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Mike Pompeo On Impeachment Testimony: "When The Time Is Right, All Good Things Happen"; Judge: Ex-White House Counsel Don McGahn Must Testify To House; CNN Poll: 10 Percent Of GOP, 47 Percent Of Independents Support Impeaching Donald Trump; CNN Poll: Hearings Did Little To Change Views On Impeachment Of Donald Trump; Subpoena Indicates Feds Investigating Rudy Giuliani's Business. Aired 12-12.30p ET

Aired November 26, 2019 - 12:00   ET

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

[12:00:00]

JOHN KING, CNN HOST, INSIDE POLITICS: Welcome to "Inside Politics" I'm John King. Thank you for sharing your day with us. A majority of Americans believe President Trump improperly used his power and put politics ahead of country in his Ukraine policy. Yet two weeks of public hearings did not move public opinion on whether that bad behavior warrants removing the President from office.

Plus, Presidents are not kings. Federal district court judge says the White House doesn't have blanket authority to keep aides from honoring congressional subpoenas, but the Justice Department is now appealing. So don't expect to hear from Former White House Counsel Don McGahn or anyone else anytime soon.

And ten weeks from today, one of the 2020 Democrats will wake up the winner of the Iowa Caucuses. Pete Buttigieg has the polling lead at the moment. Three of his riles today rolling out new Iowa TV ads trying to shake things up.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN (D-MA) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I'll create more than a million good jobs here at home.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Bernie fights for the average Joe that's the thing I liked about them all.

JOE BIDEN (D) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The new leader who can on day one stand with our allies, know them by their first names.

(END VIEO CLIP)

KING: Back to the 2020 race and the Democrats a bit later. We begin the hour with a very serious court setback for the White House and the Presidential reaction you should not take seriously. The President this morning saying he would actually like for all of his top aides to testify to Congress. Don't take that seriously, but one of those aides, the House Democrats would love to hear from is the Secretary of State. He was asked about that last hour. Listen. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Sir, the President tweeted just a short while ago that he encouraged you essentially to testify in the impeachment investigation. Is that something you're considering?

MIKE POMPEO, SECRETARY OF STATE: When the time is right, all good things happen.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: A little bit of a smirk there from the Secretary of State. Those tweets and the reaction from the Secretary of State follows a court rebuke to the White House's claim that it has brought immunity that protects Presidential advisers from ever being forced to give testimony to Congress. The opinion, now under appeal, was scathing.

The judge writing, "Presidents are not kings" and absolute community from compelled congressional process simply does not exist. With me this day to show their reporting and their insights, Rachel Bade with "The Washington Post" CNN's Jeff Zeleny Michael Shear with "The New York Times" and Tarini Parti with "The Wall Street Journal".

We are in the middle of a serious impeachment inquiry. What are we to make of a Presidential tweet that says, oh sure I'm trying to protect future Presidents I want everybody to go up and testify and then the Secretary of State who has serious questions to answer about his contacts with Rudy Giuliani about his refusal to turnover State Department documents, including the emails of people who have decided to defy him and testify said joking.

MICHAEL SHEAR, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, THE NEW YORK TIMES: you know one other thing that's easy to forget everyday when we're dealing with the sort of nitty-gritty of this particular situation is the potential consequences, long-term consequences to the relationship, the power of balances that the framers of the constitution tried to set up between the branches of government.

I think what the judge's ruling reflected was the concern that if the President ultimately wins on this and is able to simply in a blanket way say there was no need for my administration or any administration to ever respond to Congress in situations like this, it really fundamentally shifts the balance of power in favor of the executive in ways that I think clearly people have tried to do for a long time.

There are people, who have always argued that the executive branch should be more powerful, but there have been limits and the courts have put those limits on. In this case that's what she was warning about.

