predicated investigation, and we expect that that's going to be the central finding in this report. Of course, the president and some of his allies are going to pick up things that the FBI made mistakes and there are things they did wrong, and, you know, that's politics, right?

KING: The Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham already scheduling a public hearing.

POLANTZ: He has.

KING: Which is running parallel to impeachment. They are hoping to see -- they're hoping to get something for their advantage.

PEREZ: A little counter messaging.

KING: All right, we'll see how it plays out. We'll wait for the report. Great reporting by the both of you. Thank you.

Up next for us, President Obama weighs in, yet again, on the 2020 race.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:50:38]

KING: Topping our political radar today, President Trump hosting a meeting on underage vaping today at the White House. The president will speak this afternoon with advocacy groups, excuse me, industry stakeholder state level officials, and medical professionals. The meeting comes after the president reportedly backing away from a proposal that was expected to ban e-flavored cigarettes.

The former Trump National Security Adviser John Bolton tweeting today he's been forced to stay silent on Twitter in recent weeks. Bolton in his first two tweets since his abrupt resignation back in September claiming his account was, quote, suppressed unfairly. He teases there's, quote, more to come. CNN has not been able to independently verify just what the ambassador is referring to.

We should also note that Bolton, now that he's tweeting again, has refused to appear thus far as a witness in the impeachment inquiry.

President Obama weighing in again on the 2020 campaign. He has a message for fellow Democrats, chill out. Speaking at a fundraiser, the former president saying, anyone who is nervous about the field of Democratic contenders, quote, needs to chill out about the candidates. President Obama then adding, yes, there are differences between the many Democrats running for president, but he warns against getting caught up in what he calls so-called purity tests. The former president says those are good arguments to have ultimately he says the goal for Democrats must be to win the 2020 election.

Up next for us, right to that point. Impeachment playing out on the trail right as early states are geared to pick a Democratic nominee.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:56:36]

KING: Six members of the Senate could soon face a scheduling dilemma, jury duty or campaigning for president. The impeachment inquiry is already running parallel to the 2020 campaign but an outright collision looms ahead. CNN as we reported earlier told House Democrats hope to wrap their impeachment duties by Christmas which means a Senate trial could begin early in the New Year.

Picking a Democratic nominee also begins early in the New Year. Iowa is up first happening February 3rd, followed by New Hampshire, Nevada, South Carolina, and then Super Tuesday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I-VT), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We have a president who thinks he's above the law. We have a president who is engaged in corruption. We have a president who has obstructed justice.

SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR (D-MN), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I have made it very clear that this is impeachable conduct, and I called for an impeachment proceeding. I just believe our job as jurors is to look at each count and make a decision.

SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN (D-MA), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We have to establish the principle no one is above the law. We have a constitutional responsibility and we need to meet it.

MAYOR PETE BUTTIGIEG (D-SOUTH BEND, IN), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The constitutional process of impeachment should be beyond politics, and it is not a part of the campaign. But the president's conduct is. The impeachable conduct that we have seen in the abuse of power.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Mayor Buttigieg won't have to come to Washington, but the others and some of the Democrats, let's put it up, there are six Democrats still running for president who are United States senators, Senators Warren, Sanders, Booker, Harris, Klobuchar, and Bennet. What do they do?

BASH: You know, I was in Atlanta briefly talking to some of those candidates after the debate and it is a real thing. It's a real worry. If the Republicans go the way that they're talking about now and maybe just do a two-week trial which I'll believe it when I see it, it will make it easier for them. But the fact that --

KING: Do a two-week trial the last two weeks of January, they are still missing the last two weeks of Iowa.

BASH: It is a real challenge, but, you know, I'm sure that this isn't what you're implying but don't expect any of them to skip this trial. I mean, if they do, then they're definitely -- it's lights out for them because they would be not doing their constitutional duty.

MARTIN: I'll take a slight contrarian view, if I could. I think campaigning on the ground in this year matters less and less in terms of the old adage about, oh the Iowans are going to vote for you, they must see you five times. I think, the fact is increasingly these campaigns take place online and on TV. And if you are in the center of the biggest story in the country which is the impeachment trial of a sitting president, and you are on TV talking about it every night on cable which some of these candidates will do, that's not the best place to be, either.

And the other thing is that McConnell is not going to keep them that long because McConnell and Trump don't want a long trial, either, you know.

KIM: And I think it's also important to remember we're so used to the Senate leaving town on Thursday afternoons at 1:45, but under the rules in the impeachment trial, they're in six days a week, Monday through Saturday, starting at 1:00 every day. So if they want to do a day trip on Sunday to Iowa, all the more power to them but otherwise the scheduling issue just really is not going to work.

KING: I just can't understand. That's unprecedented so far.

PACE: It's unprecedented, but I think JMart is right, I think if you're someone like Kamala Harris and you are making -- your biggest moments are happening on television, it's actually probably better to be in Washington than it is to be in Iowa.

MARTIN: Yes.

KING: Well, we'll watch. But first, we need a schedule. First, we need to know what the House is going to do and then we'll figure the rest of that.

This is CNN programming note, the former Vice President Joe Biden is in South Carolina today and he joins CNN's Don Lemon for a conversation you'll see right here on CNN tonight at 10 Eastern. You don't want to miss that.

Thanks for joining us today in the INSIDE POLITICS. Hope to see you back here Sunday morning as well, 8 a.m. Eastern. I'll give you a wake-up call if you want one.

A busy news day. Stay with us. Brianna Keilar starts right now. Have a great afternoon.

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