KING: But if you're the Democrats, you think, oh, we just got a very important win. However, it's going to be appealed. It goes from the district court, goes for it court of appeals, whoever loses there is going to appeal it further to the Supreme Court. So just listen here, here is Congresswoman Veronica Escobar on talking about how broad should we do this? How tightly should we do this? Democrats are looking at the stresses on them. She says we could have pages and pages and pages of articles of impeachment. What we have seen over the last three years is, I think, unprecedented. I absolutely believe in being as focused as possible as well. I think the broader we go that may pose challenges for the American people.

Here's one of the Democrats who says Ukraine, abuse of power keep it tight, maybe have some foot notes about the Mueller report. But other Democrats are going to come in now and say wait if we can get Don McGahn in the chair, shouldn't we wait?

RACHAEL BADE, CONGRESSIONAL REPORTER, THE WASHINGTON POST: Listen, who's in the driver's seat right now? Speaker Nancy Pelosi and she has said privately she is not out there making this case publicly, but the instruction to her leadership team and to all the chairs has always been Ukraine, focus on Ukraine. Veronica Escobar she is a part of that leadership team.

I do know that there are Democrats and you're going to hear more from them who do want to go after the Mueller report and the sign that the judge is citing with Democrats in terms of forcing Don McGahn to testify, they're going to trying to argue maybe we should wait for something, for Don McGahn to come forward but that could really be weeks.

This is going to be appealed if not months. Do they want to drag this into 2020? So far the answer from Nancy Pelosi the one who probably matters most is absolutely not.

[12:05:00]

JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: I mean, she is being reluctant about this throughout but they are watching what's happening. The Democrats watching the hearing last week, they thought it seemed strong, and it was strong. It was compelling, interesting testimony. But both sides are locked in.

So having Don McGahn come and testify, that is not going to suddenly change public opinion here. And that is what is driving a lot of this. As far as the President saying he's trying to protect future Presidents, that's hard to believe. It is also hard to believe that he would love to testify at some point, I'm sure he would.

So the reality here is, you know, the people who are making the decisions like Speakers Pelosi and others want to keep this narrow. Democrats do not win from expanding this or delaying this.

KING: But just to follow the President's strategy is interesting. This is a little bit of the tweet today the DC - news media that's F12 I don't if you can do that on a phone, reading too much into the people being forced by of course to testify. I am fighting for future Presidents, in the office of the President insert laughter here. Other than that I would like people to testify.

Don McGahn's respected lawyer has already stated I did nothing wrong. Let me stop there. Here's the Mueller report. This is why Don McGahn would be a great witness for the Democrats. When the President called McGahn a second time to follow up on the order to call the Department of Justice, McGahn recalled that the President was more direct saying something like call rod.

Tell Rod that Mueller has conflicts and can't be the Special Counsel Rod being Rod Rosenstein, the Deputy Attorney General at the time. McGahn recalled the President telling him, "Mueller has to go. Call me back when you do it". McGahn understood the President to be saying that the Special Counsel had to be removed by Rosenstein, which you could logically connect to obstruction of justice.

So when the President says in his tweets this guy says I'm great, usually when you do your homework, it's not always the case.

TARINI PARTI, NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: It's not always the case and the tweets that you're seeing from the President go along with sort of his public portrayal of how he's trying to defend himself from this impeachment process. He's clearly saying that this is a sham, Democrats keep coming after me. It's the witch hunt 2.0. His comments what Don McGahn's lawyer said go along with that. They're just trying to throw everything at the wall here to see what sticks.

KING: So Adam Schiff the Intelligence Committee Chairman says as soon as next week he will send a report to the Judiciary Committee. The Committee then decides whether or not and we know the answer she has to draft articles of impeachment. The question is how broad will they be? How many will they be? And then how fast does that schedule proceed from there?

It is not mutually exclusive is it that you mentioned the Speaker she wants to move as quickly as possible. So they draft their articles of impeachment, the House keeps its rough schedule to finish by Christmas, hands this off to the Senate.

If you win these court rulings, whether it's against Don McGahn or whether it's the other case that has Bolton and his deputy in it, or other challenges, either if you win them in time, they can be witnesses in the Senate trial. Or if you win them later after this impeachment articles moved on - the Oversight Committee or the Judiciary could still have Don McGahn next year. The risk there is you're even closer to the election then.

BADE: Yes.

SHEAR: Oh, I was just going to say, Rachael's point about Pelosi sort of controlling this is well taken. I do think that the one moment that you might in the near future you that might see this debate bubble up is when they are actually marking up and drafting the articles of impeachment because that is an opportunity for some of the Democrats who feel like it should be broader to say, no, no, we should - to make an amendment.

I move that we add the emoluments case. I move that we add the Russia Mueller case into the articles of impeachment. There will be some public debate on that. I think in the end Pelosi has got a lot of control over her caucus. I think it probably ends up as narrow as she wants it to be but that is a movement you could see some of that debate.

BADE: The cases that they are working through courts are very much next year, they could go all the way to Supreme Court get these rulings Don McGahn could be testify a few months before the 2020 election. I mean, it's just so interesting. Democrats are in there sort of pushed to focus on Ukraine.

There are all these things that are going to spill out into the open all throughout next year and that could very much affect 2020. Are Democrats going to turn up something that they didn't chase because they were focused on Ukraine and say all of a sudden, oh, we should have put this in impeachment in could they impeach him again? I don't know. But there's a lot of stuff that's out there that is not Ukraine and that is going to continue to come forward.

KING: All right, when we come back we'll continue the conversation because your opinion matters most. You're in effect part of jury here and your impeachment case. What do you think about impeachment? More and more Americans on our new poll believe the President did behave badly, did put politics first. But Democrats have failed to move the dial on the big question. Should he be removed?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:10:00]

KING: As we head now into this next chapter of the impeachment debate, there are big challenges both for House Democrats and for the President those Democrats believe should be removed from office. The Democrats, of course, believe their public hearings provide an overwhelming evidence President Trump abused his power putting Ukraine and U.S. national security at risk to pursue a pursue a political vendetta against Joe Biden.

The President says his conduct was perfect, and it is the Democrats who are abusing their power. Our new CNN poll tells us the majority of Americans do believe the President's conduct was improper and the he put politics above country yet look at the numbers here. Those hearings did not increase the percentage of Americans who think the punishment should be a Senate conviction and removal from office.

Let's break down the numbers. Number one just the threshold should the President be impeached and removed from office? 50 percent of Americans, so half, say yes. 43 percent say no. The issue is this watch how this is played out over time.

[12:15:00]

KING: If you go way back to March, 36 percent the Democrats have made progress in prosecuting their case if you will up to 50. But the hearings were here in October 50 percent said impeach and remove. After the hearings, 50 percent, the same number say impeach and remove. So those public hearings didn't increase the number of Americans who say remove the President from office.

This is fascinating when you look at it. 90 percent of Democrats say impeach and remove. So House Democrats most of them are safe who vote to impeach the President. Only 10 percent of Republicans say impeach and remove so most Republicans are safe voting no. We won't impeach or no, we won't convict.

Independents, 47 percent say impeach and remove. That number is actually down a little bit from our last poll. Republicans think that's progress. Its inside if margin of error but it's certainly worth watching are Independents moving away from impeachment. Thinking about 2020 and the political basis of both parties, nearly 6 in 10 Americans with a college graduation degree say impeach or remove the President.

Only 47 percent of those who have not graduated from college say that. White non-college graduates, a key part of the President's base, only 36 percent nationwide say impeach and remove the President. This is interesting. Have the Democrats prosecuted their case against the President?

Well, 53 percent a clear majority do believe he has used the presidency improperly in his Ukraine policy. 56 percent that's a big number, 56 percent say he did it to benefit himself politically. But only 48 percent say there's enough evidence to warrant the full impeachment process, meaning a House impeachment, Senate removal from office. On that second part, a senate conviction, the majority says no.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL, (R-KY): When the matter comes over, as it looks like it will, we'll have to take it up. The only prediction I can make is that I can't imagine a scenario under which 67 members of the Senate would remove the President from office in the middle of a Presidential Election.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: The Majority Leader works in the last part on purpose, in the middle of a Presidential Election, trying to signal to the voters, you'll get your own chance at this leave it out the hands of the politicians if you will. But the numbers are fascinating in that if you ask Americans do you think the President was wrong, acted improperly, abused his power, acted for political purposes, you get a clear majority. But should you impeach him, the ultimate punishment you have to remove.

ZELENY: It's a sign that it's a high bar, as it should be, as the founding fathers intended this to be, but a very high bar. As Democrats have tried to simplify in some respects just talking about Ukraine, it is still a complicated matter. Hearing after hearing, I'm not sure every new hearing is going to make this easier for the public to understand.

But I think that a couple things have changed. One, Democrats has certainly consolidated their views on this. Several months ago, as you showed, Democrats were worry about this. But you talk to some Democratic voters out there, as I have, and you watch what Democratic Presidential Candidates are talking about, it's not this. They do not believe this is a winner for them in November.

So it's going to play out it's going to be a split screen. In many cases in January it may be the dominating screen. So this will impact the 2020 campaign here. You watch that independent number as you said it is still within the margin of error. Let's see where that goes in a few weeks or a month or so.

KING: You'll have the Judiciary Committee hearings which will go another public spotlight and then presumably a Senate trial where I think you have a giant public spotlight with the prospect of possibility the President could be removed we'll see if the numbers move. So if you're the President, you're thinking, okay, I'm focusing on that, the Democrats or the hearings didn't move the number, the percentage of Americans who say I should be impeached or removed.

A little historical context though. President Trump now, 50 percent of Americans say remove. Only 29 percent of Americans said that at the height of the Clinton impeachment saga and the House Republicans went full steam ahead.

PARTI: Right, I mean, even though the numbers have flat lined, that 50 percent number is not good news for the President. If you look at other numbers in the poll, I think the number for women, the percentage of women who think that he should be impeached has risen in the last month alone. So I think this is not good news for the President's re-election, but yes, it does show some problems for Democrats in terms of getting Republicans on board with their messaging.

KING: I would say that's a great point about the two different ways to read this. Number one, what's right in front of us, a House vote then a Senate trial but also assuming the House impeaches and the Senate fails to convict, what impact does it have on the 2020 political climate?

Another question the President keeps saying he said again in his tweets today it's the Democrats who are abusing their power here. Let's look at how voters think about that. 40 percent of Americans think the Democrats right now are going too far abusing their constitutional powers. 54 percent though a lot higher percentage, significantly higher percentage thought that of the Republicans, again, back in the Clinton impeachment matters, two very separate issues here this is about presidential conduct foreign policy. Clinton's impeachment obviously was mostly about personal conduct.

BADE: So maybe you know, the Democrats benefiting that fewer people are on the country think that they have partisan motives. But look, I do not think that at this point is you know a sort of a warning sign for them.

[12:20:00] BADE: I mean, if they're not able to move public sentiment at all with those five hearings with a dozen State Department or NSC officials coming forward and testifying against the President I mean that's a problem for them. I mean this should be a high point for them in terms of making the case to the voters. But this hearing process was so fast for us in Washington. It was impossible for us to keep up. Think about voters in Ohio or Wisconsin, people who only tune into news once a week. They were doing it back to back and it didn't sink in, clearly.

KING: And a lot of those voters, as they processed the information and we should give everybody the good grace assuming their common sense the more they learn they will listen to have an open mind if there was something new to learn. But you begin where you are. That's just life. You begin with your partisan reflex here is one of the stunning things about the Trump Presidency.

This is his approval rating this year started at 37 percent right now he's at 42 percent. We could take this all the way back to the beginning of the Trump Presidency and you would be essentially a flat line, a little up and down. Here's what helps the President though if you come over here his rating on the economy on most issues as to about immigration, asked about foreign policy asked about trade deals under water meaning more disapproved than approved.

But on the economy as we are closer to the election, the President is near an all-time high, right now at 55 percent. I think 56 or 57 in our polling versus all-time high. So even as the American people ponder the idea of impeaching or removing a President, he's getting good grades on the economy as we get closer to the election.

SHEAR: And look one of the things that - on the hearings not moving the needle, there are different kinds of hearings in Washington and those were fact hearings. They were hearings that were mired in the details in what is sort of a complicated set of facts. The hearings, what the American people are going to see over the next two months both in the House and the debate on the floor of the House is going to be a much more kind of robust political debate and then again in the Senate. I think what's dangerous for the President is that that's when the American public decides to start tuning in and that could affect the numbers.

ZELENY: It's a number about the economy, you're right. If that number stays there, that is what worries Democrats the most. It's one of the reasons Bloomberg is in, a lot of Republicans say, goes to work why doesn't he just talk about the economy and not the impeachment stuff? He got some of that advice from Bill Clinton in just a few weeks ago. That's hard for this President to do.

KING: Very hard for this President to do and I think we have another rally tonight?

ZELENY: Indeed, Sunrise, Florida.

KING: Sunrise, Florida? So we'll watch at that place. When we come back the President is the one subject to the impeachment inquiry his Personal Attorney Rudy Giuliani subject of an increasingly interesting federal investigation.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:25:00]

KING: Just stop and consider this. Rudy Giuliani is still on paper anyway the President's personal lawyer. Even as federal subpoenas indicate the Former New York City Mayor is a potential subject or target of a very broad federal investigation.

Giuliani insists he did nothing wrong and he says has nothing to hide but prosecutors are closely looking at Giuliani's associates and his consulting business. A grand jury subpoena reviewed by CNN shows prosecutors are trying to untangle a complicated web of potential law breaking, conspiracy, acting as an unregistered foreign agent, obstruction of justice, lying to investigators, money laundering, and illegally funneling foreign money into U.S. elections, all of that raised in this subpoena. Our CNN's Legal Analyst Carrie Cordero and our Senior Justice Correspondent Evan Perez join our conversation. If you read the subpoena, wow!

EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Right, wow. It's not good news for any of the people involved. But if you're Rudy Giuliani, there are couple things that should worry you, right? If you're simply, again, a subject of this, right, and there's a fine line between the subjects and becoming a target, you have to be worried that nobody's called you to try to get your side of the story, right?

Certainly if you talk to some of the lawyers involved, people who are representing the other two gentlemen, Parnas and Fruman, they believe their clients are not the goal here. They believe that this is meant to flip them and roll on someone else. And who else is directly in line of that? It has to be Rudy, right?

So Rudy Giuliani, who says that he's not heard anything from prosecutors, his lawyers says that they have not heard anything, any requests for information from prosecutors. You have to be concerned that what the prosecutors are doing is building a case broadly and certainly homing in on Rudy and anyone else who may have been involved in whatever conspiracy that the prosecutors say was at work here.

KING: I get what they say or believe they have to see publicly. There was a subpoena delivered to Giuliani's consulting firm Giuliani's associates, wouldn't his lawyers know about it?

PEREZ: Right. They would know by now.

KING: They would know by now from another lawyer if they hadn't seen it personal that's how it works. You mentioned he says he's done nothing wrong. I think this is what he told to "The Wall Street Journal." All they have to do is come ask me. There's obviously a concerted effort to spread as many lies about me as possible to destroy my reputation.

So that I'm not credible when I continue to reveal all the massive evidence and then he goes on to make an unfounded allegation against the Bidens this is what he does. I just want to go on the records here this is the Trump Justice Department investigating the President's Personal Attorney.

Help me counselor, first, number one how serious is it? But number two, close your eyes for a minute and imagine if Obama were President or if Hillary Clinton were President, wouldn't there be, I know Rudy Giuliani doesn't really do need legal--

[12:30:00]